Henry Hudson\u2019s boat. September 2, 1609<\/p>\n
The actual founding of New York City occurred in 1615 when the New Netherland Company, a subsidiary of the Dutch East India Company chartered to make four voyages within a three-year limit, built a stone house on the lower tip of Manhattan Island. Around this stone house, the huts of traders sprang up. This was the inconspicuous beginning of the city and for some years there was no change in the scene. There was just the storehouse and the rude huts of a few hardy men who bartered with the Indians for furs.<\/em> (Kieran 3) Henry Hudson\u2019s boat. September 2, 1609 The actual founding of New York City occurred in 1615 when the New Netherland Company, a subsidiary of the Dutch East India Company chartered to make four voyages within a three-year limit, built a stone house on the lower tip of Manhattan Island. Around this stone house, the huts [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[343],"class_list":["post-6851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-lenape-stone-henry-chapman-mercer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6851"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6856,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions\/6856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nOne.
\nEverything about New York is a barter.
\nEvery single moment that one stands on the lower tip of Manhattan,
\nthe traders begin to spring into their rudeness, small claims on the biggest places
\nand all the while, someone is pushed out of the way \u2013
\nthe beautiful creatures that fly in the air,
\nthe creeping critters on the sands below the ice in March.
\nAnd, at some point, in May or June, when the grasses are about to spring
\nfrom their seeds, stones are place over them by the companies.
\n
\nNobody thought much about progress in the beginning.
\nNone were able to conserve the birds, and for some years \u2013
\nthe harbor was still prolific and engorged with the natural.
\nIt was only when the grease from the skins began to slink into the mud
\nthat the locals began to question the new habitants\u2019 storehouses.
\nAt first, they simply looked into the buildings \u2013 to see the skins,
\nand the fat, but the blood would streak into the streets and hasn\u2019t stopped.
\n <\/p>\n
\n
\nTHE PEOPLE<\/strong>
\n
\n\u201cBy 1500, Lenapes have lived in the area of Greater New York City for 1,500 years. They call their homeland Lenapehoking.\u201d (Mushabac and Wigan)
\n\u201cLand is the gift of the creator.\u201d
\n
\nWhich creator makes the land in New York?
\nWhich party is responsible for the area the people called Lenapehoking \u2013
\nbecause there is a new land being made in ways that don\u2019t resemble the first waves,
\nsandy marsh, soils and glacial deposits.
\nThe newest construction is more angular and less ruddy.
\n
\nThe buildings going up are blue in color, more like steel than copper.
\nThe brick and mortar are a darkness, a blacker brick
\nthan the local soils reddish and golden points.
\n
\n1626. Construction of Fort Amsterdam begins
\nat the southern tip of Manhattan. (Mushabac and Wigan 7)
\n
\nThe lightness begins to shift, shadows fall in places where there had been sun streaks.
\nThe birds lift off the tops of the workhouse.
\n1626. Eleven African men, probably captured from Spanish or Portuguese ships, are brought to New Amsterdam to labor as slaves for the Dutch West India Company. (Mushabac and Wigan 7)
\nAnd the labor force arrives
\nat the same time the rookeries are emptied out.
\nBirds seeking life somewhere beyond the shore
\nand the feathered inhabitants leave the coast of the islands
\nmoving across the Hudson to New Jersey
\nso many species of shorebirds and crows vacated
\nto greener shores leaving the gulls to their trash.
\n
\nImagine the walls of Fort Amsterdam which rose
\nfrom the rocks and sewage
\nand all the while \u2013 in some new formed rule \u2013
\nthe strong backs of slave labor began in the galleries
\nand moved into the corners of the streets
\nas the sand became hard and dense from footprints
\nand the water blackening and slick with human bondage
\nand waste and wear, headbands tied up the hair
\nand metal clanking chains remanded and maintain order.
\n
\nWhose bright idea was it to push some of us down?
\nWho gave the orders to cast stones against the tree?
\n
\nTheir eyes were fixed on the blue sky, the lushness of the waters,
\nopen air and whole vistas of movement in the clouds
\nwhile the narrowness of their oppressors began to skim off
\nthe humanness, eyes no longer met with respect,
\nbodies no longer equitable \u2013 who determined the price to be paid?
\n
\nWhose best thinking put a price tag on another?
\n
\n
\nPamela Kallimanis, M.F.A. in English Writing and Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She is an Instructor in the English Department at Hunter College and a student of International Migration Studies at CUNY Graduate Center. Her work explores questions of identity, ethnicity, migration, loss and trauma. She teaches a wide range of courses from Literature, Creative Writing and Poetry. She is the author of “The Zero Elegies” published by Three Mile Harbor Press. http:\/\/cuny.is\/professorwrite2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"