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Manhattoe/Manhattoes is a term describing a place and, mistakenly, a people. The location was the very southern tip of the
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 ...
island during the time of the
Dutch colonization of the Americas
The Netherlands began its colonization of the Americas with the establishment of trading posts and plantations, which preceded the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch East Indies, Dutch in Asia. While the first Dutch fort in Asia ...
at what became
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 ...
there. The people were a band 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 ...
known as the
Weckquaesgeek
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 the ...
, native to an area further north in what is now
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 o ...
, who controlled the upper three-quarters of the island as a hunting ground.
As was common practice early in the days of European settlement of North America, a people came to be associated with a place, with its name displacing theirs among the settlers and those associated with them, such as explorers, mapmakers, trading company superiors who sponsored many of the early settlements, and officials in the settlers' mother country in Europe.
Because of this early conflation there is enduring confusion over whether "Manhattoe/Manhattoes" were a ''people'' or a ''place''. There is certainty it was a place, at the very tip of Manhattan Island, so referred to by the Dutch,
[Letter from Stephen Goodyear to Peter Stuyvesant, 19 July, 1652]
addressed to him at "The Manhattoes", ''Correspondence 1647-1653'', Charles Gehring, The New Netherlands Institute, p. 189[''The Standards of the Manhattoes, Pavonia, and Hell-Gate'']
David B. Martucci, 2011, p. 786 who evidently inherited the Native American name for the spot they chose to place their settlement (rather than named it after a people already living there, as the island was not permanently inhabited at the time of their 1609 arrival nor
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 N ...
's subsequent purchase of it from the
Canarse
The Canarsee (also Canarse and Canarsie) were a band of Munsee-speaking Lenape who inhabited the westernmost end of Long Island at the time the Dutch colonized New Amsterdam in the 1620s and 1630s.
They are credited with selling the island of Man ...
Indians
[ for $24 in 1639).
Period accounts maintain that Manhattan island was used as a hunting ground by two tribes, the Canarse (Canarsee, or Canarsie) of today's ]Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
at its southern one-quarter and the Weckquaesgeek the rest, each having no more than temporary camps for hunting parties.
Manhattoes/Manhattans (place)
Manhattoes was the name of a Dutch settlement in New Netherlands
New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva P ...
in the early decades of their settlement there in the 1600s.[ Located at the very southern tip of today's Manhattan Island, it was known by the native term by both the Dutch and the English who wished to displace them. Fort Nieuw Amsterdam was built in 1627, but the common name held fast. Eventually, by the time of the incorporation of the settlement, the fort's name displaced the original, and "Manhattoes" became Nieuw Amsterdam in 1653.][
The terms Manhattans and Manhatans were also used for the Manhattoes by some Dutch, giving rise to Manhattan island's contemporary name and conflation with a people (the Wecquaeskgeek) who neither occupied that part of the island nor went by that name.
]
Manhattoe/Manhattan (people)
Manhattoe, also Manhattan, was a name erroneously given to a Native American people of the lower Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
, the Weckquaesgeek
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 the ...
, a 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 ...
band which occupied the southwestern part of today's 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 o ...
. In the early days of Dutch settlement they utilized the upper three-quarters of Manhattan Island
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 ...
"Brooks, ponds, swamps, and marshes characterized other portions of the island of the 'Manhattoes'"
''The Memorial History of the City of New York,'' James Grant Wilson, New York, 1892 as a hunting grounds.
The people - Wecquaesgeek - became conflated with a place - the Manhattoes, regardless that it was the only part of the island they did not occupy. Over time that term became "Manhattan" and "Manhattans" for those who hunted the vast majority of the island, as well as the name of the island.
Notes
References
See also
* 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 ...
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Algonquian ethnonyms
Algonquian peoples
Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands
Native American history of New York (state)
Native American tribes in New York (state)
People of New Netherland