Friday, January 1, 2021 – THEY WERE HERE BEFORE US
HAPPY NEW YEAR AND A BETTER 2021 TO EVERYONE!
FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2021
The
251st Edition
From Our Archives
New York City from Wooly Mammoths to the Dutch
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when from out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of…a Wooly Mammoth??
By popular demand, we bring the New York City/Roosevelt Island story up to date, or at least to when the Dutch took over. When we left, around 10,000 years ago, after the retreat of the last great ice sheets, the Paleo-Indians living in the New York region were, perhaps, chasing down megafauna like mammoths, mastodons, giant beavers and giant short-faced bears.
University of New Mexico Archeological Discoveries
Before we move on, who were these folks?
The current view is that all Native Americans – before Europeans and Africans arrived – were cast from the same original stock, from humans who crossed from Siberia to Alaska over what was then land (in glacial periods, seas were much lower) perhaps 40,000 years ago. They – the “founders” – the theory goes, represent a culture that was isolated for thousands of years up in the cold north of our continent, incubating a population that would eventually seed everywhere else in the hemisphere.
An earlier theory, based on projectile points resembling spearheads and other hunting paraphernalia found in an archaeological site near Clovis, New Mexico put the arrivals in North America at around 13,000 years ago. The new theory pushes that date back much further. Eventually, probably because of climate change and population increase, the founders moved out and over many years (12,000?) populated the entire hemisphere. Over time, genetic variation occurred among the various founder subgroups, but au fond all indigenous Americans share the same core genetic heritage.
So, long story short, it took a while, but these people finally found their way to the New York region – our own Paleo-Indians – arriving between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago. Some paleoanthropologists characterize them as nomadic bands of big game hunters, following the herds of mammoths and other ice age animals across the continent. Some feel that the Paleo-Indians – together with a warming climate – were responsible for killing off these local plus-sized mammals.
With the gradual melting of the glaciers, a number of climatic changes began occurring between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago throughout the Northeast. The larger animals migrated north and our intrepid hunters followed. Here, the warming climate encouraged the northward growth of deciduous trees bearing a variety of protein-rich black walnuts, butternuts, and chestnuts. A rich supply of fruits, seeds, and nutritious roots expanded the food base. In thicker forests, smaller animals predominated.
During this period, a more sedentary culture developed. Known as the Archaic Period, people made advances that allowed them to exploit the new conditions. Not simply hunting, they developed the technology needed to harvest the fish and shellfish found in New York Harbor as well as acorns and other new plant species.
Approximately 2,000 years ago, things changed again, this time, however, pushed by changes in human technology. During the Eastern Woodland Period, major advances such as pottery, bow and arrows, and agriculture were developed. These allowed for even greater utilization of the land and resources leading to the growth of larger settlements such as villages. We know more about these people. The remains of approximately 8,000 early encampments together with more advanced hunting implements have been found throughout the city. Since then, the New York region has probably remained continually inhabited.
The next several millennia seem pretty foggy. It seems that the first Native Americans (no longer Paleo-Indians) to occupy the New York area spoke the Algonquian language with the last wave of Algonquians arriving just before the year 1000. They were part of a union of tribes known as the Algonquian nation that stretched from what is now Virginia, through New Jersey, and into Canada. The peoples who came here seem to have had no relation to the sophisticated Native American civilizations that built the grand mounds of Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys and across the Southeast. No mounds here.
The Algonquian star would fade: By the time the first Europeans arrived in New York during the late 1500s and early 1600s, the Algonquian power had declined and had shifted to the powerful tribes of the Iroquois.
But the people Europeans met here weren’t Iroquois. They were Lenape. Their language was Algonquian.
The name Lenape has several interpretations, among which are “ordinary people” and “original people.” The settlers eventually renamed these people “Delaware Indians” after the English nobleman Lord De la Warr (Del-a-ware, get it?) for which Delaware and the Delaware River were named.
Lenape territory extended along both sides of the Delaware River from what is now northern Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania, and throughout New Jersey. We’re told that the Lenape were highly regarded by the other eastern woodland tribes of the Algonquian nation. They were respectfully known as the “Grandfathers”—elders of the eastern woodland tribes. Their noble status eventually declined after they were displaced from their homeland. When they became a tribe in exile, their “Iroquois” neighbors ultimately slandered their good name by calling their warriors “women.”
Scholars have estimated that at the time of European settlement, there may have been about 15,000 Lenape in approximately 80 settlement sites around much of the New York City area, alone. In 1524, Lenape in canoes met Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to enter New York Harbor, who called the area New Angoulême to honor his patron, King Francis I, Count of Angoulême, of France. These are the people who famously signed the Treaty of Shackamaxon with William Penn in 1682, in which both sides agreed that their people would live in a state of perpetual peace
When the Dutch arrived in what’s now New York City, their encounters with Lenape seem to have been amicable. They shared the land and traded guns, beads and wool for beaver furs. We’ve long been told that the Dutch even “purchased” Manahatta island from the Lenape in 1626.
But the story does not end well. This transaction, enforced by the building of walls around New Amsterdam, marked the beginning of the Lenape’s forced mass migration out of their homeland. The wall, which started showing up on maps in the 1660s, was built to keep out Native Americans and British. Facing growing European population pressure and continuing struggles with Iroquois, the Lenape agreed to give up lands they had been promised in treaties. They began a long migration to Pennsylvania, and then settled in Ohio, then Indiana, then St. Louis, and then elsewhere in Missouri before purchasing a reservation in Kansas in 1830 using funds from previous treaties. After the Civil War, the U.S. government forced the Lenape in Kansas to sell their land so railroad companies could build tracks on it. The Lenape then purchased a reservation from the Cherokee in Oklahoma, where they reside today, in Bartlesville and Anadarko. Kin also reside in Ontario, in the Delaware Nation at Moraviantown and the Munsee Delaware Nation. Smaller bands of Lenape still live in New England and the mid-Atlantic, but most are self-recognized, one exception being the Ramapough Lenape Nation, recognized by the state of New Jersey but not the U.S. government. At the end of the day, we actually know little about the Lenape who preceded – and, apparently welcomed – us to New York.
Let me conclude by recommending a wonderful book – Mannhatta, A Natural History of New York City, by Eric W. Sanderson that takes off from this point. Sanderson was able, using the most modern techniques of computational geography and visualization and remarkable old maps, to reconstruct what Manhattan looked like in the hours before Henry Hudson sailed up his river. Lenape figure here as among the earliest of peoples who have transformed the ecosystem of our City.
Thanks for reading.
Stephen Blank
RIHS
December 31, 2020
FRIDAY PHOTOS OF THE DAY
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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
SWIMMING IN THE EAST RIVER
GLORIA HERMAN AND ALEXIS VILLEFANE GOT IT
REMINDER: JANUARY 1st IS THE ANNUAL SWIM BY THE POLAR BAY CLUB IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN IN CONEY ISLAND!!!
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Deborah Dorff
Roosevelt Island Historical Society
https://whippany.net/lenape-history-whippany-nj
Wikipedia
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FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
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