In honor of National American Indian Heritage Month (November), cultureNOW highlights key historic areas in Manhattan where the Lenape peoples lived for centuries. These locations celebrate the rich cultural heritage of the Lenape, the original inhabitants of the island before European settlement. The tour aims to recognize the enduring legacy and contributions of Native American history in shaping the city’s cultural landscape.

Unlike most custom houses, which face the waterfront, the Alexander Hamilton Custom House faces inland toward Bowling Green.  

A tour of Native New York

A village of Canarsie-speaking Lenape called the island home. They called “Pagganck,” which means “nut island,” so named for the area’s abundance of hickory, oak, and chestnut trees. The island, used seasonally, was ample for fishing and agriculture for local tribes.

The National Museum of the American Indian opened in 1922. It showcases Native American art &amp; artifacts, some going back 12,000 years, displayed in a former customs house.&nbsp;Bowling Green was once home to the Kapsee chief and a sacred elm tree, known as a Council Elm. Under the tree, the Lenape held Council Fires and crowds of people gathered to hear great orators, and residents arrived to trade or to socialize. The 1626 trade between the Lenape and the Dutch where Peter Minuit laid claim to Manhattan Island took place here.&nbsp;Broadway was originally a trail created by Native travelers, ran along the length of Manhattan Island, originally connected different villages, and eventually became the road traveled by colonists.&nbsp;New York Harbor was then home to half the world’s oysters. The Lenape discarded the oysters’ pearls along with their shells, and the Dutch dubbed the location Pearl Street because of the pearls and oyster shells that once adorned the riverbank.The Lenape called the southern tip of Manhattan Island, “Kapsee” point meaning “sharp rock place”. It was home to the Kapsee people who were leaders among the Canarsie group of the Lenape. When the Dutch arrived, they used the Lenape place-name, calling the site Copsey Street.&nbsp;A colonial fort where delegations of Lenape and other Native nations, often met and negotiated with Dutch, then British, colonial officials.

Bowling Green

The site is now occupied by the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House

Netherland Memorial Flagpole

Werpoes Village, a settlement on the banks of the Collect Pond, was the southernmost village on the Wequaesgeek Road was sold the island to European settlers in 1626, not those living at the northern tip of modern-day Manhattan. Werpoes was known for its fertile land on which crops grew easily.&nbsp;The corner of Cherry Street and Franklin Square was once the edge of the Lenape’s vast cherry orchard. When the Dutch took control of the orchard, they created “Cherry Street” amidst the trees. On July 16, 1906, during construction for the subway, buried dugout canoes were unearthed by the New York Edison Company at the corner of Cherry and Oliver Streets. &nbsp;In February 1643, more than 120 Munsees were massacred by Dutch soldiers on what was part of the Nechtank settlement.

Collect Pond Park

Intersection of Cherry and Oliver Streets

Astor Place was a large Lenape a powwow point called “Kintecoying,” (meaning Crossroads of Three Nations) a major inter-tribal crossroads, where Manhattan’s three major Lenape groups met in the 16th century – the Canarsie, Sapohannikan, and Manhattan. At a sacred oak tree, where the branches of the trails met, the leaders and others converged for meetings, speeches, tribal councils, games, politics, trade, and burials and other spiritual ceremonies. Although the groups spoke different languages, they would play baggattaway (lacrosse). John Jacob Astor, the area’s namesake, gained a fortune trading furs with the Lenape. In 1870, the influential Native American leader Red Cloud, chief of the largest tribe of the Teton Sioux Nation, appealed to the public at this very location, from the stage at Cooper Union, continuing a centuries-old tradition of Native American oratory at Astor Place.&nbsp;Near Astor Place was the village of Shempoes. The trail from the village went from where St. Marks Church sits today to Astor Place through 9th Street and St. Marks Place.Greenwich Village was once a Lenape village called “Sapokanik,” meaning “tobacco field” or the “land of tobacco growth.” The area was also an active trading settlement and canoe landing area.Minetta Lane and Minetta Street are named after Minetta Creek. The Lenape called it “Manetta,” which means “evil spirit,” or “snake water.” Manetta refers to the evil snake that had tormented the world from time immemorial until it was vanquished by the Lenape hero, Nanabush. Once the snake was conquered, all that remained was the snake-like creek, Manetta.

Greenwich Village Historic District

The settlements of Rechewanis and Konaande Kongh (Park Ave. &amp; 98th St. on the Upper West Side) were in present-day Central Park (southeast of Morningside Heights). Konaanderkongh was a seasonal basecamp for hunting and gathering by several hundred Lenape people. At The Park Avenue Armory Hundreds of Native Americans continued the tradition to gather for a Pow Wow in this area in 2018.

Park Avenue Armory

The Wecksquaesgeek Indians were a Munsee-speaking band of Wappinger people (related to the Lenape and Mahicans) who inhabited Harlem Plains near the Hudson River, and used the area for hunting wild game--like deer and other game. They also called the Harlem River “Muscoota,” in reference to the grassy plants that grew alongside the waterway. The same bedrock from 1609 can still be seen today in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park.

At the narrowest part of the Hudson River between Manhattan and New Jersey, Jeffrey’s Hook served as a crossing point for Native American mariners for centuries.Inwood Hill Park (Manhattan's northernmost point), was a major Lenape village where they fished and harvested shellfish. Park’s caves were used as seasonal living quarters, and old campfires, pottery, tools, and weapons were discovered in the park, likely from when the Lenape fled Mohawk attackers.In 1626, Peter Minuit, the new Director-General of New Netherland by way of the Dutch West India Company, “purchased” Manhattan from the local Lenape chief in exchange for a shipment of goods. The unlawful sale may have occurred under a tulip tree at the park, which grew for 280 years before its death in 1938. Today, the iconic site is marked by a plaque on the Shorakkapoch Rock, a large boulder on the far side of a large open field.

Shorakkopoch Rock

In what is now Bay Ridge, the Canarsee subgroup known as the Nyack—meaning “point of land”—built a shoreline settlement and engaged in trade with the Dutch. In 1645, Dutch West India Company agent Cornelis van Werckhoven exchanged goods like coats, kettles, axes, chisels, looking glasses, knives, and combs with the Nyack for nearby land.To the north, the Mespeatches used modern-day Greenpoint as hunting grounds. Although too swampy for permanent settlement, the area saw early trade between Natives and settlers before conflict arose.Other Native settlements dotted the Brooklyn area: Bushwick, Gravesend, and Fort Hamilton, which was known as Navack. Sheepshead Bay was valued as a wampum source, and there were Native villages near what is now the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The area known today as Brooklyn Heights was called Ihpetonga, meaning “high sandy bank.”

Canarsie Park

Gowanus, in northwestern Brooklyn, is named after a Canarsee chief, Gauwane. Though settled by the Dutch in 1635, the Canarsee had long inhabited the area, and a small Native community remained into the 1960s. In 1916, Mohawk ironworkers came to New York to help build the Hell Gate Bridge. By the 1930s, over 800 Mohawk people lived in North Gowanus (now Boerum Hill), forming a close-knit community nicknamed “Downtown Kahnawake,” after their home near Montreal. The Wigwam Bar at 75 Nevis Street served as a community gathering spot.

The Lenape called Coney Island Narrioch, possibly meaning “land without shadows.” A tribe known as the Konoh may have lived there, potentially inspiring the name "Coney Island." In 1609, Henry Hudson anchored in Gravesend Bay and began trading with the local Canarsee, who attacked his group the next day, but resumed trade for economic reasons. The Canarsee used the island’s marshes to generate income and gathered wampum and clams along the beach. Though the Dutch let English dissenters settle there, the Konoh attacked the home of their leader, Lady Moody. She eventually negotiated grazing rights in the marshes. On May 7, 1654, a Native man named Guttaquoh claimed ownership of “Coyne Island,” but the effort failed when the Mohawk wiped out the local population in 1655 for failing to pay tribute to the Five Nations.

The area now known as Maspeth in Queens was originally home to the Mespeatches tribe, one of the 13 main tribes of the Long Island region. They established a village just east of present-day Mount Zion Cemetery. The name Mespeatches is believed to mean “at the bad water place,” a reference to the swampy conditions that characterized the region. In 1642, Dutch settlers arrived in the area, but increasing conflict with local tribes forced them to retreat to safer settlements in Elmhurst and Manhattan. The Mespeatches also lived along Flushing Bay, and a trail used by the tribe roughly corresponds to the path of today’s Grand and Flushing Avenues. In the Rockaways, evidence of the East River Culture—likely ancestors of the Algonquian-speaking tribes—includes pottery dating back to around 1100 A.D. By the early 1600s, the Recouwacky tribe had established villages in the area, building dome-shaped wigwams. In 1645, they signed a peace treaty with Dutch governor Willem Kieft. Around that time, Tackapausha, a prominent Native leader, was elected sachem over several tribes living under Dutch authority, including the Massapequas, Merikokes, Canarsees, Secatogues, Rockaways, and Mattinicocks. The name Rockaway may stem from Native words such as "Reckonwacky", meaning “the place of our own people,” or "Reckanawahaha", meaning “the place of laughing waters.” The Old Rockaway Trail, an ancient path, aligns with today’s Jamaica Avenue, running through Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, Jamaica, Hollis, and Bellerose. The name Jamaica likely derives from a Native word meaning “place of the beaver,” referencing the beaver-rich streams north of Jamaica Bay. Tribes in Jamaica likely interacted with the Matinecock of the Kissena Park area—“Kissena” meaning “cold place.” Nearby, the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground holds the remains of many individuals of Native descent.

Ward’s Point, at the southernmost tip of Staten Island and New York State, holds one of the best-preserved archaeological sites for studying Native American history in the region, located within Conference House Park. Evidence reveals Paleo-Indian presence dating back to around 6,000 BC. The site’s unmarked burial ground was used by the Lenape peoples from the Woodland period through Dutch colonization. The beach erosion at Ward’s Point exposes large shell middens, remnants of ancient Native diets.&nbsp;The area was primarily inhabited by the Raritan band of the Lenape, who lived near the Raritan River. In 1895, archaeologist George H. Pepper, working for the American Museum of Natural History, conducted significant research at Burial Ridge, uncovering human remains often found in flexed positions. Among the findings were hammerstones, ax heads, utensils, pendants, and possible copper ornaments, including the burial of a child with some of these items. Staten Island was sold in 1670 by Munsee residents through a complicated deed signed unusually by four sons of the colonists. Other Native sites on Staten Island include: A village discovered in West New Brighton with evidence of Native occupancy, A shell heap in Rossville, Probable settlements near Freshkills Park, Evidence of occupancy around Sandy Ground and Great Kills neighborhoods.

A tour of Native New York

Tour Stops