# Kitchawank: The Croton-on-Hudson Wappinger Band

The Kitchawank were a band of the Wappinger Confederation, an Eastern Algonquian people who inhabited what is now southern New York and western Connecticut. They were inhabitants of northern Westchester County, New York, specifically in the Croton-on-Hudson area.

## Territory and Settlement

The Kitchawank established their primary settlement at a fortified village called Navish, at the neck of Croton Point. This location was archaeologically significant — the site of the oldest oyster-shell middens found on the North Atlantic Coast. This suggests the band had a long-established presence in the region with access to rich shellfish resources.

## Broader Context

The Kitchawank were one of approximately 18 loosely associated bands within the Wappinger Confederation. Like other Wappinger bands, they spoke a dialect of the Munsee language, part of the larger Lenape language family.

The broader Wappinger population suffered devastating losses during the 17th century through warfare with Dutch colonists, conflicts with other tribes, disease, and forced land sales. After their original settlements were decimated, surviving Wappinger — including remnants of the Kitchawank — eventually relocated to refuge communities in Massachusetts and later Wisconsin as part of the Stockbridge-Munsee Nation.