New York Latin Culture Magazine®

World-class Indigenous, European & African Culture since 2012

Indigenous Culture

Indigenous culture in New York City was originally Lenape (the true people). Manahatta is a Lenape name. Broadway and Bowery/Third Avenue were old Lenape trails. Today many Native Americans and Indigenous peoples of the Americas live here. Being Latin usually means being at least part Indigenous.

New York’s Indigenous cultural centers include The Lenape Center, The North American Indigenous Center of New York, and the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute.

Indigenous museums include: the National Museum of the American Indian, El Museo del Barrio, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Brooklyn Museum.

The main Indigenous festivals include the Indigenous People Day Pow Wow, the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Parade, and the Drums Along the Hudson multicultural pow wow.

Indigenous Culture in New York City

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Wednesday, November 9-17, 2022
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Indigenous Peoples

Native Americans live in the United States and Canada, but we are a continuum of Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas, from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego.

We didn’t die out in the Colonial Era. Many of us married in and the census just stopped counting us. We’re still here.

Indigenous culture survived better outside the United States. It’s often mixed with African Diaspora culture because we escaped the colonizers together. In some regions, the African Diaspora culture is more present. In others, the Indigenous culture is more present, but a surprising amount of African Diaspora culture is mixed in.

Maracas and the güiro are Indigenous Caribbean instruments used in Latin music.

Indigenous New York City

There are many Indigenous sites in New York City. People forget, but the land remembers. Many place names are based on Indigenous names. For example, the Lenape name “Mannahatta” (hilly island) became Manhattan.

Broadway was the Lenape road from the market where the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian is now, past the Sacred Council Elm where Bowling Green Park is now, up to the site of the Lenape town in Inwood and beyond to Albany along what is now Route 9. Albany was a regional center of Indigenous culture. The Lenape town where Inwood Hill Park is now, is the most beautiful spot on the island.

The Bowery was a trail that led up the mainland shore of Long Island Sound. Red Hook Lane in Downtown Brooklyn was a Canarsie trail.

The spirit of the First Nations has always been here, and the Great Spirit of the land, the land of many hills, Mannahatta, will always be here.

The Colonial Period

It’s hard to grasp how hard the Colonial Period was on the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. What started with a devastating pandemic, ended with a literal and then cultural genocide. But we are still here.

At the time of European contact, the Americas were full of people who were cultivating and managing the land. The great civilizations of the Olmec, Maya, Aztec and Inca are well known. But there were great civilizations in North America too, including the Mississippi Mound Builders and the Southwest Pueblos. These were large, highly-developed societies that traded throughout the Americas. There were people everywhere. Most were farmers. Some were hunter gatherers. There was nothing primitive about the First Nations. They just weren’t European.

The pre-contact population of the Americas is debated, but most estimates range from 50 to 100 million people. Pandemics of European diseases, genocidal practices, and livestock that destroyed Indigenous farming caused a rapid 90-95% depopulation. The death rate from Covid-19 is less than 2%. Imagine the shock of a 90-95% death rate. Those who survived then had to fight the colonizers.

One of the big lies is that we were wiped out. If there are no people, you can take the land. The truth is that we intermarried or escaped into the mountains and forests. We are still here. We’ve always been here.

Then colonizers forced Indigenous peoples to try to be culturally European. That’s another mess. But you can still see our Indigenous heritage in Latin music and dance, art, beauty queens, people’s names, place names, moon names, matriarchal family and leadership structures, and even in the ways that Latins socialize. Part of the structure of the U.S. Congress was based on the experience of the Indigenous First Nations.

For example, in Puerto Rico, a bohio (Taíno thatch building) becomes a chinchorro (roadside restaurant bar) which in New York City becomes a street fair kiosk or bodega corner store. We still gather to buy and sell, tell stories, sing and dance. Just now we dance salsa or merengue. The Taíno tribe didn’t survive, but carries on in the way people live their lives.

In the beginning we are all Indigenous somewhere.
In the end, we are all children of the earth, sun, moon and stars.
It’s time to remember who we are.