Peter Minuit (1580 – August 5, 1638) who at times is often confused with Peter Stuyvesant (c.1612 – August 1672) was a Walloon from Wesel, (present-day North Rhine-Westphalia) Germany who was appointed the third director-general of New Netherland by the Dutch West India Company in December 1625. He sailed to North America and arrived in the colony on May 4, 1626.
According to legend, Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from Native American Lenape people on May 24, 1626 for $24 worth of trinkets or 60 Dutch guilders. In reality it was +$13.98 more or about $1000 today.
Munuit decided to move the scattered Dutch settlements in present-day New Jersey and New York to the southern tip of the island called "Manhatta"- heavenly land, after buying the land from the natives who had no idea what a real estate purchase was. There he built a crude fort and about 30 houses returning to Europe 5 years later.
Peter Munuit in the service of Sweden made another purchase were he brought the land along the Delaware River from another group of Native Americans in what is today the site of Wilmington Delaware.
In the spring of 1638. Minuit returned to Stockholm for a second load of colonists. He made a side trip to the Caribbean on the return to pick up a shipment of tobacco for resale in Europe to make the voyage profitable but was killed during a hurricane while on the expedition near St. Christopher in the Caribbean.
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has a display showing a figure of who some believe to be Peter Minuit meeting with Native Americans when in actuality the diorama in the hall displays a scene from Old New York 1660, depicting Peter Stuyvesant, Governor of New York, receiving a delegation of Hackensack Indians from New Jersey.
Stuyvesant is actually buried Saint Mark's Church-In-The-Bowery Manhattan whereas Peter Munuit's remains are unknown.
As for Peter Munuit there is Peter Minuit Plaza, north of the Whitehall Ferry Terminal, a marker in Inwood Hill Park at the supposed site of the purchase of Manhattan, a granite flagstaff base in Battery Park, which depicts the historic purchase, a school and playground in East Harlem named for him, The Peter Minuit Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a memorial on Moltkestraße in Wesel, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and this Find a Grave Memorial.

Peter Minuit Purchases Manhattan Island From The Native Americans In 1626. (Unknown Artist, 1754)