Manna-Hata is the island name offered to Robert and Arvid as the brig Charlotta enters New York harbor. The second mate’s tale makes the emigrants’ first approach to land more than a geographical arrival: it sets a story of Indigenous presence and religious uncertainty against the crowded, imposing city coming into view.

The island in the harbor

As the Charlotta sailed up the bay, Robert and Arvid stood at the prow beside the second mate, a Finn who had taken part in all of the ship’s voyages to North America. He explained that the land before them was a large island, originally called Manna-Hata. The men had not yet reached shore; they were hearing the name from aboard a ship moving into a harbor crowded with vessels.

The mate described Manna-Hata as a name from an Indian language and said he had heard that it referred to the name of a favorable god among the Indians. In his account, the god had lived on the beautiful island for thousands of years until the river flooded it and forced him to move. The story gives the place a sacred past, but only as hearsay: the mate reports what he has heard rather than claiming direct knowledge.

A displaced god and an uncertain present

The island’s ancient inhabitant has been displaced by a flood, while the human population has taken the god’s place in the present. Yet the mate does not supply a settled religious explanation for this change. He admits that he has never attended church in port and does not know which god, if any, lives on Manna-Hata now. His uncertainty leaves the story suspended between remembered Indigenous belief, Christian reference, and the practical limits of what a visiting sailor knows.

That brief account gives the island a history that precedes the emigrants’ arrival without pretending to resolve it. The second mate’s tale is at once vivid and provisional: Manna-Hata is beautiful and once inhabited by a god, but the god’s departure and the present island’s spiritual character remain uncertain.

The emigrants’ threshold

The name is spoken at a moment of transition. After a long passage across the ocean, Robert and Arvid stand at the ship’s prow as land gradually emerges from mist; New York’s roofs, steeples, harbor works, and buildings rise before them. The mate identifies the island, but the city remains strange enough that Robert wonders what one of its large buildings might be. Manna-Hata thus belongs to their first encounter with a destination they have imagined from afar but have not yet entered.

The island’s layered naming also complicates the apparent simplicity of arrival. The emigrants see a new land, while the mate’s story recalls an older name and an earlier presence, then acknowledges that neither he nor his account can fully explain the present. Manna-Hata functions as a threshold in both geography and understanding: the ship has reached the harbor, but the meaning of the place is still being narrated to those who have come to it.