USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 6
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Religion of the Indian-Tribes and chieftainries among them were especially marked by totemic emblems. Totems were rude but distinct armorial bearings or family symbols, denoting original consanguinity, and were universally respected. They were painted upon the person of the Indian and again on the gable end of his cabin, some in black, others in red. The wandering savage appealed to his totem, and was entitled to the hospitality of the wigwam which bore the corresponding emblem. The Lenni Lenapes had three totemic tribes: The Turtle, or Unami; the Turkey, or Unalachto; and the Wolf, or Minsi. The Mahi- cans had three : The Bear, the Wolf, and the Turtle. The Turtle and the Turkey tribes occupied the seacoast and the southwestern shores of the Hudson. The Wappingers bore the totem of the Wolf, and the Mahicans proper that of the Bear, by virtue of which they were en- titled to the office of chief sachem, or king of the nation. The paint- ings of these totemic emblems were not only rude, but, in the form in which they have been preserved, those of the signatures which they made to deeds for lands were exceedingly so; yet they would compare favorably with the characters which were employed to verify the sig- natures of very many of their more civilized neighbors. Their religion recognized the existence of God, who dwelt beyond the stars, and a life immortal in which they expected to renew the associations of earth. But with them, as with many Christians of the present day, practically, God had less to do with the world than the devil, who was the chief object of their fears and the source of their earthly hopes. No expedi- tions of hunting, fishing, or war were undertaken unless the devil was first consulted, and to him they offered the first fruits of the chase or of victory. To him their appeals were made through monstrous fires, around which they danced and subjected themselves to strange contor- tions, and into which they cast their costly robes of wampum and their prized ornaments, and received their answer in good or bad omens. The blaze of the fires at these conjurations early excited the attention of the
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Dutch and won for their devotees the title of Sanhikans, fireworkers, or worshippers of Satan. They were startling in their effect-so startling indeed that the Hollanders, and other Europeans who attended them, became so greatly influenced by them that their observance was ulti- mately forbidden within the limit of one hundred miles of Christian oc- cupation.
Their wondering over the unseen took a good many other forms. There were remarkable conjurers among them, who could cause "ice to appear in a bowl of fair water in the heat of summer," which, adds the narrator, "was doubtless done by the agility of Satan." For the spiritual they cared nothing, but directed their study principally to the physical, "closely observing the seasons." Their women were the most experi- enced star-gazers ; scarce one who could not name them all, give the time of their rising and setting, and their position, in language of their own. Taurus they described as the horned head of a big wild animal inhabit- ing the distant country, but not theirs; that when it rose in a certain part of the heavens then it was the season for planting. The first moon following that at the end of February was greatly honored by them. They watched it with devotion, and greeted its appearance with a fes- tival; it was their new year, and they collected together at their chief village or castle, and reveled in their way with wild game or fish, and drank clear river water to their fill, "without," the narrator says, "be- ing intoxicated." The new August moon was the occasion of a festival in honor of the harvest. The firmament was to them an open book, wherein they read the laws for their physical well-being, the dial-plate by which they marked their years.
Tribes and their Territories-Such were some of the traits of the people who were grouped in the territory now covered by Greater New York and its environs. "The finest looking tribe, and the handsomest in their costumes" that were met by Verrazano in 1524 were the Maton- wacks of Long Island, or the Montauks, as more modernly known; those who were met by Hudson in Newark Bay in 1609 "clothed in mantles of feathers and robes of fur" were Raritans, who spread through the valley of the Raritan. Both of these enlarged chieftainries were sub-tribes of the Unami, or Turtle Tribe, of the Lenni Lenapes, or "Original People," whose national council-fire was lighted at Philadelphia, and both were divided into numerous family groups or clans-the Canarsees, the Rock- aways, the Merikokes, the Marsapeagues, the Matinecoocks, the Nessa- quakes, the Setaukets, the Corchaugs, the Manhassets, the Secatogues, the Patchogues, and the Shinecocks being embraced in the jurisdiction of the Montauks, while the Raritans are said to have been divided in two sachemdoms and twenty chieftaincies. They were the Sanhikans,
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or fireworkers, of Dutch history, but removed from the valley at an early period in consequence of floods which destroyed their corn. Wyan- dance was sachem of the Montauks when Block built his ship among them in 1614, and may have been the young king described by Verra- zano in 1524. The Hackinsacks, when Hudson anchored in their juris- diction at Hoboken, were ruled by their grand old sachem, Oritany, who had a following of three hundred warriors, and held his council- fire at Gamoenapa. They were all peaceful people from Montauk to the Highlands of the Hudson, as their totem sufficiently indicates, though suffering much from the wars of others, and in the wars that were forced upon them, until they became extinct, under, the conditions involved in the contact of themselves and their kindred with an opposing civili- zation.
On the east side upon the mainland, De Laet locates the "Manat- 1
thanes." He subsequently writes more specifically: "On the right or eastern bank of the river from its mouth dwell the Manhattae, or Man- hatthanes, a fierce nation and hostile to our people, from whom, never- theless, they purchased the island or point of land which is separated from the main by Helle-gat, and where they laid the foundations of a city called New Amsterdam." There is, however, no more trace here of a people bearing the name of "Manhattae, or Manatthanes, except as a title which was conferred by others, than there is of such a people on the west side of the river, or on Long Island. In the record of the wars and treaties with them, and in their deeds transferring title to lands, their tribal and sub-tribal names appear distinctly and conclusively. Daniel Nimham, "a native Indian and acknowledged sachem or king" of the Wappingers, or Wapanachki, is on record by affidavit made October 13, 1730, that "the tribe of the Wappinoes," of which he was king, "were the ancient inhabitants of the eastern shore of Hudson's river from the city of New York to about the middle of Beekman's patent" (Dutchess County), and that, with the Mahicondas, or Mahi- cans, or Mohegans, "they constituted one nation." Confirmed as this affidavit is by all anterior facts of record, it must be accepted as definitely determining the question to which it relates. True, the possibility exists that at some period unrecorded, perhaps before the glacial era of North America, there was a people known as the Manhattae; that they were overrun and absorbed by the Wapanachki, and left behind them a tradi- tionary name; but it is with the facts of history, and not with theories based on shadowy foundations, that we are dealing. The Mahican or Mohegan nation which was seated upon the eastern side of the Hudson, and to which river they gave their name, the Mahicanituck, were recog- nized among Indian tribes as a family of the Wapanachki, or "Men of the East," and as "the oldest sons of their grandfather," the Lenni
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Lenapes, or the "Original People." Generally they were classed as Algonquins, as were also the tribes on the western side of the river, and spoke the same language, but in a radically different dialect. The clans with whom they were in more immediate contact, the Unamis of Long Island and the New Jersey coasts, crossed this dialect with that of their neighbors and formed that by which they were classified as Manhattans, but the fact that they were a different people the Dutch were not slow to recognize. Bearing the totem of the bear and the wolf; equal in courage, equal in numbers, equal in the advantage of obtaining fire- arms from the Dutch of Albany, and in their treaty alliances with both the Dutch and the English governments, they marched unsubdued by the rivals of the Iroquois confederacy, even while recoiling from and crum- bling under the touch of European civilization, and crowned their decay by efficient service in behalf of the liberties of a people from whose an- cestors they had suffered all their woes.
The Wappingers, or Wapanachki, who had a tilt with Hudson, were of the sub-tribe or chieftaincy subsequently known as the Reckgawa- wancs. The point of land from which their attacks were precipitated was on the north shore of the Papirinimen, or Spuyten Duyvil Creek, where their castle, or palisaded village, called by them Nipinichsen, was located. This castle commanded the approach of their inland territory from the Mahicanituck on the south, while a similarly fortified village at Yonkers, at the mouth of the Neparah, or Sawmill Creek, and known as the Nappeckamak, commanded the approaches on the north. Their territorial jurisdiction extended on the east to the Bronx and East rivers, and on the south included Manhattan Island, which, however, was only temporarily occupied during the seasons of planting and fishing, their huts there constituting their summer seaside resorts, and remaining un- occupied during the winter. Their tract on the mainland was called Kekesick-literally "stony country"-and is described as "lying over against the flats of the island of Manhates." In "Breeden Raedt" their name is given as Reckewackes; in the treaty of 1643 as Reckgawawancs. Tackarew was their sachem in 1639 and was the first one holding that office whose name appears in Dutch records. The most material point in connection with the chieftaincy, however, is the very great certainty that it was the Reckgawawancs who sold Manhattan Island to Director Minuit in 1626, and that they were the "Manhattae, or Manatthanes," so called by De Laet in 1633-40. From the district occupied by the Reckgawawancs the chieftaincies of the Wappingers extended north and east. On the north came in succession the Weckquaesgecks, who were especially conspicuous in the wars with the Dutch; the Sint Sinks ; the Tankitekes, and the Kitchawongs, as far as Anthony's Nose; and on the east the chieftaincies of the Siwanoys, north of whom were the
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Sequins. The Siwanoys, who are described as "One of the seven tribes of the seacoast," extended from Hell-gate twenty-four miles east along the Sound to Norwalk, Connecticut, and thirty miles into the interior. "The natives here are called Siwanoes" writes De Laet, "and dwell along the same coast for twenty-four miles to the neighborhood of Helle-gat, similar in dress and manners to the other savages." In their territory on Pelham Neck two large mounds are pointed out. One of these is the sepulchre of Sachem Wampage, also called Ann-Hoeck, the pre- sumed murderer of Anne Hutchinson, but quite as likely to have taken that alias from some other circumstance. The other is that of Nimham, who became the king of the Wappingers about the year 1730, and who sealed his devotion to the cause of the colonists with his life in battle with Colonel Simcoe's cavalry, near King's Bridge, in August, 1779.
The district which the Weckquaesgeck chieftaincy occupied is de- scribed by De Vries in 1640 as "a place called Wickquaesgeck and the people as Wickquaesgecks." The place to which he refers was the prin- cipal village of the chieftaincy, which then occupied the site of Dobb's Ferry, where, it is said, its outlines are marked by numerous shell-beds. The capital, or chief seat of the clan, however, was near Stamford, Connecticut, where its sub-tribal assemblages were held, and where, on the occasion of their gathering, in February, 1643, to celebrate the ad- vent of their new year, which was the most important festival in the aboriginal calendar, they were attacked by the Dutch forces under the leadership of Captain John Underhill, and all massacred indiscriminately. Wicker's Creek, upon which they were located on the Hudson, was called by them Wysquaqua. Their second village and castle on the Hudson was called Alipconck. Its site is now occupied by the village of Tarry- town. The Dutch forces are said to have burned two of their stockaded villages in 1644, and to have retained the third as a place to which they might retreat. Conquest of the castles destroyed was easily made, the occupants having gone to the new year festival near Stamford, where they were slaughtered as noted. The castles which were destroyed are spoken of as having been constructed of "plank five inches thick and nine feet high, and braced around with thick walls full of port-holes" in which "thirty Indians could have stood against two hundred." These castles, however, were not those on the Hudson, but were approached from Greenwich on the Sound, from which it is inferred that they were tribally a chieftaincy of the Siwanoys, who were also known in the eastern part of Westchester County and in southwestern Connecticut as the Tankitekes. Local designations, however, are of little moment. They were especially connected with the early wars with the Dutch and were members of the tribal family of Wappingers, in confederacy with the Mahicans of the Mahicanituck, whose triumphs and whose woes, whose
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primal vigor and whose decay would fill many chapters of thrilling and romantic interest, and of whom it cannot be said with truth that they left
"No trace To save their own, or serve another race."
Tribal Speech and Local Names-Four different languages, namely Manhattan, Minqua, Savanos, and Wappanoos, are noted by the Dutch historians as having been spoken by the Indians. With the Manhattan they included, as already stated, the dialect spoken in the neighborhood of Fort Amsterdam, "along the North River, on Long Island, and at the Neversinks." It was, no doubt, this classification by dialect that led the Dutch to the adoption of the generic title of Manhattans as the name of the people among whom they made their settlements. The study which the discussion of Indian dialects invites need not be entered into here. Primarily there were but two Indian languages, the Algonquin and the Iroquois, all others were dialects. The dialect of the Manhat- tans as well as that of the tribes classed with them, cannot be described in any other way than as being peculiar to themselves, and even among themselves the greatest diversity existed. "They vary frequently," writes Wassenaer, in 1621, "not over five or six miles; forthwith comes another language; they meet and can hardly understand one another." Illustrative of this diversity, it may be remarked that man, in Long Island, is "run"; "wonnun," in Wappinoo; "nemanoo," in Mahican ; "lemo," in Algonquin. Mother is "cwca," in Long Island; akaaooh," in Wappinoo; "akegan," in Mahican ; "gahowes," in Algonquin. But aside from this diversity the fundamental characteristic of the dialects was the universal tendency to express in the same word not only all that modi- fied or related to the same object or action, but both the action and the object; thus concentrating in a single expression a complex idea, or several ideas among which there was natural connection. "All other features of the language," remarks Gallatin, "seem to be subordinate to that general principle. The object in view has been attained by various terms of the same tendency and often blended together; a multitude of inflections, so called ; a still greater number of compound words, some- times formed by the coalescence of primitive words not materially al- tered, more generally by the union of many such words in a remark- ably abbreviated form, and numerous particles, either significative, or the original meaning of which has been lost, prefixed, added as termina- tions, or inserted in the body of the word."
The geographical terms of the Red Men may be described as of two classes, general or generic, and specific or local. In specific names the combination may be simple, as Coxackie, "co," object, and "acke," land ;
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in others intricate, as Maghaghkemeck, in which "acke," land, is buried in consonants and qualifying terms. The terminal of a word materially aids but does not govern its translation. "Uk" or "unk" indicates "place of" in a more general sense as in Manacknong, modified in Aquehonga, as illustrated in the name of Staten Island; "ik," "ick," "eck," or "uk" denotes rocks or stones. Quasuck, applied to a small stream of water, would simply mean "stony brook," while Quaspeck, as applied to a hill, would signify "stony hill," as in the case of Verdrietig Hoeck, or Tedi- ous Point, as the Dutch called the well-known Hudson headland; "ack" or "acke," land-"ing" or "ink," something in which numbers are pre- sented, as in Neversink, a "place of birds;" "ais," "ees," "os," "aus," denote a small object or place, as Minnisais, a small island-a number of islands, Minnising or Minnisink. These illustrations are sufficient to show that while terms were in the main composed of the simplest de- scriptive equivalents-a black hill, or a red one, a large hill, or a small one, a small stream of water or a large one, or one which was muddy or stony, a field of maize or of leeks, overhanging rocks or dashing water- falls-the Algonquin language was yet capable of poetic combinations which were not only beautiful, but which must ever remain attractive from their peculiarity and their history.
Manhattan Island is without other recorded name than that given it by the Dutch. "It was the Dutch and not the Indians who first called it Manhattan" is the unquestioned testimony of history. It was like- wise the Dutch who gave the name to The Bronx. The Indians never gave a local term to themselves; others did that for them. Several places on the island, however, are marked by Indian names. Kapsee has been given as that of the extreme point of land between the Hudson and East rivers, and is still known as Copsie Point. It is said to signify "the safe place for landing," as it may have been, but "ee" should have been written as "ick." The Dutch called it Capsey Hoeck; they erected a "hand," or guide-board, to indicate that all vessels under fifty tons were to anchor between that point and the "hand," or guide-board, which stood opposite the "stadtherberg," built in 1642. This indicates that the point had the peculiarity which is held to be expressed by the Indian name. Sappokanikan, a point of land on the Hudson below Greenwich Street, has been explained as indicating "the carrying place," the presumption being that the Indians, at that place, carried their canoes over and across the island to the East River, to save the trouble of paddling down to Kapsee Point and from thence up the East River. This explanation is, however, too limited. It was from this point that the Indians crossed the river to Hobokan-Hacking, subsequently known as Pavonia, now Jersey City, and maintained between the two points a
Bronx-4
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commercial route of which that existing there at the present time is the successor. Lapinikan, an Indian village or collection of huts which was located here, had no doubt some special connection with the convenience of the Indian travelers. Corlaer's Hoeck was called Naig-ia-nac, literally "sand lands." It may, however, have been the name of the Indian vil- lage which stood there, and was in temporary occupation. It was to this village that a considerable number of Indians retreated from savage foes in February, 1643, and were there massacred by the Dutch. Near Chatham Square was an eminence called Warpoes-"wa," singular, "oes," small-literally a "sand hill." Another hill, at the corner of Charlton and Varick streets, was called Ishpatinau-literally a "bad hill" or one having some faulty peculiarity, "ish" being the qualifying term. Ishibic probably correctly described the narrow ridge or ancient cliff north of Beekman Street to which it was applied. Acitoc is given as the name for the height of land in Broadway; Abic, as that of a rock rising up in the Battery, and Penabic, "the comb mountain," as that of Mount Washington. A tract of meadow land, on the north end of the island near Kingsbridge, was called Muscoota, which is said to signify "grass land," but as the same name is given to the Harlem River, another signification is implied, unless in the latter case the word should be rendered as "the river of the grass lands." A similar dual application of name appears in Papirinimen, which is given as that of a tract of land "on the north end of the island," about One Hundred and Twenty- eighth Street between the Spuyten Duyvil and the Harlem, and also that of the Spuyten Duyvil. Shorackappock is said to have described the junction of the Spuyten Duyvil and the Hudson, but the equivalents of the term-"sho" and "acka"-indicate that the interpretation should be, as in Shotag (now Shodac), "the fireplace," or place at which the council chamber of the chieftaincy was held,-an interpretation which clothes the locality with an interest of more significance than the ocur- rence there of the attack on the "Half-Moon." All the neighborhood of what is now Manhattan and The Bronx was intersected by Indian paths, the principal one of which ran north from the Battery or Kapsee Point to City Hall Park, where it was crossed by one which ran west to the village of Lapinikan, and east to Naig-ia-nac, or Corlear's Hoeck. The name assigned to the village, Lapinikan, may have been that of this crossing path, which was continued from Pavonia south to the Lena- pewihitrik, or Delaware River. Many of the ancient roads followed the primary Indian footpaths.
The aboriginal names of the islands in the waters around Manhattan and The Bronx have been preserved with more or less accuracy. Staten Island is called in the deed of De Vries, in 1636, Monacknong; in the
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deed to Capellen, in 1655, Ehquaoas, and in that to Governor Lovelace, in 1670, Aquehonga-Manacknong, titles which are presumed to have covered the portions owned by the Raritans and the Hackinsacks re- spectively. The names in the deeds to De Vries and Capellen, how- ever, are but another orthography for those in the deed to Lovelace. Manacknong, signifying "good land" in a general sense, may be accepted as the aboriginal name. Governor's Island was called by the Dutch Nooten Island, "because excellent nut-trees grew there," and possibly also from Pecanuc, the Algonquin term for nut-trees. Bedloe's Island was called Minnisais, a pure Algonquin term for "small island." It does not appear to have possessed a qualifying character of any kind. Ellis Island was Kioshk, or Gull Island, and that of Blackwell's, or Welfare, was Minnahononck, a phrase that is not without poetic elements, but has none in this connection, "minna" being simply "good." In its vicinity is Hellgate, to which Monatun has been applied-"a word," says an eminent authority, "carrying in its multiplied forms the various meanings of violent, dangerous, etc.," in which sense it may be accepted without requiring the authority by which it was conferred. Objection is proper, however, when philological argument is made to extend the term to "the people of the island among whom the Dutch first settled," in which connection it can have no significance whatever. The name of Long Island is sometimes written Sewanhacky from "sewan," its shell money, and "acky," land; but its aboriginal title appears to have been Matouwacky-"ma." large, excellent ; "acky" or "acke," land.
Aborigines and the Settlers-Meanwhile the Indians of Manhattan and The Bronx were beset on the east by European invaders as well as on the west and south. The English settlers in Connecticut gradually pushed westward and coveted the lands on the eastern horizon of West- chester. On July 1, 1640, Ponus, sagamore of Toquaus, and Wascussue, sagamore of Shippan, sold to Nathan Turner, who acted for the people of New Haven, the tract known to the Indians as Rippowams, which included the greater portion of what is now Fairfield County, in Con- necticut, and a considerable area of the adjoining lands of Westchester. On August 11, 1655, Ponus and Onox, his eldest son, confirmed this sale to the inhabitants of Stamford. Subsidiary to this great sale numer- ous others were made-some of lands included in these transactions, and others of adjacent lands, like the area made over to Thomas Pell, of Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1654, and to Edward Jessup and John Rich- ardson, in 1663, of tracts adjoining those sold to the Dutch in the south- ern part of Westchester County. By these sales the Indians disposed of the entire area of Westchester County, except a few insignificant reser- vations and the right to plant corn upon certain portions for a term of
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