Wappinger

The Wappinger were an Eastern Algonquian Munsee-speaking Native American people from what is now southern New York and western Connecticut. At the time of first contact in the 17th century they were primarily based in what is now Dutchess County, New York, but their territory included the east bank of the Hudson in what became both Putnam and Westchester counties south to the western Bronx and northern Manhattan Island. To the east they reached to the Connecticut River Valley, and to the north the Roeliff Jansen Kill in southernmost Columbia County, New York, marked the end of their territory. Their nearest allies were the Mohican to the north, the Montaukett to the southeast on Long Island, and the remaining New England tribes to the east. Like the Lenape, the Wappinger were highly decentralized as a people. They formed numerous loosely associated bands that had established geographic territories. The Wequaesgeek, a Wappinger people living along the lower Hudson River near today's New York City, were among the very first to be recorded encountering European adventurers and traders when Henry Hudson's Half Moon appeared in 1609.