Four hundred years ago, a group of emigrants from what is now the Netherlands settled on the southern tip of the island of Manhattan. They settled there and founded New Amsterdam. In 1664, the English took possession of the settlement, which grew into New York City. For the Lenape people, the original inhabitants, colonization meant the loss of their lands and their near total disappearance: today only about 20,000 of their descendants remain. The latter are now seeking an apology and compensation from the Dutch government, supported by an exhibition at the Amsterdam Museum that illustrates a colonial period that has received less attention than other former Dutch colonies in modern-day Suriname (South America), the Caribbean and Indonesia.
The Amsterdam Museum and the Museum of the City of New York, together with representatives of the heads of the four Lenape Nations, have joined forces to organize the exhibition, called Manahahtáanung or New Amsterdam? The Indigenous Story Behind New York. Through objects, clothing, historical documents and testimonial videos, the voice of a community is recovered “that returns 400 years later to engage in dialogue because with colonization we lost connection with our land and our culture, and language suffered,” explains Brent Stonefish, spiritual leader of the Delaware Nation, one of the four Lenape.
Stonefish has traveled to the Netherlands in search of an official apology and a form of reparation, and notes that “compensation can translate into support for language conservation and social development.” The other three branches of their people are the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation, the Ramapough Lenape Nation, and the Munsee-Delaware Nation. The effects of that process continue to this day and have generated, among other problems, poverty and a lack of self-esteem. The four Lenape nations are federally recognized by the United States government.
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