The Information Resource for New York's
Hudson Valley
Indians of the Lower Hudson Valley
By Lillian Boonstra
Croton Historical Society
When the first European explorer sailed into New York harbor in 1524, the
native civilization found on the banks of the Hudson was a complex and ancient
one. The natives' ancestors had entered the Hudson Valley some twelve thousand
years earlier, after the last continental glacier receded from North
America.
A significant change took place in the northeast from 1000 to 1600 AD as
these early people gradually discovered they could grow their own vegetables.
Horticulture or garden farming added to the traditional lifestyle of hunting,
fishing and gathering. Corn, beans, squash and pumpkins, sunflowers and
tobacco came from the south and southwest, perhaps initially from Mexico,
where agriculture had been practiced for several thousand years.
At the time of encounter with the Europeans, the entire area in and around
New York City was densely populated by the natives. On the banks of the
Hudson, as far north as Albany, Algonquin tribes lived in fortified villages,
protected by sturdy walls of upright logs. There were also many unfortified
villages on both banks of the Hudson according to early colonists and
explorers journals.
An Indian village believed to have been one of the most heavily fortified
along the Hudson was located on Croton Point on the high plateau immediately
beyond the railroad bridge. This ideal location afforded protection for the
oyster beds in Haverstraw Bay and surrounding waters. The village was
protected by a wall of tree trunks set upright in the ground and reinforced
with earth embankments. A short distance east of the village was the burial
ground. In death, the bodies where buried in a sitting position facing
southwest. Buried with them were weapons, ornaments, utensils, wampum and
parched corn.
Relics Still Being Found Today
Indian relics have been found by many people in various
parts of the Hudson Valley. In Croton, a skeleton was found near Pierre Van
Cortlandt School in 1935 by a woman working in her garden on Larkin Place. The
skeleton, a male, was found in a crouched position, resting on its side. It
was determined he lived about 300 years ago, was about six feet in height and
was over 50 years of age.
The river banks are rich in archaeological resources. Stone
hammers, knives, axes, projectile points, scrapers, ceramic vessels and net
sinkers are only a few of the remains uncovered. Some of the best
archaeological sites are found at the mouth of tributaries, such as Croton
Point at the mouth of the Croton River. Large shell mounds of cast-off oyster
and clam shells mark the sites where the early inhabitants feasted as long as
8,000 years ago.
Throughout the Hudson Valley region, archaeologists have
discovered cemeteries, rock shelters, forts, villages, mounds, stockades,
shell heaps, fishing weirs and early and late relics of stone and bone tools
and pottery.
Indian Life
The Indian way of life was characterized by the belief in
equality of the sexes, thus the women took part in tribal matters. The
father's lineage and inheritance was traced through the mother. Males and
females had their specified jobs. Women raised the children, ran the
household, planted and harvested the crops, cooked, prepared skins and made
needed garments. Men hunted, fished and did most of the heavy work such as
clearing land, building houses and making dugout canoes. In addition to her
other duties, the women made pottery, baskets and clothing.
In warm weather, men wore deerskin breechcloths and women wore deerskin
skirts which reached below the knee. In colder weather a wraparound fur cloak
and soft soled moccasins were used. Early European explorers gave eyewitness
descriptions of feathered mantles and fur garments, but no prehistoric
clothing has survived in our area.
When agriculture was introduced it became necessary to have more permanent
houses and storage for tools and food. The houses were made from saplings
driven into the ground and bent to form a round dome shaped trellis which was
covered with elm, chestnut or other kinds of bark shingles or mats. No traces
of these wigwams have been found in the lower Hudson Valley, but in the upper
Delaware Valley, archaeological findings suggest they were round ended or oval
long houses with sleeping platforms arranged along the walls.
The Language
The Indians of the lower Hudson Valley spoke a dialect identified as
Munsee; those living along the river to the north spoke Mahican. Munsee was
similar to the Unami language spoken by the New Jersey natives. Munsee,
Mahican and Unami were closely related to each other. These dialects were in
turn part of the widespread Algonkian language spoken by Indian people
throughout much of North America.
Meeting the Europeans
The first known European visitors to this area were Giovanni da Verrazano,
who sailed into New York harbor in 1524 and Henry Hudson, who in 1609 sailed
up the river that bears his name. Early accounts of these voyages describe the
hospitable Indians eager for trade and rich in furs, fruits and food supplies.
The European traders and settlers acquainted the Indians with new and
desirable commodities: iron axes and hoes, brass kettles, guns, soft warm
cloth, scissors, thread, needles, beads and bangles. The Indians in return
gave the skins of beaver and deer and provided the
settlers with corn and other foods.
A small group of Amsterdam fur traders, having heard of Henry Hudson's
journal describing the natives dressed in mantles of feathers and skins of
fur, decided to set sail for the Great River in 1610. Another five ships
sailed in 1613. the first Dutch holding in American soil was Fort Nassau, 160
miles up the Hudson near present day Albany. In 1623 the newly formed West
India Company took over the abandoned outpost, renaming it Fort Orange. In the
end, the fur trade undermined relations between tribes as they competed for
sources of beaver skins and control of trade.
By the 1630's, the lower River Indians were suffering from smallpox,
malaria, influenza and other diseases which were previously unknown to them.
Entire villages were being annihilated since the natives lacked immunity to
the white man's diseases.
Those that remained tried desperately to maintain their trade routes
against their competitors, the Mahicans and Mohawks, while trying to trap
enough beaver and produce enough food to buy Dutch tools, fabrics and
firearms.
Migration West
As the 17th century wore on, the lands of the lower River
Indians were hunted out. To the north, the beaver territory was taken over by
the Iroquois Indians, and from the south they were pressed by Dutch expansion.
Unable to survive here, some worked their way south toward the back country of
Virginia and the Carolinas, but most went west beyond the Appalachian
Mountains to the remote Far Country of the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes.
From the mid to late 1700s, the Indian population had gradually dwindled.
The Westchester Indians to the east of the river had sold most of their lands
to the English by the early 1700s. Some remained in Yorktown around Indian
Hill. Some chose to stay in the Hudson Valley, settling in remote areas either
marrying other remaining Indians or intermarrying with their black or white
neighbors. Most, however, moved west into Ohio, where they endured another
century of struggle as white settlers spread beyond the Ohio River. Some would
return to their lands to trade furs they had trapped, to sell baskets and
crafts door-to-door, to visit the graves of their ancestors and to die in
their homeland.
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