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Early History
Two distinct but closely related nations inhabited the Hudson Valley at the time of European contact. The Mohicans (or Mahicans) lived in the northern valley, the area from approximately present-day Kingston up to Lake Champlain, west to the Schoharie Valley, and east into Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Vermont. The Lenape (sometimes Lenni-Lenapi, meaning, roughly, “the real or original people”) first populated the Delaware River Valley, particularly around Minisink (“the place where stones are”) where New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania meet. They are also called Delaware Indians, and the nation eventually comprised clans that lived in an area they called the Lenapehoking, their territory in what is now Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Eastern Delaware, and the Lower Hudson Valley. The northeastern clans who moved into our region spoke a Lenape dialect known as Munsee, and are thus also known as the Munsee Indians. It was the Munsee who were waiting on shore when Verrazano “discovered” his narrows in 1524 and when Hudson “discovered” the river in 1609. The Munsee were also the tribe that famously sold Manhattan to Peter Stuyvesant in 1626.

Though the Mohicans and Munsee were distinct, their languages were similar enough to allow communication (they are both considered part of the larger Algonquian language group that covers much of northeast North America), and their relations were mostly peaceful. They knew they were relatives, and assisted each other when in danger of attack on their western borders, from the Mohawk/Iroquois, and to their east, from the Mohegans, who, despite their similar-sounding name, were a competitive nation. But these were temporary alliances; the tribes never formed a larger confederacy like the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy in central New York State.