Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/77

 SECT. II.] ALGONKIN-LENAPE AND IROQUOIS NATIONS. 41 with the exception of the Narraganset, is nearly extinct. Many had, it is true, removed from time to time to the west- ward. But the great diminution and approaching extinction are due to the same causes, which have operated everywhere else, and to which we may hereafter advert. It is probable that the Manhattans and the other tribes, which may have been seated below the Highlands, on the east- tern bank of the Hudson, within the jurisdiction of New York, were of the same stock with their eastern neighbours on the main along the Long Island Sound, and may also be included under the general appellation of Mohicans. Of this, however, we have no direct proof, as no vestige of their language remains. The Dutch purchased from them the Manhattan Island, where they erected a fort about the year 1620, and laid the founda- tion of New Amsterdam, now New York.* But they appear to have been in a state of perpetual hostility with those Indians. De Laet, who wrote in 1624, and mentions the purchase, says that the eastern bank of the river was, from its mouth, inhabited by " the Manathanes, a cruel nation at war with us." He also mentions the Delawares or Minsi, living on the opposite shore, under the names of Sanhikans and Mahkentiwomi, as a more humane and friendly nation. It was there accordingly that they made their first settlement in that quarter, about the year I6l0.f About the year 1643, the Dutch appear to have been re- duced to great distress by the Manhattans and the Long Island Indians. They applied in vain for assistance to the Colony of New Haven ; but they engaged in their service Captain Un- derbill, a celebrated partisan officer, with whose assistance and, it is said, that of the Mohawks, they carried on the war for several years. Underbill had a mixed corps of English and Dutch, with whom he is said to have killed four hundred In- dians on Long Island. And in the year 1646, a severe battle took place at Horseneck on the main, where the Indians were finally defeated. { Stuyvesant's statement of the Dutch claim in 1644. f The Delaware tradition (Hecke welder's Account, chap, ii.) that they first received the Dutch, is correct. X Trumbull's History of Connecticut, passim. VOL. II. 6
 * Smith's History of New York, p. 38, where is given Governor