Canarsie

Introduction

The ‘Canarsie‘ Indians were the original inhabitants of what is now the Brooklyn borough, extending eastward to take in part of the town of Jamaica. Their language was more comparable to those living in nearby Manhattan and New Jersey known as the Lenape.

Europeans first contact the Canarsie in the early 1600s.

History

The Indians of Brooklyn probably never had a common name for themselves beyond the term Lenape, “people.” Indians living in Brooklyn generally identified themselves with their place of residence rather than as members of a tribe or confederacy. Thus, a person was a Nayack while living at Nayack village at today’s Fort Hamilton, a Marechkawieck while residing in what is now Brooklyn Heights, and a Canarsie when at that locale. ¹

Being so near Manhattan Island, it is certain that they had frequent contact with the Indians living there, and there is some evidence that they had a settlement near the southern tip of that Island.

It is thought that the Canarsie were obliged to pay a regular tribute of wampum and dried clams to representatives of the Iroquois Indians and when they refused to do so on one occasion, at the advice of the whites, a part of warriors descended upon them with disastrous consequences.

Within the territory occupied by the Canarsies there was evidently another small chieftaincy, called the Marechkewicks, that migrated to the east shortly after the arrival of the settlers and took up residence on the south shore of the Island in the territory of the Massapequas, to whom they are said to have been compelled to pay tribute.

Other leaders include Penhawitz, Mattano, and Tackapousha. Brooklyn Indian towns were known as Marechkawieck, Keschaechquereren, and Nayack. ¹

1621-1626

Wealthy merchants chartered the Dutch West India Company in 1621 to both settle the region and trade furs with the Indians. Company employees erected Fort Amsterdam, the first permanent European settlement on Manhattan in 1626.

Relations between Indians and colonists in Brooklyn initially were peaceful. Long accustomed to trade, Indians exchanged furs, food, and tubular shell beads known as wampum for such desirable European manufactures as guns, metal knives, axes, needles, woolens, glass beads, beer, wine, and liquor. Relations, however, soon deteriorated.

As fur bearing animals around New Amsterdam disappeared, the coastal fur trade collapsed. At the same time, European colonists, having learned to grow their own food, cast envious eyes on Indian lands. To make matters worse, the Dutch attempted to tax Indians living around New Amsterdam and passed laws prohibiting trade of guns and alcohol to them while continuing their trade to their Mahican and Iroquois enemies.

Far more devastating, however, were the epidemics. Smallpox, measles, and other epidemic diseases introduced by Europeans killed thousands of Indian people throughout the region. By 1640, the Indians of Brooklyn were ravaged by disease, impoverished by the collapse of their trade with the Europeans and forced to sell large portions of their ancestral lands.

They were angered by what they considered inequitable Dutch laws that extorted corn from them, put guns into the hands of their enemies, and left them defenseless against attacks from musket wielding Mahicans, Mohawks, or Europeans.

1640

War finally broke out when Dutch troops attacked an Indian village on Staten Island in 1640.

At first, many Brooklyn Indians, along with other tribes, aided the Dutch in their war against the Staten Island Indians and their allies. However, a series of events during the winter of 1642-43 caused all of the Indians in the region to turn against the Dutch of New Netherland.

It began when hundreds of Indians from the region fled to the protection of Fort Amsterdam following an attack by a force of ninety musket bearing Mahican warriors. At first welcomed by Dutch settlers, the Indian refugees, many of whom were from Brooklyn, huddled in camps at Corlear’s Hook in lower Manhattan and Pavonia, now Jersey City. Governor General Willem Kieft, however, regarded the defenseless state of the refugees as an ideal opportunity to avenge several unresolved murders allegedly committed by some Indians.

Acting on his orders, Dutch soldiers mounted surprise attacks upon both camps on the night of February 24, 1643. At least 120 Indians were massacred.

1643-1645

This attack led to a general outbreak of fighting today known as Governor Kieft’s War. Outraged Indian warriors devastated Dutch settlements throughout the lower Hudson River Valley. Many hundreds of native people were killed in subsequent attacks by Dutch and English soldiers and militiamen upon Indian villages in Westchester, Hempstead, and Massapequa.

Stunned by their losses, the Indians sued for peace on August 30, 1645. Exhausted by the struggle and happy to see the war end, neither side demanded reparations or land concessions in the peace treaty

1640-1650s

Hundreds of native people, including many living in Brooklyn, had been killed in wars during the 1640s and 1650s. Most colonists, moreover, regarded Indians with disdain and took every opportunity to cheat, defraud, and exploit them.

1680s

Thirty years later, new waves of epidemic disease and rapidly expanding European settlements forced them to sell the last of their ancestral territories in the borough.

Post Contact and Contemporary Time

Despite these difficulties, the Indian cultures observed by Danckaerts maintained their vitality. Combining European tools with ancient traditions, many Brooklyn Indians worked to respond creatively to the challenges posed by the European invasion. Living at the very heart of colonial expansion into the region, Indian people in Brooklyn struggled to preserve their cultural integrity and adapt to rapidly changing conditions even as they lost their homeland. Guided by the wisdom of chiefs and elders while taking strength from their heritage, they endured dispossession and exile to survive into the present day. ²

1.  New World Encounters Jasper Danckaerts’ View of Indian Life in 17th Century Brooklyn – Canarsie history pp. 1[↩][↩]
2.  New World Encounters Jasper Danckaerts’ View of Indian Life in 17th Century Brooklyn – Canarsie history pp. 3[↩]

Land Loss

Dutch colonist Danckaerts came across the Indians of Brooklyn just before new waves of epidemic disease and rapidly expanding European settlements forced them to sell the last of their ancestral territories in the borough. Thirty years earlier, hundreds of native people, including many living in Brooklyn, had been killed in wars during the 1640s and 1650s. Most colonists, moreover, regarded Indians with disdain and took every opportunity to cheat, defraud, and exploit them.

Though continuously pressed to sell their lands, Brooklyn Indians managed to limit the number of acres sold to Europeans from the first land sales in 1636 up to the end of Governor Kieft’s War. Massive migrations of new colonists to the borough immediately following the end of hostilities, however, compelled most Brooklyn Indians to sell their remaining lands by 1679.

Forced to surrender sovereignty over these lands, they did not, however, stop living upon them. As Danckaerts ¹ observed, many native people continued to inhabit otherwise unoccupied portions of land in Brooklyn for many years following their sale.

1.  New World Encounters Jasper Danckaerts’ View of Indian Life in 17th Century Brooklyn – Canarsie history pp. 3[↩]

Legends and Lore

“He first drew a circle, a little oval, to which he made four paws or feet, a head and a tail. ‘This,” said he, ‘is a tortoise, lying in the water around it.’”

So began Tantaqua, an Indian chief, when Danckaerts asked him to tell the Indian story of the world’s creation.

Tantaqua and Hans, both Indians living in New Jersey with close relatives in Brooklyn, told Danckaerts how the first man and woman grew from a great tree that sprouted from the world which grew upon the turtle’s back. This account is one of the earliest known versions of the origin tradition told by many Northeastern Woodlands Indians.

Danckaerts also was told of Kickerom, the supreme being, and lesser spirits known as Menitto. Frequently thought to have human faces, their images often appeared in the Indian art of the region. Menitto conferred special powers and protection upon those who sought them in fasting, prayer, visions, and dreams. They also controlled all plants, animals, and natural forces.

Interested in the way medicine men communicated with spirits, Danckaerts wrote of a man who fell into a trance during a dance at Gowanus.

Watching the man sweat and gasp on the ground, Danckaerts observed that he regained consciousness to “tell the gathering what menitto had told them and what they must do.” ¹

1.  New World Encounters Jasper Danckaerts’ View of Indian Life in 17th Century Brooklyn – Canarsie history pp. 12[↩]

Language & Translation

Canarsie may translate to “the fenced place.”

Many scholars believe that the Indians living around New York Harbor spoke Munsee, a dialect of an Algonquian language known as Delaware. The ancestral homeland of the Delaware people stretched along the Middle Atlantic seaboard from New York Harbor south to Delaware Bay.

Munsee speakers lived in the northern part of the Delaware homeland from Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau westward across northern New Jersey and downstate New York to the upper Delaware River valley. ¹

1.  New World Encounters Jasper Danckaerts’ View of Indian Life in 17th Century Brooklyn – Canarsie history pp. 1[↩]

Colonial Description

The Canarsie were among the Indians encountered by Henry Hudson’s crew, in 1609, and described by his mate, Robert Juet.

Jasper Danckaerts and His Journal

Scholars have unearthed a great deal of information concerning Indian life in greater New York. Little, however, was known about the Indians of Brooklyn until Henry C. Murphy, a founder of The Brooklyn Historical Society ¹, acquired Jasper Danckaerts’ Journal of a Voyage to New York and a Tour in Several of the American Colonies in 1679-80 from an Amsterdam book dealer in 1864.

Danckaerts was a member of a communal Protestant sect known as the Labadists. Accompanied by Peter Sluyter, he came to New York in search of land for a religious colony. His journal had lain undiscovered for nearly 200 years when Murphy purchased it. Murphy’s translation of the document, the first book published by the Society, appeared in 1867. It has since become an important source for the history of the region.

Murphy’s original translation has been used in the many editions of Danckaerts’ journal published since 1867. Charles T. Gehring, a linguist specializing in the study of the 17th-century Dutch language, recently re-translated portions of the manuscript as part of the planning phase of the current exhibition. He found that many of Murphy’s translations were inaccurate and biased. More significantly, fifteen pages of the journal omitted by Murphy for having “no especial value” were valuable indeed. The previously neglected extracts contain unique information concerning Indian diplomacy, warfare, religion, and other aspects of native life in Brooklyn and the surrounding region.

Danckaerts recorded a remarkably detailed account of Brooklyn Indian life. Recalling his impressions of native people encountered during his travels, he wrote that “they are intense in everything they do; they penetrate matters thoroughly and speak only when appropriate.” Reserving his most scathing criticism for other Christians, Danckaerts regarded native people with pity and amused tolerance. He was among the few European observers to express outrage at the mistreatment of Indians by colonists. His recitation of settlers’ sins, however, was not entirely inspired by a love for native people. Passionately self-righteous and frequently intolerant, Danckaerts believed that such injustices were evidence of the depravity of Protestants who did not share his Labadist sentiments.

Danckaerts came among the Indians of Brooklyn just before new waves of epidemic disease and rapidly expanding European settlements forced them to sell the last of their ancestral territories in the borough. ²

By 1680, Danckaerts recorded that,

“there are not even 1110th of the Indians left (not even 1120th or 1130th) and the Europeans are 20 and 30 times as many.”

At the same time, Danckaerts chronicled the survival of a remarkably tenacious people. His descriptions of Indian religion, house life, and diplomacy are unique. They remain the most complete observations of the original inhabitants of Brooklyn while still an independent people residing in their own homeland. As such, Danckaerts’ journal provides a tantalizing glimpse into the culture of the Brooklyn Indians.

1. formerly The Long Island Historical Society[↩]
2.  New World Encounters Jasper Danckaerts’ View of Indian Life in 17th Century Brooklyn – Canarsie history pp. 3[↩]