Metoac

Metoac is an erroneous term used by some to group together the Munsee-speaking Lenape (west), Quiripi-speaking Unquachog (center) and Pequot-speaking Montaukett (east) American Indians on what is now Long Island in New York state. The term was invented by amateur anthropologist and U.S. Congressman Silas Wood in the mistaken belief that the various native settlements on the island each comprised distinct tribes. Instead, Indian peoples on Long Island are descended from two major language and cultural groups of the many Algonquian peoples who occupied Atlantic coastal areas from present-day Canada through the American South. The bands on Long Island in the west were related to the Lenape. Those to the east were more related culturally and linguistically to tribes of New England across Long Island Sound, such as the Pequot. Wood (and earlier colonial settlers) often confused Indian place names, by which the bands were known, as the names for different tribes living there. Many of the place names that the Lenape and Pequot populations assigned to their villages and communities were adopted by English settlers and are still in use today. The Shinnecock Indian Nation, based in part of what is now Southampton, New York in Suffolk County, has gained federal recognition as a tribe and has a reservation there. "Metoac" as a collective term may have been derived by Wood from metau-hok, the Algonquian word for the rough periwinkle, the shell of which small sea snail was used to make wampum, a means of exchange which played an important role in the economy of the region before and after the arrival of Europeans. The Native American population on Long Island has been estimated at 10,000 at the time of first contact with Europeans. They belonged to two major nations and spoke two languages within the Algonquian language group, reflecting their different connections to mainland peoples. Native Americans in the west and in the central part of Long Island were more closely associated with bands of the same people in southwestern Connecticut, Eastern Pennsylvania, Lower Hudson Valley in New York, New Jersey and Delaware.