Sapohanikan

Sapokanikan, also known as Sappokanican or Saponickan, as explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano observed, was a Lenape settlement near present-day Gansevoort Street and Washington Street in Manhattan, by the Hudson River. The area, meaning "tobacco field" in the Lenape language, was home to the Canarsee people. 

In the early 1630s, Sapohanikan, a Lenape settlement, became increasingly encroached upon by Dutch settlers, leading to its displacement by New Netherland Governor Wouter van Twiller. In 1633, he established the "Bossen Bouwerie," a large tobacco plantation for the Dutch West India Company, seizing land through intermittent violence. Van Twiller expanded the plantation to 300 acres, benefiting personally from the profits. The region was renamed Noortwyck and later Greenwijk under Dutch rule, eventually becoming known as Greenwich Village by the late 1600s under British influence. Sapokanikan's name faded as Greenwich grew. The settlement's name persisted in records throughout the early years of New Netherland until British rule.