Kiliaen van Rensselaer purchased land near present-day Albany, New York, to establish Rensselaerswyck, which became the most successful patroonship under the Dutch West India Company.

Kiliaen van Rensselaer was a Dutch diamond and pearl merchant from Amsterdam who was one of the founders and directors of the Dutch West India Company, being instrumental in the establishment of New Netherland.

Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River about 10 miles (16 km) south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. Albany is the oldest city in New York, and the county seat of and most populous city in Albany County. Albany's population was 99,224 at the 2020 census and estimated at 101,317 in 2024. The city is the economic and cultural core of New York State's Capital District, a metropolitan area including the nearby cities and suburbs of Colonie, Troy, Schenectady, and Saratoga Springs. With an estimated 913,000 residents, it is the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in the state.

Rensselaerswyck was a Dutch colonial patroonship and later an English manor owned by the van Rensselaer family located in the present-day Capital District of New York in the United States.

In the United States, a patroon was a landholder with manorial rights to large tracts of land in the 17th-century Dutch colony of New Netherland on the east coast of North America. Through the Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions of 1629, the Dutch West India Company first started to grant this title and land to some of its invested members. These inducements to foster colonization and settlement are the basis for the patroon system. By the end of the 18th century, virtually all of the American states had abolished primogeniture and entail; thus patroons and manors evolved into simply large estates subject to division and leases.