Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Plum Island: Competing Claims and a Continuing Montaukett Voice

Wyandanch, Samuel Wyllys, Southold townsmen and English governor Edmund Andros appear in competing claims to Plum Island. The history continues in the Montaukett Indian Nation’s call to participate in decisions about the island’s future. Who gets to decide what happens to a homeland? Colonial deeds, town divisions, manor authority and federal ownership changed control of Plum Island. The Montaukett Indian Nation’s call for consultation shows why conservation planning must also reckon with Native relationships and authority. A Native island at the meeting of the waters Plum Island lies just across Plum Gut from Orient Point, at the eastern end of Long Island's North Fork. It is part of a connected landscape of islands, shorelines and travel routes. The existing Manittuwond place-name article provides another entry into that Native geography. The later record of deeds and patents should be...