As we mark Native American Heritage Month, the Haverstraw Brick Museum would like to acknowledge that the Museum, and the entire village of Haverstraw, is located on the traditional land of the Lenape people. The story of the Lenape, and the early relationships between natives and European settlers, is an essential part of the history of Haverstraw.

On the eve of Dutch colonization in present-day Rockland County, the Lenape were a diverse and widespread group. Their range stretched across much of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Individual bands were linked by complex kinship ties, and many of the Lenape bands along the southern stretch of the Hudson River shared a language, known as Munsee.

The bands that lived in and around the area known today as Haverstraw (which comes from the Dutch word for the region, Haver Stro) included the Rumanchenanks, the Warrenawkong, and the Tappen. They fished and hunted along the Hudson River and lived in seasonal villages where they tended to crops like corn. In his 1650 account, Dutch colonist David de Vries described their appearance this way: “Their clothing is a coat of beaver skins, over the body, with fur in the winter, and outside in the summer, they have also sometimes a bears hide or coat of skins of wild cats, or raccoons. They also wear coats of turkey feathers, which they know how to put together. They make themselves shoes and stockings of deerskins and they take the leaves of maize, (cornhusks), and braid them together to use for shoes.”

In her book, Lenape Country, Jean Soderlund notes that when the Dutch first began settling in Haverstraw, the Lenape had been trading with Europeans for decades. Indeed, the Dutch colony of New Netherland became distinctive in that a thriving culture developed amongst Dutch settlers, native peoples, and free and enslaved Africans. The colony never banned interracial marriages and these mixed marriages cemented relationships between these distinct groups. The Lenape traded the Dutch (and later, English) colonists for goods, provided access to resources and local knowledge, and served as guides and translators.

Quickly, both the Dutch and the Lenape determined that the most valuable asset in this trading relationship was land. In the European system of land use, property ownership was crucial, and therefore, the Dutch quickly pursued treaties with the Lenape that gave them land rights. For the Lenape, this was a way to gain access to European-made goods. By the 1640s, however, the relationship was fraying.

In 1643, Kieft’s War broke out. Named for the Director-General of New Netherland, William Kieft, the war lasted for two years and consisted of regular skirmishes, including the destruction of homes and crops. In one episode, Dutch soldiers attacked and massacred an entire Lenape settlement. Similar conflicts were playing out in the colonies of Virginia and New England, as colonists and natives disagreed about access to and ownership of the land. For the Lenape in and around Haverstraw, the conflict was further complicated by the waves of disease weakening and killing their people. Ultimately, the war ended in an uneasy truce.

In the twenty years that followed, Dutch and Lenape relations only worsened. In 1666, the Haverstraw Lenapes, led by their sachem Sesekemu, signed a treaty with Balthazar de Harte, giving him a large land grant in present-day Rockland County. A second tract of land was sold to Stephen Van Cortlandt in 1683. The Lenape were pushed out of their traditional homelands in New York, and moved west to Pennsylvania. In 1757, almost 100 years later, the land under the de Harte patent was purchased by the Allison and DeNoyelles families, who would go on to found the first brickyards in Haverstraw.

The Lenape remain an important part of the region’s community. The Ramapough Lenape Indian Nation is based in the Ramapo Mountains; they host powwows and other events for their tribal members and the public. A recent exhibition and documentary celebrates and gives voice to the women of the Ramapough nation, connecting past and present through their stories.

~Meghan Gelardi Holmes, Public Historian