Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Brookhaven: Expanding Claims and Retained Native Land

Brookhaven’s colonial claim expanded through purchases and patents across Setalcott and Unkechaug homelands. The records also promise planting land and resource rights to Native families and their heirs. Land loss was a process involving agreements, contested claims, colonial institutions and restrictions on Native access. Read the actors, obligations and continuing communities together; a broad outline does not mean every Native right ended on one date. Two shores, several transactions Brookhaven spans the north and south shores of central Long Island. Its colonial boundaries brought together lands associated with Setalcott and Unkechaug people; they were not one empty tract transferred on a single date. The initial English settlement at Setauket in 1655 was much smaller than the later town. Further agreements and colonial patents expanded the claim. Growth of Brookhaven A patent...