Total population | |
---|---|
unknown, descendants are part of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Wisconsin, formerly Hudson Valley | |
Related ethnic groups | |
other Lenape people |
The Esopus (es-SOAP-es) [1] was a tribe of Lenape (Delaware) Native Americans who were native to the Catskill Mountains of what is now the Hudson Valley. Their lands included modern-day Ulster and Sullivan counties.
The Lenape originally resided in the Delaware River Valley before their territory extended into parts of modern-day New York (including the Catskill Mountains and Lower Hudson River Valley), Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Eastern Delaware. The exact population of the Lenape is unknown but estimated to have been around 10,000 people in 1600. [2] The Esopus people spoke an Algonquin dialect known as Munsee.
The tribe generally lived in small communities consisting of 10 to 100 people. They traveled seasonally and settled mostly in clearings by sources of water, developing diverse agricultural practices. The Esopus people's main crop was corn, but also planted or foraged beans, squash, hickory, nuts, and berries in addition to hunting elk, deer, rabbits, turkey, raccoons, waterfowl, bears, and fish. They generally ate two meals a day according to what was seasonally available. [3]
The average lifespan was generally 35 to 40 years old. Sachems or chiefs were temporary power holders meant to make decisions based on the well-being of the tribe, and although there were definite gendered roles within the tribal community, there was no sense of patriarchal structure. [3]
The first believed interaction between colonists and the Esopus people was recorded in 1609. Historian Herbert C. Kraft believes some Esopus joined with some Wappinger people after Kieft's War in 1643. [4]
In 1652, the Esopus tribe sold 72 acres of land to European colonists through the Thomas Chambers land deed in Kingston, New York. It is unknown whether the two Esopus sachems at the time, Kawachhikan and Sowappekat, understood the transaction, as in addition to a language barrier, their culture had foundational differences in understanding money, ownership, and legal transactions. This deed began centuries of dispossession which continued through the Fisher/Rutgers Land Deed of 1899 and the Peter Stuyvesant Stockade. [5] [6]
The tribe fought a series of conflicts against settlers from the New Netherland colony from September 1659 to September 1663, known as the Esopus Wars, in and around Kingston. At the conclusion of the conflict, the tribe sold large tracts of land to French Huguenot refugees in New Paltz and other communities. [7]
The Esopus Wars devastated many Lenape communities in what is now Ulster County. Populations dwindled through warfare with Dutch and French settlers, in addition to widespread disease, with smallpox being the most deadly. Intertribal warfare exacerbated casualties. [7]
After the Esopus wars, many Stockbridge-Munsee moved to Western New York near Oneida Lake. They were eventually pushed off these lands by the Indian Removal Treaties in the 19th century, and eventually forced to settle on “inhospitable land” in Wisconsin by the 1830s. [2]
Today, descendants of the Esopus now live on the Stockbridge-Munsee Community reservation in Shawano County, Wisconsin and among the Munsee-Delaware Nation of Ontario, Canada.
Ulster County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. It is situated along the Hudson River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 181,851. The county seat is Kingston. The county is named after the Irish province of Ulster. The county is part of the Hudson Valley region of the state.
The Mohicans are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, whose indigenous territory was to the south as far as the Atlantic coast. The Mohican lived in the upper tidal Hudson River Valley, including the confluence of the Mohawk River and into western New England centered on the upper Housatonic River watershed. After 1680, due to conflicts with the powerful Mohawk to the west during the Beaver Wars, many were driven southeastward across the present-day Massachusetts western border and the Taconic Mountains to Berkshire County around Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Wallkill is a hamlet, generally identified as coterminous with ZIP code 12589, telephone exchange 895 in the 845 area code and most of the Wallkill Central School District located mostly in the eastern half of the town of Shawangunk, Ulster County, New York, United States, but partly spilling over into adjacent regions of the Orange County towns of Newburgh and Montgomery. The population was 2,166 at the 2020 census.
The Lenape, also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada.
The Ramapough Mountain Indians, known also as the Ramapough Lenape Nation or Ramapough Lunaape Munsee Delaware Nation or Ramapo Mountain people, are a group of approximately 5,000 people living in and around the Ramapo Mountains of Bergen and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey and Rockland County in southern New York, about 25 miles (40 km) from New York City. They were recognized in 1980 by the state of New Jersey as the Ramapough Lenape Nation but are not recognized federally. Their tribal office is located on Stag Hill Road on Houvenkopf Mountain near Mahwah, New Jersey. Since January 2007, the chief of the Ramapough Lenape Nation has been Dwaine Perry.
Lenapehoking is widely translated as 'homelands of the Lenape', which in the 16th and 17th centuries, ranged along the Eastern seaboard from western Connecticut to Delaware, and encompassed the territory adjacent to the Delaware and lower Hudson river valleys, and the territory between them.
The Delaware languages, also known as the Lenape languages, are Munsee and Unami, two closely related languages of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family. Munsee and Unami were spoken aboriginally by the Lenape people in the vicinity of the modern New York City area in the United States, including western Long Island, Manhattan Island, Staten Island, as well as adjacent areas on the mainland: southeastern New York State, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware.
The Siwanoy were an Indigenous American band of Munsee-speaking people, who lived in Long Island Sound along the coasts of what are now The Bronx, Westchester County, New York, and Fairfield County, Connecticut. They were one of the western bands of the Wappinger Confederacy. By 1640, their territory (Wykagyl) extended from Hell Gate to Norwalk, Connecticut, and as far inland as White Plains; it became hotly contested between Dutch and English colonial interests.
The Esopus Wars were two conflicts between the Esopus tribe of Lenape Natives (Delaware) and New Netherlander colonists during the latter half of the 17th century in Ulster County, New York. The first battle was instigated by settlers; the second war was the continuation of a grudge on the part of the Esopus tribe.
The Wappinger were an Eastern Algonquian Munsee-speaking Native American people from what is now southern New York and western Connecticut.
The Stockbridge–Munsee Community, also known as the Mohican Nation Stockbridge–Munsee Band, is a federally recognized Native American tribe formed in the late eighteenth century from communities of so-called "praying Indians", descended from Christianized members of two distinct groups: Mohican and Wappinger from the praying town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and Munsee (Lenape), from the area where present-day New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey meet. Their land-base, the Stockbridge–Munsee Indian Reservation, consists of a checkerboard of 24.03 square miles (62.2 km2) in the towns of Bartelme and Red Springs in Shawano County, Wisconsin. Among their enterprises is the North Star Mohican Resort and Casino.
Oratam was sagamore, or sachem, of the Hackensack Indians living in northeastern New Jersey during the period of early European colonization in the 17th century. Documentation shows that he lived an unusually long life and was quite influential among indigenous and immigrant populations.
Hackensack was the exonym given by the Dutch colonists to a band of the Lenape, or Lenni-Lenape, a Native American tribe. The name is a Dutch derivation of the Lenape word for what is now the region of northeastern New Jersey along the Hudson and Hackensack rivers. While the Lenape people occupied much of the mid-Atlantic area, Europeans referred to small groups of native people by the names associated with the places where they lived.
The Tappan were a Lenape people who inhabited the region radiating from Hudson Palisades and New York – New Jersey Highlands at the time of European colonialization in the 17th century.
The Rumanchenank were a Lenape people who inhabited the region radiating from the Palisades in New York and New Jersey at the time of European colonialization in the 17th century. Settlers to the provincial colony of New Netherland called them the Haverstroo meaning oat straw, which became Haverstraw in English, and still used to describe part of their territory.
The Pompton or Pamapon people were a sub-tribe of Algonquian-speaking Native Americans, who once lived northern New Jersey. The Pompton historically lived along Pompton and Pequannock Rivers, near what is now Paterson, New Jersey, but they were forced out of New Jersey after their lands had been taken without compensation by European colonists.
Kingston is the only city in, and the county seat of, Ulster County, New York, United States. It is 91 miles (146 km) north of New York City and 59 miles (95 km) south of Albany. The city's metropolitan area is grouped with the New York metropolitan area around Manhattan by the United States Census Bureau. The population was 24,069 at the 2020 United States Census.
New Paltz is an incorporated U.S. town in Ulster County, New York. The population was 14,407 at the 2020 census. The town is located in the southeastern part of the county and is south of Kingston. New Paltz contains a village, also with the name New Paltz. The town is named for Palz, the dialect name of the Palatinate, called Pfalz in standard German.
The Munsee are a subtribe and one of the three divisions of the Lenape. Historically, they lived along the upper portion of the Delaware River, the Minisink, and the adjacent country in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They were prominent in the early history of New York and New Jersey, being among the first Indigenous peoples of that region to encounter European colonizers.
Esopus is a hamlet located in the town of Esopus, in Ulster County, New York. It is located south of Ulster Park on route 9W. Esopus is within the Kingston metro area. The name Esopus comes from the name of the Native American tribe who lived in the area.