Shinnecock
The Shinnecock were one of 14 Algonquian-speaking Indian tribes on Long Island in the US state of New York and lived at the beginning of the 17th century on the east end of the island, around where the city of Southampton in Suffolk County is today . The Shinnecock have been officially recognized as the Shinnecock Indian Nation of New York and have a reservation of 3.4 km² within the metropolitan area of Southampton.
They were allied with the three other tribes on eastern Long Island, the Montaukett , Corchaug and Manhanset , and formed the Montauk Confederation. The language of these four tribes was very closely related (if not identical) to the Mohegan-Pequot language, and all of the tribes had great similarities in material culture.
Culture and way of life
The Shinnecock practiced agriculture and supplemented their vegetable diet with hunting and fishing. In the annual cycle, the most important sources of food were sought out in forests, fields and on the coast. A central cultural feature was the production of wampum , which even the fur traders and colonists temporarily accepted as a means of payment.
The best wampum raw material in the entire American Northeast was found on the north coast of Long Island. In the summer the Shinnecock collected the mussel shells on the beach, in the winter they carefully worked them into small pearls and strung them into long chains, which they called wampompeag . The English called it wampum , while the Dutch called it Sevan . Wampple beads could be white or dark, the dark ones varying from deep red to black. The value of dark wampum was generally about twice that of light. Wampum developed into an important means of payment in the trade of the indigenous people of North America, but was also valued as personal jewelry. With patterns made from the different colored pearls, information could be represented that was used in diplomacy for important events and even sealed agreements or treaties.
history
Early history
Hunters and gatherers found their way to Long Island 10,000 years ago. These Paleo-Indians left little traces, but the scanty findings are conclusive nonetheless. According to archaeologists , evidence of their presence on the island is limited to a handful of peculiarly shaped projectile points . They have surface retouches on both sides that emanate from the fluted base, perhaps to facilitate fitting into a socket. Specimens of this species were referred to as Clovis points when they were first found in New Mexico between mammoth bones , and are generally assigned to the Paleo-Indian period. These Clovis peaks clearly indicate that from at least 8000 B.C. Hunted people on Long Island.
William A. Ritchie gave the following chronological classification of the northeastern coastal region, which he created during his time as an archaeologist for New York State:
| designation | features | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Paleo-Indian period | Clovis culture | 7000-3500 BC Chr. |
| Archaic period | Hunters, gatherers, fishermen | 3500-1300 BC Chr. |
| Transitional period | Stone pots, ceramics | 1300-1000 BC Chr. |
| Woodland period | Horticulture, field cultivation | 1000 BC Chr. – 1600 AD |
The Dutch
At the beginning of the 17th century, the Shinnecock lived in relative isolation on Long Island and came to a certain degree of prosperity through the manufacture and trade of wampum. Apparently they did not face any serious threats, as evidenced by the lack of fortified villages and centralized leadership. Dramatic changes came soon after Henry Hudson's search for the Northwest Passage on behalf of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) when he explored the 1609 Delaware Bay and Hudson River .
Hudson returned to Europe with a shipment of valuable furs. In the following year the next Dutch ship went up the Hudson River to trade European goods for furs with the Indians. The Dutch ignored the tribes on Long Island and on the lower Hudson because they did not offer beaver pelts , but instead concentrated their trading activities on the Mahican and Mohawk . In 1624 the Dutch West India Company brought 30 families to New Holland .
The Dutch began to accept wampum as a means of payment for commodities and its value increased dramatically. The Pequot got into their canoes, sailed across Long Island Sound and raided some Shinnecock villages. A little later, they subjugated several tribes on the north coast of Long Islands and forced them to pay tribute to them in Wampum. In view of the growing need for wampum and its increase in value, the Long Island tribes changed their seasonal migrations and concentrated almost entirely on the collection and manufacture of the shell pearls. Every year they delivered canoe loads from Wampum across the Sound as tribute to the Pequot. Around 1630, the English colonists in Massachusetts also began to accept wampum as a means of payment and opened up competition against the Dutch. The English came up with the idea of making wampum themselves by using steel drills to perforate the shell pearls, thereby significantly accelerating production.
The Pequot War and its Consequences
In 1637 the English colonists in Connecticut and the Pequot started the Pequot War , in the course of which this tribe was almost destroyed. Although the Shinnecock were under the rule of the Pequot and were their allies, they provided very little assistance in the war. Many Pequot left their villages and fled to Long Island. The Shinnecock, however, feared the revenge of the English, had little desire to protect their former oppressors, and proved their loyalty to the English colonists by killing the fled Pequot and sending their heads to Fort Saybrook . In 1638 a peace treaty was signed in Hartford and some Pequot, who had surrendered early, were allowed to settle on Long Island under supervision. In return, the Shinnecock and Montaukett had to pay an annual tribute in the form of wampum to the English governor of New Haven .
The first English colonists came to the eastern tip of the Long Islands around 1640. Not only did the Shinnecock lose their land to the Europeans, their losses to the devastating European epidemics were even worse. More and more Dutch and English settled on Long Island, and it was soon necessary to agree on the distribution of the land. In a treaty signed at Hartford in 1650, the Shinnecock and their neighbors' land was divided between Dutch and English colonists. The Dutch received the western half of the island while the English were given the eastern half.
The good cooperation between Holland and England ended abruptly with the beginning of the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654). Meanwhile, the Indians began to migrate from western Long Island to avoid the Wappinger and Mahican demands for wampum. Some groups left the island for good, moving across the Hudson River first to Staten Island and then into inland New Jersey , where they were absorbed by the Lenni Lenape . Other western Metoac migrated east to the Long Islands in England, where they were little welcomed. In 1658, the Shinnecock villages were hit by a devastating smallpox epidemic that killed more than half of all residents.
The English
In September 1664 the English fleet conquered Nieuw Amsterdam and on August 30, 1664 the English called on Governor Petrus Stuyvesant to surrender . He wanted to defend the colony, but found no support from the population and was forced to sign the transfer agreement on September 6, 1664. The commander of the English fleet was appointed by the city council to the governor and the city received in honor of the Duke of York in the new name New York . This ended the colonial rule of the Dutch in North America.
By the middle of the 17th century, beaver fur as fur money had replaced wampum as the unofficial currency in the fur trade, and from 1661 wampum was no longer a means of payment in New England. By 1664, most of the tribes in western Long Island had left their villages and moved to the west bank of the Hudson River. But the growing English settlements soon drove them even further west. The tribes that remained on Long Island were concentrated on the eastern end of the island near the English villages. Around 1666 there were only 500 Indians left there who had to move to a reservation . The Poosepatuck Reservation was recognized by New York State after more than 300 years. The remaining Indian land passed into the hands of white colonists until it was less than 4000 acres (16.188 km²) in 1703 . Their population continued to decline, mainly caused by disease and alcohol abuse, and by 1788 there were only 162 indigenous people on the entire island. At the end of the 19th century there were around 150 Shinnecock living on Long Island.
The Shinnecock had kept some land west of Southampton, and there was a Montauk settlement in East Hampton . There was a general fragmentation of these groups in the 18th century, particularly as a result of the great post-1775 exodus to join Samson Occom , a preacher in the New Christian Indian Town of Brothertown , New York State. The Brothertown Indians had to leave New York in 1833 and moved to northern Wisconsin , where their descendants now live on the east side of Lake Winnebago .
Circassian calamity
The whaling in the 19th century one of the main sources of income Long-Iceland Indians; this also included the Shinnecock's lifeboats. These lifeboat crews became world famous in the 19th century for an event on December 31, 1876, when most of the male Shinnecock had set out to rescue the victims of the Circassian ship , which was stranded in the winter storm off the coast of East Hampton. In this rescue attempt, 28 members of the Shinnecock lost their lives. The Shinnecock gather today on December 30th of each year, Shinnecock Memorial Day, to pray for loved ones who have been killed.
Todays situation
The Shinnecock reservation is located in the southeast of the island near the city of Southampton, is 3.4 km² in size and is inhabited by the Shinnecock Indian Nation . In the 2000 US census, there were 504 dependents living in 179 households and 119 families. Some tribesmen have mixed up with African Americans , so their Native American ancestry has been questioned. 50.6% of the total population lives below the poverty line. The Shinnecock are planning to build a gaming casino , but the City of Southampton is contesting it. In recent years they have attracted attention in the US for sponsoring a major golf tournament that is held annually at the Shinnecock Country Club . A Powwow is held annually on the first weekend in September ( Labor Day ). On June 15, 2010, the Shinnecock received federal recognition as an Indian Nation , which they had applied for in 1978.
See also
List of North American Indian tribes
literature
- Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15. Northeast . Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978 ISBN 0-16-004575-4
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Handbook of North American Indians - Chapter: Indians of Southern New England and Long Island: Early Period, page 160 ff.
- ↑ a b c d e Metoac story
- ↑ History of origin
- ^ Danny Hakim : US Recognizes an Indian Tribe on Long Island, Clearing the Way for a Casino . In: The New York Times , June 15, 2010.