Exchanging wampum in a gesture of reconciliation, members of New York's oldest church apologized Friday to Native Americans for their suffering that began 400 years ago.

400 Years Later, Collegiate Church apologizes to Lenape, a Native American tribe

New York Daily News comment

I work in the archaeology required by law, which could be improved, no state laws in NY protecting graves were they are, federally "protected" after they're removed, and at last check, no real NYC Landmarks Preservation protecting other sub-surface remains, i.e, mostly standing structures, over 40 years, if they're allowed, often their history too ignored as the "architecture" evaluation takes precedent, not the "social history" inside. My point, is that perhaps we're apologizing to just some of the people. I've learned or heard, after Governor Kieft was recalled to Holland, after the war he started with the natives around New Amsterdam, a treaty, the first, was signed between the English and the Dutch over the "Oyster War". The once native Algonkian speakers (New England), the Weckqueskeck of the Bronx and Westchester, the Lenape spoke a Delaware dialect, are said to have had their last village in Dobbs Ferry, NY, there a monument attests in Westchester County. They were lured over…

...over to New Jersey for what they thought was protection from various allied natives and settlers, and massacred according to the American Heritage history book on "Indians". The treaty I heard put their remaining numbers among other Algonkian speakers, in Nissoquogue, near Smithtown on Long Island as part of the Dutch/English treaty, perhaps the first "reservation" in North America. Their descendants have been theorized to be among the Unkechogue near Old Mastic on the Forge River, and the William Floyd Manor, a New York signer of the "Declaration of Independence" and Revolutionary War general buried in Upstate New York. I worked on the archaeology of the manor before it opened to the public, its family left it to become part of the Fire Island National Seashore, a federal wilderness in NY. We must remember all the other natives too who inhabited Long Island and still do today, they deserve an apology too, never a recorded hostility in our history with them, the "wampum" makers.