Peter Minuet also worked for the Dutch East India Trading Company. He bought the Manhattan Island from the Lenape or Delaware people two years after the new Amsterdam city was established. Minuet negotiated the whole area for merely 60 guilders worth of trade goods such as beads and trinkets; which would be equivalent to 24 dollars today. This was an initiative taken to safeguard the settlers' investments and farms on Manhattan island. However, historians do dispute the legitimacy of this purchase. Some claim it was a story created to paint the natives as foolish.