Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Montaukett Ancestral Land

Montaukett Ancestral Land is the homeland of the Indigenous Montaukett people of eastern Long Island. Montaukett history connects the Montauk peninsula, neighboring Native communities, Algonquian language traditions, coastal knowledge, diplomacy, fishing and whaling, land defense and dispossession, survival, and continued community identity. Montaukett Ancestral Land is a living homeland story, not only an East End place name. It connects language, fortified high land, shoreline movement, leadership, land loss, and continued Montaukett presence. In 1910, a New York court wrongly claimed the Montaukett Nation no longer existed while Montaukett people were still present and contesting the loss of their lands. That ruling stripped away state recognition and helped legitimize dispossession, but it did not end Montaukett identity, kinship, or political advocacy. Montaukett people continue to...