A BRIEF history of The BRONCK'S

History of the Bronx

Bronx Natives

Non-Bronx Natives

Something you associate with this borough

What is it like visiting this place?

Describe the people, places, scents, and sights.

Something you hope others associate with your borough…..and….…something you hope they DON’T associate with your borough.

If you’ve never been to the Bronx, form your own group in the hallway.Just….get….OUT.

TOTS: You may have heard things about people or places but after MEETING those people or GOING to those places, some of that stuff may not be true. You gotta find your own truth!

Raph: Cultural baggage is usually enabled by stereotypes.

Michelle: Cultural SHOCK! This is when you go from one dominant culture to another, and see, smell, and experience those differences!

CULTURAL BAGGAGE:Things in your lifetime that you see/heardAnd you relate to that experience…Something you’ve grown up with that has influenced you to believe a certain thing.

Sometimes when traveling you carry similar associations…but they may be FALSE. Often based on assumptions.

Throughout Bronx history, the population has been in flux. It started with the Lenape natives, then the Dutch and the Germans in the 1600s, and later saw major emigration from Irish, Italians and European Jews in the 17-1800s.African-Americans and Puerto Ricans became the dominant populations in the mid-1900s, and today we see Dominicans, Albanians, Mexicans, Garifuna,Bangladeshi, Africans and many others joining the great Bronx melting pot…or is it a salad bowl?

Popular names from the Bronx

The Bronx was the birthplace of hip hop and graffiti culture (though some claim north Philadelphia was the originator of these two urban styles of art), and many others have called The Bronx their home... Woody Allen, Bella Abzug, Herman Badillo, the Belmonts, Lloyd Blankfein, Mary J. Blige, Stokely Carmichael, Afrika Bambatta, Lou Gehrig, John Gotti, Calvin Klein, Edward Koch, Ralph Lauren, Tito Puente, Carly Simon, Sonia Sotomayor, Leon Trotsky, Edgar Allen Poe Jennifer Lopez, and Mark Twain.

Bronx Historical Society

First NationsLenape Native Americans

Lenape natives had strong family ties when it came to parents and children, and the family’s clan was passed down on the mother’s side.

They cleared land for farming, planted and harvested crops, and were crafty with everything from baskets to canoes: basically anything they needed in their society they were able to make by hand.

Generally, the Lenape lived in small groups of about 50 people per village, though some were as large as 300.

The specific Lenape tribes in the Bronx were called Siwanoy and Wecquaesgeek. Those still alive today typically refer to themselves as “Delaware Indians”

Gutenberg,2015

Forced to move in 1700’s to present-day Ohio…

Forced to move into Indiana/Missouri in 1819

Forced to move into Kansas territory in 1830

Forced to move into Oklahoma territory in 1860

Not recognized by the US government until 1996 as a “tribal nation.”

First NationsLenape Native

Americans

Carol A. Lipscomb, “Delaware Indians”

Fun Fact!The Lenape had a trade route that stretched from the southerN tip of Manahatta (“hilly island”) that stretched all the way to BOSTON. The road that ran through the island and up through the Bronx is called “Broadway” today.Museum of the American Indian

Jonas Bronck The Bronx is named in memory of the areas first European settler, the Swede, Jonas Bronck.

Bronck was born in ca. 1600. his father was a Lutheran Minister. Bronck moved to the Americas in 1639.

Bronck wrote to a friend in Amsterdam, “The invisible hand of the Almighty Father, surely guided me to this beautiful country, a land covered with virgin forest and unlimited opportunities. It is a veritable paradise and needs but the industrious hand of man to make it the finest and most beautiful region in all the world.”

Nytimes.com

Jonas Bronck The Bronx is named in memory of the areas first European settler, the Swede, Jonas Bronck.

A mural in the rotunda of the Bronx County Courthouse depicts Jonas Bronck arriving in Westchester County, or “New Netherland”

Jonas Bronck

What do you cover in your history class when it comes to early NYC colonialism?

What brought settlers over from Europe?

What made them STAY?

Some native currency was measured in wampum.

The Quakers were a religious group that was essentially driven out of Europe because they were WAAAAAY TOO

RELIGIOUS.

Was there a “wall” on “wall street”

Jonas Bronck

What do you cover in your history class when it comes to early NYC colonialism?

What brought settlers over from Europe?

What made them STAY?

7th grade history, shortly reviewed.

“ownership of land” Europeans brought the idea of MUCH bigger farms,

Europeans brought diseases

Rape and murder from both parties.

“New Netherlands”…specifically “New Amsterdam!”

Actual history of the Native Lenape peoples (not just a Euro-centric view)

How did the Lenape adapt to European presence? (read Guns, Germs and Steel)

HYBBS!!!! C’mon!!

Jonas Bronck Bronck’s time in New

Netherland was quite brief. For 4 years he raised cattle and plants in the area that is today known as Mott Haven.

Relations between the Dutch and the native American Indian population were tenuous at best, but Bronck grew tobacco and traded with the local Indians, keeping the peace through exchanges of goods. Jonas however had arrived at a rather unfortunate time to be a foreigner, with foreign looks, a foreign language, and a foreign culture.

Painting by Col. J St. Claire, 1914 MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NYC

Jonas Bronck All that changed in the 1640’s,

when hot-headed William Kieft became the director-general of the port city of New Amsterdam. In 1643, driven by growing animosities and the murder of a single settler, Kieft ordered troops to locate the Lenape populations at “Corsairs Hook” and the area now known as Jersey City, murdering dozens of Lenape and ensuring years of bloody battles between settlers and natives. An endless cycle of “revenge.”

Bronck was the unfortunate recipient of native Indian backlash. That same year, 1643, Bronck and most of his settlers were murdered in an Indian raid.Info: NJ City University

Map from Johannes Vingboon, 1639

Sterling, AladineThe Book of Englewood

Despite Bronck having lived there for only four years, the area was known as "Broncksland" through the end of the 17th century. The modern name of the borough does not come directly from that farmland, however, the river that runs north to south through the area, and which his farm abutted, kept the name Bronck's River, eventually being abbreviated or misspelled Bronx River. This name stuck, and it was this river (which splits the modern borough in two) after which The Bronx was named.

Following Bronck's death, and the dispersion of the few settlers, the tract passed through the hands of successive Dutch traders until 1670, when it came into the hands of Captain Richard Morris and Colonel Lewis Morris, at the time merchants of Barbados.

Four years later, Colonel Morris obtained a royal patent to Bronck's Land, which afterward became the Manor of Morrisania, the second Lewis (son of Captain Richard), exercising proprietary right. Morrisania continues to be the name of a neighborhood today, and is the location of the exhibition we’ll be going to see!

Highbridge, Bronx

In 1842 the High Bridge opened, lending character to what was then a tiny village on the east bank of the Harlem River. The bridge was a landmark, attracting sightseers like the Prince of Wales and Edgar Allan Poe. It was built by Irish workers, whose descendants were joined in the 1920s and ’30s by European Jews who lived in the surrounding neighborhoods.

In 2013 plans were announced to renovate the bridge for public use. This newfound interest in a long neglected part of city infrastructure has boosted real-estate prices inn the area. NYtimes

Kingsbridge, Bronx The neighborhood is named for

the first bridge connecting Manhattan to the mainland, erected in 1693 in honor of King William III of England. Tolls applied to all people, and cows, crossing it.

The Kingsbridge Armory has been hotly debated a site for renovation. But despite plans by a private company to turn it into a “large shopping mall” the community board has shut down redevelopment plans until ‘sustainable’ wages are in place for workers.

Currently there are plans to develop this space as the World’s Largest Ice Skating RinkNYtimes

Robert Moses

The HUB