They did?
I'm not one on History so I really don't know.
The Dutch were the first to salute the flag, and therefore the first to acknowledge the independence of, the United States on November 16, 1776. Many American presidents had Dutch ancestry. According to tradition, in 1626
Peter Minuit obtained the island of Manhattan from the Indians in exchange for goods with a total value of 60 guilders ($24); most aspects of the story have been called into question by experts. Minuit, a Walloon, was employed by the Dutch West India Company to manage its colony of New Amsterdam, the future
New York. The names of some other settlements that were established still exist today as boroughs and neighborhoods of New York:
Brooklyn (
Breukelen),
Staten Island (named after the Dutch parliament, the
Staten Generaal),
Harlem (
Haarlem),
Coney Island (
Konijnen Eiland, means "Rabbit Island") and
Flushing (
Vlissingen) .
Thank you wikipedia.