The Dutch, Munsees, and the Purchase of Manhattan Island
from Opening Statements—Law, Jurisprudence, and the History of Dutch New York
by Paul Otto
Edited by Albert M. Rosenblatt and Julia C. Rosenblatt
PDF here:
Munsee Indians
NYTs on NYC’s American Indians
From the NYTs:
New York’s Last Natives
Q. What was the last organized American Indian tribe to occupy what are now the five boroughs? When did it leave?
A. You could make an argument for the Munsees. The purchase of Manhattan by Peter Minuit in 1626 was negotiated with the Munsee speakers of the Lenape (“the People”) of the Delaware Nation, according to information compiled by the National Museum of the American Indian. (Munsee is a dialect in the Algonquian language spoken by the Delaware.)
Turtle Talk 