Native Americans on the Hudson

It is interesting to read T.C. Boyle’s World’s End, in the first few pages he mentions two Native American tribes that lived in the vicinity of the Hudson River. I was not sure if the tribes he mentioned were historically accurate so I searched and found the Kitchawank to be a subdivision of one of the main four tribes living near the Hudson. They were located in the northern part of Westchester County beyond Croton River and between Hudson River and the Connecticut. Another interesting truth that Boyle includes in his novel is that the tribe we today call the Mohawk, meaning ‘man-eaters’, called themselves, Kaniengehaga, 'people of the place of the flint’.
On the Hudson there were a number of tribes from which all sub-tribes, like that of the Kitchawank branched from. First the Mahican, ‘wolf’, tribe stretched on both sides of the Hudson from New York City all the way to Lake Champlain. When the Dutch arrived in the area this tribe was know as the ‘River Indians’. Another notable tribe was the Manhattan tribe, a tribe from the Wappinger confederacy, from whom Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island. Many more tribes stretch along the Hudson River and into the Mohawk Valley.
I am part of the History and Culture section of our presentation. It was interesting reading the first few pages of Boyle’s book and realizing when we split up the history we failed to include the history of the Native Americans who lived in the area. Even in class we started with Henry Hudson and his discovery of the Hudson. We never covered the Native American history of tribes who had been thriving long before the Hudson was ‘discovered’. In Shorto’s, The Island at the Center of the World, we were reminded of the Dutch influence on the Hudson Valley, but what about the Native American influence? Is their contribution to our culture solely seen in the names of the Finger Lakes or is there a stronger connection between their lives and our history?

Source: http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/index.htm