Hackensack was the exonym given by the Dutch colonists to a band of the Lenape, or Lenni-Lenape ("original men"), 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.
Hackensack territory shown in relation to other groups
The territory of the Hackensack was variously called Ack-kinkas-hacky, Achkinhenhcky, Achinigeu-hach, Ackingsah-sack, among other spellings (translated as "place of stony ground"[1] or "mouth of a river") and included the areas around the Upper New York Bay, Newark Bay, Bergen Neck, the Meadowlands, and the Palisades.
A phratry of the Lenape, the Hackensack spoke the Unami dialect, one of the two major dialects of the Lenape, or Delaware, languages, which were part of the Algonquian language family. Unami meant the "people down river".[2]
The Lenape engaged in agriculture and seasonally migrated, cultivating companion planting at their campsites to supplement foraging, hunting, fishing, trapping, and shellfishing. The terrain they inhabited was diverse: wide tidal flats and oyster beds, forested mountains, and level land that could be cultivated. The Hackensack would relocate their semi-permanent village every several years to allow the land to renew itself.[5] It was usually sited between Tantaqua and the middle reaches of the Hackensack River.[1] Their summer encampment and council fire was located at Gamoenpa,[4] (the "big landing-place from the other side of the river").[6] At Hopoghan Hackingh (meaning "land of the tobacco pipe"), they collected soapstone from which to carve tobacco pipes.[7]
The Hackensack identified themselves with the totem of the turtle ("Turtle Clan").[8] Those with the totem of the turtle were held in great esteem by Lenape groups, particularly as peacemakers. The society of the Hackensack (and all Lenape) was based on governance by consensus. A sachem, or sagamore, ("paramount chief"), though influential, was obliged to follow the decisions of the council made up of leaders among the tribe. The word caucus may come from the Algonquian caucauasu meaning "counselor".[9]
In the 17th century, the Hackensack numbered about one thousand,[10] of whom 300 were warriors.[4] An important sachem of that time was Oratam[11] (born circa 1576[5]). He was likely also the sagamore of the Tappan, a distinct but closely related Lenape group.[4] It has also been written that the Tappan and the Hackensack were one tribe, the evidence for this being the many land deeds signed by men who were sachems of both tribes at the same time.[12]
In 1669, Oratam deeded a vast tract of land (2200 acres), between Overpeck Creek and the Hackensack River, to Sara Kiersted, who had mastered the Lenape language and acted as interpreter. He also brokered other land sales, and treaties, between the native and colonizing peoples, including those that ended Kieft's War and the Esopus Wars.[4]
In a series of essays published in 1655, David Pietersen de Vries, who had established a homestead at Vriessendael, gave his observations of the Hackensack.[14]
The British takeover of New Netherland, between 1663 and 1674, coincided with Oratam's death (he was said to have lived into his 90s). The government of the newly formed province of East Jersey quickly surveyed, patented, or deeded lands throughout Hackensack, Tappan, and Raritan territory. In most cases, the Lenape were compensated for sale of the land. Both the land at Newark Tract[15] and Horseneck Tract were sold to English-speaking settlers by the Hackensack.[16]
Decline during European colonization
In 1600, the Lenape population may have numbered as many as 20,000.[17] Several wars, at least 14 separate epidemics of new infectious diseases (yellow fever, smallpox, influenza, encephalitis lethargica, etc.), and disastrous over-harvesting of the animal populations reduced the Lenape population to around 4,000 total by 1700. The Lenape people, like all Native Americans, had no immunity to Eurasian diseases, which had been endemic in European cities for centuries after arriving from Asia; and they suffered high fatality rates from the diseases.[18][19]
As the Lenape population declined and the European population increased, the history of the area was increasingly defined by the new European inhabitants. The Lenape Indian tribes played an increasingly secondary role.[20][21]
By the mid-18th century, the English colonists referred to the Lenape people generally as the Delaware, in recognition of their major territory along that river and around the bay it feeds, both of which they named for Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, governor of the Jamestown Colony.[18][22][23] Some Lenape had migrated west out of the area of English colonization.[24]
In the eighteenth century, the Lenape were signatories to the Walking Purchase agreement in Pennsylvania, and Treaty of Easton. The British were trying to gain control of lands they had "acquired" from the French after the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and the Native Americans were trying to prevent further European encroachment into their territory.[25] Today Lenape groups are dispersed around the United States.[26]
The Lenape, also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada.
The Ramapough Mountain Indians, known also as the Ramapough Lenape Nation or Ramapough Lunaape Munsee Delaware Nation or Ramapo Mountain people, are a group of approximately 5,000 people living in and around the Ramapo Mountains of Bergen and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey and Rockland County in southern New York, about 25 miles (40 km) from New York City. They were recognized in 1980 by the state of New Jersey as the Ramapough Lenape Nation but are not recognized federally. Their tribal office is located on Stag Hill Road on Houvenkopf Mountain near Mahwah, New Jersey. Since January 2007, the chief of the Ramapough Lenape Nation has been Dwaine Perry.
The Raritan refers to two groups of Lenape people who lived around the lower Raritan River and the Raritan Bay, in what is now northeastern New Jersey, in the 16th century.
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.
The Delaware languages, also known as the Lenape languages, are Munsee and Unami, two closely related languages of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family. Munsee and Unami were spoken aboriginally by the Lenape people in the vicinity of the modern New York City area in the United States, including western Long Island, Manhattan Island, Staten Island, as well as adjacent areas on the mainland: southeastern New York State, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware.
Kieft's War (1643–1645), also known as the Wappinger War, was a conflict between the colonial province of New Netherland and the Wappinger and Lenape Indians in what is now New York and New Jersey. It is named for Director-General of New Netherland Willem Kieft, who had ordered an attack without the approval of his advisory council and against the wishes of the colonists. Dutch colonists attacked Lenape camps and massacred the inhabitants, which encouraged unification among the regional Algonquian tribes against the Dutch and precipitated waves of attacks on both sides. This was one of the earliest conflicts between settlers and Indians in the region. The Dutch West India Company was displeased with Kieft and recalled him, but he died in a shipwreck while returning to the Netherlands; Peter Stuyvesant succeeded him in New Netherland. Numerous Dutch settlers returned to the Netherlands because of the continuing threat from the Algonquians, and growth slowed in the colony.
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.
Vriessendael was a patroonship on the west bank of the Hudson River in New Netherland, the seventeenth century North American colonial province of the Dutch Empire. The homestead or plantation was located on a tract of about 500 acres (2.0 km2) about an hour's walk north of Communipaw at today's Edgewater. It has also been known as Tappan, which referred to the wider region of the New Jersey Palisades, rising above the river on both sides of the New York/New Jersey state line, and to the indigenous people who lived there and were part of wider group known as Lenape. It was established in 1640 by David Pietersen de Vries, a Dutch sea captain, explorer, and trader who had also established settlements at the Zwaanendael Colony and on Staten Island. The name can roughly be translated as De Vries' Valley. De Vries also owned flatlands along the Hackensack River, in the area named by the Dutch settlers Achter Col. Parts of Vriessendael were destroyed in 1643 in reprisal for the slaughter of Tappan and Wecquaesgeek Native Americans who had taken refuge at Pavonia and Corlears Hook. The patroon's relatively good relations with the Lenape prevented the murder of the plantation's residents, who were able to seek sanctuary in the main house, and later flee to New Amsterdam. The incident was one of the first of many to take place during Kieft's War, a series of often bloody conflicts with bands of Lenape, who had united in face of attacks ordered by the Director of New Netherland.
Achter Kol was the name given to the region around the Newark Bay and Hackensack River in northeastern New Jersey by the first European settlers to it and was part of the 17th century province of New Netherland, administered by the Dutch West India Company. At the time of their arrival, the area was inhabited by the Hackensack and Raritan groups of Lenape natives.
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.
Oratam was sagamore, or sachem, of the Hackensack Indians living in northeastern New Jersey during the period of early European colonization in the 17th century. Documentation shows that he lived an unusually long life and was quite influential among indigenous and immigrant populations.
Sicomac is an unincorporated community located within Wyckoff, in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
The Tappan were a Lenape people who inhabited the region radiating from Hudson Palisades and New York – New Jersey Highlands in at the time of European colonialization in the 17th century.
The Acquackanonk were a Lenape group whose territory was on the Passaic River in northern New Jersey. They spoke the same dialect (Unami) and shared the same totem (turtle) as the neighboring Hackensack, Tappan and Rumachenanck . It may mean a place in a rapid stream where fishing is done with a net. Alternatively, at the lamprey stream from contemporary axkwaakahnung Lastly it may mean where gum blocks were made for pounding corn. Ackquekenon was spelling used by European explorer Jasper Danckaerts in 1679.
The Navesink, or Navisink, were a group of Lenape who inhabited the Raritan Bayshore near Sandy Hook and Mount Mitchill in eastern New Jersey in the United States.
The Rumanchenank were a Lenape people who inhabited the region radiating from the Palisades in New York and New Jersey at the time of European colonialization in the 17th century. Settlers to the provincial colony of New Netherland called them the Haverstroo meaning oat straw, which became Haverstraw in English, and still used to describe part of their territory.
The Esopus was a tribe of Lenape (Delaware) Native Americans who were native to the Catskill Mountains of what is now Upstate New York. Their lands included modern-day Ulster and Sullivan counties.
The Pompton or Pamapon people were a sub-tribe of Algonquian-speaking Native Americans, who once lived northern New Jersey. The Pompton historically lived along Pompton and Pequannock Rivers, near what is now Paterson, New Jersey, but they were forced out of New Jersey after their lands had been taken without compensation by European colonists.
↑ No wholly satisfactory etymology has been documented. James Hammond Trumbull suggested to the American Philological Association that the word comes from the Algonquian word for "counsel", 'cau´-cau-as´u'. Other sources claim that it derived from medieval Latin caucus, meaning "drinking vessel," such as might have been used for the flip drunk at Caucus Club of colonial Boston.
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