The Canarsee (also Canarse and Canarsie) were a band of

Munsee The Munsee (or Minsi or Muncee) or mə́n'si·w ( del, Monsiyok)Online Lenape Talking Dictionary, "Munsee Indians"Link/ref> are a subtribe of the Lenape, originally constituting one of the three great divisions of that nation and dwelling along ...

-speaking

Lenape The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory inclu ...

who inhabited the westernmost end of

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...

at the time the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

colonized

New Amsterdam New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam, or ) was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''factory'' gave rise ...

in the 1620s and 1630s. They are credited with selling the island of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

to the Dutch, even though they only occupied its lower reaches, with the balance the seasonal hunting grounds of the

Wecquaesgeek The Wecquaesgeek (also Manhattoe and Manhattan) were a Munsee-speaking band of Wappinger people who once lived along the east bank of the Hudson River in the southwest of today's Westchester County, New York,Their presence on the east bank of th ...

of the

Wappinger The Wappinger () were an Eastern Algonquian Munsee-speaking Native American people from what is now southern New York and western Connecticut. At the time of first contact in the 17th century they were primarily based in what is now Dutches ...

people to the north."The $24 Swindle"
Nathaniel Benchley, ''American Heritage'', 1959, Vol 11, Issue 1 The Canarsee were among the peoples who were conflated with other Long Island bands into a group called the

Metoac Metoac is an erroneous term used by some to group together the Munsee-speaking Lenape (west), Quiripi-speaking Unquachog (center) and Pequot-speaking Montaukett (east) American Indians on what is now Long Island in New York state. The term wa ...

, an aggregation which failed to recognize their linguistic differences and varying tribal affinities.

Name

As was common practice early in the days of white European colonisation of North America, a people came to be associated with a place, with its name displacing theirs among the colonies and those associated with them, such as explorers, mapmakers, trading company superiors who sponsored many of the early settlements, and officials in the colonizers' mother country in Europe. This was the case of the "Canarsee" people, whose name, to the extent they identified with one, is lost in history.

Sale of Manhattan

It is the "Canarse" ic who only utilized the very southern end of

island, the

Manhattoes Manhattoe/Manhattoes is a term describing a place and, mistakenly, a people. The location was the very southern tip of the Manhattan island during the time of the Dutch colonization of the Americas at what became New Amsterdam there. The people w ...

, as a hunting ground, who are credited with selling

Peter Minuit Peter Minuit (between 1580 and 1585 – August 5, 1638) was a Wallonian merchant from Tournai, in present-day Belgium. He was the 3rd Director of the Dutch North American colony of New Netherland from 1626 until 1631, and 3rd Governor of New ...

the entirety of the island for $24 in 1639. A confusion of possession on the part of the Canarsees who failed to tell the Dutch that the balance of island was the hunting ground of the

, a

band of southwest

Westchester County Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population ...

Red Hook Lane Heritage Trail

Red Hook Lane, a Carnesee path thru the marshland was in colonial times the main trail from

Brooklyn Heights Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge on the north, Cadman Plaza West on the east, Atlantic Avenue on the south, ...

to Red Hook. The Red Hook Lane Heritage Trail in Red Hook marks in a zig-zag fashion where the old indian trail was to Cypress Tree Island. It begins at the Red Hook Lane Arresick.

Notes

References

{{authority control Native American tribes in New York (state) Eastern Algonquian peoples Extinct Native American tribes Algonquian ethnonyms People of New Netherland Nassau County, New York