Sapohanikan was a Lenape settlement of the

Canarsee 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 ...

now located in close proximity to where

Gansevoort Street Gansevoort may refer to any one of the following: __NOTOC__ People * Guert Gansevoort (1812–1868), US Navy officer *Harmen Harmense Gansevoort (ca. 1634–1709), early American settler, landowner and beer brewer *Leonard Gansevoort (1751–1810), ...

meets Washington Street near the

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 ...

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 ...

. The people of the settlement were violently displaced under

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 ...

Governor

Wouter van Twiller Wouter van Twiller (May 22, 1606 – buried August 29, 1654) was an employee of the Dutch West India Company and the fourth Director of New Netherland. He governed from 1632 until 1638, succeeding Peter Minuit, who was recalled by the Dutch ...

in the 1630s, who operated a tobacco plantation for the Dutch West India Company. In the colony of

New Netherland 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 ...

, the area that is now

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

was commonly referred to as ''Sapokanikan'' up until the beginnings of

British rule The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was hims ...

. The area of the settlement was referred to in historical records as Sapohanikan in 1639, as Sappokanican in 1640, and as Sapokanikan and Saponickan in 1641.

Etymology

The settlement name may have been derived from the Lenape language word ''Awasopoakanichan'' "over against the pipe-making place," a remnant of the name ''Hopoakanhaking'', "at the tobacco-pipe land."

History

Pre-colonial

Sapohanikan was one of at least eighty Lenape habitation sites that have since been identified by archaeologists in the area now occupied by the five boroughs of New York City. In this area also resided over two dozen planting fields as well as the pathways that interconnected these settlements. Nearby villages included

Nechtanc Nechtanc ("sandy point") was a Lenape settlement of the Canarsee located in what is now Two Bridges, Manhattan or the Lower East Side where the East River begins to turn north. In 1643, the settlement was the site of a massacre of Lenape people, ...

to the southwest at the mouth of the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Quee ...

and Konaande Kongh to the northwest. The settlement was a cultivated fishing and planting site that could be found along an extensive series of paths leading west toward the banks of the

. The name derived from the Lenape word for

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

, which was likely cultivated there, given that cultivated areas surrounded the settlement's immediate vicinity. Sapohanikan may have been seasonal and was possibly important for oyster harvesting.

Destruction

In the early 1630s, Sapohanikan became increasingly encroached upon by the Dutch settlement of Noortwyck ("north village"). In 1633, the outskirts of Sapohanikan were transformed into a tobacco plantation by

Governor

, who titled it the ''Bossen Bouwerie'' ("the farm in the woods"). Van Twiller was known as an "insatiable grabber of land from the Indians" who drove the residents of Sapohanikan out of the area with "intermittent, bloody warfare." Van Twiller's plantation soon expanded to 300 acres, extending from

Minetta Waters Minetta Creek was one of the largest natural watercourses in Manhattan, New York City, United States. Minetta Creek was fed from two tributaries, one originating at Fifth Avenue and 21st Street, and the other originating at Sixth Avenue and 16th ...

(now buried under

) to the Hudson River. The plantation was, in name, for the Dutch West India Company, but most of the profits were held by Van Twiller. Van Twiller's ''Bossen Bouwerie'' grew its operations in the 1640s. The purchase and sale of land at this plantation between Dutch landowners being recorded several times in official records as the "plantation at Sapokanikan." Nearby Dutch farms were established in the area, neighboring the Bossen Bouwerie, such as the Farm of Coseyn in 1647, which was recorded as being situated along ''Sapokanikan'' wagon road. In the 1670s, Noortwyck was officially renamed Greenwijk ("Pine District") after Yellis Mandeville purchased land in the area. In Mandeville's will, the region was recorded as Greenwich Village in 1696. The usage of ''Sapokanikan'' to refer to the area ceased with the growth of Greenwich under

. The fertile area around what had been Sapohanikan soon became the site of large estates.

Memorialization attempt

In 2001, there was a proposal to the

Hudson River Park Trust Hudson River Park is a waterfront park on the North River (Hudson River) that extends from 59th Street south to Battery Park in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The park, a component of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway, stretches and ...

to name a park at 14th street ''Sapohanikan''. No formal recognition of the area as Sapohanikan Park was given. As of 2022, this park is referred to as the ''14th Street Park'' on the Hudson River Park website. The artist

Beatriz Cortez Beatriz Cortez is a Los Angeles-based artist and scholar from El Salvador. In 2017, Cortez was featured in a science fiction-themed exhibit at University of California, Riverside, and in 2018, her work was shown in the ''Made in L.A.'' group artis ...

is the creator of ''Sapohanikan Market'', a monument at

Gansevoort Market The Meatpacking District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan that runs from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street. The Meatpacking Business Improvement District along ...

Popular culture

Joanna Newsom's album ''Divers'' (2015) features a song "Sapokanikan," which was the lead single from the album. The song speaks to the changing landscape of

and how this relates to memory over time. The music video for the song has reached over 4 million views on YouTube.{{Cite news , title=Songs We Love: Joanna Newsom, 'Sapokanikan' , language=en , work=NPR.org , url=https://www.npr.org/2015/08/20/432854809/songs-we-love-joanna-newsom-sapokanikan , access-date=2022-12-17

References

Former Native American populated places in the United States History of Manhattan New Netherland Dutch West India Company Lenape people