Massapequa

Massapequa lies on the southern shore of Long Island, among bays and salt meadows facing the Atlantic. The Massapequa people lived here before European settlement, and their fortified place at Fort Neck stood near the water. Their sachem Tackapausha negotiated with Dutch authorities and English settlers as both sought influence and land on the island.

In 1656 Tackapausha represented the Massapequa in a peace agreement with the Dutch director Peter Stuyvesant, following an Indigenous attack on New Amsterdam the previous year. He also negotiated over a fortified Dutch trading post at Fort Neck. In 1658 he gave Oyster Bay settlers a deed to meadowlands at Marsapeague. These transactions formed part of a rapid transformation of the island as colonial settlements expanded into Indigenous homelands.