Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

East River Company Claim / Early Bushwick (1638)

A 1638 agreement with named Native leaders gave the Dutch West India Company a claim along the East River. Company grants and later town-building changed control of a homeland now within Greenpoint and Williamsburg. A deed date alone hides the people, unequal power and consequences involved. Read the promises and removal demands alongside Native perspectives and continuing Lenape presence. The Native landscape behind the later town name The East River shore and the creeks toward Wallabout and Newtown belonged to a lived Native landscape. The 1638 record describes waterways and woods rather than a grid of city streets. The people named in it were dealing with places that supported their communities; the colonial name Bushwick and today’s neighborhoods came later. Early Colonial Settlements: Native land agreements in Brooklyn Who made the agreement, and who received the claim? The...