Manhattoe/Manhattoes is a term describing a place and, mistakenly, a people. The place was the very southern tip of Manhattan island in the time of the Dutch Colonization of what became New Amsterdam there. The people were a band of the Wappinger native to southwest Westchester County known as the Weckquaesgeek, who controlled the upper three-quarters of the island as a hunting grounds. As was common practice early in the days of European settlement of North America, a people came to be associated with a place, with its name displacing theirs among the settlers and those associated with them, such as explorers, mapmakers, trading company superiors who sponsored many of the early settlements, and officials in the settlers' mother country in Europe. Because of this early conflation there is enduring confusion over whether "Manhattoe/Manhattoes" were a people or a place. There is certainty it was a place, at the very tip of Manhattan Island, so referred to by the Dutch, who evidently inherited the Native American name for the spot they chose to place their settlement. Period accounts maintain that Manhattan island was used as a hunting ground by two tribes, the Canarse of today's Brooklyn at its southern one-quarter and the Weckquaesgeek the rest, each having no more than temporary camps for hunting parties.
Manhattoes/Manhattans (place)
Manhattoes was the name of a Dutch settlement in New Netherlands in the early decades of their settlement there in the 1600s. Located at the very southern tip of today's Manhattan Island, it was known by the native term by both the Dutch and the English who wished to displace them. Fort Nieuw Amsterdam was built in 1627, but the common name held fast. Eventually, by the time of the incorporation of the settlement, the fort's name displaced the original, and "Manhattoes" became Nieuw Amsterdam in 1653. The terms Manhattans and Manhatans were also used for the Manhattoes by some Dutch, giving rise to Manhattan island's contemporary name and conflation with a people who neither occupied that part of the island nor went by that name.
Manhattoe/Manhattan (people)
Manhattoe, also Manhattan, was a name erroneously given to a Native American people of the lower Hudson River, the Weckquaesgeek, a Wappinger band which occupied the southwestern part of today's Westchester County. In the early days of Dutch settlement they utilized the upper three-quarters of Manhattan Island as a hunting grounds. The people - Wecquaesgeek - became conflated with a place - the Manhattoes, regardless that it was the only part of the island they did not occupy. Over time that term became "Manhattan" and "Manhattans" for those who hunted the vast majority of the island, as well as the name of the island.
