The Province of New York was a British proprietary colony and later a royal colony on the northeast coast of North America from 1664 to 1783. It extended from Long Island on the Atlantic, up the Hudson River and Mohawk River valleys to the Great Lakes and North to the colonies of New France and claimed lands further west.
In 1664, Charles II of England and his brother James, Duke of York raised a fleet to take the Dutch colony of New Netherland, then under the Directorship of Peter Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant surrendered to the English fleet without recognition from the Dutch West India Company. The province was renamed for the Duke of York, as its proprietor. England's rule was established de facto following military control in 1664, and became established de jure as sovereign rule in 1667 in the Treaty of Breda and the Treaty of Westminster (1674). It was not until 1674 that English common law was applied in the colony.