Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Gardiners Island: Native Agreement and English Manor

The 1639 agreement names Yovawan and Aswaw alongside Lion Gardiner. Later English grants asserted royal authority, inherited ownership and manor courts over this Native island homeland. Read the distinct steps and the living Native connections beyond the colonial title record. The history is more than a purchase date. Naming Yovawan and Aswaw, then tracing English grants of inheritance, trade and government, shows how colonial authority was layered over an existing Native homeland. The title record does not mean Native people or relationships disappeared. An island with Native names and relationships Gardiners Island lies in the bay between Long Island's two eastern forks, north of East Hampton. The 1639 agreement calls it Manchonat; later English grants also record Manchonack and rename it the Isle of Wight. These names place a Native homeland beneath the better-known English family...