Nyack Tract
The Nyack Tract or Nyack Patent was a Lenapehoking settlement to the east of The Narrows in the vicinity of modern Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York City.
Its Canarsee leader was Mattano, who may have been involved with the 1626 "purchase" of Manhattan by Peter Minuit. Later, Mattano and his people were coerced to part with their land by Cornelis van Werkhoven and Jacques Cortelyou in 1652 after Kieft's War, and it became part of New Utrecht.
A remnant of the Lenape population persisted until the late 17th century under English rule, maintaining a longhouse and paying rent to Cortelyou to occupy a fraction of their former land. "Nyack Point" remained a neighborhood name until the early 19th century and the American coastal fortification.
Context
The Lenape people and their ancestors lived in the New York City area and wider Lenapehoking for thousands of years. Those residing on western Long Island were generally known as Canarsee. Their principal settlement on Lower New York Bay is recorded as "Wichquawanck" on the Manatus Map of 1639, which may be an earlier name or predecessor of the "Nyack" settlement.Nyack, itself meaning "point" in the Munsee language, was the source of the colonial placename of the "Nyack Point" headland. It is thought to share the same etymology as Nyack, New York in the Hudson Valley. "Nyack Bay", currently known as Gravesend Bay, designated that section of the bay between Nyack Point and Coney Island, and is recorded by that name in accounts of the later English conquest of New Netherland.
The resident sachem Mattano and others at Nyack are described in colonial documents as being "Manhattans", and with its strategic location on The Narrows it is likely their Lenape canoes engaged in commerce with Lower Manhattan. It has been speculated that they were the local group involved with the 1626 "purchase" of Manhattan by Peter Minuit, though the Nyack people would not have practiced Western land ownership, would have been unaware of the content of the Dutch deed, and even their traditional uses would have been of only a fraction of Manhattan.
An 1886 Elbridge S. Brooks children's historical novel includes a fictional Lenape from Nyack, described as trading goods at the Verlettenberg market by modern Exchange Place in Lower Manhattan.
Displacement
About 25 years after the Manhattan "purchase", Mattano and his people were coerced to part with their land by Cornelis van Werkhoven and Jacques Cortelyou in 1652 after Kieft's War, and it became part of New Utrecht.Many of them relocated to Staten Island, and eventually to New Jersey. Mattano's name was later attached to a similar treaty regarding the Elizabethtown Tract in New Jersey.
A remnant of the Lenape population persisted until the late 17th century under English rule, maintaining a longhouse and paying rent to Cortelyou to occupy a fraction of their former land. They lived in one of the least desirable parts of the tract, on an "island" in the midst of a salt marsh. "Nyack Point" remained a neighborhood name until the early 19th century and the American coastal fortification. The Village of Fort Hamilton was subsequently founded by immigrant workers who did business with the army base, being originally known as "Irishtown".