The Unusual Link Between A Lenni-Lenape Chief And 18th-Century New York Politics

The Lenni-Lenape were not a single, homogenous tribe with one shared language. As West Philadelphia Collaborative History note on their website, "Lenni-Lenape" (also just "Lenape," literally "Original People") refers to a whole host of tribes, groups, language families, and dialects spread throughout modern-day Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and parts of Maryland and Connecticut. Depending on the region, traditions could vary greatly. But more often than not, individuals and families lived in smaller wigwams and moved locations every 20 years or so to utilize new soil for farming purposes. Their concentration along the Delaware river led to them being dubbed "Delaware Indians" by early European settlers.

Dutch, Swedish, and Finnish explorers and fur traders were among the first to have regular contact with the Lenape. The Dutch settled along the Hudson River and claimed the entire region from the Delaware River to the Connecticut River, including Manhattan Island, for themselves (via the Hudson River Valley Institute). From the 1630s through 1670s, bit by bit, companies such as the Dutch- and Swedish-founded New South Company bought land, set up outposts, and worked their way southwest.

At the same time, Quakers started settling in the area around the 1660s. Quakers, also known as the "Religious Society of Friends," arose as a Christian sect during the English Civil War and fled England to escape religious persecution (via Ancestral Findings). These people, outcasts themselves, were the ones who brokered peace with the Lenape.

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