Wecquaesgeek

The Wecquaesgeek resided along the southeastern banks of the Hudson River and fished local streams and lakes with rods and nets. The Wecquaesgeek faced numerous conflicts with Dutch and English colonists. In 1609 two dugout canoes were sent from the Nipinichsen settlement to threaten Hendrik Hudson's ship in on his return trip down the river. In the 1640s, the Wecquaesgeek settled the Raritan River and Raritan Bay after the Sanhicans migrated west. Once they settled there, colonists called them the Raritans. ==Settlements==

In his influential Beschryvinge van Nieuw-Nederlant (Description of New Netherland; 1655), large local landowner Adriaen van der Donck provided detailed information about the culture of local Native Americans. He wrote that their custom was to occupy fortified settlements (or "castles" as the Dutch colonists called them) in cold months and move to riverside villages for the summer. Sleepy Hollow historian Henry Steiner cites a 1642 description of one of these "castles" by an anonymous reporter: "...thirty Indians could have stood against two hundred soldiers since the castles were constructed of plank five inches thick, nine feet high, and braced around with thick balk full of port-holes." The following settlements have been documented in historical accounts: • Alipconk (Alipconck) – meaning 'a place of elms', located in what is now Tarrytown. It was burned by the Dutch in 1644. • Nappeckamak – one of the main Weckquaesgeek settlements, which flanked the then Saeck Kill—today's Saw Mill River—at its confluence with the Hudson River in present-day Yonkers • Nipinichsen – a fortified settlement at the north bank of Spuyten Duyvil Creek located in what is now known as Dobbs Ferry and Hastings-on-Hudson where numerous artifacts have been found. The settlement ran along the Wysquaqua stream, now known as Wicker's Creek. The Weckquaesgeek territories were bordered by the Sintsink to the north, below today's Ossining, and inland toward Long Island Sound to that of the Siwanoy, both related Wappinger bands. which they did not permanently occupy but used as a hunting ground. Effectively it was their land that the Canarsee people of today's Brooklyn, who only occupied the very southern end of Manhattan island, an area known as the Manhattoes, sold to the Dutch. ==Naming confusion==

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. Numerous variants of are found on historical maps and in period documents. These include: Wiechquaeskeck, Wechquaesqueck, Weckquaesqueek, Weekquaesguk, Wickquasgeck, Wickquasgek, Wiequaeskeek, Wiequashook, and Wiquaeskec. The meaning of the name has variously been given as "the end of the marsh, swamp or wet meadow", "place of the bark kettle", and "birch bark country". Compounding this was that the Manhattoes was the only part of Manhattan not occupied by the Wecquasgeek; it was a seasonal ground of the Canarsee, a Metoac people who lived across the East River in today's Brooklyn. ==See also==