Wappinger ('easterners,' from the same root as
Abnaki, q.
v.). A confederacy of Algonquian tribes, formerly occupying the east bank
of Hudson river from Poughkeepsie to Manhattan island. and the country
extending east beyond Connecticut river, Conn. They were closely related
to the
Mahican on the north and the Delaware
on the south. According to Ruttenber their totem was the wolf. They were
divided into 9 tribes:
Wappinger proper
Manhattan
Wecquaesgeek
Sintsink
Kitchawank
Tankiteke
Nochpeem
Siwanoy
Mattabesec
Some of these were again divided into subtribes. The
eastern bands never came into collision with the Connecticut settlers.
Gradually selling their lands as they dwindled away before the whites,
they finally joined the Indians at Scaticook and Stockbridge; a few of
them also emigrated to Canada.
The western bands became involved in war with the Dutch
in 1640, which lasted five years, and is said to have cost the lives of
1,600 Indians, of whom the Wappinger proper were the principal sufferers.
Notwithstanding this, they kept up their regular succession of chiefs and
continued to occupy a tract along the shore in Westchester county, N. Y.,
until 1756, when most of those then remaining, together with some Mahican
from the same region, joined the Nanticoke,
then living under Iroquois protection at Chenango, near the present
Binghamton, N. Y., and, With them, were finally merged into the Delaware.
Their last public appearance was at the Easton conference in 1758. Some of
them also joined the Moravian and Stockbridge Indians, while a few were
still in Dutchess county in 1774.
They had the following villages:
Alipconk
Canopus
Cupheag
Keskistkonk
Kestaubuinck
Kitchawank
Mattabesec
Meuunkatuc
Nappeckamak
Naugatuck
Nipinichsen |
Nochpeem
Ossingsing
Pasquasheck
Paugusset
Pauquaunuch
Pomperaug
Poningo
Poodatook
Poquannoc
Pyquaug
Quinnipiac |
Rechtauck
Roatan
Sackhoes
Sapohanikan
Senasqua
Tunxis
Turkey Hill
Uncowa
Wecquaesgeek
Wongunk
Woronock |
The books presented are for their
historical value only and are not the
opinions of the Webmasters of the site.
Handbook
of American Indians, 1906
Index of Tribes or Nations
