USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester County, New York, from its earliest settlement to the year 1900 > Part 3
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Ruttenber, the historian of the Hudson River Indians, in his general classification of the different tribes distributed along the banks, sum- marizes the situation as follows: At the time of discovery the entire eastern bank, from an indefinable point north of Albany to the sea, in- «Inding Long Island, was held, under numerous sub-tribal divisions, by the Mohicans (also written Mahicans and Mohegans). The do- minion of the Mohicans extended eastward to the Connecticut, where they were joined by kindred tribes, and on the west bank ran as far down as Catskill, reaching westward to Schenectady. Adjoining them on the west was the territory of the Mohawks, and on the south their neighbors were chieftaincies of the Minsis, a totemic tribe of the
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
Lenni Lenapes. The latter exercised control thence to the sea and westward to the Delaware River. Under the early Dutch goverment. continues Ruttenber, the Mohicans sold a considerable portion of their land on the west side to Van Rensselaer, and admitted the Mohawks to territorial sovereignty north of the Mohawk River. The Mohawks were one of the five tribes of the great Iroquois confederacy, whose other members were the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. Thus as early as 1630 there were three principal divisions or nations of Indians represented on the Hudson: the Iroquois, Mohicans, and Lenni Lenapes (or Delawares ) .
This is Ruttenber's classification. On the other hand, it has been considered by some writers on the Indians that the Mohicans were really only a subdivision of the Lenni Lenapes, whose dominions, ac- cording to Heckewelder, extended from the month of the Potomac northeastwardly to the shores of Massachusetts Bay and the moun- tains of New Hampshire and Vermont, and westwardly to the Alle- ghenies and Catskills. But whether the Mohicans are to be regarded
TOTEMS OF NEW YORK TRIBES.
as a separate grand division or as a minor body, the geographical limits of the territory over which they were spread are well defined.
They were called by the Dutch Maikans, and by the French mis- sionaries the " nine nations of Mahingans, gathered between Manhat- tan and the environs of Quebec." The tradition which they gave of their origin has been stated as follows:
The country formerly owned by the Muhheakunnuk (Mohican) nation was situated partly in Massachusetts and partly in the States of Vermont and New York. The inhabitants dwelt chiefly in little towns and villages. Their chief seat was on the Hudson River, now it is called Albany, which was called Pewpotowwuthut-Mnhheeannenw, or the fireplace of the Mnhheakunnuk nation, where their allies used to come on any business, whether relating to the covenant of their friendship or other matters. The etymology of the word Mnbheaknn- nuk, according to its original signifieation, is great waters or sea, which are constantly in motion, either ebbing or flowing. Our forefathers assert that they were emigrants from another country ; that they passed over great waters, where this and the other country was nearly connected, ealled Ukhokpeek ; it signifies snake water or water where snakes are abundant ; and that they lived by the side of a great water or sea, whenee they derived the name of the Muhleakunuk nation. Muhheakanenw signifies a man of the Mahheakunnuk tribe. Mnhheakunneynk is a plural mumber. As they were coming from the west they found many great waters, but none of a flow and ebb like Muhheakannuk until they came to Hud- son's River. Then they said to one another, this is like Muhheakannuk, our nativity. And
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ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS
when they found grain was very plenty in that country, they agreed to kindle a fire there and hang a kettle whereof they and their children after them might dip ont their daily refreshment.1
The name given by the Mohicans and the Lonapes to the Hudson River was the Mohicanituk, or River of the Mohicans, signifying " the constantly flowing waters." By the Iroquois it was called the Cola- tatoa.
The Mohicans belonged to the great Algonquin race stock, which may be said to have embraced all the Indian nations from the Atlantic
TOTEMIC SIGNATURES.
to the Mississippi. Its different branches had a general similarity of language, and while the separate modifications were numerous and extreme, all the Indians within these bounds understood one another.
The Mohican power is regarded by Ruttenber as hardly less formid- able than that of the Iroquois, and he points out that not withstanding the boasted supremacy of the Iroquois in war there is no historical evidence that the Mohicans were ever brought under subjection to them or despoiled of any portion of their territory. Yet it is unques- tionable that the Frognois exacted and received tribute from the Long Island Indians; and this could hardly have happened without pre- viously obtaining dominion over the Mohicans. On the other hand. it is certain that the Mohicans never famely submitted to the northern conquerors. " When the Dutch first met the Mohicans," says Rut- tenber, " they were in conflict with the Mohawks (an Iroquois nation ) . and that contliet was maintained for nearly three-quarters of a cen-
. Massachusetts Hist. Soc. Coll., ix., 101.
The editor submitted the above to Mr. Will- lam Wallace Tooker for his critical opinion. The following is Mr. Tooker's reply:
" This etymology of Muhbeaknanuk, or Muli- brannenw. is deeldedly wrong. Trumbull
gives the true derivation In his . Names In Connecticut,' p. 31. viz .: 'The Mohegans, ur Mi bhekannenks, took their tribe name from the Algonkin maingan, "a wolf."' The maps and records prove this conclusively."
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
tury, and until the English, who were in alliance with both, were able to effect a permanent settlement."
Although the Mohican name was generic for all the tribes on the eastern side of the Hudson, it never occurs, at least in the southern part of New York State, in the numerous local land deeds and other documentary agreements drawn by the settlers with the Indians. The tribal or chieftainey name prevailing in the district in question is uni- formly employed. This finds a good illustration in the affidavit of King Nimham, executed October 13, 1730, in which the deponent says that he is " a River Indian of the Tribe of the Wappinoes ( Wappin- gers ), which tribe was the ancient inhabitants of the east shores of Hudson's River, from the City of New York to about the middle of Beekman's patent (in the northern part of the present Connty of Dutchess) ; that another tribe of river Indians called the Mayhiccon- das (Mohicans) were the ancient inhabitants of the remaining east shore of said river; that these two tribes constitute one nation." There was, however, an intimate understanding among all the associated tribes and minor divisions of the Mohicans, which in emergencies was given very practical manifestation. The Dutch, in their early wars against the Indians of Westchester County, were perplexed to find that the Highland tribes, with whom, as they supposed, they were upon terms of amity, were rendering assistance to their enemies.
The Mohicans of the Hudson should not be confused with the Mo- hegans under Uneas, the Pequot chief, whose territory, called Mohe- ganick, lay in eastern Connecticut. The latter was a strictly local New England tribe, and though probably of the same original stock as the Hudson River Mohican nation, was never identified with it.
The entire country south of the Highlands, that is, Westchester Connty and Manhattan Island, was occupied by chieftaincies of the Wappinger division of the Mohicans. The Wappingers also held do- minion over a large section of the Highlands, through their sub- tribes, the Nochpeems. At the east their lands extended beyond the Connecticut line, being met by those of the Sequins. The latter, hav- ing jurisdiction thence to the Connecticut River, were. it is believed, an enlarged family of Wappingers, " perhaps the original head of the tribe, from whence its conquests were pushed over the southern part of the peninsula." The north and south extent of the territory of the Sequins is said to have been some sixty miles. They first sold their lands, June 8, 1633. to the Dutch West India Company, and upon them was erected the Dutch trading post of " Good Hope:" but ten years later they executed a deed to the English, embracing " the whole country to the Mohawk country." On Long Island were the Canarsies, Rockaways, Merricks, Massapeags, Matinecocks, Corchaegs, Man-
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ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS
hansetts, Secatognes, Unkechangs, Shinnecocks, and Montauks. The principal tribes on the other side of New York Bay and the west bank of the Hudson call belonging to the Lenape or Delaware nation ) were the Navesinks, Raritans, Hackinsacks, Aquackanonks, Tappans, and Haverstraws.
The Wappinger sub-tribes or chieftaincies of Westchester County. thanks chiefly to the careful researches of Bolton, are capable of tolerably exact geographical lova- tion and of detailed individual de- scription. Bolton is followed in the main by Ruttenber, who, giving due credit to the former while adding the results of his own investigations, is the final authority on the whole sub- jeet at the present time. No apolo- gies need be made for transferring to these pages, even quite literally. Ruttenber's classification of the In- dians of the county, with the inci- PALISADED VILLAGE. dental descriptive partienlars.
1. The Reckgawawanes, better known by the generic name of Manhattans and so designated by Brodhead and other New York historians. Bolton gives to this chieftaincy the name of Nappeckamaks, a title which, however, does not appear in the records except as the name of their principal village on the site of Yonkers. This village of Nappeckamak (a name signify- ing the " rapid water settlement"1) was, says Bolton, situated at the mouth of the Nepperhan or Sawmill River. The castle or fort of the Manhattans or Reckgawawanes was on the north- ern shore of Spusten Dnyvil Creek, and was called Nipinichsen. It was carefully protected by a strong stockade and commanded the romantie scenery of the Papirinemen or Spusten Duyvil and the Mohicanituk, the junction of which two streams was called Shorackappock. It was opposite this castle that the fight occurred between Hudson and the Indians as he was returning down the river. They held Manhattan Island and had thereon three villages, which, however, it is claimed, were occupied only while they were on hunting and fishing ex- eursions. In Breeden Raedt their name is given as the Rockewackes, and it is said that in the treaty of 1643 Oritany, sachem of the Hackinsacks, declared he was delegated by and for those of Tappaen, Reckgawawane. Kiektawane, and Sintsine. The tract occupied by the Reckgawawanes on the mainland was called Keckesick, and is described as " lying over against the Hats of the Island of Manhates." In its northern extent it included the site of the present City of Yonkers, and on the east it reached to the Bronx River. Their chiefs were Rechgawac, for whom they appear to have been called, Frequesmeck and Peckaunions. Their first sachem known to the Dutch was Tackerew ( 1639). In 1682 the names of Goharis. Teattanqueer and Wearaquaeghier appear as the grantors of lands to Frederick Philips.
2. The Weckquesgeeks. This chieftainey is known to have had, as early as 1611. three intrenched castles, one of which remained as late as 1663, and was then garrisoned by eighty warriors. Their principal village was where Dobbs Ferry now stands. It is said that the outlines of it can still be traced by numerous shell beds. It was called Weekquaesgeek, and its location was at the mouth of Wieker's Creek (called by the Indians the Wysquaqua or Weghqueghe ;. Another of their villages was Alipeonck, the " place of the elms," now Tarrytown. Their territory appears to have extended from Norwalk on the Sound to the Hudson, and embraced considerable portions of the towns of Mount Pleasant, Grecuburgh,
1 Note by William Wallace Tooker: This is an incorrect derivation. The name really signifies " Trap fishing place."
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
White Plains, and Rye, being ultimately very largely included in the Manor of Philipsbor- ongh. Their sachem in 1649 was Pompahowhelbshelen ; in 1660 Ackhongh ; in 1663 Souwenaro ; in 1680 Weskora or Weskomen, and Goharius, his brother ; in 1681 Wessicken- aiaw, and Conarhanded, his brother. These chiefs are largely represented in the list of grantors of lands to the whites.
3. The Sint-Sines. These Indians were not very numerous. Their most important vil- lage was Ossing-Sing, the present Sing Sing. They had another village, ealled Kestaubuinck. between the Sing Sing Creek and the Kitchawonek or Croton River. Their lands are de- scribed in the deed of sale to Philipse, August 24, 1685, and were included in his manor
4. The Kitchawangs or Kicktawanes. Their territory apparently extended from the Cro- ton River north to Anthony's Nose. Ketchtawonek was their leading village, at the mouth of the Croton (Kitehtawonek) River. They occupied another, Saekhoes, on the site of Peekskill. Their castle or fort, which stood at the mouth of the Croton, is represented as one of the most formidable and ancient of Indian fortresses south of the Highlands, Its precise location was at the entrance or neck of Teller's Point (called Senasqua), and west of the cemetery of the Van Cortlandt family. The traditional sachem was Croton. There was apparently a division of chieftaineies at one time, Kitchawong figuring as sachem of the village and eastle on the Croton and Sachus of the village of Sackhoes or Peekskill. The lands of the chief- tainey were principally included in the Manor of Cortlandt, and from them the towns of Cortlandt, Yorktown, Somers, North Salem, and Lewisboro have been erected.
5. The Tankitekes. They occupied the country now comprising the towns of Poundridge, Bedford, and New Castle, in Westchester County, and those of Darien, Stamford, and New
MORTAR AND PESTLE.
Canaan in Connecticut, all purchased by Na- thaniel Turner in 1640 on behalf of the people of New Haven, and de- scribed in the deeds as traets called Toquams and Shipham. Pons was sachem of the form- er and Wasenssne of the latter. Poms reserved portions of Toquams for the use of himself and his associates, but with this exception the entire possessions of the Tan- kitekes appear to have passed under a deed to the whites without metes or bounds. The chief-
tainey ocenpies a prom-
inent place in Dutch his- tory through the action of Pacham, "a crafty man," who not only per-
formed discreditable services for Director Kieft, but also was very largely instrumental in bringing on the war of 1645. O'Callaghan locates the Tankitekes on the eastern side of Tappan Bay, and Bolton in the eastern portion of Westchester County, from deeds to their lands. They had villages beside Wampus Lake in the town of North Castle, near Pleasant- ville, in the town of Mount Pleasant, and near the present villages of Bedford and Katonah.
6. The Siwanoys, also known as "one of the tribes of the seacoast." This was one of the largest of the Wappinger subdivisions. They occupied the northern shore of the Sound from Norwalk twenty-four miles to the neighborhood of Hellgate. How far inland their territory extended is uncertain, but their deeds of sale covered the manor lands of Morrisania, Searsdale, and Pelham, from which New Rochelle, Eastchester, Westchester, New Castle, Mamaro-
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ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS
neck, and Scarsdale, and portions of White Plains and West Farms have been carved. They possessed, besides, portions of the towns of Rye and Harrison, and of Stamford (Com.), and there are grounds for supposing that the traet known as Toqmums, assigned to the Tankitekes, was part of their dominions. They had a very large village ou the banks of Rye Poud in the town of Rye, and in the southern angle of that town, on the beautiful hill now known as Mount Misery, stood one of their castles. Another of their villages was ou Davenport's Neck. Near the entrance to Pelham Neck was one of their burying grounds. Two large mounds are pointed out as the sepulchers of their chiefs, Ann-Hoock and Nimbam. In the town of Westchester they had a castle on what is still called Castle Hill Neck, and a village near Bear Swamp, of which latter they remained in possession until 1689. One of their Sachems whose name has been permanently preserved in Westchester County was Katonah (1680). Their chief Ann-Hoock, alias Wampage, was probably the murderer of Ann Hutchin- son. One of their warriors was Mayane (1644), " a tierce Indian, who, alone, dared to attack, with bow and arrow, three Christians armed with guns, one of whom he shot dead, and whilst engaged with the other was killed by the third and his head conveyed to Fort Amsterdam."
In their intercourse with the whites from the beginning the Indians displayed a bold independence and perfect indifference to the evidences of superior and mysterious power and wisdom which every aspect of their strange visitors disclosed. Though greatly astonished at the ad- vent of the " Half Moon," and perplexed by the white skin, remark- able dress, and terrible weapons of its crew, they discovered no fear, and at the first offer of physical violence or duress were prompt and intrepid in resentment. On his way up the river, at a point probably below Spuyten Duyvil, Hudson attempted to detain 1 wo of the natives. but they jumped overboard, and, swimming to shore, called back 10 him " in scorn." For this unfriendly demonstration he was attacked on his return trip, a month later, off Spusten Duyvil. " Whereupon," he says in his journal. " two canoes full of men, with their bows and arrows, shot at us after our sterne, in recompense whereof we dis- charged six muskets, and killed two or three of them. Then above a hundred of them came to a point of land to shoot at us. There I shot a falcon at them and killed two of them ; whereupon the rest tled into the woods. Yet they manned off another canoe with nine or ten men, who came to meet us. So I shot a falcon and shot it through, and killed one of them. So they went their way." Thus in utter contempt of the white man's formidable vessel and deadly gun they dared assail him at the first opportunity in revenge for his offense against their rights, returning to the attack a second and third time despite the havoe they had suffered.
The entire conduct of the Indians in their subsequent relations with the Europeans who settled in the land and gradually absorbed it was in striet keeping with the grim and fearless attitude shown upon this first occasion. To manifestations of force they opposed all the re- sistance they could summon, and with the fiereest determination and most relentless severity administered such reprisals, both general and individual, as they were able to inflict. Their characteristics in these
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
respects, and their disposition of complete unteachableness as to moderation and Christian precept, are described in quaint terms in a letter written in 1628 by Domine Jonas Michaelins, the first pastor in New Amsterdam. " As to the natives of this country," writes the good domine, " I find them entirely savage and wild, strangers to all decency; yea, uncivil and stupid as posts. proficient in all wickedness and godlessness; devilish men, who serve nobody but the devil, that
THE PURCHASE OF MANHATTAN ISLAND.
is, the spirit which, in their language, they call Manetto, under which title they comprehend everything that is subtle and crafty and beyond human power. They have so much witchcraft, divination, sorcery, and wicked tricks that they can not be held in by any locks or bounds, They are as thievish and treacherous as they are fall, and in cruelty they are more inhuman than the people of Barbary and far exceed the Africans. I have written something concerning these things to sev- eral persons elsewhere, not doubting that Brother Crol will have written sufficient to your Right Reverend, or to the Lords; as also of
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ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS
the base treachery and the murders which the Mohicans, at the upper part of this river, against. Fort Orange, had committed. . . . I have as yet been able to discover hardly a good point, except that they do not speak so jeeringly and so scoffingly of the Godlike and glorious majesty of their Creator as the Africans dare to do; but it is because they have no certain knowledge of Him or scarcely any. If we speak to them of God it appears to them like a dream, and we are compelled to speak of Ilim not under the name of Manetto, whom they know and serve- for that would be blasphemous-but under that of some great person. yea of the chiefs Sackiema, by which name they-living without a king-call those who have command of many hundreds among them, and who, by our people, are called Sackemakers." In striking con- trast with this stern but undoubtedly just view of the Indian, as a so- cial individual, is the lofty and magnanimous tribute paid to his char- acter in its broader aspeet by Cadwallader Colden after more than a century of European occupation of the country and intercourse with him. In his " History of the Five Indian Nations," published in 1727, Colden says: " A poor, barbarous people, under the darkest igno- rance, and yet a bright and noble genius shines through these dark clouds. None of the great Roman heroes have discovered as great love of country, or a greater contempt of death, than these barbarians have done when life and liberty came in competition. Indeed, I think our Indians have outdone the Romans. They are the fiereest and most formidable people in North America, and at the same time as politie and judicious as can well be conceived."
Although exterminating wars were waged between the Dutch and the Westchester Indians, in which both sides were perfectly rapacious, it was the general policy of the Dutch to deal with the natives ami- cably and to attain their great object, the acquirement of the land, by the forms of purchase, with such incidental concessions of the sub- stance as might be required by circumstances. The goods given in ex- change for the lands comprised a variety of useful articles, such as tools, hatchets, kettles, cloth, firearms, and ammunition, with trin- kets for ornament and the always indispensable rum. The simplicity of the natives in their dealings with the whites is the subject of many entertaining narratives. " The man with the red clothes now distrib- uted presents of beads, axes, hoes, stockings, and other articles, and made them understand that he would return home and come again to see them, bring them more presents, and stay with them awhile, but should want a little land to sow some seeds, in order to raise herbs to put in their broth. . . They rejoiced much at seeing each other again, but the whites laughed at them, seeing that they knew not the use of the axes, hoes, and the like they had given them, they having
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
had those hanging to their breasts as ornaments, and the stockings they had made use of as tobacco pouches. The whites now put handles or helves in the former, and out trees down before their eyes, and dug the ground, and showed them the use of the stockings. Here a gen- eral laughter ensued among the Indians, that they had remained for so long a time ignorant of the use of so valuable implements, and had borne with the weight of such heavy metal hanging to their neeks for such a length of time. Familiarity daily increasing between them and the whites, the latter now proposed to stay with them, ask- ing for only so much land as the hide of a bullock would cover or en- compass, which hide was brought forward and spread on the ground before them. That they readily granted this request; whereupon the whites took a knife and beginning at one place on this hide cut it up into a rope not thicker than the finger of a little child, so that by the time the hide was cut up there was a great heap; that this rope was drawn ont to a great distance and then brought round again, so that the ends might meet; that they carefully avoided its breaking, and that upon the whole it encompassed a large piece of land; that they were surprised at the superior wit of the whites, but did not wish to contend with them about a little land, as they had enough; that they and the whites lived for a long time contentedly together, although the whites asked from time to time more land of them, and proceeding higher up the Mohicanituk they believed they would soon want the whole country."
The first purchase of Indian lands in what is now New York State was that of Manhattan Island, which was announced in a letter dated November 5, 1626, from P. Schaghen, the member of the States-Gen- eral of Holland attending the " Assembly of the XIX." of the West India Company, to his colleagues in The Hague. This letter con- veyed the information that a ship had arrived the day before bringing news from the new settlement, and that " They have bought the island Manhattes from the wild men for the value of sixty guilders " .- $24 of our money. The acquisition of title to the site of what has become the second commercial entrepot of the world for so ridiculous a sum -- which, moreover, was paid not in money but in goods-is a familiar theme for moralizing and didactic writers. Yet there can be no question that the value given the savages reasonably corresponded to honorable standards of equivalent recompense. The partienlar land with which they parted had to them no more worth than an equal area of the water of the river or the bay, except in the elementary regard that it was land, where man ean abide, and not water, where he can not abide: while to the Dutch the sole worth lay in the chance of its ultimate development. On the other hand, the value received by the
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