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Tackapausha – also spelled as Tackapousha – was a
Tackapausha – also spelled as Tackapousha – was a Lenape
The Lenape (, , ; ), also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada.
The Lenape's historica ...
sachem
Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Alg ...
, a successor of Penhawitz (his mother's brother, an important father-like figure in the Algonquian matrilineal kinship system). Tackapousha represented a broad coalition of Munsee
The Munsee () are a subtribe and one of the three divisions of the Lenape. Historically, they lived along the upper portion of the Delaware River, the Minisink, and the adjacent country in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They were prom ...
-speaking peoples of western Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...
in negotiations with Dutch and English settlers from as early as the 1640s to as late as the 1690s.
Over a period of more than fifty years, Tackapausha was involved in the negotiation of many land-use agreements and alliances between the indigenous people of western Long Island and the Dutch and English colonial authorities. In 1643, he and several other Long Island sachems signed an agreement with Englishmen from the Stamford outpost of the New Haven Colony
New Haven Colony was an English colony from 1638 to 1664 that included settlements on the north shore of Long Island Sound, with outposts in modern-day New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The colony joined Connecticut Colony in 16 ...
allowing for the "purchase" of a town plot for the new settlement of Hempstead in territory claimed by the Dutch West India Company
The Dutch West India Company () was a Dutch chartered company that was founded in 1621 and went defunct in 1792. Among its founders were Reynier Pauw, Willem Usselincx (1567–1647), and Jessé de Forest (1576–1624). On 3 June 1621, it was gra ...
. In May 1645, after the murder of five of his people by Hempstead settlers and the murder of two more captured Indians by the Dutch, Tackapausha went to New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam (, ) was a 17th-century Dutch Empire, Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''Factory (trading post), fac ...
to meet with Willem Kieft
Willem Kieft, also ''Wilhelm Kieft'', (September 1597 – September 27, 1647) was a Dutch merchant and the Director of New Netherland (of which New Amsterdam was the capital) from 1638 to 1647.
Life and career
Willem Kieft was appointed ...
and make peace with the Dutch. At the time, Tackapausha said he was representing all the Indian communities of Long Island and he pledged on behalf of them all to provide warriors to help the Dutch defeat any Indians who opposed them.
Tackapausha was the first person to sell land in the Rockaway Peninsula to a person of European background when he sold the present-day Far Rockaway to an Englishman named John Palmer in 1685.
Tackapausha is the namesake of Tackapausha Museum and Preserve in Seaford, New York. It is an "84-acre sanctuary of oak forests, ponds, streams," established in 1938 by Nassau County.
References
17th-century Native American leaders Aboriginal title in New York Lenape people Native American people from New York (state) People from colonial New York People from New Netherland Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown {{NYC-stub