The Long Island Indians And Their New England Ancestors

"The Long Island Indians and their New England Ancestors" This is my journey, my true ancestral lineage. Starting with my seventeenth, Narragansett Great Grandfather! This is the history of the Narragansett, Pequot, Mohegan and Wampanoag Indians and how they are related to my ancestors, of the Thirteen Tribes of Long Island.

Few people may realize that Long Island is still home to American Indians, the region’s original inhabitants. One of the oldest reservations in the United States—the Poospatuck Reservation—is located in Suffolk County, the densely populated eastern extreme of the greater New York area. The Unkechaug Indians, known also by the name of their reservation, are recognized by the State of New York but not by the federal government. This narrative account—written by a noted authority on the Algonquin peoples of Long Island—is the first comprehensive history of the Unkechaug Indians. Drawing on archaeological and documentary sources, John A. Strong traces the story of the Unkechaugs from their ancestral past, predating the arrival of Europeans, to the present day. He describes their first encounters with British settlers, who introduced to New England’s indigenous peoples guns, blankets, cloth, metal tools, kettles, as well as disease and alcohol. Although granted a large reservation in perpetuity, the Unkechaugs were, like many Indian tribes, the victims of broken promises, and their landholdings diminished from several thousand acres to fifty-five. Despite their losses, the Unkechaugs have persisted in maintaining their cultural traditions and autonomy by taking measures to boost their economy, preserve their language, strengthen their communal bonds, and defend themselves against legal challenges. In early histories of Long Island, the Unkechaugs figured only as a colorful backdrop to celebratory stories of British settlement. Strong’s account, which includes extensive testimony from tribal members themselves, brings the Unkechaugs out of the shadows of history and establishes a permanent record of their struggle to survive as a distinct community.

Although the Montaukett were among the first tribes to establish relations with the English in the seventeenth century, until now very little has been written about the evolution of their interaction with the settlers. John A. Strong, a noted authority on the Indians of New York State's Long Island, has written a concise history that focuses on the issue of land tenure in the relations between the English and the Montaukett. This study covers the period from the earliest contacts to the New York Appellate Court decision in 1917—which declared the tribe to be extinct—to their current battle for the federal recognition necessary to reclaim portions of their land. Strong also looks at related issues such as cultural assimilation, political and social tensions, and patterns of economic dependency among the Montaukett.

When the early colonists came to America, they were braving a new world, with new wonders and difficulties. Family historians beginning the search for their ancestors from this period run into a similar adventure, as research in the colonial period presents a number of exciting challenges that genealogists may not have experienced before. This book is the key to facing those challenges. This new book, Researching Your Colonial New England Ancestors, leads genealogists to a time when their forebears were under the rule of the English crown, blazing their way in that uncharted territory. Patricia Law Hatcher, FASG, provides a rich image of the world in which those ancestors lived and details the records they left behind. With this book in hand, family historians will be ready to embark on a journey of their own, into the unexplored lines of their colonial past.

Confounding the Color Line is an essential, interdisciplinary introduction to the myriad relationships forged for centuries between Indians and Blacks in North America.øSince the days of slavery, the lives and destinies of Indians and Blacks have been entwined-thrown together through circumstance, institutional design, or personal choice. Cultural sharing and intermarriage have resulted in complex identities for some members of Indian and Black communities today. The contributors to this volume examine the origins, history, various manifestations, and long-term consequences of the different connections that have been established between Indians and Blacks. Stimulating examples of a range of relations are offered, including the challenges faced by Cherokee freedmen, the lives of Afro-Indian whalers in New England, and the ways in which Indians and Africans interacted in Spanish colonial New Mexico. Special attention is given to slavery and its continuing legacy, both in the Old South and in Indian Territory. The intricate nature of modern Indian-Black relations is showcased through discussions of the ties between Black athletes and Indian mascots, the complex identities of Indians in southern New England, the problem of Indian identity within the African American community, and the way in which today's Lumbee Indians have creatively engaged with African American church music. At once informative and provocative, Confounding the Color Line sheds valuable light on a pivotal and not well understood relationship between these communities of color, which together and separately have affected, sometimes profoundly, the course of American history.

A concise history of the Indians said to have sold Manhattan for $24 The Indian sale of Manhattan is one of the world's most cherished legends. Few people know that the Indians who made the fabled sale were Munsees whose ancestral homeland lay between the lower Hudson and upper Delaware river valleys. The story of the Munsee people has long lain unnoticed in broader histories of the Delaware Nation. First Manhattans, a concise and lively distillation of the author's comprehensive The Munsee Indians, resurrects the lost history of this forgotten people, from their earliest contacts with Europeans to their final expulsion just before the American Revolution. Anthropologist Robert S. Grumet rescues from obscurity Mattano, Tackapousha, Mamanuchqua, and other Munsee sachems whose influence on Dutch and British settlers helped shape the course of early American history in the mid-Atlantic heartland. He looks past the legendary sale of Manhattan to show for the first time how Munsee leaders forestalled land-hungry colonists by selling small tracts whose vaguely worded and bounded titles kept courts busy—and settlers out—for more than 150 years. Ravaged by disease, war, and alcohol, the Munsees finally emigrated to reservations in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Ontario, where most of their descendants still live today. With the four hundredth anniversary of Hudson's voyage to the river that bears his name, this book shows how Indians and settlers struggled, through land deals and other transactions, to reconcile cultural ideals with political realities. It offers a wide audience access to the most authoritative treatment of the Munsee experience—one that restores this people to their place in history.

This first of two volumes is a collection of articles on New England Native American genealogy, history, and culture that are have appeared in the Register or American Ancestors magazine (formerly New England Ancestors) from 1854 to the present. Articles cover topics such as Black and Native people of Old Braintree, Mass.; William of Sudbury; King Philip; Indians in colonial courts; DNA studies on the family of Edmund Rice; the Brotherton Indian Collection; Jos. Daggett of Martha's Vineyard; and Nantucket court records.