Land Acknowledgment Statement
of the Three Village Historical Society and Museum

October 2025.

We acknowledge that the land on which the Three Village area stands is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Algonquin peoples, specifically the Setalcott Tribe, who have historically identified with this region of North America. The Three Village Historical Society (TVHS) recognizes that the Setalcott people possess unbroken genealogical, cultural, and spiritual ties to this land, extending back thousands of years. 

The Three Village Historical Society and Museum acknowledges that public institutions, indeed the nation-state itself, were founded upon and continue to enact exclusions and erasures of Indigenous peoples, who, despite these systems of colonialism, maintain their culture, kinships, and traditional values. This acknowledgment demonstrates a commitment to begin dismantling ongoing practices and legacies of settler colonialism that are pervasive in the communication and education of public heritage, and to recognize the hundreds of Indigenous Nations who continue to resist, live, and uphold their sacred relations across their lands. We also pay our respect to Indigenous elders’ past, present, and future and to those who have stewarded this land throughout the generations. 
 

We honor the steadfast unity and solidarity of the Native American community throughout Long Island. The notion of distinct “tribes” on Long Island is a colonial construct; one designed to simplify colonial land transactions and impose external systems of governance, rather than reflect the traditional Indigenous social structures that were rooted in kinship-based village communities [i]. We acknowledge that these colonial categorizations were later weaponized to promote a narrative of Indigenous “extinction” across Long Island, often through reductive labels like “the Last of the full-blood Nissequogue,” “the Last of the Montaukets,” or “the Last of the Unkechaugs.” These narratives obscured the complexity and continuity of Indigenous life that long predated European colonization. In contrast, the enduring presence of Algonquin peoples in Setauket, sustained through family lineages, cultural traditions, and ancestral ties to the land, stands as powerful evidence of survival, adaptation, and ongoing Indigenous identity. Their presence is not defined by colonial-era tribal boundaries but by a legacy of community resilience, historical continuity, and living heritage. In essence, tribal names that once served colonial interests have been reclaimed and transformed into sources of unity, cultural pride, and political organization. For many Indigenous people, these tribal affiliations are now essential frameworks for asserting sovereignty, preserving traditions, and advancing the rights of their communities. What was once a colonial construction has become a powerful tool of survival, resistance, and self-determination.

Long Island’s Native people have lived here since time immemorial, and archaeological data support this. Archaeological evidence from sites throughout the Three Village area (some of whose excavated artifacts are currently curated by TVHS) demonstrates human presence here for at least 8,000 years [ii]. Stone tools, shell middens, cemeteries, pottery, and camp sites attest to the ancient Algonquin life, while later artifacts, such as buttons, glass bottles, clay pipes, and iron eel spears, reflect the continued presence and persistence of Indigenous communities. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Black and Indigenous community created a cultural enclave in Stony Brook extending into Setauket along Christian Ave [iii].  In 2005, this community was recognized by New York State as the Bethel-Christian Ave-Laurel Hill (BCALH) Historic District. Notably, BCALH is one of the few official historic districts in New York State recognized for its surviving cultural, rather than its architectural, significance.
 

The TVHS archival collections contain photographs, documents, and oral histories that preserve glimpses of Indigenous life from the nineteenth century to the present day. In particular, audio-recorded oral histories of Setalcott elders, collected since the 1980s, offer profound testimony to the community’s resilience, identity, and lived experience. Together, these carefully preserved records and artifacts show that the Setalcott have maintained an unbroken presence and deep connection to the Three Village area that continues to this day.
 

We honor Setalcott elders and leaders across generations, from Sachem Warawakmy, the seventeenth-century Setalcott leader first recorded by colonial observers [iv], to Helen “Hart of the Morning Star” Sells and Robert “Silver Wolf” Thompson, present-day Co-Chairs of the Setalcott Native American Council, as well as Gail (Chief Running Water) Revis. We especially remember the late Chief Theodore “Blue Medicine” Green (1927–2007), a Setalcott leader, council member of the LI Native American Task Force, historian [v], and former Trustee of the TVHS. Chief Green’s leadership and influence within the TVHS challenged archival silences, advanced the visibility of Black and Indigenous histories, and led to meaningful change in how the Society interprets and communicates local heritage.
 

We also acknowledge that Native Americans on Long Island were among the earliest people enslaved by European settlers in Suffolk County [vi]. While they were formally manumitted in 1679, this freedom came well before the eventual emancipation of African-descended individuals. Enslaved Africans on Long Island lived within multi-ethnic communities that included Native American families, where shared experiences of bondage, survival, and systemic marginalization led to complex intergenerational relationships. From the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, African, Indigenous, and European-descended peoples intermarried, formed kinship networks, and lived in proximity within socially segregated but culturally resilient communities. Further, in earlier days, African-Indigenous relationships were partly shaped by colonial legal structures that governed lineage and enslavement. According to respected historian John A. Strong, colonial laws often dictated that a child’s status followed that of the mother: children born to enslaved African women inherited their mother’s enslaved status, while those born to Native American mothers were born free [vii]. As a result, unions between African fathers and Indigenous mothers, although often legally restricted, were socially beneficial. Over generations, these familial bonds contributed to a blending of identities, with African-descended individuals increasingly becoming part of Indigenous kinship networks [viii]. This blending did not erase Native culture and traditions; rather, it ensured their continuity, as reflected in the archaeological, historical, and oral records preserved today.
 

The Three Village Historical Society and Museum further recognizes the lives, labor, and legacies of enslaved and free Africans and African Americans who helped build this community, not only through their labor but through their cultural, political, and familial contributions. The first enslaved Africans in Suffolk County are recorded as arriving in 1654. In Setauket, the earliest known record of slavery is the 1672 sale of a man named Antony to landowner Richard Floyd for only 48 pounds. Other early documented enslaved individuals include Samboe (1677), Jack (1683), and Dick (1684) [ix]. Slavery expanded throughout the eighteenth century, with a gradual abolition beginning in 1799 and formal emancipation in 1827. This history is often minimized as a backdrop to Euro-American achievement, but the Society acknowledges the exploitative labor that made the region’s agricultural economy possible and the systematic forms of racism that persisted long after. We honor the memory of those enslaved and free Black and Indigenous ancestors, and we recognize the enduring presence of their descendants. These individuals have shaped the cultural and civic identity of the Three Village area, serving as educators, healers and nurses, public servants, cultural leaders, valorous military veterans (since at least the Civil War), and essential contributors to the fabric of the community. We especially recognize community leaders like Robert Lewis of Higher Ground and Carlton “Hub” Edwards, who are living libraries of community history, along with so many others. We also acknowledge community institutions, such as the Bethel AME Church and the American Legion Irving Hart Post 1766, which have served as community hubs and cultural centers, as well as the sacred grounds of the Old Bethel and Laurel Hill Cemeteries. 
 

The Three Village Historical Society is committed to supporting Setalcott sovereignty and amplifying Black and Indigenous histories through the shared stewardship of Native American archaeological collections, to provide research assistance and access to primary source archival documents that attest to Black and Indigenous experiences, to emphasize consultation with Setalcott collaborators in the guided interpretation of public heritage in our exhibitions, archives, and educational programming, to co-coordinate cemetery restoration and protection efforts, and to actively seek new and equitable ways to advance the relationship between the TVHS and the Setalcott Nation. 

 

[i] Strong, “The Thirteen Tribes of Long Island”

[ii] Matthews, A Struggle for Heritage, 27; see also Tweedie, “Stone Tools at Historic, Mixed-Heritage Settlements, 5–6; Ritchie, The Stony Brook Site

[iii] Wellman, Cultural Resources Survey

[iv] Records of the Town of Brookhaven, 1

[v] Green, “The Hart-Sells Connection,”

[vi] Rabito-Wypensenwah, “Native American Slavery,” 430. see Fernow, New York Historical Records, 537–38

[vii] Strong, The Unkechaug Indians of Eastern Long Island, 113

[viii] Guillaume, “Character Names in “Indian Trails””

[ix] Matthews, A Struggle for Heritage, 30; Records of the Town of Brookhaven 1880,29, 48, 51, 52

 

Bibliography and Further Reading
 

Brookhaven, New York.
Records of the Town of Brookhaven up to 1800 as Compiled by the Town Clerk. Compiled by the Town Clerk. Brookhaven, NY, 1880.
 

Fernow, Berthold.
New York Historical Records. Vol. 13. Albany, NY: Munsell, 1881.
 

Green, Theodore A.
“The Hart-Sells Connection.” In William Sidney Mount: Family, Friends, and Ideas, edited by Elizabeth Kahn Kaplan, Robert W. Kenny, and Roger Wunderlich, 63–67. Setauket, NY: Three Village Historical Society, 1999.
 

Guillame, Bernice F.
“Character Names in “Indian Trails” by Olivia Ward Bush (Banks): A clue too Afro Assimilation into Long Island’s Native American culture. In The History and Archaeology of The Montauk, Vol. 3, no. 2, edited by Gaynell Stone, 357-362. Stony Brook, NY: Suffolk County Archaeological Association, 1993.
 

Matthews, Christopher N. A Struggle for Heritage: Archaeology and Civil Rights in a Long Island Community. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2020.
 

Rabito-Wypensenwah, Philip.
“Native American Slavery on Eastern Long Island.” In The History and Archaeology of The Montauk, Vol. 3, no. 2, edited by Gaynell Stone, 429–431. Stony Brook, NY: Suffolk County Archaeological Association, 1993.
 

Ritchie, William A.
The Stony Brook Site and Its Relation to Archaic and Transitional Cultures of Long Island. New York State Museum and Science Service Bulletin 372. Albany: University of the State of New York, 1959.

———. The Archaeology of New York State. New York: Natural History Press, American Museum of Natural History, 1965.
 

Strong, John A.
“The Evolution of Shinnecock Culture.” In The Shinnecock Indians: A Cultural History, edited by Gaynell Stone. Stony Brook, NY: Suffolk County Archaeological Association, 1983.

———. The Unkechaug Indians of Eastern Long Island. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011.

———. “The Thirteen Tribes of Long Island: The History of a Myth.” The Hudson Valley Regional Review 9, no. 2 (1992): 39–73.
 

Tweedie, Mark.
“Stone Tools at Historic, Mixed-Heritage Settlements in North-Central Long Island, New York: Technology, Tradition, or Lithic Taphonomy at the Silas Tobias and Jacob Hart Households.” Unpublished manuscript, Department of Anthropology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, 2017.
 

Wellman, Judith, ed.
Cultural Resources Survey of Sites Relating to People of Color, Three Village Area (the Setaukets, Stony Brook, and Old Field) with a Focus on the Bethel-Christian Avenue-Laurel Hill Town of Brookhaven Historic District. Prepared by Historical New York Research Associates, with contributions by Robert Lewis, Judith Burgess, Christopher Matthews, and Karen Martin. Submitted to Preserve New York. On file at Historical New York Associates, 2016.