The social, political and economic issues surrounding gentrification may seem like a new conflict, but in fact gentrification (means when the rich take property from the poor) goes back to 1626, when the Dutch conquered (or purchased for 60 Dutch guilders, the equivalent of $24 or in some estimates $1000 dollars U.S. money, but if the natives would have declined to sell it I wonder if Mr. Minuit would have just walked away.) the area called Manhattan (today) from the Native American tribe called The MANHATTANS or/and another tribe called the LENAPE. The name Harlem derives from the Haarlem, located in the Netherlands. The first Europeans to conquer this area called Harlem or/and Manhattan were the Dutch. It was peter Minuit who purchased the area that is now called Manhattan (today) on behalf of the Dutch west India Company. (More about them and the Dutch east India Company later)
(The origin of the word "gentrification" comes from the word "gentrify" which means "to renovate inner city housing to middle class standards" gentrify is a compound word broken down in the following manner: "gentry" + "fy", "gentry" means nobility of rank or/and birth, also in character. "fy" is a suffix meaning to "make into" or/and "to make, do' / nobility or to be noble is to be "illustrious, distinguished, worthy of honor or respect and of superior birth./ Now here is the root of the problem in the issue of "gentrification"(or in plain English the taken of land and property, the denial of freedom, justice and equality) It is the mindset that another people believe that they are inherently superior to another, so that gives them the birth right to just usurp another people from their land, village or residency without regard to their future, culture and well being. )
According to the history, Harlem was only a village, or a settlement, founded by Hendricks (Henry) de Forest, Isaac de Forest, his brother, and their sister Rachel de Forest, French Dutch immigrants in 1637. (See the book: Ellis, Edward Robb (1966). The Epic of New York
City) The settlement was officially formalized in 1658, known as Nieuw Haarlem. By the last appointed director on behalf of the Dutch west India Company, peter Stuyvesant. (Of course Bedford–Stuyvesant in Brooklyn
is named after peter Stuyvesant also)
The Indian trail to Harlem's lush bottomland meadows was rebuilt by black laborers of the Dutch West India Company and eventually developed into the Boston Post Road. (More than likely in the Bronx) In 1664, the English took control of the New Netherland colony and anglicized the name of the town to Harlem. On September 16, 1776, the Battle of Harlem Heights,(this battle was between the Americans and the British) sometimes referred to as the Battle of Harlem or Battle of Harlem Plain, was fought in western Harlem around the Hollow Way (now West 125th St.), with conflicts on Morningside Heights to the south and Harlem Heights to the north.
Differences in conceptions of property rights between the Europeans and the Lenape resulted in widespread confusion among the Lenape and the eventual loss of their lands. (Gentrification) After the Dutch arrival in the 1620s, the Lenape were successful in restricting Dutch settlement until the 1660s to Pavonia in present-day Jersey City along the Hudson. The Dutch finally established a garrison at Bergen, which allowed settlement west of the Hudson within the province of New Netherland.
"In the early 1680s, William Penn and Quaker colonists created the English colony of Pennsylvania on the Delaware River. In the decades immediately following, some 20,000 new colonists arrived in the region, putting pressure on Lenape settlements and hunting grounds. Although Penn endeavored to live peaceably with the Lenape and to create a colony that would do the same, he also expected his authority and that of the colonial government to take precedence. His new colony effectively displaced the Lenape and forced others to adapt to new cultural demands. Penn gained a reputation for uncommon benevolence and tolerance, but his efforts resulted in more effective colonization of the ancestral Lenape homeland than previous ones." (See Historian James O'Neil Spady)
In 1758 there was the treaty of Easton, between the Lenape and the Anglo-American colonists, required the Lenape to move westward, out of present-day New York and New Jersey and into Pennsylvania, then Ohio and beyond. Sporadically they continued to raid European-American settlers from far outside the area. In 1778 there was another treaty called "the called treaty of fort Pitt" (I guess we know what happened to that treaty)
The following is an excerpt from the book west Virginia: A history for beginners.
Native American Concept of Land
a major factor in the treaty disputes was Native Americans' concept of land. Indians fought among themselves over hunting rights to the territory but the Native American idea of "right" to the land was very different from the legalistic and individual nature of European ownership. John Alexander Williams describes this in his book, West Virginia: A History for Beginners:
The Indians had no concept of "private property," as applied to the land. Only among the Delaware's was it customary for families, during certain times of the year, to be assigned specific hunting territories. Apparently this was an unusual practice, not found among other Indians. Certainly, the idea of an individual having exclusive use of a particular piece of land was completely strange to Native Americans.
The Indians practiced communal land ownership. That is, the entire community owned the land upon which it lived…..
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