WILD PLANTS AS A MARVELOUS PHARMACOPIA-HISTORIC AND GEOLOGIC PERSPECTIVE

Exploring the reasons wild plants are such prolific producers of physiologically active organic compounds. 

In the ancient Mesopotamian city of Sumer, archaeologists recovered 5,000-year-old clay tablets listing over 250 wild plants with medicinal uses, including willow bark (aspirin) and poppy flowers (opium). An indication that humans have been exploiting wild plants for millennia. Our modern drugs such as opium, digitalis, morphine, codeine, castor bean extracts, quinine, curare, cannabinol, (as well as physiologically active non-drugs such as nicotine and caffeine) and uncounted more common medicinal compounds are the result of botanical chemical evolution as well as the ancient herbalist’s patient trial and error.

In western literature one of the earliest references to the use of wild plants as physiologically active chemicals (in this case its use as a deadly poison) occurs in Homer’s  Odyssey. Homer writes that Ulysses, when he finally returns to Ithaca dressed as a beggar, is confronted by one of his wife’s suitors. Homer describes Ulysses’ response after one of them throws a “cow’s hoof” at the undercover prince of Ithaca. The ancient poet writes that Ulysses smiled with “risus sardonicus” a bitter or cynical grin—or sardonic smile at the affront. Homer here is making reference to the poison Water Dropwort or Water Hemlock (Oenanthe crocata) which was known to grow on the island of Sardinia where it was used in execution rituals. The plant poison, a neurotoxin, causes general paralysis as well as tightening of the muscles of the face which generates an eerie death-smile on the corpse of the unfortunate victim.  

When I was a boy growing up in rural New York, local herbalists commonly used wild plants to prepare home grown medicines.  Willow bark, taken from the graceful weeping willow (Salix sp) in our front lawn was steeped in water to make a strong tea which acted as an antipyretic, and potent pain reliever. The blue-flowered Chicory (Chicoria )roots were dug up to dry and add to  home-roasted coffee beans as an alternative to expensive coffee and extender.  The common weed, Narrow-leaf Plantain (Plantago lanceolata) found in our overgrown lawn, was used to treat the bane of poison ivy (Rhus vernix) and poison sumac. The long veiny leaves were crushed into a juicer green poultice annd applied to the skin where the dreaded poison oils had caused eruptions of weeping, red, and itchy blisters.  We collected the lovely Jewel Weed (Impatiens capiensis ) which for some reason commonly grew alongside the three-leaved poison ivy vine which it served as the plant’s poison antidote.  Then too the chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla) a common weed with attractive white and yellow flowers grew in the pasture. These were collected and dried to use as a calming tea.  

But there are many, too many useful medicinal plants to list here…and many that were developed into effective commercial medicines such as pharmaceutical grade digitalis, used to  treat diabetes which was extracted from wild Fox Glove (Digitalis purpurea). The near universal medicine, Aspirin is based of the extract (Salicilic acid) derived from the bark and leaves of the willow tree.  The beautiful red Poppy flower  (Papaver somniferum) produces opium and other alkaloids such as morphine and codeine. Snowdrop flowers (Galanthus sp) are common white drooping flowers which pop up through the snow in many lawns at the first sign of spring. These are the source of galantamine, used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Star anise (Illicium verum)is a source of an antiviral called Tamiflu.  

But why are these wild plants so rich in useful and biologically active chemicals? 

At the dawn of the Phanerozoic Era about 500 million years ago, primitive elements of the Animal and Plant Kingdoms were faced with a new physical environment—recently emergent, nearly dry, sun-drenched continental masses.   On these rocky barren land surfaces simple globular green algae adapted to a terrestrial environment by evolving a novel “leaflike” form which, instead of a free floating life of immersion in and on the ocean surface, these new forms could lie flat on the damp, mineral rich land surface to access essential water. In addition, these plants evolved a waxy leaf surface cuticle, and stomata—the former as protection from radiation and dehydration, and the latter were cells which can open and close to permit access to air. 

These were simple flat plants or Thallophytes had no true leaves, stems or roots. As pioneer land plants thallophytes were well-adapted to life on the new continents. They were autotrophs (made their own food) using sunlight to produced life-giving sugars from the atmospheric gas CO2 and water (H2O) in the presence of chlorophyll. Thallophytes and other similarly simple plants such as mosses and liverworts lived among them, also competing for solar energy. Over millions of years of growth, when these ground-hugging forms were spread widely over the emergent continents, competition for a place exposed to sunlight became more intense. 

These simple plants had no vascular tissues, so were tied to the the damp earth surface to access essential water. But on that surface they faced stiff completion for direct sunlight.  

During the late Devonian Period of the Paleozoic Era some 120 million years after the arrival of Thallophytes on land (or about 380 million years ago)  some Thallophytes and Bryophytes evolved more complex structures—vascular tissue—which could vertically transport water.  With a vascular system, other complex plant systems such as  roots, stems, and true leaves  also evolved—-but no flowers or seeds. These vascular plants—which reproduced by spores—look much like our modern ferns to which they are related.  (They are classed as Pteridophytes, distantly related to modern ferns, club mosses and horsetails (the Greek word φτερό (ptero) means “fern”).   

Watershed Evolution of True Vascular Plants

The simple Thallophytes and Bryophytes were bound to the (often) shady,  damp earth surface..competing for scarce sunlight.   The huge advantage of vascular plants was the evolution of roots, stems and true leaves which provided a very effective water-transport and food generation system.

Plant roots exploited soil water, while the vascular (water bearing) stems could carry this essential fluid above the shady ground to heights where the pteridophyte’s  green leaves were  effectively exposed to sunlight. There, in the presence of chlorophyll, water, and carbon dioxide were more effective and efficiently production of sugars, starches and cellulose.  This was a massive watershed evolutionary step. The vascular plants and related groups proved to be phenomenally successful. They produced vast continental forest and swamps—that led to enormous changes on Earth, its atmosphere, its flora and fauna. 

ven led the evolution of insects —which evolved from crustaceans at about the same time. 

But these great advantages in morphology came at a price. Plants with roots—are sessile and stationary— and can not physically avoid harmful environmental changes, competition from other plants, physical attack from animal herbivores, insect attacks or other threats to their survival.  Rooted plants obviously must remain in place. But the fact that they could grow upward, to loft their food producing leaves into the sunlight gave them tremendous advantages over other non-vascular plants. They became and remain the dominant form of plant life on Earth.

Vascular plants spread widely in the Devonian (419-359 mya) and then exploded into dense, often swampy forests in the subsequent Carboniferous Period (359-300 mya). It was during this time in Earth history that the widely dispersed coal beds, the result of the phenomenal success of these first true vascular plants—to produce biomass— which in the Carboniferous covered vast areas of the Earth with dense forests of ferns and horsetails. When buried, and covered with overlying sediments such as clay, silt and sand they produced the vast coal beds of Pennsylvania, China and Russia. 

As a result, of their success and extensive growth..massive amount of carbon dioxide was removed from the atmosphere as the plants absorbed this gas heat trapping gas for photosynthesis—converting it from an atmospheric component into a solid which was sequestered under thick layers of sandstone and shales.  

This resulted in a great atmospheric cooling effect. World temperatures during the  Carboniferous Period dropped 10 degrees Celsius (18 F).  World average temperatures at the beginning of the Carboniferous were estimated at 68F and fell to  to 50F at end of that period. World global average surface temperature today is about 57F.   All that  sequestered CO2  kept the Earth cooler.  Three hundred million years later (300my) some of that buried CO2 (about 37%) was released back into the atmosphere when the humans discovered that the black stuff cropping out on cliff sides in Pennsylvania would burn hotter than wood. (Though it was a little more difficult to start up). 

The  partial result of all the coal burning during the Industrial Revolution has caused the Earth’s atmosphere temperature to rise again—in part causing the “Earth Warming” we are experiencing today.  But our distant past tells us that reforestation could well be a start in undoing some of the damage we have done by burning coal and adding the carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere—so long ago removed. It will not change the fact that the Earth has its own cycle of cooling and warming..much of that cooling is controlled by the patterning of the drifting continental masses on the planet’s surface—something that we can not control.  

 

In my boyhood home, all our heat and hot water was generated by burning coal. As a mischievous child who disobeyed house rules to stay clear of the dirty, dusty coal bin in our basement, I had the good fortune (combined with a later punishment) to find the amazing impression of a fern leaf—a 300 my old Carboniferous fossil—a tiny one, on a piece of gray shale stone found  among the heap of black stuff in the big dusty coal bin of that old house. 

Forced by their root systems to remain in one place, plants could not move to avoid competition, action of herbivores, insects, impact of plant disease, or stress due to environmental change. Plants could only responded to these existential threats by chemical and physical adaptations.  

Over their almost 400 million years of time on Earth plants had almost unimaginable length of time —Geologic Time—to slowly evolve in physical ways and as well to produce an enormous panoply of organic chemicals they used to deal with existential threats. 

In the realm of physical adaptation: to deter herbivores, some trees and other vascular plants evolved physical adaptations such as spines and thorns on their leaves and stems, while others developed waxy leaf coatings, and alterations in leaf shape to limit dehydration. In desert environments, some plants such as Cacti, abandoned leaves altogether to limit dehydration. Some developed physical adaptations to address recurrent forest fires, such as thick fire resistant bark, or cones which only open to release their seeds after being exposed to the heat of a fire (our  local Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida). 

But the realm of chemical adaptations were greater. 

In a relatively simple chemical response, the common weed Milkweed (Asclepius syriaca )  produces a white viscous substance known as latex which is exuded by stem and leaf cells. As an insect feeds on leaves or bores into the plant, latex is exuded, and engulfs the insect with sticky latex. Latex clogs the insect’s spiracles (breathing tubes) and leads to its death. By the way…natural latex was our first source of now universally used rubber. 

But over the vast stretches of time available plants also developed more sophisticated chemical responses to insect attack and other threats. Many produced biologically active chemicals that could dissuade, kill, or alter insect behavior with physiologically or neurological active substances or toxins. 

One example of this chemical process occurs in the Tobacco plant (Nicotiana rustica) which  produces nicotine . Nicotine is a neurostimuylant and/or neurotoxin which affects the insect nervous system. When ingested nicotine overstimulates the central nervous system by mimicking the action of the insect’s primary neuron excitatory transmitter (acetylcholine) (AC). Insects have chemical means to turn off the excitation of nerves called acetylcholine inhibitors (acetylcholine esterase). But nicotine simply mimics AC it is not chemically identical to it, and as a result nicotine stimulation is not deactivated by insect-produced in acetylcholine inhibitors called acetylcholineesterase (ACE). Thus, once nervous stimulation is initiated by nicotine..neural overstimulation continues unabated, paralysis and eventual death ensue. By this chemical means the plant protects itself from insect or pathogen attack.

The wild tobacco plant (Nicotiana rustica, tabacum) first used and domesticated in South America 7,000 years ago by native Americans in the Andes who discovered the neurological-stimulatory uses of tobacco leaf and then domesticated it.  Tobacco reached North American natives about  2,500 years ago, perhaps as a result of Maya trading in southern North America. . It spread widely, and for two thousand years was used for religious, social, communal functions and “tabiches” or pipe ceremonies. On his first voyage to the New World in October 1492 Columbus encountered native Tainos in the Bahamian islands smoking tobacco rolled into cigars.  In 1524 the Italian explorer Giuseppe Verrazano, sailed into New York Harbor where the local Lenni Lenape natives offered Verrazano this widely-grown pan-American tobacco plant as a trade item.  From there it was introduced to the wider European world to eventually become an addictive herbal phenomenon. In 2000 more than 10 million acres of tobacco leaf were grown world wide. This plant is still in wide use all around the world as a mild human stimulant (but it’s use is also associated with very serious health consequences). 

The coffee plant (Coffea arabica) and tea plant (Cameillia senensis) both independently evolved caffeine the same neuroactive chemical as an interesting example of convergent evolution.  Both plants solved the same threat of herbivory or insect infestation by arriving at the same chemical solution independently.  Like nicotine, caffeine, which is chemically described as a purine alkaloid, and is claimed to disrupt the function of insect’s nervous system in this case by interfering with calcium signaling to muscles. For muscles to contract ions of calcium must be released into muscle cells. Caffeine can disrupt that process and thus affect a wide variety of bodily functions.  Although the actual mechanisms of how caffeine functions physiologically in insects is still unknown (calcium pathways are suspected) empiric  experiments on invertebrates reveal that at high concentrations caffeine can act as a neurotoxin, causing nervous tremors, seizures and death.  (Mosquito larvae in water experimentally exposed to caffeine move erratically, resulting in the submergence of their breathing tube causing drowning. Aurelia jellyfish swim patterns slow or become erratic.) 

However, at lower doses, it can act as a stimulant to the insect’s central nervous system.  At insect-level low-dosages (similar to that which humans get in their morning brew) caffeine can enhance an experience and stimulate memory.  Some plants lace nectar of flowers with a trace of caffeine. When a pollinator bee visits the flower and imbibes caffeinated nectar, its memory is enhanced and perhaps as well, its “pleasure” quotient. As a result, the pollinator is incentivized to return again to the caffeinated flower , over others it has visited, encouraging more effective pollination and reproduction.  Thus caffeine production can act to protect a plant from herbivory, insect infestation, pathogens, and physical threats..as well as enhance its chances of successful pollination and reproduction. 

I do not feel qualified to write about the physiological chemicals we know of in some plant groups such as those in Marijuana (Canabis sativa) and also the recent physiologically active organic chemical discoveries in a common widely preferred food oil derived from (Olea europaea), the European olive.

Above I have only touched on—a “Plank length”—a minuscule number of the existing, biologically active plant-derived organic chemicals we presently know.  But how many are yet to be discovered? Much of the botanically-derived, useful and physiologically active chemical compounds remain to be discovered in the dense jungles of Brazil’s Amazonia, Meso-America, Indonesia’s forests, Africa, and even our own weedy suburban backyards.

The Kingdom Plantae from Thallophytes to Angiosperms have a very long history on Earth.  During these hundreds of millions of Earth years— referred to as “geologic time”—plants had abundant  time to undergo evolutionary change, driven by biosphere’s  tendency for genetic and phenotypical diversity,  and natural selection in the face of the Earth’s unceasing physical alterations in atmosphere composition,  temperature,  positioning of the continents, competition from other species. In this way vascular plants produced an unimaginable diversity of plant species (about 400,000) and an even greater number of complex organic physiologically active chemical compounds—a virtual wild plant pharmacopeia, with which  they—and those who have studied them—have altered our modern world. And have the potential to continue to do so. 

In a few words: Autotrophs develop vascular tissues 380 million years ago, a water-shed development  in terrestrial evolution which changed the Earth’s physical state and biological evolutionary course. Vascular support tissues awarded these plants with ann enhanced ability to access both essentials: water and sunlight. Vascular plants resulted in botanical dominance. Like animals vascular plants to survive on a changing Earth and within an evolving biosphere had to continue producing evolutionary adaptations to survive. But lacking motility their existential adaptations were heavily focused on physicochemical responses such as outlined above.    

 

    

THE NYACK: FIRST PEOPLE OF NEW UTRECHT, BROOKLYN, * NEW YORK

In April of 1524 Giovanni Verrazano sailed into New York Harbor and encountered Native Americans who populated the present day Metropolitan area. He described the natives as numerous as well as “joyful and welcoming”. They were “dark skinned with thick black hair tied back. They had broad chests, strong well proportioned bodies and were of medium height and some were taller than his own men”. They were “agile and swift runners”, with “keen intelligence”. They helped him land a small boat and welcomed him to their settlement where they offered him gifts of food.  He described their clothing as being made “of skins of small animals like martins” and “they had grass belts to which they tied animal tails” to cover their nudity. Some “wore cloaks of turkey feathers” for warmth, as well as garlands of feathers.   

We can conclude from his remarks (with some reservations—he was attempting to impress his European readers) that New York Harbor was relatively densely populated, the natives were well fed and healthy, and that in the spring of the year they had surplus food which they could offer as gifts or trade items. But skins for clothing was scarce..using turkey skins or having to weave grass belts and hang small animals skins from their belts suggest a paucity of skins from large game animals that could provide adequate clothing. 

Almost eight decades later, in September of 1609,  Henry Hudson entered the same New York Harbor and has similar encounters with the Lenape. The natives were friendly,, and offered him corn (Indian corn) beans and pumpkins, as well as tobacco as trade items or gifts. Further upriver on the coast of northern Manhattan, natives offered oysters as a food item to Hudson. There too, Hudson visited a chief who killed a “fat dog” and roasted it for Hudson and his crew. Again, the local people appeared to be healthy and well fed as a result of ability to grow corn, beans and pumpkins. The fact that the chief had to kill a “fat dog” for a celebratory feast may suggest the shortage or scarcity of the meat of large game animals. The account also suggests scarcity of large game animal skins. Hudson observed their use of clay pots for use in cooking.  A copper tobacco pipe used by one of the chiefs suggests that they had trading connections with distant northern tribes where copper was a common trade item. 

NEW UTRECHT

Hudson’s reports to his Dutch investors in Netherlands, as well as the 1614 later voyages of Adrien Block encouraged Dutch investors to provid funds to establish a trading post and settlement on Manhattan Island in 1620.  The Dutch West India Company colony called New Amsterdam, grew quickly and haphazardly, unlike some of the more strictly organized, deeply religious English settlements located in northern New England. In those early years, New Amsterdam governors were focused on trade to repay their investors in the Netherlands. As a result of this, the lives of settlers and the resident  population was not well organized. Ne Amsterdam residents were diverse and often unruly. Housing, food availability and government services were often less than adequate. 

But just a short boat ride across the East River the Dutch residents could see the green, wooded hills, and open land of Brooklyn. But these places  were not free for the taking. Brooklyn and much of Long Island were still occupied by tribes of Native Americans. Their foot trails crisscrossed the woodlands and their cleared planting fields were obvious signs of ownership and occupation. 

European settlers seeking better opportunity, amenities and opportunity than on offer in crowded New Amsterdam of the early 17th century often quietly crossed the East River and settled illicitly in Brooklyn*.  Others came as “expats” from neighboring English colonies, or as criminals who were expelled from the New Amsterdam colony.  These regular incursions into Brooklyn by Dutch colonist and others from English colonies led to conflict with the natives.  

A major concern of the Dutch overseers was the fear of foreign intrusion and settlement of Dutch-claimed territories. They were aware that they had to populate and settle the lands they claimed as a result of the Hudson 1609 explorations or have them occupied by others.  To address these concerns major efforts were undertaken by Dutch authorities to encourage settlement in surrounding lands such as Brooklyn, New Jersey, Staten Island and north to Albany on the North River (Hudson River) .  

As a response to these issues, in 1652 Cornelius Van Werckhoven, an executive of the Dutch West India Company, purchased an approximately five-square-mile tract of native American forest and marshland from the  Nyack tribe in (what would become) extreme southwestern Brooklyn, now the neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst and Dyker Heights.

The Brooklyn parcel, like that of Manhattan Island, was “purchased” from its occupants, who were members of the Nyack clan of the local Lenape tribe. The deal was consummated with the token offer of common items of trade such as clothes, shoes, combs, kettles, and tools such as hatchets and adzes.  

The Munsee and Delaware tribes, unhappy with Peter Stuyvesant’s policy toward and attack on the Swedish colony on the Delaware River (who were important Munsee trading partners) sacked New Amsterdam in September of 1655, resulting in several dozen colonists being killed and many taken captive.  The “Peach War”u a violent Dutch response to this attack  resulted in many casualties among the local Lenape natives and ended in Lenape “pacification” and the practical end of their continued occupation of hunting and farming tracts in Brooklyn. 

Though purchased in 1652, the New Utrecht settlement was legally established in 1657 as “New Utrecht” and incorporation into New Netherlands by Governor, Peter Stuyvesant. Its name “New Utrecht” was adopted after the Van Werkhoven home town of Utrecht in the Netherlands. 

New Utrecht  remained  a farming community after the British occupation in 1665. Over time, the area avoided the widespread industrialization of other Brooklyn areas until it was eventually annexed by the City of Brooklyn in 1894, which led to its rapid urbanization and the development of modern neighborhoods.    

 

THE NYACK INDIANS OF BROOKLYN

Native American Nyack “Indians” a local tribe of Algonquian speaking Lenni Lenape or the “original people” who lived in the southwest corner of (what would eventually be) Brooklyn. The Lenape tribe occupied parts of New Jersey from the Delaware River north along the Atlantic coast including parts of New York, Connecticut and Long Island.  They carved wooden canoes out of the trunks of giant Tulip Trees (Liriodendron tulipfera).  With these vessels the Nyacks of Long Island  fished  in the Narrows, and Gravesend Bay. There too, they hunted duck and other wild fowl along the extensive salt marshes, inlets and tidal rivers on its southern shore. They took deer, bear, turkey and other wildlife for meat and skins in the interior hardwood forests of oak, hickory, chestnut and Black Walnut. They dug shellfish, exploited the rich flora for nuts, roots and fruit, and grew corn, squash, pumpkins and beans in fields they prepared for agriculture. They drank the fresh spring water bubbling up from the base of glacially deposited morainal hills situated in the northwest corner of their lands

Early Dutch maps of Brooklyn actually depict and document  some of these Nyack settlements and the native foot trails that crisscrossed the Island. (See the 1639 “Manantus Map” of 1639 New Amsterdam.). The Manatus Map also shows the western part of what would become the settlement of New Utrecht. It depicts Coney Island as a rounded promontory off the western shore of Gravesend Bay and the Narrows coast.  Two coastal inlets are indicated along this stretch of shoreline. These marine inlets continue into the present day somewhat preserved as City parklands. The western one is likely the Dyker Park facility, even today with remnant wetlands.  

On this map as well, are what appear to be four symbolic representations of Native American settlements. They appear to represent typical Native American Lenape longhouses. One is located in the extreme western end, an area that would become New Utrecht, another to the east in Gravesend, another in Flatlands (Flatbush) and a fourth in Bushwick or Redhook. Thus as late as 1639 there may have been  a significant population of Lenape resident in the New Utrecht area. 

In the spring, along the coast of the Narrows and Gravesend Bay, in the vicinity of the two tidal inlets,noted above,  the Nyack and Canarsie  collected hard shell or quahog clams (Mercenaria mercenaria) which they opened, often by roasting on the coals of a wood fire. They consumed the nutritious, salty, clam meats.  

Sea food such as quahog meat provided the Nyack with a source of protein, vitamins and essential salts as well as minor elements such as iodine (often missing in local soils) as well as other essential minor minerals. 0.2 lbs provided about 148 calories. Thus clam meats are a low calorie food. To survive on clams alone, one would have to eat (2000 cal/148 cal per 0.2 lbs m= 13.5 or about three pounds of clam meats per day. 

Clams are an excellent contribution to a nutritious diet but not a complete food. 

But the shells themselves were of even of more value. The inner white of the shells of this species were prominently marked with a distinctive bright purple or blue spot at the interior hinge joint, (for the Lenape it was thought of as the inner “eye”of the clam). The cause or purpose  of this mark is unknown, but is often more intense in clams from muddy sediment rather than those found in sandy ones. 

The color blue was relatively rare in the mineral world of native Americans. And its very  scarcity made the beads manufactured from this part of the quahog shell of highly valuable. The beads of blue also had symbolic meaning, perhaps symbolizing the sanctity of the life giving sea-water from which so much was derived. 

WAMPUM

The Nayack cleaned the empty quahog clam shells and shattered them to separate the and conserve the blue shards from the white. These shards of clamshell, blue and white, were ground into coarsely shaped rectangular tubes making use of finer grained local sandstone or igneous basalt rock as grindstones. 

At this stage each coarsely shaped roughly tubular piece was  locked into a wooden vice to hold the artifact. The vice was devised from a piece of hardwood branch split part way then bound with wild hemp twine at its split end to securely hold the tubular shell fragment and facilitate drilling a hole  for  eventual threading. 

Then using a fine, stone-pointed drill and a small bow strung with locally made twine  to drive the drill bit, they perforated the rough shell. Final smoothing and polishing took place next, to create a smoothly rounded tube or shorter bead. These shell beads were then threaded into patterns of blue and white, and used as decorations, such as belts or necklaces, or later, when used in trade were simply strung into long strands as trade “wampum”. Before the 15^th century these strings of wampum were traded with the northern tribes and later with Dutch or English settlers.   

Strings of quahog-derived beads were used as trade and tribute items between and among Native American tribes, long before European conquest. In fact the name Paumanouk for Long Island, is translated as  “island which gives tribute” in the Lenape dialect of the Algonquian language.   

Wampum belts and necklaces were valuable trade items long before European conquest. Wampum belts, and strings of beads were offered for trade by the Lenape people to  northern tribes (such as the Mohican, Mohawk Onondaga and Iroquois) for which they received animal skins, furs, and possibly dried meats.  

CLIMATIC GEOGRAPHIC CAUSES FOR TRADE IN ANIMAL SKINS AND WAMPUM

It is likely that this trade and tribute practice using wampum bead strings for trade items may have evolved in the distant past long before European contact. Higher human populations in the coastal zones in parts of  the Lenape (Delaware) confederation lands due to more moderate climate, amenable weather, length of growing season all contributed to relative  scarcity of large fur bearing game animals to the Lenape tribes. 

Native American populations were more populous (lived in greater density per square mile)  in the warmer, more moderate, marine modulated climates of the Lenape zone of occupation. Winters were less severe. Their home land more readily presented opportunities for agricultural activity.  The more moderate climates of the southern coastal regions provided more diverse and nutritious native flora as plant-food sources, such as a diversity of tree nuts, as well as ground nuts, berries, and fruits, as well and other wild herbaceous food plants. Furthermore, in the more moderate coastal climate actual caloric requirements for survival were lower than those of the harsh interior hinterlands of the such as the Iroquois, Mohawk, Onondaga, and Mohicans.   

On the other hand the interior Iroquoian tribes and those of more northern latitudes lived almost exclusively on the game they could hunt and the fish they could catc. Their population density was lower..game was more plentiful (in general).  

This problem of scarce big game animals  was exacerbated on Long Island an enclosed domain which limited replenishment of large game animals depleted by intense hunting pressures of an expanding native population. As a result of these climatic, soil and geographic circumstances coastal human populations grew to levels at which they simply hunted the native large game animals (needed for food and skins for clothing) into near extinction. It is likely that as populations grew, native hunting pressures on game such as fur bearing mammals such as deer, bear and other large mammals resulted in  drastically reduced populations of these faunal components essential for survival. 

The coastal climate was characterized by shorter, more moderate winter temperatures and less deep snowfall. This led to the potential for reproductive success, higher rates of survival and denser human populations vs those in the northern hinterlands. Coastal natives in the more moderate longer growing season had more opportunity and potential for growing food crops due to lighter well drained loamy sandy soils and longer growing seasons. 

UEarly explorers of this region, such as Cabot, Verazzano and Hudson reported on the appearances of the local Lenape of New York and Brooklyn. They describe natives wearing limited clothing, often using the skins of the wild turkey as cloaks, and the tails and small skins of animals such as fox, rabbit, etc. mixed or intertwined with plaited or woven plant fabrics for clothing rather than the furs or skins of the 00larger game animal skins. Such reports suggest scarcity of fabrics for protective garments. 

SCARCE GAME CAUSES  LENAPE TO TURN TO AGRICULTURE AND TRADE

Game meat is an important source of complete protein and may have been scarce in the highly populated southern coastal regions of pre-European America as well. We know from early explorer reports that the Lenape, cleared parts of the forest of their lands (and in New Utrecht) by girdling and burning trees and brush, then they prepared the burnt over lands for crops. In these clearings they planted hills of corn, beans, and squash, pumpkins, and also grew tobacco. Tobacco, was offered to Verazzano in 1524 by the local Manhattan natives and may have also been a regularly traded  product with northern tribes.  Champlain in 1604-1605 reports that northern tribes used tobacco regularly during tribal communal events and sacred purposes. Though it was unlikely that they could grow tobacco in the Canadian forests. Though they may have used other native plants for this purpose (i.e.Lobelia inflata). Champlain’s Dream D.Fischer 2008)  

(Coastal available food resources such as fish and shell fish can provide a modest level of nutrients and calories for survival—but shellfish (i.e. clams) alone are generally too low in calories and nutrients to provide the entire needs for a survivable  nutritious diet.  In addition, these marine resources, useful as ancillary elements of a nutritious diet, could not provide the existential needs for warm winter clothing or suitable materials for footwear available from animal skins.  Skins were essential for survival.

As a result of increased hunting pressures on game animal populations in most of Long Island, native  tribes had to resort to simple agriculture to provide needed food calories. In addition to their efforts in agriculture which were difficult, time consuming, and labor intensive, Long Island natives also turned to trade to meet their survival needs

Trade with the northern tribes could provide: prime hides, fur skins essential for survival in winter—the skins for foul weather clothing, winter bed-clothes, cold weather sleeping robes  and skins for footwear, as well as meat protein likely in dried or smoked form in which strings of wampum, marine shells, and other marine products which could be exchanged for strings of wampum, marine shells, and other marine products. 

Eventually, these needs and the ready supply of skins and furs of northern tribes which may have initiated as a “fair trade” practice, but over time devolved into a form of tribute in which coastal and Long Island tribes— had to pay tribute as well as provide wampum for their needed trade materials of furs and hides. The northern tribes were more war-like and aggressive and could exact valuable wampum as a result of threat or violence. . 

BUYING THE LAND OF THE NYACKS

Van Werkhoven’s agent arranged for a sale in which the Nyack sold a large property  (See the 1639 “Manatus Map” and comments noted above) in extreme western Brooklyn, comprising  about one thousand acres. The transaction was completed with the offer to the Nyack chief of: “six shirts, two pair of shoes, six pair of socks, six axes, six hatchets, six knives, two scissors, and two combs.” The Nyacks were seemingly happy with their new tools and clothing, but apparently did not comprehend the terms of the agreement, as it was understood by the Dutch. They believed that they were simply sharing the land with Van Werkhoven, not leaving it.

A few weeks after the formal signing of the agreement, to get the Nayacks to leave their homeland, Van Werkhoven’s agent had to agree to a second payment. The additional cost was: six coats, six kettles, six axes, six hatchets, six small looking glasses, twelve knives, and twelve combs.”  With their new aquisitions the Nayaclks finally departed for Staten Island. 

Based on the numbers of trade items demanded by the Nyacks, the size of the tribal group may have been comprised of about  six to twelve families, or perhaps 18-36 individuals (Mean = 27). 

Each family group seems to have required something of essential value to “close the deal”.  These historic accounts suggest  there may have been 6 family groups which made up this particular population. The disposition of goods suggest that each head of household may have demanded an additional tool or desired item, such as one of the six steel knives, perhaps to prepare food, clean fish, cut brush or cut herbιage for preparation of grass mats or cordage. While the six small looking glasses and 12 combs seem to suggest female demands.

HOW MANY NYACKS IN NEW UTRECHT?

Though by the mid-17th century native Americans in western Long Island had been in contact with Europeans for more than several generations. Lenape  populations likely suffered declines from European disease, alteration of their traditional life ways, economy as well as  conflict. Thus their populations may have been much reduced. But the Van Werckhoven “sales” document is useful in that it may offer an estimate of the population of the Lenape Nyack tribe in Brooklyn during early European settlement.   Αcording to the 1652 Nyack sales agreement with Van Werkhoven about 18-36 (mean= 27) individuals may have been living on an area claimed to be about 1000 acres.  The actual area is not described in that document. An estimate of the area of the Nyack “settlement” area and hunting grounds to roughly encompass the area of present day Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, and Bensonhurst is approximately 5 square miles (Based on measurements made on Google Earth map of Brooklyn NY downloaded 10/2025.) That would suggest that as many as 36 native Nyacks were occupying about 5 square miles of western Brooklyn or a population density of about (36/5 = 7+) slightly more than seven (7) natives per sq mile.  A common anthropological estimate of hunter/gather population density is often claimed at about 4 to 31 people per square mile. That number would fall with the lower end of the estimate. If indeed they were actually living on the 1000 acres claimed in some documents: 

That would be equal to the mean estimate of about 27 individuals resident on about 1000 acres: (27/1000= 0.027 per acre) or about 0.027 per acre or about 27 per 1000 acres.  Since 1000 acres is about 1.6 sq miles (640 acres in one sq mile) or 27 per 1.6 sq miles or (27/1.6 = @17 people per sq mile.  The Nyack population density in New Utrecht based on the 1000 acre notation suggestts a population density of about 17 individuals per square mile or well within what the anthropological estimates suggest. 

It is interesting to note that documents preserved in NY City reveal that in 1679, or nearly three decades after the “sale” when Dutch Reformed Church missionaries Jason Danckaerts and Peter Sluyter visited New Utrecht in 1679, well after the British takeover, and many forms of change to the area they report encountering eight individuals (?) of the original Nayack familes which had returned to their former lands from Staten Island. The owner at that time Jacques Cortelyou had allotted them a piece of land where they were “scratching out a miserable existence” according to the missionaries. (See footnopte pg 69, ibid)

*As a Brookly “boy” I should settle this misapprehension about the now so popular name “Brooklyn”.

We had the Brooklyn Dodgers, and “Brooklyn Bridge” and my cousin Bill, proud of his heritage (Flatbush) even named his dog “Brooklyn”.  I’ve seen it used as a first name as well.  So we should understand its historic origin.

The name “Brooklyn” is a corruption of the Dutch term “gebroken land” or  “Broecklande” (Brooklyn) coined by the Dutch, who as Netherlanders had a great reverence for expanses of fertile, “unbroken”, level farmland so rare in their small nation.  “Ge broken” is translated as land that is not continuous but divided up by hills, inlets and/or marshes and thus is less valuable than continuous farmable land. (See the 1634, Acketer Kol, New Netherlands Map where Brooklyn is designated as “gebroekeland” or broken land. )