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![\"Gezicht](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GezichtOpNieuwAmsterdam.jpg\" "\\"America")
Gezicht op Nieuw Amsterdam by Johannes Vingboons (1664), an early picture of Nieuw Amsterdam made in the year when it was conquered by the English under Richard Nicolls.Public domain<\/p>\nOver two centuries since the founding fathers envisioned independence from the British and conceived the \u201cland of the free,\u201d indigenous New Yorkers still reckon with the near-erasure of their peoples\u2019 stories, history, and culture from the public eye, and the lack of representation and recognition of indigenous groups in government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big challenge is to continue our presence in a place that has effectively erased our presence,\u201d Joe Baker, founding member and executive director of the Lenape Center and an enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, one of three federally recognized Lenape nations, told amNewYork.<\/p>\n
Before it was called New York City, even before it was New Amsterdam, the land was Lenapehoking. The Lenape people lived along the coast of modern-day Pennsylvania through southern New York for a thousand years or more before settlers arrived. They called Manhattan \u201cManhatta,\u201d commonly translated to \u201chilly island.\u201d<\/p>\n
First New Yorkers \u2018sale\u2019 of Manhattan cost natives more
\nGezicht op Nieuw Amsterdam by Johannes Vingboons (1664), an early picture of Nieuw Amsterdam made in the year when it was conquered by the English under Richard Nicolls.Public domain<\/p>\n
The story most New Yorkers know of Dutch settlers purchasing Manhattan in 1626 for $24 in beads is largely a myth. The only remaining record is a 1626 letter<\/a> from Pieter Schaghen, a representative for the Dutch West India Company who wrote that the island was acquired \u201cfor the value of 60 guilders.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Schaghen, who was not present for the \u201cpurchase,\u201d names no Lenape seller and mentions no beads in the document. The Lenape treated land as shared, not owned, and likely did not view it as a permanent sale.<\/p>\n What followed was a violent removal. The colony\u2019s Dutch director, Willem Kieft, made demands that led to massacres of Lenape communities in 1643. Disease and war reduced the population to only a fraction of its original 20,000 members by 1700.\u00a0<\/p>\n After the English seized the colony of New Amsterdam and transformed it into New York in 1664, the surviving Lenape were pushed off Manhattan Island. Many of their descendants now belong to federally recognized nations in Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada.<\/p>\n Baker said that progress for indigenous groups cannot be made unless their stories are actively preserved and shared. He noted the unhonored 1778 Treaty of Fort Pitt, which proposed a native-led state headed by the Delaware with a seat in Congress, as a piece of indigenous history that many schools do not teach. One of the treaty\u2019s signatories was Captain White Eyes, whom Baker described as a fourth great-grandfather.<\/p>\n \u201cAs long as we\u2019re dragging this myth, the story, this fabricated narrative of the beginnings of this country, I don\u2019t think we can move forward in a good way,\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\n Lenape descendants look to tell forgotten lessons The Lenape Center is focused on addressing that issue today. With Teachers College, Columbia University, the center built a Lenape curriculum now being tested in city schools, which Baker said includes an introduction to the culture and language.<\/p>\n For most of the city\u2019s history, the representation of Indigenous people was not seen on calendar days. This changed in 2021, when New York City Public Schools renamed \u201cColumbus Day\u201d as \u201cItalian Heritage\/Indigenous Peoples\u2019 Day.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n![\"indigenous](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/53333317930_81ee13e866_o.jpg\" "\\"America")
An indigenous man performs a dance during a Gracie Mansion reception in 2023.Benny Polatseck | Mayoral Photography Office<\/p>\n