In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazzano first encountered the Lenape off the coast of Sandy Hook. Soon after, more Europeans began to enter the natives’ lands. It was exploited for its abundance of fish, lumber, and furs, leaving the Lenape to struggle for their own natural resources. [i]
By 1600, many Native Americans, including the Lenapes, traded beaver pelts and other animal skins with Europeans. In return, the European traders offered goods like blankets, kitchen utensils, guns, and alcohol that
Fur Trade
eventually displaced the Indians’ way of life.[ii] However, by the mid-1620s, the supply of Lenape pelts had significantly decreased from over-trapping and Europeans turned to the rival Mohicans for more fur trade.
Meanwhile, the population of Dutch colonists grew slowly, since “all lands but those at Canarsie…had been assigned to individual owners.”[iii]
[i] “The Europeans Arrive,” Lenape Lifeways. www.lenapelifeways.org/lenape4.htm#European (Accessed April 26, 2015).
[ii] Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace,Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 21.
[iii] Black, “Jamaica Bay: A History.”
