A Little Taste Of History (23)

Topic: Some Facts On Long Island #1 Pre: 1902

At the time of its discovery by Hudson in 1609, Long Island was occupied by thirteen tribes of the Lenni-Lenape division of Algonquin Indians, who are now represented by a few individuals of mixed blood dwelling near Shinnecock Neck, Forge, and Montauk Point, where at the period of the first European settlement Wyandance, the chief of the thirteen tribes, resided. Antiquarian discoveries have demonstrated the existence of a prehistoric race of different origin. The various Indian names of the island were Sewanhacky, Panmancke, Matouwacks, and Wamponomon. The Dutch named it Lange Eylandt, whence Long Island ; a subsequent change by the Colonial Legislature to the Island of Nassau never became popular. Included in the land between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, embraced by latitudes 40 to 48 North, granted by James I. to the Plymouth Company in 1620, it became the property of the Earl of Stirling, and at his death in 1640 of the Duke of York. The earliest settlements by the Dutch were begun in 1632 ; the first recorded purchase of land in South Brooklyn is in 1636. The Dutch exercised jurisdiction in the western part of the island down to 1664, in which year they were dispossessed of New Netherlands. Many of the agricultural holdings toward the east remain unchanged in the possession of descendants of the original settlers ; Gardiner's Island has belonged to the family of that name since 1640. The military operations during the Revolutionary period and the battle of Long Island (q.v) are the chief incidents of the subsequent history of the Island.

Consult: Thompson, The History of Long Island (New York, 1843 ); Prime, History of Long Island (New York, 1845) ; Furman, Antiquities of Long Island, with Bibliography (New York, 1875) ; Flint, Early Long Island (New York, 1896) ; and the Annual Reports of the Long Island Historical Society (Brooklyn).

Shinnecock Tribe

A remnant tribe of Algonquin stock (q.v.) residing about the bay of the same name near the southeast end of Long Island, N.Y. At the beginning of this century they numbered only about 150 persons, all more or less of negro admixture, and had entirely lost their language and all other primitive characteristics. They are daring seamen and furnish efficient recruits to the United States Life Saving Service, in which several of their most promising young men lost their lives by a storm in 1877. They have no relations with the general Government, but the State of New York supports a school at East Moriches for the benefit of them and the two other Long Island remnants, the Poospatuck or Unquachog and the Montauk, numbering only a few families each. (14)

Source utilized to document the above statements:

Contact: miriam@thehistorybox.com