Opening from On This Site - Native Long Island

Secatogues

Secatogue is used in older sources for a south-shore Native community and place-name region east of Massapequa. Its history belongs with tidal creeks, Great South Bay travel, fishing and shellfish places, kinship, neighboring communities, regional diplomacy, and colonial land pressure. The Secatogue people historically maintained numerous thriving village sites along the tidal creeks flowing into the Great South Bay, where they actively harvested the region's rich marine resources. Recognizing their deep connection to this "dark colored land" demonstrates how early Indigenous communities built complex, sustainable economies uniquely adapted to Long Island's specific coastal ecosystems. Seventeenth-century records place Secatogue within a wider western Long Island political landscape. Tackapousha appears in Dutch records as an alliance figure connected with Massapequa and neighboring...