This is the first comprehensive narrative history of Long Island's Native Americans. John A. Strong traces the history of the Algonquian peoples of Long Island from the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago to the beginning of the eighteenth century. The primary focus here is on the Algonquian communities themselves, in contrast to previous accounts which presented the original inhabitants of the island as one dimensional figures providing colorful background to the unfolding of white colonial history. The first five chapters draw upon the fields of archaeology and anthropology to reconstruct an account of Algonquian cultural evolution through the Paleo-Indian, Archaic, and Woodland Periods prior to the arrival of the Europeans.
Emphasis is on the role of the environment in the development of economic and religious systems.
The last six chapters concern the first decades of interaction between the Algonquian communities and the settlements established by the Dutch and the English. A re-examination of the colonial documents for this period provides a more balanced understanding of the responses of the Algonquian peoples to the impact of the European invasion. John A. Strong is Professor Emeritus of History at Southampton College of Long Island University. He has written extensively on Long Island Indians and is the leading ethnohistorian on Long Island. The Algonquian Peoples of Long Island is published under the auspices of the Long Island Studies Institute, Hofstra University, by Empire State Books.