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

Munsee The Munsee () are a subtribe and one of the three divisions of the Lenape. Historically, they lived along the upper portion of the Delaware River, the Minisink, and the adjacent country in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They were prom ...

-speaking

Lenape The Lenape (, , ; ), also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. The Lenape's historica ...

who inhabited the westernmost end of

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

at the time the Dutch colonized

New Amsterdam New Amsterdam (, ) was a 17th-century Dutch Empire, 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 (trading post), fac ...

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

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

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

, 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(possibly from the Nyack Tract), who only utilized the very southern end of

island, the Manhattoes, as a hunting ground, who are credited with selling

Peter Minuit Peter Minuit (French language, French: ''Pierre Minuit'', Dutch language, Dutch: ''Peter Minnewit''; 1580 – August 5, 1638) was a Walloons, Walloon merchant and politician who was the 3rd Director of New Netherland, Director of the Dutch Nort ...

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 Wecquaesgeek, a Wappinger band of southwest Westchester County.

Red Hook Lane Heritage Trail

Red Hook Lane, a Canarsee path thru the marshland was in colonial times the main trail from Brooklyn Heights 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.

Explanatory notes

References

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