“Even though we’re different doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”
We came full circle today: the Dutch and Lenape friends, now about 25 years later, meet for the last time to talk about how their lives have changed since the English took over the colony. They discussed how, on the one hand, life has not changed much because the English allowed them to keep their land, property, way of life, and how trade continued. The Lenape kids, now as adults, talked about how some Native Americans in other villages have had to move because the English are building houses and farms.
While they speculated that it probably did not change their relationship much, they admitted that, in the end, the Lenape and Dutch people probably did not get close over the 40+ years of co-existing on Mannahatta, and that their personal friendship did not mirror the relationship of the rest of the Lenape and Dutch.
Laiali: “Our relationship was about trade. We came here to trade. [It was] not exactly friendship.”
Milla: “Lots of people think we’re very different, so that we can’t be friends because of that. But that doesn’t really make any sense. Even though we’re different doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”
Narration: “The two friends knew that even though things did not change much since Dutch times, that there would be more changes ahead in the English colony. They did not know when or how often they would be able to meet again. They decided to gather some mud and clay from the riverbank and make a pendant of their lasting friendship on Mannahatta.”
Immediately some kids connected this to the half pendants they received on the first day of the study: “Wait, are these the ones we got in the beginning?”
Narration: “Perhaps one day, many, many years into the future, archaeologists in the year 2016 might find these artifacts buried in the ground somewhere on Manhattan and wonder what it means about the people who lived here.”
Students: “That is so cool!!”