Native food cart in Manhattan

Parks Department issues request for Native American food cart downtown

By James Fanelli and Kathleen LucadamoThe city is trying to get back to its culinary roots.

The Parks Department is searching for cooks who specialize in American Indian fare--think frybread, bison and beans--to run a food cart in Bowling Green.

"People still love the hot dogs and pretzels but they want other options," said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe.

Since the lower Manhattan park houses a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian, officials thought it was fitting to serve indigenous food nearby.

The winning vendor can serve native fare from North or South America.

That means relying on "squash, potatoes, pumpkins, avocados, yucca, bison, venison," and whipping up "frybread, ceviche, arepa, tamales and pupusas," a request for proposals shows.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Salishan Catering Serves Native Cuisine and Mitsitam Cafe Cookbook.

Tribe sues to get Manhattan back

New Jersey Indian Tribe Files Suit For Ownership Of Manhattan

A New Jersey-based tribe has laid claim to Manhattan in a lawsuit.

By Nina MandellIn the latest twist in a two-year battle, the New Jersey Sand Hill Band of Lenape and Cherokee Indians filed a suit in a New Jersey court claiming it owns Manhattan, as well as the Hudson New Jersey, Delaware and Eastern Pennsylvania.

While the lawsuit may seem unrealistic, tribe spokesperson Laura Zucker said they are confident in their case.

“Oh no, they’re going to win, there’s no question about it,” she said. “They do have a really good case, and they know it. They’re in it to win it.”

The suit claims that the tribe’s land was stolen from them through a series of fraudulent treaties that violated international treaty laws. They are seeking the “return [of] all land, water, trees, etc. encompassing the fraudulent 'Manhattan' purchase, damages, and punitive damages,” according to court documents.Sand Hill Indians Claim Manhattan

By Jillian ScharrThe Sand Hill are seeking "re-establishment of a land base for the tribe, federal as well as international recognition as a sovereign people, and back remuneration for the use of natural resources and assets that were taken illegally," Sand Hill Government Liaison Laura I. Zucker told NBC New York in an emailed statement.

Sand Hill Chief Ronald Holloway filed the first lawsuit in 2009 against the State of New Jersey, charging then-Governor Corzine and members of the state administration with "violation of human rights, genocide, and breaking of treaties etc." according to the press release.

On April 20, Holloway appeared before the United Nations, accusing the federal courts of "deliberate stalling," wrote Zucker. "The UN has agreed to review the case to see if it can go to the Hague," she wrote, but they have not confirmed whether or not it will go.

This week, Holloway filed a motion amending the first to include claims on Manhattan and parts of Pennsylvania and Delaware as well as New Jersey.Comment:  Not only does this lawsuit seem unrealistic, it seems like one of the most unrealistic lawsuits of all time. Compared to this, suing Bush and Cheney for war crimes would be a sure thing.

This story almost seems like an Onion spoof. But I found it in two sources, including the Associated Press, so it must be real.

For more on the subject, see How Mannahatta Became Manhattan and Indians Buy Manhattan for $24.

How Mannahatta became Manhattan

Hudson Is Not My Hero: Anniversary Highlights 400 Years of Exploitation

A Review of the book, Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City, by Eric. W. Sanderson.

By Jessica LeeSanderson’s portrait of Mannahatta provides a lens to see why European explorer-capitalists would have drooled over this little island. That while his exploration did not lead to the East Indies like he had hoped, this location was surely as rich: “… skins and peltries, martins, foxes,” Hudson promptly reported to his financiers when he returned to Amsterdam. Less than a year later, Dutch private traders, including the famous Adriaen Block (which a school in Flushing, Queens, is named after), launched profit-seeking fur expeditions into the area.

While Mannahatta provides us with beautiful pictures and descriptions, the book gravely lacks significant political, economic and historical information and analysis to explain the forces that transformed the island to what we recognize today.

“Hudson’s quest was tied into the historic current washing over the powers of Europe … to reach around the globe: to discover, exploit, expand, to do business,” writes Russell Shorto in The Island at the Center of the World, a 2004 groundbreaking glimpse of the role of the Dutch in early American history. “As the European powers sent off their navies and adventurer-businessmen to roam the seas in history’s first truly global era, this island would become a fulcrum in the international power struggle, the key to control of a continent and a new world.”Comment:  This review overlooks the Christian basis for the European expansion and colonization. The explorers and conquerors could do their dirty work because the Bible said they could.

Whenever we discuss the conquest of America, we should remember this point. The "noble" Pilgrims had economic motives and the "noble" explorers had religious motives. The two are inextricably intertwined.

For more on the subject, see Those Evil Europeans.

The Mannahatta Project

Here's a scientific effort by the Wildlife Conservation Society to envision Manhattan Island before the white man arrived:

OverviewEver wondered what New York like before it was a city? Welcome to Mannahatta, 1609.

Now, after nearly a decade of research, the Mannahatta Project at the Wildlife Conservation Society has un-covered the original ecology of Manhattan. That’s right, the center of one of the world’s largest and most built-up cities was once a natural landscape of hills, valleys, forests, fields, freshwater wetlands, salt marshes, beaches, springs, ponds and streams, supporting a rich and abundant community of wildlife and sustaining people for perhaps 5000 years before Europeans arrived on the scene in 1609. It turns out that the concrete jungle of New York City was once a vast deciduous forest, home to bears, wolves, songbirds, and salamanders, with clear, clean waters jumping with fish. In fact, with over 55 different ecological communities, Mannahatta’s biodiversity per acre rivaled that of national parks like Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Great Smoky Mountains!

Today Manhattan is still habitat, but now that habitat is mainly given over to people. Understanding the ecology of Mannahatta helps us bring into focus the ecology of Manhattan today and plan for the urban ecosystem of the future, while at the same time enabling us to reflect upon the value of the wild “Mannahattas” that still exist in the world.If you're wondering how Indians fit into the island ecology of 1609, here's how:

The Lenape--The Original New YorkersThe abundance of wildlife, the island’s location near the estuarine waters, and the hilly topography made Mannahatta a great home for the Native American Lenape people, who lived on the island when Hudson arrived. The Lenape and their ancestors lived on Mannahatta for perhaps 5000 years before European contact, obtaining all the food, water and materials they needed from the surrounding forests, wetlands and waters. In Northeast Algonquin culture, the Lenape were considered the “Ancient Ones”; they told legends of North America as “Turtle Island”; and their folklore suggests a close connection to the land and appreciation of their role, one among many, on Mannahatta.

We studied the effect of the Lenape on the landscape through computer models, based on the reconstructions described above. We used a wildfire model created by the U.S. Forest Service to estimate the effect of Native American fire on the landscape, showing that through repeated burning as little as once every 10 years, places like the Harlem Plains could be transformed from forest to grasslands. We also created a geographic model of shifting horticulture and estimated how much crops like corn, beans and squash (the traditional “three sisters” garden) contributed to their diet. Today after a long diaspora, Lenape people live in Oklahoma, Kansas, Wisconsin, New Jersey and Ontario, Canada.Comment:  It's not clear if anything except the wildfire component shows the human changes to the landscape.

I don't know much about the Native presence on Manhattan, but it's possible that this model understates the Native role. The experts are starting to believe that Indians drastically modified every environment they lived in.

So the correct model might not be a couple of Native overlays on 10,000 years of "natural" layers. It might be 10,000 years of Native overlays on a couple of "natural" layers.

For more on the subject, see No Primitive Indians Here.

P.S. Thanks to correspondent DMarks for bringing this to my attention.

Indians buy Manhattan for $24

Wall St. Excesses Take Ultimate Toll:  Manhattan Sold Back to the IndiansIn perhaps the ultimate sign that the reckless behavior of Wall Street is exacting an “historic” toll, the Borough of Manhattan, originally purchased by the Dutch from the Indians 400 years ago, was today sold back to the same Native-American tribe.

Most shockingly, the price was also the same—$24—although given the strength of the Indian bargaining position, they did not have to pay cash, but only toxic stockpiles of “corn derivatives,” also known as ethanol.

Perhaps fittingly, while the seller in such transactions typically springs for the celebratory lunch, in this case, the contracting parties went ”Dutch treat.”

Although the tribe indicated that the entire island of Manhattan would be turned into one giant gambling casino, most financial experts agreed that this represented an improvement in “risk management” over the business practices of the last ten years.Comment:  Good idea for a satire, but the execution is mediocre. The "jokes" fall flat and are a bit stereotypical.