Sapohanikan

Last updated
Map of Lower Manhattan from 1922 showing the location of Sapohanikan (shown in the upper left) R P Bolton, indicating Native American Paths in Manhattan ,rendered 1922.jpg
Map of Lower Manhattan from 1922 showing the location of Sapohanikan (shown in the upper left)

Sapohanikan was a Lenape settlement of the Canarsee now located in close proximity to where Gansevoort Street meets Washington Street near the Hudson River in Manhattan. [1] [2] The people of the settlement were violently displaced under Dutch Governor Wouter van Twiller in the 1630s, who operated a tobacco plantation for the Dutch West India Company. [3] [4]

Contents

In the colony of New Netherland, the area that is now Greenwich Village was commonly referred to as Sapokanikan up until the beginnings of British rule. [3] [5] The area of the settlement was referred to in historical records as Sapohanikan in 1639, as Sappokanican in 1640, and as Sapokanikan and Saponickan in 1641. [6]

Etymology

The settlement name may have been derived from the Lenape language word Awasopoakanichan "over against the pipe-making place," a remnant of the name Hopoakanhaking, "at the tobacco-pipe land." [6] The name of Hoboken, New Jersey, which lies shore of the Hudson River opposite Sapohanikan, is derived from "Hopoghan Hackingh", the "land of the tobacco pipe", most likely to refer to the soapstone collected there to carve tobacco pipes. [7] [8] [9]

History

Pre-colonial

Sapohanikan was one of at least eighty Lenape habitation sites that have since been identified by archaeologists in the area now occupied by the five boroughs of New York City. In this area also resided over two dozen planting fields as well as the pathways that interconnected these settlements. Nearby villages included Nechtanc to the southeast at the mouth of the East River and Konaande Kongh to the northwest. [2] [10]

The settlement was a cultivated fishing and planting site that could be found along an extensive series of paths leading west toward the banks of the Hudson River. [2] The name derived from the Lenape word for tobacco, which was likely cultivated there, given that cultivated areas surrounded the settlement's immediate vicinity. [1] [2] Sapohanikan may have been seasonal and was possibly important for oyster harvesting. [3]

Destruction

The village people were violently pushed out of the area by Dutch Governor of New Netherland William van Twiller. Wouter van Twiller crop.jpg
The village people were violently pushed out of the area by Dutch Governor of New Netherland William van Twiller.

In the early 1630s, Sapohanikan became increasingly encroached upon by the Dutch settlement of Noortwyck ("north village"). [1]

In 1633, the outskirts of Sapohanikan were transformed into a tobacco plantation by New Netherland Governor Wouter van Twiller, who titled it the Bossen Bouwerie ("the farm in the woods"). [11] Van Twiller was known as an "insatiable grabber of land from the Indians" who drove the residents of Sapohanikan out of the area with "intermittent, bloody warfare." [4]

Van Twiller's plantation soon expanded to 300 acres, extending from Minetta Waters (now buried under Manhattan) to the Hudson River. [4] The plantation was, in name, for the Dutch West India Company, but most of the profits were held by Van Twiller. [12]

Van Twiller's Bossen Bouwerie grew its operations in the 1640s. [11] The purchase and sale of land at this plantation between Dutch landowners being recorded several times in official records as the "plantation at Sapokanikan." [13] Nearby Dutch farms were established in the area, neighboring the Bossen Bouwerie, such as the Farm of Coseyn in 1647, which was recorded as being situated along Sapokanikan wagon road. [14]

In the 1670s, Noortwyck was officially renamed Greenwijk ("Pine District") after Yellis Mandeville purchased land in the area. In Mandeville's will, the region was recorded as Greenwich Village in 1696. [15] The usage of Sapokanikan to refer to the area ceased with the growth of Greenwich under British rule. The fertile area around what had been Sapohanikan soon became the site of large estates. [11]

Memorialization attempt

In 2001, there was a proposal to the Hudson River Park Trust to name a park at 14th street Sapohanikan. [16] No formal recognition of the area as Sapohanikan Park was given. As of 2022, this park is referred to as the 14th Street Park on the Hudson River Park website. [17]

The artist Beatriz Cortez is the creator of Sapohanikan Market, a monument at Gansevoort Market. [18]

Joanna Newsom's album Divers (2015) features a song "Sapokanikan," which was the lead single from the album. The song speaks to the changing landscape of Manhattan and how this relates to memory over time. The song's music video on YouTube has reached over 4 million views. [19] [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lenapehoking</span> Lands traditionally inhabited by the Lenape people

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hudson Valley</span> Region in New York

The Hudson Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to Yonkers in Westchester County, bordering New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paulus Hook</span> Neighborhood of Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.

Paulus Hook is a community on the Hudson River waterfront in Jersey City, New Jersey. It is located one mile across the river from Manhattan. The name Hook comes from the Dutch word "hoeck", which translates to "point of land." This "point of land" has been described as an elevated area, the location of which today is bounded by Montgomery, Hudson, Dudley, and Van Vorst Streets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meatpacking District, Manhattan</span> United States historic place

The Meatpacking District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan that runs from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street. The Meatpacking Business Improvement District along with signage in the area, extend these borders farther north to West 17th Street, east to Eighth Avenue, and south to Horatio Street.

Bergen Township was a township that existed in the U.S. state of New Jersey, from 1661 to 1862, first as Bergen, New Netherland, then as part Bergen County, and later as part of Hudson County. Several places still bear the name: the township of North Bergen; Bergen Square, Old Bergen Road, Bergen Avenue, Bergen Junction, Bergen Hill and Bergen Arches in Jersey City; Bergen Point in Bayonne; and Bergenline Avenue and Bergen Turnpike in North Hudson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pavonia, New Netherland</span> European settlement on the Hudson River

Pavonia was the first European settlement on the west bank of the North River that was part of the seventeenth-century province of New Netherland in what would become the present Hudson County, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bergen, New Netherland</span> Origin of the New Jersey settlement

Bergen was a part of the 17th century province of New Netherland, in the area in northeastern New Jersey along the Hudson and Hackensack Rivers that would become contemporary Hudson and Bergen Counties. Though it only officially existed as an independent municipality from 1661, with the founding of a village at Bergen Square, Bergen began as a factory at Communipaw circa 1615 and was first settled in 1630 as Pavonia. These early settlements were along the banks of the North River across from New Amsterdam, under whose jurisdiction they fell.

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.

Communipaw is a neighborhood in Jersey City in Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located west of Liberty State Park and east of Bergen Hill, and the site of one of the earliest European settlements in North America. It gives its name to the historic avenue which runs from its eastern end near Liberty State Park Station through the neighborhoods of Bergen-Lafayette and the West Side that then becomes the Lincoln Highway. Communipaw Junction, or simply The Junction, is an intersection where Communipaw, Summit Avenue, Garfield Avenue, and Grand Street meet, and where the toll house for the Bergen Point Plank Road was situated. Communipaw Cove at Upper New York Bay, is part of the 36-acre (150,000 m2) state nature preserve in the park and one of the few remaining tidal salt marshes in the Hudson River estuary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michiel Reyniersz Pauw</span>

Michiel Reiniersz Pauw was a director of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) between 1621 and 1636. He is buried at at Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Netherlander</span> Historical cultural group of colonial New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania

New Netherlanders were residents of New Netherland, the seventeenth-century colonial outpost of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the northeastern coast of North America, centered on the Hudson River and New York Bay, and in the Delaware Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolfert Gerritse van Couwenhoven</span> Founder of the New Netherlands colony

Wolfert Gerritse Van Couwenhoven, also known as Wolphert Gerretse van Kouwenhoven and Wolphert Gerretsen, was an original patentee, director of bouweries (farms), and founder of the New Netherland colony.

Abraham Isaacsen Verplanck (1606–1690), also known as Abraham Isaacse Ver Planck, was an early and prominent settler in New Netherlands. A land developer and speculator, he was the progenitor of an extensive Verplanck family in the United States. Immigrating circa 1633, he received a land grant at Paulus Hook in 1638.

The Land of the Blacks was a village settled by people of African descent north of the wall of New Amsterdam from about 1643 to 1716. It represented an economic, legal and military modus vivendi reached with the Dutch West India Company in the wake of Kieft's War. This buffer area with the native Lenape is sometimes considered the first free African settlement in North America, although the landowners had half-free status. Its name comes from descriptions in 1640s land conveyances of white-owned properties as bordering the hereditament or freehold "of the Blacks".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuyvesant Farm</span> Farm in New Amsterdam

Stuyvesant Farm, also known as the Great Bowery, was the estate of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch director-general of the colony of New Netherland, as well as his predecessors and later his familial descendants. The land was at first designated Bowery No. 1, the largest and northernmost of six initial estates of the Dutch West India Company north of New Amsterdam, used as the official residence and economic support for Willem Verhulst and all subsequent directors of the colony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manatus Map</span> 1639 map of New Amsterdam

The Manatus Map is a 1639 pictorial map of the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary at the time the area was part of the colony of New Netherland. Entitled Manatvs gelegen op de Noort Rivier it shows the geographic features of the region, as well as New Amsterdam and other New Netherland settlements. The map was drafted when Willem Kieft was Director of New Netherland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nechtanc</span> Former Lenape settlement

Nechtanc was a Lenape settlement of the Canarsee located in what is now Two Bridges, Manhattan or the Lower East Side where the East River begins to turn north. In 1643, the settlement was the site of a massacre of Lenape people, mostly women and children, after the governor of New Netherland ordered the people killed as they slept. A simultaneous massacre occurred at Pavonia, just across the East River. The village is alternatively referred to in historical documents as Rechtauk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Konaande Kongh</span> Former Lenape settlement

Konaande Kongh was a Lenape settlement of the Reckgawawanc located near what is now 98th Street and Park Avenue in East Harlem near Carnegie Hill. The settlement rested on what was once high ground, connected to the main path of Manhattan island by a branch that left the main path near 95th Street and crossed Fifth Avenue near 96th Street.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Reid, David (2016). The brazen age : New York City and the American empire : politics, art, and bohemia (1st ed.). New York City and the American empire. p. 207. ISBN   978-0-394-57237-6. OCLC   907154934.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. 1 2 3 4 Burrows, Edwin G. (1999). Gotham : a history of New York City to 1898. Mike Wallace. Oxford. pp. 6–7. ISBN   978-0-585-36462-9. OCLC   47011419.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. 1 2 3 Sanderson, Eric W. (2013). Mannahatta : a natural history of New York City (eBook). Markley Boyer. New York. ISBN   978-1-61312-573-1. OCLC   897840866.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. 1 2 3 4 Barrett, William (1959). The New Guide to Greenwich Village. Corinth. p. 16.
  5. ↑ Homberger, Eric (2002). New York City : a cultural and literary companion. Oxford: Signal Books. p. 107. ISBN   1-902669-42-8. OCLC   51444181.
  6. 1 2 Handbook of American Indians north of Mexico. Volume III, N to S. Frederick Webb Hodge. Scituate, MA: Digital Scanning. 2003. p. 464. ISBN   978-1-58218-755-6. OCLC   647873186.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  7. ↑ "The Abridged History of Hoboken" Archived May 1, 2015, at the Wayback Machine , Hoboken Museum, Accessed February 24, 2015.
  8. ↑ Hutchinson, Viola L. The Origin of New Jersey Place Names Archived November 15, 2015, at the Wayback Machine , New Jersey Public Library Commission, May 1945. Accessed September 1, 2015.
  9. ↑ Gannett, Henry. The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States, p. 158. United States Government Printing Office, 1905. Accessed September 1, 2015.
  10. ↑ Bolton, Reginald Pelham (1922). Indian paths in the great metropolis. Smithsonian Libraries. New York : Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.
  11. 1 2 3 Tauber, Gilbert; Kaplan, Samuel (1968). The New York City Handbook: A Comprehensive, Practical Guide for Natives and Newcomers Living and Working in New York, to the Ins and Outs of the Five Boroughs' Assets, Systems, Neighborhoods, Services, and Opportunities. Doubleday. p. 466.
  12. ↑ "Greenwich Village, when it was green and a village". The Bowery Boys: New York City History. 2009-06-24. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
  13. ↑ O'Callaghan, E. B. (1870). Index to Volumes One, Two and Three of Translations of Dutch Manuscripts: In the Office of the Secretary of the State of New York. Albany: Weed, Parsons, & Co. pp. 43, 48, 71, 84, 93.
  14. ↑ van Winkle, Edward (1916). Manhattan, 1624-1639. p. 24.
  15. ↑ Barsanti, Chris (2017). The handy New York City answer book. Detroit. p. 211. ISBN   978-1-57859-655-3. OCLC   976394246.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  16. ↑ "Folkies Sing a Different TuneFor Village's Chapel Buildin". Observer. 2001-02-12. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
  17. ↑ "14th Street Park". Hudson River Park. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
  18. ↑ "Sapohanikan Market". The High Line. Retrieved 2022-12-18.
  19. ↑ "Joanna Newsom "Sapokanikan" (Official Video) - YouTube" . Retrieved August 10, 2015– via YouTube.
  20. ↑ "Songs We Love: Joanna Newsom, 'Sapokanikan'". NPR.org. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.