Canar lake
The Canars were Algonquin- speaking Indians who lived on Long Island at the western end of the island in what is now Brooklyn in New York City at the beginning of the 17th century . Your identity is now considered extinct.
residential area
The residential area was bordered to the north by the East River and Long Island Sound , to the west by New York Bay and to the south by the Atlantic Ocean . The eastern boundary was roughly the course of today's Eastern Parkway. Ice Age erosion and erosion created rough, hilly terrain in the north, while flat, swampy plains of alluvial land stretched to the south and west to the Atlantic Ocean and New York Bay. Hundreds of small rivers and streams were found in the east to Jamaica Bay .
The Canar Sea settlements were mostly on the coast and the adjacent flat, grassy areas. Reginald P. Bolton's work on the location of the Indian settlements on Long Island is considered reliable. According to him, most of the Canar Sea settlements were on the Atlantic coast in southern Brooklyn and the villages of the eastern division between Brooklyn and Queens were on Jamaica Bay. Inland there were three sites that are believed to be ceremonial and meeting houses. Numerous paths and trails cut the area across what is now Brooklyn to Queens, following the cheapest routes through the area. The Dutch, and later the English, took many of the existing Indian trails and turned them into roads, such as Kings Highway, Flatbush Avenue, and other connections.
In Keshaechquern , which was in today's Flatlands, there was a longhouse in the Iroquois style. It is considered the largest Native American facility in Brooklyn and was the center of the Canar Sea, where gatherings and ceremonies took place. Other larger settlements were Merichawik , a fishing village across from lower Manhattan, Massabarkem in today's Gravesend, and Maspath , a large fishing village on the eastern border between Brooklyn and Queens.
Surname
Canarsee was a village name used by historians for the tribe of the Marechhawieck, Nayeck and their neighbors . The term Canarsee comes from a translation into the language of the Montauk , here Maereckkaak and from there into Dutch. The meaning of the name is unclear and there are various theories: The first is Fenced People , because the Dutch had built fences and hedges to demarcate the Canar Sea. Another theory is called the Great Bear People . It is believed that the Canar Sea's spiritual guide was the bear who once populated parts of Long Islands. In the third theory, Canarsee means land of cut grass , a possible reference to the sight of the worked fields. A current district in southeast Brooklyn is called Canarsie .
Way of life and culture
Ethnologists suspect that the Canar Sea lived from hunting and fishing, supplemented by wild fruits, wild plants and some agriculture. Their tools and work utensils were largely made of stone, bones and wood. Game that was hunted for meat and skin or feathers included deer, bear, raccoon, skunk, squirrel, porcupine, possum, otter, lynx, mink, wildcat, wolf, marten, muskrat, wild goose, turkey, and pigeon . Corn, squash , beans, pumpkins, sunflowers and tobacco were cultivated and grown in the fields of the Canar Sea . The Canar Sea collected peanuts, wild beans, cabbage, onions, strawberries, gooseberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, cranberries, acorns, hazelnuts and chestnuts from wild plants and fruits.
Documents from the Dutch period (1624–1667) show that the Canar Sea only farmed to a limited extent. Their villages, surrounded by gardens and cultivated fields, were only inhabited by around 20 to 150 people at certain times of the year. The village communities consisted of small families that were matriarchically organized and led by a sachem . Each family was assigned a field about two to three acres in size (8,094 to 12,141 m²). In spring they sown and planted, after which they moved in small groups near the coast to catch fish and other marine animals and process them for the winter. Finally, in the autumn, the families returned to their villages, harvested the crops and moved to the winter shelters.
It is assumed that the Canar Sea, like all other tribes of the Long Islands, lived largely on hunting, fishing and collecting wild fruits and plants before European contact. This assumption is based on excavations at various locations in Long Islands. Archaeological finds show that domestic animals and the cultivation of maize in the Canar Sea did not exist until after the arrival of the Dutch. The fur and wampum trade, with its concomitants such as possession of money, valuables and land, prompted the indigenous people to change their way of life in order to have more time for wampum production and trade.
Long Island indigenous homes were generally round, except for longhouses and wigwams , and were made of a wooden frame, a rush roof, and wicker walls. Inside there was a central cooking area with a smoke outlet above it. A typical longhouse from what is now Fort Hamilton is described by Jasper Dankers in 1679: it is about 60 feet (18.29 m) long and 17 feet (4.57 m) wide and covered with reeds and bark. The doorway to the house is so low that you have to duck your head. There are three fire pits in the house that can accommodate 20-22 people.
Unlike many tribes of this area, the dead were not buried near the house, but in barrows (Engl. Burial mounds) were outside the villages. The corpse was surrounded with pieces of wood that were supposed to represent a longhouse. Native American grave goods have been found at archaeological sites in Manhattan , the Bronx , Staten Island, and Long Island, including clothing, pots, kettles, trays, spoons, groceries, wampum, and personal belongings such as jewelry and in some cases rifles.
history
The first contact with Europeans
The first European explorers of this area all raved about its scenic beauty. Giovanni da Verrazzano called the region more beautiful than the Garden of Eden could be . Henry Hudson wrote that the area was one of the natural wonders of the world and Adriaen van der Donck said it was a land of clear water, good arable land, rich in fruit and grapes, and with more trees than would be needed for a whole fleet of sailing ships .
On September 3, 1609, Captain Henry Hudson and 18 crew members drove on his ship Half Moon to a natural harbor on the east coast of North America. Hudson was hired by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) to find a faster route to markets in East Asia and new colonies for the Netherlands. This mission was known to be unsuccessful, but unwittingly it opened the way to the New World .
The Dutch explorer Adriaen Block followed Hudson's example and sailed to the New World on behalf of a group of merchants. In 1614 he made a trip to the lower reaches of the Hudson with his ship Tyger , which was destroyed in a fire as a result of an accident. During the winter, with the help of Indians from the Lenni Lenape tribe, he and his crew built a 42-foot-long ship weighing sixteen tons, the Onrust (English: Restlessness). With this ship he explored the East River and became the first known European to sail the Hell Gate and advance into the Long Island Sound. Here he mapped Block Island , which was named after him.
The Dutch
In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was established to compete with the Spanish in finding colonies. In 1623 110 Dutch settlers were sent to America under the leadership of General Director Cornelis Jacobzoon May to settle in the new colony. The settlers who arrived with the Nieuw Nederland in the colony later also named were Protestant Walloons who had been expelled from the Spanish Netherlands . In order to be able to better protect themselves against feared Indian attacks, they first went ashore on the small island Pagganack off Manhattan, today's Governors Island , and in 1624 moved up the Hudson River to the area of today's Albany . The settlers found a land that was fertile, had good hunting and fishing grounds and, above all, had a more agreeable climate than the Dutch colonies on the west coast of Africa or in the Caribbean . Most of the space in contemporary descriptions, however, is occupied by the Indians, who are mostly referred to as the savages in the Dutch sources . Among them were the Mohawk , who lived west of Fort Oranje , and were the main suppliers of fur to the Dutch. The next year May was replaced by the new General Director Willem Verhulst , who was followed in 1626 by Peter Minuit .
In that historic year, a small group of Canars under the leadership of Sachem Penhowitz encamped on Manhattan Island. Peter Minuit, who had developed good relationships with the indigenous people, made them an offer to buy the island. The Canar Sea was not the owner of this land, but accepted the offer of 60 guilders anyway, with the Indians probably receiving the equivalent in the form of various trade goods. However, there is no sufficiently reliable evidence for the legendary purchase of Manhattan by Peter Minuit.
Soon after the sale of Manhattan in 1626, the area's Indians realized that they had a completely different understanding of land ownership than the Dutch. For both groups, land was the basis of subsistence , but in the ideology of the Canar Sea an individual could never own land and there was no term for private property either. The country was there for everyone. The Dutch were obliged by law to respect Indian property rights. But they could not understand why the Canar Sea quarreled with them over land that they had previously sold to the Dutch by law and voluntarily . In view of the fact that the Canar Sea continued to cultivate their fields on land that had already been sold, tensions between Dutch colonists and indigenous people grew. The Dutch even asked Peter Minuit to wage war against the Canar Sea for persistent violation of property rights. But this refused the request. Around 1630, the Canar Sea insisted that all land sales deeds should contain a clause allowing them to continue farming in a certain area of the land they sold and to live as before.
Fur trade and wampum
The contact with Europeans quickly brought about changes in the way of life in the Canar Sea. Their main occupation was no longer the procurement of food, but the production of wampum . The Dutch had introduced the fur trade with various Indian tribes on a large scale and Fort Oranje (Orange) near today's Albany was the trading center for the tribes in the central and northern state of New York. These were in direct competition with the indigenous people of the lower Hudson Valley and on Long Island, who, however, did not have the fur resources by far like their neighbors in the north. In the meantime, however, wampum had been recognized as an official means of payment and the Canar Sea was back in business. When the men increasingly had to take care of the hunting and making of wampum, the women took over the procurement of food for the family.
Meanwhile, the Dutch began selling firearms and ammunition to the Mohawk and other Iroquois tribes. Around 1635 the Mohawk attacked the Canar Sea, subjugated it and demanded tribute payments in the form of wampum from them. A peace agreement was reached when the Dutch promised protection of the Canarsee for the future. At the same time there was an increased expansion of Dutch colonists in western New England because the fur trade monopoly had been released by the Dutch West India Company. Everyone could now participate in the expanding fur trade.
By 1640 most of what is now Brooklyn and Queens had been sold by the Indians. Sachem Cacapetyno sold the areas of today's Flatlands and Flatbush to two Dutch people. The area of what later became Gravesend, the first English settlement in Nieuw Amsterdam , was sold by the Canar Sea in 1645.
Wars in Nieuw Nederland
The appointment of Willem Kieft as general manager should prove to be detrimental to the Canar Sea. Kieft made sure that wampum and furs were paid for by the Canar Sea to protect them from the Mohawk and other Iroquois. This tribute to the Dutch eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Canar Sea and the first of several armed uprisings. The Wappinger War (1643–1645), also known as Kieft's War, was the bloodiest war between the Dutch and the Indians and killed over 200 Canar lakes in one night. When the government in the Netherlands learned of Kieft's policy and the massacres, he was finally relieved in 1645 and recalled to Holland. The next ten years were peaceful. Then further conflicts followed, in which Canarsee were also involved: The Peach War of 1655 and the Esopus Wars of 1659 to 1664, a series of smaller skirmishes in which it was about dubious land sales to the Dutch.
Sale of the Canarsee-Land
After the Wappinger War, the Canars sold the rest of their land. In 1652, the southwestern part of Brooklyn known as Nyack was sold to the colonists. Sachem Guttaquoh sold Coney Island in 1654 and Barren Island was sold in 1664 . From Sachem Magenwetinnenim in 1670 the Dutch acquired the area on which New Utrecht and Old Brooklyn were later built. In this purchase agreement, the Dutch allowed the remaining Canar Sea to live on a piece of land now known as Canarsie and Marine Park, on the border between Brooklyn and Queens. Finally, Sachem Mashauscomacocke sold the last remnant of the Canarsee land at Gerrit'sen Bay to the English and the land ownership rights of the Canarsee ended.
The end of the Canar Sea
The first contact between the Dutch and the Canar Sea was the beginning of the end of Indian culture and the existence of the tribe. In less than a hundred years, the Canar Sea was decimated by wars against the Dutch, English and various Indian tribes. Devastating smallpox epidemics brought into the country by Europeans and alcohol abuse also caused a further decline in the population. In 1692 Charles Lodwick wrote that most of the Canars died as a result of war, disease or alcohol, especially rum. In the following period, the remains of the Canar Sea either mingled with the neighboring tribes or they migrated to the west. Some went to Staten Island, New Jersey, and on to Pennsylvania , Ohio , Indiana , Illinois , Missouri , Kansas, and finally Oklahoma , where they settled on a reservation .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Marine Park: Prehistory of the Area ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15. Northeast - Chapter: Delaware, page 237. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978 ISBN 0-16004-575-4
- ↑ Canarsie, History of a Growing Town: The Indians ( Memento of October 3, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Marine Park: Prehistory of the Area> ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Marine Park: Prehistory of the Area> ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Canarsie, History of a Growing Town: The Dutch ( Memento of October 3, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Canarsie: History of a Growing Town: The Dutch ( Memento of October 3, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Marine Park: The Contact and Historic Period ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Marine Park: The Contact and Historic Period ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Marine Park: The Contact and Historic Period ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Marine Park: The Contact and Historic Period ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Marine Park: The Contact and Historic Period ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
See also
literature
- Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15. Northeast . Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978 ISBN 0-16004-575-4
- Alvin M. Josephy jr .: 500 Nations , Frederking & Thaler GmbH, Munich 1996 ISBN 3-89405-356-9
- Alvin M. Josephy jr .: The world of the Indians , Frederking & Thaler GmbH, Munich 1994 ISBN 3-89405-331-3