Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Montauk Auction Landscape (1879)

In 1879, a court-ordered auction transferred the Montauk proprietors’ holdings to Brooklyn businessman Arthur Benson. Montaukett families still held rights in their homeland. The sale was followed by pressure to leave Indian Fields, broken promises, and a long struggle over land and recognition. A colonial land record describes a claim made at a particular time. Read its conditions and the people affected alongside the map; an outlined claim is not proof that Native relationships or rights ended. A homeland before it was an auction lot Montauk is the eastern end of Long Island and a living Montaukett homeland. Indian Fields and North Neck were places of family life, planting, fishing and gathering. English settlers in East Hampton sought grazing land here as their livestock economy expanded. Agreements over land and pasture gradually restricted Montaukett use without ending the...