Rockville Centre, commonly abbreviated as RVC, is an incorporated village located in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States.

Generally speaking, the people of the prehistoric Woodlands period East River culture are believed to have been the Algonkian-speaking ancestors of the historical Indian tribes of western Long Island.

[3] The historical territory of their Lenape descendants, the Canarsie, Recouwacky (Rockaway),[4] Matinecock and Massapequa, included present-day western Long Island's Queens and Nassau Counties.

By the year 1643, there were roughly thirteen Algonquin bands (then referred to as tribes) living east of the Dutch-English settlements: the four or so Lenape chieftaincies in western Long Island, and Metoac descendants of the prehistoric Woodlands period Windsor culture living on eastern Long Island, considered by some to be branches of the Pequot: Merrick, Nissequoge, Secatoag, Seatauket, Patchoag, Poosepatuck (also called Uncachogee), Corchaug, Shinnecock, Manhansett (also called Manhasset), and Montaukett.

The Reckouakie tribe (the Reckonhacky chieftaincy) had left their original land in present-day Rockaway and its surroundings in Queens County to Dutch Governor Kieft in 1640 because he wanted it for better defense of New Netherlands.

Dutch and English settlers declared the 1639 treaty meant no Indians would remain in western Long Island (so they could sell it to emigrants), in contrast to the exact terms of the treaty which meant the Native Americans were willing to share the usufruct of unoccupied land, with the Dutch leadership having eminent domain superior to their sachem's eminent domain.

The Reckonhacky / Rockaway were party to a peace treaty dated May 24, 1645, following the devastation of Indian communities by Dutch soldiers.

[9] The hamlet was named "Rockville Centre" in 1849, after local Methodist preacher and community leader Mordecai "Rock" Smith.

[10] Rockville Centre emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as a commuter town connected to New York by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR).

"[12] Like many Long Island communities at the time, Rockville Centre's population included a considerable number of supporters of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s.

[13] In the late 1960s, the village of Rockville Centre received a stinging rebuke for its failure to maintain public housing units primarily inhabited by African-Americans.

[14] A report from Nassau County's Human Rights Commission stated Rockville Centre was "at best indifferent to, if not actually in favor of, Negro removal.

"[14] Martin Luther King Jr. visited Rockville Centre in 1968, where he addressed a large audience at South Side Junior High School on March 26, 1968.

Approximately 20 percent of the residents of the Village of Rockville Centre live in the Oceanside Union Free School District.