Their name is presumed to have been derived from generic _Wapan,_ "East"--_Wapani,_ "Eastern people" [FN-2]--which could have been properly applied to them as residents on the east side of the river, not "Eastern people" as that term is applied to residents of the more Eastern States, but locally so called by residents on the west side of the Hudson, or by the Delawares as the most eastern nation of their own stock. They were no doubt more or less mixed by association and marriage with their eastern as well as their western neighbors, but were primarily of Lenape or Delaware origin, and related to the Minsi, Monsey or Minisink clans on the west side of the river, though not associated with them in tribal government. [FN-3] Their tribal jurisdiction, aside from that which was immediately local, extended on the east side of the river from Roelof Jansen's Kill (south of opposite to the Catskill) to the sea. At their northern bound they met the tribe known to the Dutch as the Mahicans, a people of eastern origin and dialect, whose eastern limit included the valley of the Housatonic at least, and with them in alliance formed the "Mahican nation" of Dutch history, as stated by King Ninham of the Wappingers, in an affidavit in 1757, and who also stated that the language of the Mahicans was _not the same_ as that of the Wappingers, although he understood the Mahicani. Reduced by early wars with the Dutch around New Amsterdam and by contact with European civilization, they melted away rapidly, many of them finding homes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, others at Stockbridge, and a remnant living at Fishkill removing thence to Otsiningo, in 1737, as wards of the Senecas. (Col. Hist. N. Y., vii, 153, 158.) * * * * * [FN-1] "Highland Indians" was a designation employed by the Dutch as well as by the English. (Col. Hist. N. Y., viii, 440.) [FN-2] The familiar historic name _Wappingers_ seems to have been introduced by the Dutch from their word _Wapendragers,_ "Armed men." The tribe is first met of record in 1643, when they attacked boats coming down from Fort Orange. (Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv, 12.) A map of 1690 gives them a large settlement on the south side of the creek. There is no _Opossum_ in the name, as some writers read it, although some blundering clerk wrote _Oping_ for _Waping._ [FN-3] The relations between the Esopus Indians and the Wappingers were always intimate and friendly, so much so that when the Mohawks made peace with the Esopus Indians, in 1669, and refused to include the Wappingers, it was feared by the government that further trouble would ensue from the "great correspondence and affinity between them." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 427.) "Affinity," relationship by marriage, kinship generally.