Siwanoy

The Native American Siwanoy were a tribe of the Wappinger Confederacy, in what is now the New York City area.[1] They spoke Delaware language of the Algonquian language family - specifically, the Munsee dialect.[2] By the mid-17th century, when their territory became hotly contested between Dutch and English colonial interests, the Siwanoy were settled along the East River and Long Island Sound between Hell Gate and Norwalk, Connecticut, a territory that included eastern parts of what became the Bronx and Westchester County in New York and southwestern Fairfield County in Connecticut.

History

They are known for their massacre of Anne Hutchinson and her family during Kieft's War in 1643. In August 1643, a group of Siwanoy led by the sachem Wampage massacred Hutchinson, six of her children, and nine others,[3] near Split Rock, an ancient landmark. The only survivor was Hutchinson's nine-year-old daughter, Susanna, who may have been spared because of her red hair. The attack was in revenge for New Netherland governor Willem Kieft's February massacres of Wappinger refugees from Wecquaesgeek at Corlaer's Hook and Pavonia. Like thousands of Native Americans and numerous colonists, Hutchinson became caught up in the bloody reprisals which characterized the two year conflict.

On June 27, 1654, Englishman Thomas Pell, a Connecticut physician, obtained title to a large amount of Siwanoy territory in New York through a treaty with a number of sachems, including Wampage. This included the Pelham Islands and parts of the mainland Bronx and coastal Westchester. New Netherland authorities did not recognize his title. They accused the New Englanders of continued encroachment upon Dutch territory. Pell's coup turned out to be decisive in New York history. A militia of his colonists from Minneford Island (present-day City Island) supported the English naval invasion force that conquered New Amsterdam in 1664.

Following the 1654 treaty, the Siwanoys remained in Westchester County for another hundred years, until they eventually "melted away" by intermarriage with the English settlers.[4] Around 1756, the remaining Wappinger and Mohicans in the area joined the Nanticoke, and with them were finally merged into the Delawares.[5]

See also

Notes
  1. Cook, Sherburne Friend (1976). The Indian Population of New England in the Seventeenth Century. University of California Press. p. 60. ISBN 0-520-09553-7.
  2. Goddard, Ives (1978). "Delaware". In Bruce G., Trigger (ed.). Handbook of North American Indians. 15: Northeast. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 213–214. ISBN 978-0160045752.
  3. Shorto, Russell (2004). The Island at the Center of the World. New York: Doubleday/Vintage. pp. 160, 384. ISBN 1-4000-7867-9.
  4. Pell, Robert T. (1965), "Thomas Pell II (1675/76-1739): Third Lord of the Manor of Pelham", Pelliana: Pell of Pelham, New Series, vol. I (no. 3): 25–48
  5. Hodge, Frederick Webb (July 2003). Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. 4. ISBN 9781582187518. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
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