The Lenape (pronounced /ˈlɛnəpiː/ or /ləˈnɑːpi/) are a group of several organized bands of Native American Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as intact political communities. The terminology used to peoples with shared cultural and linguistic characteristics. Their name for themselves (autonym), sometimes spelled Lennape or Lenapi, means "the people." They are also known as the Lenni Lenape (the "true people") or as the Delaware Indians. English settlers named the Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States. The Delaware was explored by Adriaen Block as part of the New Netherlands Colony, and was named the South River to mark the southernmost reach of that colony after Lord De La Warr Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr (July 9, 1577 – June 7, 1618) was the Englishman after whom the bay, river and, consequently, an American Indian people and U.S. state, all later called "Delaware", were named, the governor of the Jamestown settlement The Jamestown Settlement Colony was the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America. Named for King James I of England, Jamestown was founded in the Virginia Colony on May 14, 1607. In modern times, "Jamestown Settlement" is also a promotional name used by the Commonwealth of Virginia's portion of the historical. They used the exonym An exonym is a name for a place or a personal name that differs from that used in the official or well-established language within that place or for that person by the local inhabitants, or a name for a people or language that is not native to the people or language to which it refers. The name used by the people or locals themselves is called above for almost all the Lenape people living along this river and its tributaries.

At the time of European contact in the 16th and 17th centuries The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492, although there was at least one earlier colonization effort. The first known Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows (51°N) in the, the Lenape lived in the area called Lenapehoking Lenapehoking is a term for the lands historically inhabited by the Native American people known as the Lenape in what is now the Northeastern United States. Though it is sometimes said to be a word in the Delaware languages for this area, like much of the toponymy involving languages in the Algonquian lingustic group, there is some confusion about, roughly the area around and between the Delaware The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States. The Delaware was explored by Adriaen Block as part of the New Netherlands Colony, and was named the South River to mark the southernmost reach of that colony and lower Hudson Rivers The Hudson River is a 315-mile river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. It rises at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains, flows past Albany, and finally forms the border between New York City and New Jersey at its mouth before emptying into Upper New York Bay. Its lower half is a. This encompassed what are now known as the U.S. state A U.S. state is any one of 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of commonwealth rather than state. State citizenship is of New Jersey The area was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, with historical tribes such as the Lenape along the coast. In the early 1600s, the Dutch and the Swedes made the first European settlements. The English later seized control of the region, naming it the Province of New Jersey. It was granted as a colony to Sir George Carteret; eastern Pennsylvania Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary around the Delaware The Delaware Valley is a term used to refer to the metropolitan area centered on the city of Philadelphia in the United States. The term is derived from the Delaware River, which flows through the area. The federal Office of Management and Budget officially defines the region as the Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area and Lehigh The Lehigh Valley, also known as the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ metropolitan area and referred to locally as The Valley, officially is a metropolitan region consisting of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon counties in eastern Pennsylvania and Warren county on the western edge of New Jersey, in the United States valleys; the north shore of Delaware Delaware is located in the northeastern portion of the Delmarva Peninsula and is the second smallest state in area . Estimates in 2007 rank the population of Delaware as 45th in the nation, but 6th in population density, with more than 60% of the population in New Castle County. Delaware is divided into three counties. From north to south, these; and southeastern New York New York City, which is geographically the largest city in the state and most populous in the United States, is known for its history as a gateway for immigration to the United States and its status as a financial, cultural, transportation, and manufacturing center. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, it is also a destination of choice, particularly the lower Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley refers to the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in New York state, United States, from northern Westchester County northward to the cities of Albany and Troy. Historically a cradle of European settlement in the northeastern United States and a strategic battleground in colonial wars, it now consists of and New York Harbor New York Harbor refers to the waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental, commercial, and ecological usages. Originally used to refer to the Upper New York Bay, the term is also. They spoke two related languages in the Algonquian The Algonquian languages are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a member of the Algonquian language family. The term " subfamily, collectively known as the Delaware languages The Delaware languages, also known as the Lenape languages, are Munsee and Unami, two closely related languages of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family. Munsee and Unami were spoken aboriginally by the Lenape people in the vicinity of the modern New York City area in the United States, including western Long Island,: Unami and Munsee.

Lenape society was organized into clans A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if actual lineage patterns are unknown, clan members may nonetheless recognize a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be merely symbolical in nature, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a symbol of the determined by matrilineal Matrilineality is a system in which lineage is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors. In this article matrilineality also is a societal system in which one belongs to one's matriline or mother's lineage, which can involve the matrilineal inheritance of property and/or titles descent. Territory was collective, but divided by clan. At the time of European contact, the Lenape practiced large-scale agriculture Agriculture is the production of food and goods through farming. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The study of agriculture is known as, their primary crop being varieties of maize Maize is a grass domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The Aztecs and Mayans cultivated it in numerous varieties throughout central and southern Mexico, to cook or grind in a process called nixtamalization. Later the crop spread through much of the Americas. Between 1250 A.D. and 1700 A.D. nearly the whole. They also practiced hunting Hunting is the practice of pursuing living animals for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law. The species which are hunted are referred to as game and are usually mammals and and the harvesting of seafood Seafood refers to any sea animal or plant that is served as food and eaten by humans. Seafoods include seawater animals, such as fish and shellfish . By extension, in North America although not generally in the United Kingdom, the term seafood is also applied to similar animals from fresh water and all edible aquatic animals are collectively. They were primarily sedentary, moving to different established campsites by season.

After the arrival of Dutch The Netherlands (pronounced /ˈnɛðɚləndz/ ; Dutch: Nederland, pronounced [ˈneːdərlɑnt] ( listen)) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in North-West Europe. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany settlers and traders in the 17th century, the Lenape and other tribes became heavily involved in the North American fur trade. This depleted the beaver The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) (native to North America) and European Beaver (Castor fiber) (Eurasia). Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges (homes). They are the second-largest rodent in the world (after the capybara) population in the area, proving disastrous for both the Lenape and the Dutch settlers. The Lenape were further weakened by new infectious diseases, and by conflict with both Europeans and traditional Lenape enemies, the Iroquoian The Iroquoian languages are a First Nation and Native American language family. The language family, amongst others, includes Mohawk, Huron-Wyandot and Cherokee-speaking Susquehannock The Susquehannock people were Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries from the southern part of what is now New York, through Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay. Evidence of their habitation has also been found in West. Over the next centuries, they were pushed out of their lands by Iroquoian enemies, treaties and overcrowding by settlers, and moved west into the Ohio River The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. It is approximately 1,310 miles long and is located in the Eastern United States valley. In the 1860s, most Lenape remaining in the Eastern United States The Eastern Half of The United States, the American East, or simply the East is traditionally defined as the states east of the Mississippi River.[citation needed] The first two tiers of states west of the Mississippi have traditionally been considered part of the West, but can be included in the East today; usually in regional models that exclude were sent to the Oklahoma Territory The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian territory and admitted to the Union as the State of Oklahoma. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the U.S. state of Oklahoma A major producer of natural gas, oil and agriculture, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, energy, telecommunications, and biotechnology. It has one of the fastest growing economies in the nation, ranking among the top states in per capita income growth and gross domestic product growth. Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahoma's, with some communities living also in Kansas Historically, the area was home to large numbers of nomadic Native Americans who hunted bison. It was first settled by European Americans in the 1830s, but the pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery issue. When officially opened to settlement by the U.S. government in 1854, abolitionist Free-, Wisconsin The word Wisconsin has its origins in the name given to the Wisconsin River by one of the Algonquian speaking American Indian groups living in the region at the time of European contact. French explorer Jacques Marquette was the first European to reach the Wisconsin River and record its name, arriving in 1673 and calling the river Meskousing in, Ontario Ontario is bordered by Manitoba on its west, Hudson Bay on its north, and Quebec on its east, and by five States of the United States to its south : Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania (Lake Erie) and New York. All but a small portion of Ontario's 2,700 km (1,677 mi) border with the United States follow inland waterways: from the west at Lake, and in their traditional homelands.

Contents

Society

Lenape women Oklahoma (1910)

Early Indian "tribes" are perhaps better understood as language groups, rather than as "nations A nation is a group of people who share common history, culture, ethnic origin and language, often possessing or seeking its own government. The development and conceptualization of a nation is closely related to the development of modern industrial states and nationalist movements in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although". At the time of first European contact, a Lenape individual would likely have identified primarily with his or her immediate family and friends, or village unit; then with surrounding and familiar village units; next with more distant neighbors who spoke the same dialect; and ultimately, while often fitfully, with all those in the surrounding area who spoke mutually comprehensible languages, including the Mahican. Among other Algonquian peoples The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American Native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples. This grouping consists of peoples that speak Algonquian languages, the Lenape were considered the "grandfathers" from whom all the other Algonquian peoples originated. Consequently, in inter-tribal councils, the Lenape were given respect as one would to elders.

Those of a different language stock – such as the Iroquois The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America. After the Iroquoian-speaking peoples coalesced as distinct tribes, based mostly in present-day upstate New York, in the 16th century or earlier they came together in an association (or, in the Lenape language, the Minqua The Susquehannock people were Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries from the southern part of what is now New York, through Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay. Evidence of their habitation has also been found in West) – were regarded as foreigners. As in the case of the Iroquois, the animosity of difference and competition spanned many generations, and tribes became traditional enemies. Ethnicity seems to have mattered little to the Lenape and many other "tribes". Archaeological Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of past human societies, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data which they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes. Due to the fact that archaeology employs a wide range of different procedures, it can be excavations have found Munsee burials that included identifiably ethnic Iroquois remains interred along with those of ethnic-Algonquian Munsee. The two groups were bitter enemies since before recorded history. Intermarriage clearly occurred. In addition, both tribes practiced adopting captives from warfare into their tribes and assimilating them.

Overlaying these relationships was a phratry A phratry (Greek: φατρία, English translation: "brotherhood", "kinfolk", derived from φρατήρ meaning "brother") was an anthropological term for a kinship division consisting of two or more distinct clans which are considered a single unit, but which retain separate identities within the phratry system, a division into clans A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if actual lineage patterns are unknown, clan members may nonetheless recognize a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be merely symbolical in nature, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a symbol of the. Clan membership was matrilineal Matrilineality is a system in which lineage is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors. In this article matrilineality also is a societal system in which one belongs to one's matriline or mother's lineage, which can involve the matrilineal inheritance of property and/or titles; children inherited membership in a clan from their mother A mother is a woman who has, conceived, given birth to, or raised a child in the role of a parent. Because of the complexity and differences of a mothers' social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to define a mother to suit a universally accepted definition. The masculine equivalent is a father. On reaching adulthood, a Lenape traditionally married outside the clan, a practice known by ethnographers as, "exogamy In biology, exogamy more generally refers to the mating of individuals who are relatively less related genetically: that is, outbreeding as opposed to inbreeding. This benefits the offspring by avoiding the chance of the offspring inheriting two copies of a defective gene, and also by increasing the genetic diversity of the offspring, improving". The practice effectively prevented inbreeding, even among individuals whose kinship was obscure or unknown.

Early Europeans who first wrote about Indians found matrilineal social organization to be unfamiliar and perplexing. Because of this, Europeans often tried to interpret Lenape society through more familiar European arrangements. As a result, the early records are full of clues about early Lenape society, but were usually written by observers who did not fully understand what they were seeing. For example, a man's maternal uncle (his mother's brother), and not his father, was usually considered to be his closest male ancestor, since his father belonged to a different clan. The maternal uncle played a more prominent role in the lives of his sister's children than did the father. Such a concept was often unfathomable to early European chroniclers.

Land was assigned to a particular clan for hunting, fishing, and cultivation. Individual private ownership of land was unknown, but rather the land belonged to the clan collectively while they inhabited it.[1] Clans lived in fixed settlements, using the surrounding areas for communal hunting and planting until the land was exhausted. In a common practice known as "agricultural shifting", the group then moved to found a new settlement within their territories.

The Lenape practiced large-scale agriculture Agriculture is the production of food and goods through farming. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The study of agriculture is known as to augment a mobile hunter-gatherer A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either. Hunter-gatherers obtain most from gathering rather than hunting; up to 80% of the food is obtained by gathering. The society in the region around the Delaware River, the lower Hudson River The Hudson River is a 315-mile river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. It rises at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains, flows past Albany, and finally forms the border between New York City and New Jersey at its mouth before emptying into Upper New York Bay. Its lower half is a, and western Long Island Sound. The Lenape were largely a sedentary people who occupied campsites seasonally, which gave them relatively easy access to the small game that inhabited the region: fish, birds, shellfish and deer. They developed sophisticated techniques of hunting and managing their resources.

By the time of the arrival of Europeans, the Lenape were cultivating fields of vegetation through the slash and burn technique. This extended the productive life of planted fields.[2][3][4][5][6][7] They also harvested vast quantities of fish and shellfish from the bays of the area,[8] and, in southern New Jersey, harvested clams year-round.[9] The success of these methods allowed the tribe to maintain a larger population than nomadic hunter-gatherers could support. Scholars have estimated that at the time of European settlement, there may have been about 15,000 Lenape total in approximately 80 settlement sites around much of the New York City area, alone.[10] In 1524 Lenape in canoes met Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to enter New York Harbor.

History

European contact

Benjamin West's painting (in 1771) of William Penn's 1682 treaty with the Lenape

The first recorded contact with Europeans and people presumed to have been the Lenape was in 1524. The explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano was greeted by local Native Americans arriving by canoe, after his ship entered what is now called Lower New York Bay. The Lenape occupied coastal areas throughout the mid-Atlantic and New York.

The early interaction between the Lenape and Dutch traders in the 17th century was primarily through the fur trade, specifically, the Lenape trapped and traded beaver pelts for European-made goods. According to Dutch settler Isaac de Rasieres, who observed the Lenape in 1628, the Lenape's primary crop was maize, which they planted in March. They quickly adopted European metal tools for this task.

In May, the Lenape planted kidney beans near the maize plants; the latter served as props for the climbing bean vines. The summers were devoted to field work and the crops were harvested in August. Women cultivated varieties of maize and beans, and did most of the field work, processing and cooking of food. The men limited their agricultural labor to clearing the field and breaking the soil. They primarily hunted and fished during the rest of the year. Dutch settler David de Vries, who stayed in the area from 1634 to 1644, described a Lenape hunt in the valley of the Achinigeu-hach (or "Ackingsah-sack," the Hackensack River), in which one hundred or more men stood in a line many paces from each other, beating thigh bones on their palms to drive animals to the river, where they could be killed easily. Other methods of hunting included lassoing and drowning deer, as well as forming a circle around prey and setting the brush on fire.

European settlement

Dutch settlers founded a colony at present-day Lewes, Delaware on June 3, 1631 and named it Zwaanendael (Swan Valley).[11] The colony had a short existence, as in 1632 a local tribe of Lenape Indians killed the 32 Dutch settlers after a misunderstanding over defacement of the insignia of the Dutch West India Company escalated.[12] In 1634, the Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannocks went to war with the Lenape over access to trade with the Dutch at Manhattan. They defeated the Lenape, and some scholars believe that the Lenape may have become tributaries to the Susquehannock.[13] After the warfare, the Lenape referred to the Susquehannock as "uncles." The Lenape were added to the Covenant Chain by the Iroquois in 1676, remaining tributary to the Five (later Six) Nations until 1753.

The Lenape's quick adoption of trade goods and their need for furs to meet high European demand resulted in disastrous over-harvesting of the beaver population in the lower Hudson Valley. With the fur source exhausted, the Dutch shifted their operations to present-day Upstate New York. The Lenape population fell, due mostly to infectious diseases carried by Europeans, such as measles and smallpox, to which they had no natural immunity.

Differences in conceptions of property rights between the Europeans and the Lenape resulted in widespread confusion among the Lenape and the loss of their lands. After the Dutch arrival in the 1620s, the Lenape were successful in restricting Dutch settlement to Pavonia in present-day Jersey City along the Hudson until the 1660s. The Dutch finally established a garrison at Bergen, allowing settlement west of the Hudson within the province of New Netherlands.

In the early 1680s, William Penn and Quaker colonists created the English colony of Pennsylvania on the Delaware River. In the immediately following decades some 20,000 new colonists arrived in the region, putting pressure on Lenape settlements and hunting grounds. Although Penn endeavored to live peaceably beside the Lenape and to create a colony that would do the same, he also expected his authority and the authority of the colonial government to take precedence. His new colony effectively displaced the Lenape and forced others to adapt to new cultural demands. Ironically, Penn himself gained a reputation for uncommon benevolence and tolerance while more effectively organizing the colonization of the ancestral Lenape homeland than any other previous effort.[14]

18th century

Beginning in the 18th century, the Moravian Church established missions among the Lenape.[15] The Moravians required the Christian converts to share their pacifism, as well as to live in a structured and European-style mission village.[16] Moravian pacifism and unwillingness to take loyalty oaths caused conflicts with British authorities, who sought aid against the French and their Native American allies during the French and Indian War (Seven Years War). The Moravians' insistence on Christian Lenapes' abandoning traditional warfare practices alienated mission populations from other Lenape and Native American groups. The Moravians accompanied Lenape relocations to Ohio and Canada, continuing their missionary work. The Moravian Lenape who settled permanently in Ontario after the Revolutionary War were sometimes referred to as "Christian Munsee", as they mostly spoke the Munsee branch of the Delaware language.

Lapowinsa, Chief of the Lenape, Lappawinsoe painted by Gustavus Hesselius in 1735.

The Treaty of Easton, signed in 1758 between the Lenape and the Anglo-American colonists in 1758, required the Lenape to move westward, out of present-day New York and New Jersey and into Pennsylvania, then Ohio and beyond. Sporadically they continued to raid European-American settlers from far outside the area.

During the French and Indian War, the Lenape initially sided with the French. However, such leaders as Teedyuscung in the east and Tamaqua in the vicinity of modern Pittsburgh made the shift to building alliances with the English. After the end of the war, however, Anglo-American settlers continued to kill Lenape, often to such an extent that people claimed the dead since the wars outnumbered those during the war.[17]

In 1763 the Lenape known as Bill Hickman warned English colonists in the Juniata River region of an impending attack. Many Lenape joined in Pontiac's War, and were numerous among those Native Americans who besieged Pittsburgh.[18] In April 1763 Teedyuscung was killed when his home was burned. His son Captain Bull responded by attacking settlers from New England who had migrated to the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. The settlers had been sponsored by the Susquehanna Company.[19]

The Lenape were the first Indian tribe to enter into a treaty with the new United States government, with the Treaty of Fort Pitt signed in 1778 during the American Revolutionary War. The Lenape, by then living mostly in the Ohio Country, supplied the Continental Army with warriors and scouts in exchange for food supplies and security. They may have been misled by an undocumented promise of a role at the head of a future Native American state.[citation needed]

19th and 20th centuries

In the early 19th century, the naturalist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque claimed to have found the Walam Olum, an alleged religious history of the Lenape, which he published in 1836. However, only Rafinesque's manuscript exists; the tablets upon which his writings were allegedly based either were never found, or never existed. Most authorities and scholars now consider the document a hoax.[20]

Amateur anthropologist Silas Wood published a book claiming that there were several American Indian tribes that were distinct to Long Island, New York. He collectively called them the Metoac. Modern scientific scholarship has shown that two linguistic groups represented two Algonquian cultural identities on the island, not "13 individual tribes" as asserted by Wood. The bands to the west were Lenape. Those to the east were more related culturally to the Algonquian tribes in New England.[21][22] Wood (and earlier settlers) often misinterpreted Indian use of place names for identity as indicating that was their name for "tribes."

The Lenape were progressively crowded out of the East Coast and Ohio by European settlers and pressed to move over a period of 176 years. Most members of the Munsee-language branch of the Lenape live on three Indian reserves in Western Ontario, Canada. They are descendants of those Lenape of Ohio Country who sided with the British during the Revolutionary War. The largest reserve is at Moraviantown, Ontario, where the Turtle clan settled in 1792 following the war.

The main body of Lenape arrived in the northeast region of Oklahoma in the 1860s. Along the way many smaller groups left, or were told to stay where they were. Consequently today, from New Jersey to Wisconsin to southwest Oklahoma, there are groups who retain a sense of connection with ancestors who lived in the Delaware Valley in the 17th century and with cousins in the Lenape diaspora.

The two largest groups are the Delaware Nation (Anadarko, Oklahoma), and the Delaware Tribe of Indians (Bartlesville, Oklahoma), the only two federally recognized Lenape (Delaware) tribes in the United States.[23] The Oklahoma branches were established in 1867. The Delaware were required to purchase land from the reservation of the Cherokee Nation; they made two payments totaling $438,000. A court dispute followed over whether the sale included rights for the Delaware as citizens within the Cherokee Nation.

While the dispute was unsettled, the Curtis Act of 1898 dissolved tribal governments and ordered the allotment of tribal lands to individual members of tribes. The Lenape fought the act in the courts but lost, and in 18?? (date? if this is in response to Curtis Act, it can't be 1867) the courts ruled that the Delaware had only purchased rights to the land in Oklahoma for the lifetimes of the owners. After the lands were allotted in 160-acre (650,000 m²) lots to tribal members in 1907, the government sold "surplus" land to non-Indians. It soon became obvious that the land was not suitable for subsistence farming on such small plots.

In 1979, the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs revoked the tribal status of the Delaware living among Cherokee in Oklahoma. They began to count the Delaware as Cherokee. The Delaware had this decision overturned in 1996, when they were recognized by the federal government as a separate tribal nation.

The Cherokee Nation filed suit to overturn the recognition of the Delaware. The tribe lost federal recognition in a 2004 court ruling in favor of the Cherokee Nation, but regained it on 28 July 2009.[24] After recognition, the tribe reorganized under the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act. Members approved a constitution and bylaws in a May 26, 2009 vote. Jerry Douglas is serving as tribal chief.[23]

In 2004 the Delaware of Oklahoma sued the state of Pennsylvania over land lost in 1800. This was related to the Walking Purchase of 1737, an agreement of doubtful legal standing.[25][26]

Lenape communities today

Lenni Lenapes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are not officially recognized as tribes by the United States. This means they do not have reservation land or their own government system, though they still practice the Lenape culture. A small, unrecognized Native American community known as Lenapehoking for Lenni-Lenape Indians is in West Philadelphia.

Sticker by the Delaware Valley's Lenape Indians in 2008 claiming West Philadelphia is their home.

Oklahoma:

Ontario, Canada:

Wisconsin:

New Jersey:

Notable Lenape

Literature

The Delaware feature prominently in The Last of the Mohicans and the other Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper.

The Delaware are the subject of a legend which inspired the Boy Scouts of America honor society known as the Order of the Arrow.

The Walam Olum, which purported to be an account of the Delaware's migration to the lands around the Delaware River, emerged through the works of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in the nineteenth century. For many decades, scholars believed it was genuine. In the 1980s and 1990s, newer textual analysis suggested it was a hoax. Nonetheless, some Delaware, upon hearing of it for the first time, found the account to be plausible.

In Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, the group of American scalphunters are aided by an unspecified number of Delaware Indians (5-6 minimum), who serve as scouts and guides through the western deserts.

In The Light in the Forest, True Son is adopted by a band of Lenape.

In the 1938 Mark Raymond Harrington book Dickon Among the Indians, a group of Lenape find a young white child. This proceed to raise him as their own. The book goes into detail of Lenape life, society, weaponry, and beliefs, and includes a glossary for many Lenape terms used throughout the book.

Trouble's Daughter: The Story of Susanna Hutchinson, Indian Captive is a young adult novel of a fictional account of the kidnapping by the Lenape Turtle Clan of a daughter of Anne Hutchinson, the religious reformer and founder of the Rhode Island colony.

Moon of Two Dark Horses is a novel of the friendship between a white settler and a Lenape boy at the time of the Revolutionary War.

Standing in the Light: The Captive Diary of Catharine Carey Logan, part of the Dear America series of fictional diaries, is a novel by Mary Pope Osborne. It tells the story of the capture of a teenage girl and her brother by a band of Lenape, and the youths' gradual assimilation into Lenape culture.

Peter Lindestrom's Geographia America with an Account of the Delaware Indians is one of the few sympathetic contemporary accounts (and most reliable) of Lenape life in the lower Delaware River valley during the 17th century.

Moravian missionary John Heckewelder published a sympathetic account of the Lenape in exile in the Ohio Valley. His account, published in 1818, provides some alternate Lenape tribal history disputing the tributary relationship with the Susquehannock.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ see New Amsterdam for discussion of the Dutch "purchase" of Manhattan
  2. ^ Stevenson W. Fletcher, Pennsylvania Agriculture and Country Life 1640-1840 (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1950), 2, 35-37, 63-65, 124.
  3. ^ Day, Gordon M. “The Indian as an Ecological Factor in the Northeastern Forests.” Ecology, Vol. 34, #2 (April): 329-346. New England and New York areas 1580-1800. Notes that the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tribe in New Jersey and the Massachuset tribe in Massachusetts used fire in ecosystems.1953
  4. ^ Russell, Emily W.B. Vegetational Change in Northern New Jersey Since 1500 A.D.: A Palynological, Vegetational and Historical Synthesis Ph.D. dissertation. New Brunswick, PA: Rutgers University. Author notes on page 8 that Indians often augmented lightning fires. 1979
  5. ^ Russell, Emily W.B. "Indian Set Fires in the Forests of the Northeastern United States." Ecology, Vol. 64, #1 (Feb): 78 88. 1983a Author found no strong evidence that Indians purposely burned large areas, but they did burn small areas near their habitation sites. Noted that the Lenna Lenape Tribe used fire.
  6. ^ "A Brief Description of New York, Formerly Called New Netherlands with the Places Thereunto Adjoining, Likewise a Brief Relation of the Customs of the Indians There." New York, NY: William Gowans. 1670. Reprinted in 1937 by the Facsimile Text Society, Columbia University Press, New York. Notes that the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tribe in New Jersey used fire in ecosystems.
  7. ^ Smithsonian Institution - Handbook of North American Indians series: Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15 - Northeast. Bruce G. Trigger (volume editor). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. 1978 References to Indian burning for the Eastern Algonquins, Virginia Algonquins, Northern Iroquois, Huron, Mahican, and Delaware Tribes and peoples.
  8. ^ Mark Kurlansky, 2006.
  9. ^ D. Dreibelbis, 1978.
  10. ^ Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, 1999.
  11. ^ Munroe, John A.: Colonial Delaware: A History: Millwood, New York: KTO Press; 1978; P.9-12.
  12. ^ Cook, Albert Myers. Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware 1630-1707. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912. p. 9
  13. ^ F. Jennings, p. 117
  14. ^ Spady, James. "Colonialism and the Discursive Antecedents of Penn's Treaty with the Indians". in Daniel K. Richter and William A. Pencak, ed., Friends and Enemies in Penn's Woods: Indians, Colonists, and the Racial Construction of Pennsylvania. University Park, PA: PSU Press, 2004. p. 18-40.
  15. ^ Gray, Elma. Wilderness Christians: Moravian Missions to the Delaware Indians. Ithaca. 1956
  16. ^ Olmstead, Earl P. Blackcoats among the Delaware: David Zeisberger on the Ohio frontier. Kent, Ohio. 1991
  17. ^ Amy C. Schutt. Peoples of the Rivers. p. 118
  18. ^ Schutt. People of the River, p. 118
  19. ^ Schutt. People of the River, p. 119
  20. ^ Oestreicher, David, 1994
  21. ^ Strong, John A. Algonquian Peoples of Long Island Heart of the Lakes Publishing (March 1997). ISBN 978-1-55787-148-0
  22. ^ Bragdon, Kathleen. The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Northeast. Columbia University Press (January 15, 2002). ISBN 978-0-231-11452-3.
  23. ^ a b "Delaware Tribe regains federal recognition" NewsOk. 4 Aug 2009 (retrieved 5 August 2009)
  24. ^ Delaware Tribe of Indians’ federal recognition restored. Indian Country Today. 7 Aug 2009 (retrieved 11 August 2009)
  25. ^ http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1074259221938
  26. ^ http://www.delawaretribeofindians.nsn.us/walking_purchase.html
  27. ^ S. H. Mitchell (1895)

External material

Bibliography

External links

The factual accuracy of part of this article is disputed. The dispute is about the pre-contact agricultural practices of the Lenape people, as well as the size of the pre-contact population.. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page before making changes.(December 2008)

Categories: First Nations in Ontario | Lenape people | Native American tribes in New Jersey | Native American tribes in Pennsylvania | Native American tribes in New York | Native American tribes in Delaware | Native American tribes in Ohio | Algonquian ethnonyms | People of New Netherland

 

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