The Wappinger had summer and winter camps. They cultivated maize, beans, and various species of squash. They also hunted game, fished, collected shellfish, and gathered fruits, flowers, seeds, roots, and nuts. By 1609, the Wappingers' earliest recorded European contact, their settlements included camps along the major rivers between the Hudson and
Housatonic, with larger villages located at the river mouths. Settlements near fresh water and arable land could remain in one location for about 20 years, until the people moved to another place some miles away. Despite many references to their villages and other site types by early European explorers and settlers, few contact-period sites have been identified in southeastern New York. individuals. Robert Juet, an officer on the
Half Moon, provides an account in his journal of some of the lower Hudson Valley Native Americans. In his entries for September 4 and 5, 1609, he says: "This day the people of the country came aboord of us, seeming very glad of our comming, and brought greene tabacco, and gave us of it for knives and beads. They goe in deere skins loose, well dressed. They have yellow copper. They desire cloathes, and are very civill ... They have great store of maize or Indian wheate whereof they make good bread. The country is full of great and tall oakes. This day [September 5, 1609] many of the people came aboord, some in mantles of feathers, and some in skinnes of divers sorts of good furres. Some women also came to us with hempe. They had red copper tabacco pipes and other things of copper they did wear about their neckes. At night they went on land againe, so wee rode very quite, but durst not trust them" (Juet 1959:28). As the Dutch began to settle in the area, they pressured the Connecticut Wappinger to sell their lands and seek refuge with other Algonquian-speaking tribes. The western bands, however, stood their ground amid rising tensions. Following the
Pavonia massacre by colonists, during
Kieft's War in 1643, the remaining Wappinger bands united against the Dutch, attacking settlements throughout
New Netherland. The Dutch responded with the March 1644 slaughter of between 500 and 700 members of Wappinger bands in the
Pound Ridge Massacre, most burned alive in a surprise attack upon their sacred wintering ground. It was a severe blow to the tribe. The Dutch and the
Mohawk, their trading partner and powerful member of the
Iroquois Nation in central and western New York, defeated the Wappinger by 1645. Together, the allies killed more than 1500 Wappinger during the two years of the war, a devastating toll for the Wappinger. After the war, the confederation broke apart, and many of the surviving Wappinger left their native lands for the protection of neighboring tribes, settling in particular in the "prayer town"
Stockbridge, Massachusetts in the western part of the colony, where Natives had settled who had converted to Christianity.
18th century In 1765, the remaining Wappinger in
Dutchess County sued the
Philipse family for control of the
Philipse Patent land but lost. In the aftermath the Philipses raised rents on the European-American
tenant farmers, sparking colonist riots across the region. , last
sachem of the Wappinger In 1766
Daniel Nimham, last
sachem of the Wappinger, was part of a delegation that traveled to
London to petition the
British Crown for a restoration of land rights and better treatment by the
American colonists. Britain had controlled former "Dutch" lands in New York since 1664. Nimham was then living in Stockbridge, but he was originally from the Wappinger settlement of
Wiccopee, New York, He argued before the royal
Lords of Trade, who were generally sympathetic to his claims, but did not arrange for the Wappinger to regain any land after he returned to North America. The Lords of Trade reported that there was sufficient cause to investigate "frauds and abuses of Indian lands...complained of in the American colonies, and in this colony in particular." And that, "the conduct of the lieutenant-governor and the council...does carry with it the colour of great prejudice and partiality, and of an intention to intimidate these Indians from prosecuting their claims." Upon a second hearing before New York Provincial Governor
Sir Henry Moore and the council,
John Morin Scott argued that legal title to the land was only a secondary concern. He said that returning the land to the Indians would set an adverse precedent regarding other similar disputes. Nimham did not give up the cause. When the opportunity to serve with the
Continental Army in the American Revolution arose, he chose it over the British in the hopes of receiving fairer treatment by the American government in its aftermath. It was not to be. Many Wappinger served in the
Stockbridge Militia during the
American Revolution. Nimham, his son and heir Abraham, and some forty warriors were killed or mortally wounded in the
Battle of Kingsbridge 19th century Following the American Revolutionary War, From that time the Wappinger ceased to have an independent name in history, and their people intermarried with others. A few scattered remnants still remained in their original territory. As late as 1811, a small band was recorded as having a settlement on a low tract of land by the side of a brook, under a high hill in the northern part of the Town of
Kent in
Putnam County. Later in the early 19th century, the Stockbridge-Munsee in New York were forced to remove to
Wisconsin. Today, members of the federally recognized
Stockbridge-Munsee Nation reside mostly there on a reservation, where they operate a casino. In 2010 the tribe was awarded two tiny parcels suitable for casinos in New York State in return for dropping larger land claims there. ==Bands==