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Beverley Robinson's seizure of land from the Wappinger Tribe and his brutal eviction of their tenants
A story of injustice involving Beverly Robinson, Frederick Philipse and Roger Morris, with help from friends in high places, taking control of native-owned lands.
Superbly told by Peter Cutul in the article Land Heist in the Highlands: Chief Daniel Nimham and the Wappinger Fight for Homeland, 2020.
'In 1750 Adolph Philipse died, leaving the 200,000 acre plus holding to his nephew Fredrick Philipse II. Fredrick only lived a year before passing away and bequeathing the land evenly to his three children: Philip, Susannah, and Mary. The Philipse sisters, Susannah and Mary, married Beverly Robinson and Roger Morris respectively. Effectively marrying into wealth, Robinson and Morris each laid claim to approximately 60,000 acres of land, or roughly two thirds, of contested Wappinger land, encompassing over three quarters of today’s Putnam County.
In 1756, taking advantage of the fact that the Wappinger men were off fighting for the British in the French and Indian War, Robinson and Morris began an aggressive campaign notifying tenants on Wappinger land that they had to sign new leases or vacate. Some of the tenants had leases with the Wappinger going back 30 years or more.16
When the Wappinger returned from fighting for the Crown in the French and Indian War they were dismayed to discover that not only had their hunting grounds been disturbed, but that their land had also been claimed by Robinson, Morris and Philipse. Their consternation led Chief Nimham, representing the tribe, to file a claim against the landlords in 1762.'
In 1763 tenants on Wappinger land who were forced to sign new leases with Robinson, Morris, and Philips, petitioned the King for assistance, complaining that the men had “Discouraged people from Building Houses and planting orchards” in addition to evicting tenants who had “good and warrantable title by Lease Deed.” A clash was in the making between the tenants’ belief in their right to the land because of land occupancy, labor, and existing Wappinger lease agreements, and the landlords view of ownership by title.
The 1765 Land Hearing for the Wappinger
The increasing tensions motivated the New York Common Council in 1765 to finally grant a hearing to the Wappinger and aggrieved tenants. With the assistance of attorney and Wappinger tenant Samuel Munroe, Nimham presented his case to the Council detailing how Adolph Philipse had never purchased the land beyond the 15,000 acre holdings from Dorland and Sybrandt and that no Indian deed existed to legitimize the drastic 190,000 acre expansion of Philipse holdings by Governor Fletcher. As the case wrapped up, Beverly Robinson produced a deed dated August 13, 1702 which included language covering the whole 205,000 acre parcel and extended the Eastern border all the way to CT. The deed having never been seen before, nor recorded or registered with New York State, was either entirely fake or had been “surreptitiously obtained” from the named Indians, likely under duress or by means of bribery.
Despite the questionable nature of Robinson’s 1702 “Indian Deed,” an investigation by New York Attorney General John Kempe, favorable to the landlords, was enough to persuade the Council to rule against Nimham and the Wappinger.
The questionable "Indian Deed" produced by Beverley Robinson at the 1765 land hearing.
....[in the wake of a] 'favorable Council ruling, Robinson and Sheriff James Livingston wasted no time in evicting tenants unwilling to sign one to three year leases and pay rents in cash (traditionally rents were paid in agricultural products). Resistant tenants were harshly dealt with, some even being burned out of their homes. A Connecticut lawyer, who anonymously wrote a first-hand account of the situation made this observation:
“The said Mr. Robinson without any manner of legal warrant, or authority for so doing, thereupon having collected a body of upwards of 200 soldiers, consisting partly of regular troops and partly of militia of the said province, all well armed, and supplied with ammunition, and other warlike apparatus besides wagons and wagoneers; in a warlike posture march’d up against the poor, defenceless people, under a pretence of subduing the rebels, giving out, that they had acted in open rebellion to the Crown of Great Britain, that were a pack of Rebels! Damned Rebels! And Traitors! And upon a Sabbath day, long to be remembered, arrived among the inhabitants aforesaid, and in a hostile manner, drove them out before them, burnt and destroyed some of their houses pillaged and plundered others, stove their cyder barrels, turned their provisions out into the open streets, ript open their feather beds, laid open their meadows and fields of grain, and either took, or destroyed the greater part of the effects of this poor, but loyal people.”
Land Heist in the Highlands: Chief Daniel Nimham and the Wappinger Fight for Homeland. Peter Cutul, 2020
Read the full article at this link.
An abridged version can be found at this link.
The story is also featured in the book History of St. Philip's Church in the Highlands, Garrison, New York, by E. Clowes Chorley (1912)
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