Before Blackwell's, Welfare & Roosevelt Island, There Were The Lenape People, Current Resident Asks For Remembrance And Recognition Of Lenape Of Mannahatta

Many Roosevelt Island residents care passionately about the history of our little New York City/State Island in the middle of the East River - we even have our own Historical Society. Our history usually begins with Blackwells Island, then renamed Welfare Island and now Roosevelt Island.



But before there was Blackwells Island - there was the Lenape people.

The Roosevelt Island Twitterverse reported today:

Passing by Blackwell House earlier made me wonder: @RIOCny is once again restoring this small piece of colonial history. I think that has value. But do we have anything here on @Rooseveltisland to remember & recognize the Lenape people who first called this island home? ❄️ pic.twitter.com/z7i6sBQMBe

— Minnehanonck (@minnehanonck) January 18, 2019

Unfortunately since history is written by the "victors", I doubt that will happen. Since we keep talking about America being discovered, rather than what really happened, it was invaded by Europeans. When the history books finally reflect the truth then perhaps.

— Steve Day (@sjdayny1) January 18, 2019

My kids learned of the Lenape while in elementary school. If there was some sort of exhibit on the island perhaps down in the Wild Gardens it might draw local school kids.

— Eric (@Eric11714) January 18, 2019

Yes! An outdoor exhibit that also worked in an acknowledgment of native flora/fauna and how the Lenape coexisted with the natural environment would be hugely informative, and perhaps unique enough in NYC it would draw school trips from all over. @iDig2Learn what do you think?

— Minnehanonck (@minnehanonck) January 18, 2019

According to Correction History:

... Blackwell's was the name that for nearly two centuries identified what is now known as Roosevelt Island, whose aerial tramway cable-cars gliding over the East River can be seen from the Queensborough Bridge. The cigar-shaped 120-acre isle beneath the bridge extends 1.75 miles and is 750 feet across at its widest point.

Gov. Van Twiller reported obtaining it for New Amsterdam from native tribal leaders in 1637. Then the Dutch settlers put their pigs to pasture there, generating its early Colonial name of Hog Island. In 1652, a man named Flyn acquired the island but 16 years later a British military captain, John Manning, bought it. Unhappily for him, he presided over the surrender and brief return of the city to Dutch rule in 1673. For this, his sword was later symbolically broken in a City Hall ceremony of disgrace. Afterwards, Manning retired to his island refuge. His stepdaughter married Robert Blackwell who took title to it in 1717.

New York City acquired the island on July 19, 1828, through a foreclosure -- later ruled to have been illegal. Total final price: $52,500...

The Bowery Boys have more on the Lenape people:

... Before New York, before New Amsterdam – there was Lenapehoking, the land of the Lenape, the original inhabitants of the places we call Manhattan, Westchester, northern New Jersey and western Long Island. This is the story of their first contact with European explorers and settlers and their gradual banishment from their ancestral land.

Fur trading changed the lifestyles of the Lenape well before any permanent European settlers stepped foot in this region. Early explorers had a series of mostly positive experiences with early native people. With the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, the Lenape entered into various land deals, ‘selling’ the land of Manhattan at a location in the area of today’s Inwood Hill Park.

But relations between New Amsterdam and the surrounding native population worsened with the arrival of Director-General William Kieft, leading to bloody attacks and vicious reprisals, killing hundreds of Lenape and colonists alike. Peter Stuyvesant arrives to salvage the situation, but further attacks threatened any treaties of peace. But the time of English occupation, the Lenape were decimated and without their land....

Check out what NYC and Roosevelt Island (Mannahatta) looked like

in the early 1600's

 Screen Shot From A Radical Revision Of Our Future/ Eric Sanderson video

from Beyond Manhattan, The Welika Project.

Right. I always flinch a little when I hear people who have lived on Roosevelt Island since the 70s and 80s refer to themselves as “original settlers.”

— Minnehanonck (@minnehanonck) January 18, 2019