1 Video & 15 Photos
Shinnecock Protest Development At Canoe Place
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region.
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
Members of the Shinnecock Nation and dozens of supporters from other tribes, environmental groups and social justice organizations gathered on the banks of the Shinnecock Canal on Sunday afternoon to pray and protest overdevelopment in the region and the impacts humans have had on water quality in the region. Michael Wright
For centuries before European settlers arrived on the East End, a low neck of land in what is now Hampton Bays was a crucial center of the Native American society that thrived in the region. It was the narrowest point between the two large bays the natives relied on for the fish, shellfish and waterfowl that sustained them, and the easiest place to carry their canoes back and forth.
White settlers named the area Canoe Place, and in the 1800s sped up the transit between the two bays by digging a permanent canal. The members of the Shinnecock Nation still refer to it by the word their ancestors used: Niamuck.
“It literally means, ‘to carry on our shoulders,’” Shane Weeks, a 30-year old Shinnecock man, said while standing on the banks of the canal on Sunday evening watching the setting sun glint off the gray siding and windows of the three-story townhouse buildings rising on the opposite side, adorned with a sign offering units for rent at $96,000 a year.
“We’d always had a village here,” he said. “It abuts our sacred burial grounds. This was an important place for our people, and we took care of it. Now, today, we have these monstrous buildings going in here.”
Mr. Weeks and a dozen members of the Shinnecock Nation were joined on Sunday by representatives from the Unkechaug Nation of Mastic and Mashapee Wampanoag Tribe on Cape Cod and a crowd of supporters from social justice organizations around the island that have joined the Shinnecock in a new effort to spotlight what the nation says are abuses of their rights, of their land and of their heritage by local and state governments.
On Sunday, they decried the rising 37-unit residential development on the edge of the canal, called the Hampton Boathouses. The development, which was approved nearly seven years ago by the Southampton Town Board, is a stain on the heritage of the area, they said, and a perpetuation of the development practices that have degraded the natural resources the Shinnnecock’s ancestors relied on for millenia.
“We’re concerned about the continued wastewater and the impact on marine life,” said Tela Troge, a tribe member and attorney from Riverhead. “Southampton is home to some of the most polluted water bodies on Long Island. We respected the water and the land. There is no respect for the water and land now.”
Among the crowd were representatives of a number of advocacy groups from around Long Island, like the Suffolk Democratic Socialists of America, Cooperation Long Island and Multicultural Solidarity. Many had found the tribe’s growing activism through the month-long “Sovereignty Camp” the tribe hosted in the woods off Sunrise Highway in November in protest of New York State’s legal challenge to a tribal effort to construct a second electronic billboard on land it owns along the highway.
“It raised a lot of alarms for people who were not aware of what was going on around here,” Mariana Debbe of Miller Place said on Sunday, while painting a sign imploring respect for water quality. “A lot of people were learning about what has been done to the Shinnecock for the first time.
“People are paying attention now,” she added, gesturing to the growing crowd.
As the sun set on the canal on Sunday, Mr. Weeks and Harry Wallace, the chief of the Unkechaug Nation in Mastic, led the group in a traditional prayer and dance ceremony to honor the land and water around them.
“When the creator created this world, he gave everybody instructions on what they were supposed to do here, he gave everyone purpose,” Mr. Wallace said. “The birds remember their instructions. They still know how to fly and migrate based on the seasons. The fish remember their instructions. They still know how to swim and travel the seas to come back to these waters. The animals who walk on this earth remember their instructions. We are the only ones that have forgotten our instructions: that we have a responsibility and an obligation to care for our mother Earth … because if we don’t, she will destroy us.”
Michael Wright on Dec 10, 2020