Peter Minuit - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

• The beginning lines of Rodgers and Hart's 1939 song "Give it Back to the Indians" recount the sale of Manhattan: Old Peter Minuit had nothing to lose when he bought the isle of Manhattan / For twenty-six dollars and a bottle of booze and they threw in the Bronx and Staten / Pete thought that he had the best of the bargin but the poor red man just grinned / And he grunted "ugh!" meaning "okay" in his jargon for he knew poor Pete was skinned.

• One version of Minuit was played by Groucho Marx in the 1957 comedy film The Story of Mankind.

• Minuit is mentioned on the HBO drama Boardwalk Empire, where the character Edward Bader tells a joke featuring the line, "'50 bucks?' the fella says. 'Peter Stuyvesant only paid 24 for the entire island of Manhattan!'", while Steve Buscemi's' character Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson has to correct Bader and inform him that is was in fact Peter Minuit who bought Manhattan, not Stuyvesant.

• Bob Dylan mentions Minuit in his song "Hard Times in New York Town" (released on The Bootleg Series Volume 1) in the following line: Mister Hudson come a-sailing down the stream / and old Mister Minuit paid for his dream. However, in the released recording of the song, Dylan spoonerizes "Mister Minuit," which he pronounces as "Minnie Mistuit." The official lyrics have the correct version of the name, except that Minuit is spelled "Minuet."