Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

East Fire Island: Native Coastal Homeland and Changing Land Control

East Fire Island sits within a living Native coastal homeland. English colonial claims and later federal ownership show changing forms of control over the bay; public conservation did not itself return land or jurisdiction to Native people. A colonial patent and a public park inventory record different claims to land. Reading them alongside Native continuance prevents government conservation from being mistaken for Indigenous land return. A bay island, not the ocean beach East Fire Island lies in Great South Bay, east of West Fire Island and north of the outer barrier near Ocean Beach. It is a separate island, not the eastern end of the long Fire Island barrier. Its marshes belong to the connected coastal landscape through which people traveled, gathered food and sustained relationships. Fire Island Draft General Management Plan / Environmental Impact Statement: Map 3-C, Transportation...