New York Quadricentennial Committee
We End at the Beginning, and it began 400 years ago, today.
Over the past three years, the New York Quadricentennial Committee has hosted a series of commemorations on the founding of New York City. With this post we end the three-year observance and enter into a new Campaign of Learning. For this dissertation, we cover the land use agreement for Manahatta, today’s Manhattan.
ESTABLISHMENT
New York City was established by the Dutch, as New Amsterdam, starting in 1624 and ending in 1626. It was in 1664, when it became New York, after the British took control of New Netherland, and renamed it after James, the Duke of York, who later became King James II of England.
New York City though, was not established in a year. It has been our assertion that the it took place over three years. The first year was 1624, when the Dutch West India Company brought 30 predominantly French Huguenot families on the ship New Netherland to establish one of the earliest Dutch settlements in America on Nutten (now Governors) Island. The second year, was 1625, when construction of Fort Amsterdam began a short distance from Nutten Island on Manahatta (now Manhattan Island) where the current Customs House on Bowling Green is now situated. The third year was 1626, with Peter Minuit negotiating with the Lenape for the right to use Manhattan Island, which led to permanent settlement.
NEGOTIATIONS
As history surmises, on 24 May 1624. a land use agreement between the Canarsee people reportedly represented by Sachem Seyseys and Dutch West India Company represented by Third Director of New Netherland Pieter Minuet was reached. The location was Inwood Hill Park. The Lenape called the northern tip of Manhattan Shorakapkok, which means “sitting-down place” in Munsee. Hence, it is logical that the Lenape and the Dutch gathered there, as they gathered in face-to-face discussions. What came out of those deliberations is of different views.
It is our conclusion, that the legendary agreement between the Lenape and Dutch had mixed interpretation leading to misinterpretation. It is our contention, that no formal translation, that is, no formal ”word-for-word” translation occurred between the Dutch and the Lenape, but “trade-jargon” was used. That implies that no detailed discussions occurred and agreements were general, in terms. It is evidence that there was no written treaty signed from the event.
It is understood that the Lenape have a very detailed accounting of their interactions with the early Dutch. Yet, while the Dutch kept detailed records, the outcome of the meeting was recounted in a 5 November 1626 Schaghen Letter stating that the Dutch “have purchased the Island Manhattes from the savages for the value of 60 guilders”, which is their record of the event.
OCCURRENCES
Since we have two non-aligned views of what happened on 24 May 1626, we can draw together several occurrences to assist in explaining the different viewpoints.
1. The Lenape believe in a harmonious and balanced existence with “Mother Earth”. It is in their eight laws. It is illogical, actually illegal, that the Lenape would enter into a binding treaty for land sales with the Dutch. However, the Lenape permitted the Dutch to occupy Manahatta.
2. Believing they had acquired Manahatta for the Dutch West India Company, the Dutch continued to settle the area and grew the trading post into a typical Dutch city. In order for the traders, merchants, soldiers, and other European residents to use the land, the Dutch West India Company would issue a “groundbrief” which gave them title to own, build upon, or farm, plots of land. Yet, on 24 June 1638, the Dutch West India Company allowed ownership to private citizens in order to energize a stagnant economy.
3. The convergence of Native Americans and the Europeans in Manahatta was the beginning of the greatest multi-cultural center in the world, known as today’s New York. The oddity though, was that the Dutch built a wall across the lower tip of today’s Manhattan to protect against the Native Americans and the British. Though there was continuous trade with the Lenape, the Dutch felt the need for protection.
4. With the advent of the Dutch settlement in Manahatta and at Fort Orange (today’s Albany), came the expansion of the settlement, as fur trade between the Dutch, Lenape and Iroquois grew. Fur and wood were sent back to Holland, both high-demand items.
5. The Dutch settlement divided the two English settlements in North America. Between the English colonies in New England and the Chesapeake, was the Dutch New Netherland grant. In order to unify their colonies, the British sent an armed force to New Amsterdam and offered terms. Director General Stuyvesant surrendered on 8 September 1664, and the British took control of New Netherland.
CAMPAIGN OF LEARNING
Our three-year Campaign of Learning commemorating the 400th Anniversary of the establishment of New York comes to an end today. We look back to the events we held and the history learned, and have found that a greater unity now exists between members of the Lenape and descendants of the early Dutch. We have a unique reestablishment of relations, on much better terms than what our ancestors had some four hundred years ago.
We have also learned of the myth of the “Purchase of Manhattan for 24 dollars”. What may just have occurred in the Spring of 1626, was a meeting, at the “sitting-down place”, where the newly arrived Director General Minuet met with Sachem Seyseys. Director General Minuet was determined to conclude a land use arrangement with the Lenape, and the meeting, ladened with trade goods, was in fact a diplomatic mission. We contend that D.G. Minuet had three goals for this engagement;
First, the Dutch West India Company was instructed by its Amsterdam Directors to purchase land from the Native Americans and not take it by force. The Dutch were already settling the area and without permission or purchase. D.G. Minuet was there to legitimize with the Lenape, the Dutch settlement, and in the Dutch culture and way of doing business, purchase the land.
Second, by engaging in what the Dutch saw as a formal purchase of the land, that established their claim so that the Dutch settlement was formally under Dutch control, and to be respected as Dutch property by the other European nations settling and colonizing in North America.
Third, New Netherland has settlers throughout the area. From today’s Connecticut, Hudson, and Delaware Rivers, families were scattered and vulnerable. Formally establishing New Amsterdam with the Lenape allowed the Dutch to consolidate and protect their settlers.
The motivation by the Lenape to enter into an agreement with the Dutch was for many reasons. There was much to gain by dealing with the Dutch, and the Lenape came to the Dutch with an outreach for peace. They saw advantage in entering a land use agreement with the Dutch.
First, the Lenape did not have the technology which the Dutch brought. The Dutch came with manufactured goods, such as kettles, ax heads, hoes, saws, drilling awes, knives, heavy wool, shirts, and many other European factory-made items.
Second, as we have discussed, the Lenape had a different concept of property ownership. As the Lenape discuss today, and as it was back then, all land belongs to the Creator. No one owned the land.
Third, the Lenape saw the Dutch establishment as a means of creating a strategic buffer to protect them from hostile tribes. With a long-term diplomatic arrangement with the Dutch, they could ally with them and could get weapons from the Dutch to protect themselves.
Hence, we re-imagine what occurred on 24 May 1626. Not what we have seen over the years, but more realistic as we understand what the Lenape’s recount, what we know from our history, and experience in tribal matters. We can understand that the two leaders engaged perhaps in “trade-talk” and came to an understanding that the Dutch were her to stay and they wanted to have use of the Lenapehoking. The Lenape agreed. Our conjecture is that the Lenape understood that another tribe, (the Dutch), were going to use the land, just as the Lenape arrange with other tribes. And we recognize that the Dutch walked away from the meeting understanding that they had purchased the land from the Lenape.
This seems logical from the Lenape, since there were normal diplomatic arrangements between tribes for use of lands for settlement, hunting, fishing, and farming, through their system of verbal agreements. It is also logical for the Dutch to understand that the had entered into a pact with the Iroquois for Fort Orange in 1613, called the Two Row Wampum or Guswenta. This was a diplomatic non-interference agreement for peaceful coexistence between the Dutch and the Iroquois in the Fort Orange are.
CONSEQUENCES
While, no accurate unified description of what occurred on that day exists, the consequences of have echoed over four centuries. They are in short; unkind and disastrous to the Lenape.
Based on historic accounting, we can establish that between 12,000 to 15,000 Lenape were directly displaced or perished from the Dutch settling in today’s New York. When the Dutch ships started arriving in the first quarter of the 17 th Century, there were about 15,000 to 20,000 Lenape living in today’s greater New Yor area. By the time the English took over in 1664, there were less than 3,000 Lenape which equates to a 75% reduction in the original people. Reportedly, the thousands of Lenape on Manhattan Island were reduced to 200 by 1700.
Ahead for the Lenape, as well as other Native American tribes, was an assault in European disease, such as the flu, plague, smallpox, measles, which the Lenape had no immunity for. As well as war between the Dutch and Lenape. Then came the exodus. The Lenape were forced from the homeland in today’s greater New York area to Pennsylvania and Delaware, then to Ohio and Indiana, them Missouri and Kansas and finally to Oklahoma and Canada. Over two centuries, the Lenape have been forced from their homeland. If done today, where a population was forcibly removed from its rightful homeland, it would be seen in international law as ethnic cleansing or genocide.
CONCLUDING
Four hundred years ago, allegedly on this day, New Amsterdam, later New York, was formally established in a land use agreement between the Dutch West India Company, and the Lenape tribe. The agreement was made for a multitude of reasons, as we have discussed. But the ramifications of this arrangement were catastrophic. First for the Lenape and then for the Dutch, and in actuality, a third time for the British. The Lenape lost their land to colonization. The Dutch lost their settlements to the British, and in turn the British lost their colonies to the Americans.
The lesson learned from this day, four hundred years ago, is simple; Beware to the conqueror, for one day, you will be the conquered.
