Matinecock
The Matinecock were one of 14 Algonquin- speaking Indian tribes on Long Island in the US state of New York and lived at the beginning of the 17th century in the northwestern part of the island, which is now the New York suburb of Oyster Bay . Their identity is considered extinct, as the last survivors moved to neighboring tribes in the 18th century and mixed with them.
Residential area and language
The residential area of the Matinecock stretched from today's Flushing in the west to Setauket in the east and from Long Island Sound in the north to the middle of Long Islands in the south.
The Indians in western Long Island were politically, culturally and linguistically closely connected to the tribes around Manhattan . These included the Canar Sea in what is now Brooklyn , the Rockaway in what is now Newton and part of Hempstead and the Massapequa on southern Oyster Bay , as well as the Matinecock north of the Massapequa. It is possible, however, that the Massapequa and Matinecock were not Munsee speakers at all, but spoke Quiripi-Unquachog like their eastern neighbors.
Matinecock means in the Algonquin language on hilly terrain or on the hill with a view , as one could see the Long Island Sound from the elevations in their residential area.
history
Historians disagree as to when the first Indians colonized Long Island. But it is certain that more than a thousand years have passed since then. When the first Europeans set foot on Long Island in the early 17th century, the total population of all 14 tribes was estimated to be around 6,500. The arrival of the Europeans, however, had fatal consequences for the indigenous people - they were decimated by deadly diseases brought in, against which they had no defenses.
Daniel Denton (1626–1703) wrote in 1670 in his book A Brief Description of New York, formally called New Netherlands : ... it was generally observed that in Arrival of the English settlers God's hand cleared the way for them by taking the Indians away, either through wars among themselves or through devastating deadly diseases.
When Denton wrote these lines, there were only two Indian villages left on Long Island. Denton also reported that Native American men were responsible for hunting and fishing while women tilled the corn fields. They lived in small, portable wigwams with which they moved three times a year. Their leaders, known as sachem , were given great respect by the rest of the tribe. In the council meeting, the sachem sought the opinions of his tribesmen before making a decision, which was then final.
It was common among the tribes in southern New England and Long Islands for the weaker groups to pay tribute to the stronger groups . In general, the mainland tribes were more powerful and the Matinecock tried often, but always unsuccessfully, to refuse to pay tribute. When the Dutch and English settlers bought the Indian land after their arrival, the Indians often thought that this was another form of tribute payment and could not believe that they had actually lost all rights to their land.
Around 1685 the last piece of Indian land was sold to the European settlers. Historian John H. Morice wrote that by 1709 there were no more Indians to be found on Long Island, except for a few descendants in a few, scattered communities. Sachem Assiapum or Mohannes had sold the remaining Matinecock land to three English settlers in 1653. After losing their land, the last Matinecock moved to the Unquachog , Shinnecock and Montaukett . At the end of the 17th century they had negotiated a treaty with the English in which they were given some land that was later converted into a reservation . Some also stayed in their former homeland, settled near their old villages and worked on the new plantations of the colonists. In 1732, Judge William Smith wrote that all remaining Indians were in the service of the white settlers. By this time the last of the Matinecock descendants had disappeared from western Long Island.
In 1791 the future American Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison visited General William Floyd in Mastic . Jefferson and Madison looked for Indians on Long Island to preserve their language for posterity. But they could only find a few old women who still remembered their language. The research resulted in a collection of 162 words from the language of the indigenous Long Islands.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15. Northeast - Chapter: Delaware, pp. 214f. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978 ISBN 0-16004-575-4
- ↑ The Early Settlement of Oyster Bay ( Memento of the original from December 9, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
