Photo: Jeremy Dennis Photography
Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR) Land Acknowledgement for Cherry Grove, Fire Island, New York
This land acknowledgment was created by Jeremy Dennis, artist, photographer and member of the Shinnecock Nation of Southhampton, New York for Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR) through a commissioned project. Dennis has provided permission for FIAR to read this statement aloud for its Cherry Grove-based programs and events and share the following research and context on its website.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Fire Island Artist Residency is situated upon what is traditionally Unkechaug and Secatogue ancestral territory. Secatogue territory spanned present-day Brentwood to the northwest, Lake Ronkonkoma to the northeast, toward West Bay Shore to the southwest, and West Sayville to the southeast. Unkechaug territory spanned present-day Cherry Grove on Fire Island on the southwest, Lake Ronkonkoma to the northwest, Calverton to the northeast, and Eastport to the southwest. The Unkechaug people are a self-governing sovereign nation who still retain an Indian Reservation in Mastic, New York on their ancestral territory.
This land acknowledgment acts as a reminder of the land dispossession and continual displacement of Indigenous peoples and our commitment to dismantling the ongoing effects of this colonial legacy.
Unkechaug People
The Unkechaug (“People from beyond the hill”) Nation maintains a sovereign relationship with the State of New York, other Indian Nations in the United States and Canada, and other foreign powers. The Unkechaug Nation is located on the Poospatuck (“where the waters meet”) Reservation in Long Island, NY.
Under the provisions of colonial laws and later under the New York State Constitution (Article 12) the State of New York formally recognized the Unkechaug Nation of Indians in the 18th century. 1,500 acres of land that had been long held by the Unkechaug and that continued from an original land agreement (entered into with the King of England and the Unkechaug in the 17th century) was set aside for the exclusive use of the Unkechaug. Today, that allotment has been reduced down to 55 acres; nevertheless, the affinity of the people to the land is as strong as in the past, if not even stronger today.
As of this writing (2021), the total population of tribal members, families, and extended relations is 450 of which approximately 250 reside on the Poospatuck Reservation. Housing density, and occupancy levels are unacceptable when measured against the rate of population growth and available land as well as the number of tribal members who want to return to their traditional homeland. The Unkechaug are faced with a rate of population growth greater than the national average and are in need of an increased demand for tribal services. Housing is an important priority for the tribe but efforts to expand housing for tribal members are blocked by a lack of land. The Unkechaug are committed to increasing the land base in order to meet the needs of their members. (Excerpt from the official Unkechaug Nation website)
Secatogue People
For several thousand years before the first European colonists, the first known inhabitants of this area now known as the towns of Islip and Patchogue, New York were the aboriginal Secatogues — a place name spelled a dozen different ways in historic records. It was not a “tribal” name, but a place name that the colonists conferred upon them as they designated them as a “tribe.” The meaning of Secatogue in William Wallace Tooker‘s Indian Place Names on Long Island is given as "the black or dark- colored land."
The Secatogue are members of the larger Algonkian language family and are peoples who inhabited the Atlantic Coastal Plain from present day Canada to the Carolinas; they spoke a variant of the language of the Mohegan-Pequot, across the Long Island Sound from them.
The Secatogue do not have a land base or reservation today, but it could be said that their descendants have mixed into neighboring present-day communities on Long Island, including the Matinecock, Unkechaug, Shinnecock, and Montaukett.
TRADITIONAL FIRE ISLAND USES
Quahog clam shells on Fire Island beach
Photo: Jeremy Dennis Photography
Long Island features ocean barrier beaches from Brooklyn to Southampton, NY. Before the arrival of European colonists, the Unkechaug and Secatogue people would have likely hunted whales, seals, deer, fish, and other mammals along the ocean shores and northern bays of Fire Island. Due to harsher environmental conditions on barrier beaches, long-term habitation would have been on mainland Long Island.
Today, as one walks the ocean beaches, reddish microbes can be observed in large patches in the sand. These are microorganisms that contribute to the purple color in some clamshells found along the shore. These purple and white clamshells were used, and are still used today, by Indigenous artists and manufacturers to create Wampum beads and jewelry. Wampum beads were originally used to exchange goods, trade, create storytelling belts, and when Europeans arrived, they were essential in the early fur trade and in land transactions. Local Long Island Indigenous communities continue to manufacture and craft using Wampum beads, and the public can observe these objects in local museums including the Wertheim Wildlife Refuge, and annual events including the Shinnecock Nation Labor Day Weekend Powwow.
PLACE NAME
Fire Island received the name 'Fire Island' as it appeared on maps with that name in the 1850s. According to William Wallace Tooker's Indian Place Names on Long Island, Fire Island, and the Great South Beach, was traditionally known as "Matthabanks" by local Indigenous people. This name may translate to "a bank of a river."
Other general place names in the present-day Sayville or traditionally Secatogue homelands are Secoutagh, Sichtewach, Sighewach, Owenamchog, Onkoue-nameech-quke, Sichetanyhacky, Siekrewhacky, Mattanhbank, Seal Island/Eninash, Niac, and Ahki.
Fire Island was known as "Matthabanks" or "a bank of a river"
Photo: Jeremy Dennis Photography
Additional Reading & Resources
Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center
Photo: Jeremy Dennis Photography
Official Blog of the Unkechaug Nation
Shinnecock Land Acquisition and Stewardship Fund
Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center
Gaynell Stone, Languages and Lore of the Indians of Long Island, 1980
John A. Strong, The Algonquian Peoples of Long Island from Earliest Times to 1700, 1997
Madeline C. Johnson, Fire Island: 1650s - 1980s, 1992
Warren C. McDowell, Fire Island Saga: How Fire Island Got Its Name, 2019
William Wallace Tooker, Indian Place Names of Long Island, 1911