Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Islip: Colonial Estates and Continuing Native Rights

William Nicoll’s 1683 agreement retained Native residence, planting and fishing rights on land he had not developed. English patents strengthened private estate claims, but Native residents remained. Islip’s separate estates show why a deed, a colonial patent and a town are different parts of land-loss history. The English deed itself retained Native rights, while later patents strengthened a private estate. Reading those records alongside evidence of Native residents in 1798 challenges the idea that paper ownership meant people or their relationships with the land had vanished. Land agreements did not mean Native people disappeared The November 29, 1683 agreement between Winnaquaheagh and William Nicoll contains two kinds of rights. Its English legal language records a land claim for Nicoll and his successors. It also permits Winnaquaheagh and his heirs to live, plant, hunt, fowl and...