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Indigenous NYC

Indigenous NYC is the foundation of New York City. From the old trading post under the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, to Broadway, to the site of the old village in Inwood, and many place names including “Manahatta,” we are the first New Yorkers.

Latin is very Indigenous in the Caribbean and South America. In North America we mixed. Our ancestors came from Asia and the Pacific.

We are the first Americans, the people of the land. Indigenous people have been Americans for at least 20,000 years. You may have been taught that we were killed off, but we are still here. We have always been here. We will always be here for we are the people of the land, and the land is of the first people.

Lenape Delaware and Canarsie people don’t live in New York City anymore. With our brethren, we were forced off our lands to Oklahoma. Ironically, an increasing number of New Yorkers have Taíno, Carib & Garifuna, Aztec, Maya, Inca and other Indigenous ancestors. The spirit of the first people has always been here and the Great Spirit of the land, the land of many hills, Mannahatta, will always be here.

Wëli kishku (Good Day in Lenape Delaware).

Indigenous Archive

Indigenous Festivals in NYC

Indigenous New York City

New York City was built on Lenape or Delaware land. The Lenape village was in what is now Inwood. The Lenape trading post was at Manhattan’s southern tip where the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is now in the Alexander Hamilton Customs House.

Broadway was the trail between the village and trading post. That is why it meanders diagonally across Manhattan’s street grid. The sacred elm tree or Council Elm was where Bowling Green Park is today.

There are many Indigenous sites in New York City. People forget, but the land remembers.

Indigenous New Yorkers

Indigenous People

Indigenous people represent a continuum of cultures from Alaska and the Canadian arctic to Tierra del Fuego at the bottom of South America.

Indigenous peoples have a balanced symbiotic relationship with the land. Killing the people, kills the land; and killing the land, kills the people. Preserving Indigenous ways is really self-preservation.

Indigenous Culture

Our culture is part of your culture.

Maria Tallchief, the First US American Prima Ballerina, Popularized The Nutcracker

Maria Tallchief was the first US American prima ballerina (Everett Collection/Adobe)
Maria Tallchief was the first US American prima ballerina (Everett Collection/Adobe)

Ki He Kah Stah Tsa (Elizabeth Marie “Betty” Tallchief) was born in Fairfax, Oklahoma on January 24, 1925.

Look at her hands. That’s Balanchine technique. She danced for him at Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and then became New York City Ballet’s and America’s first prima ballerina. Dancing “The Firebird” in 1949 made her a star. Together with George Balanchine, the father of ballet in the United States, she popularized “The Nutcracker.” Tallchief danced the Sugarplum Fairy.

Today ballet has become a career for niños bien (rich kids) because it takes so much expensive training and support from an early age to achieve mastery. But it makes sense that natural talent would rise from an Indigenous community.

For us, dance is a spiritual expression. We dance to show that we belong to our community. We dance to show our individuality within our community. We dance for faith and we dance for love. It’s all the same thing, isn’t it?

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.

Wanìshi
(Thank you in Lenape Delaware)

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