Although the Lenni Lenape are rarely talked about when considering NJ’s history, this article provides some general information on the tribe’s culture and how to remember NJ’s native history.
Edited by Kayla Luga
Most people learn New Jersey history from the European point of view, with settlers dating back to the 1600s. What many people seldom learn is that ten thousand years prior to the “discovery” of the New World, there were diverse and multicultural peoples living on this land. Their history is often erased by what is called “American history” in school, but is really the history of the colonizers, entirely ignorant of who was pushed off their land to make way for the events we read about in textbooks.
The main tribe that lived on the land now called “New Jersey” was the Lenni Lenape, which were considered as part of the larger Algonquin tribe. Once settlers came to the area, they began to call the native tribe the “Delaware” people, after Lord De La Warr–the governor of Virginia.
The Lenape was a peaceful tribe, often called upon by other tribes to mediate conflict and provide fair trial for conflicts within the Algonquin nation. However, with the arrival of hostile settlers, the Lenape people were caught in bloody wars with white colonists. These wars meant the tribe was unable to survive in its native home, as the wars in combination with diseases, guns, and land and resource greed wiped out the population.
Their lifestyle was very different from that of the Europeans. It was entirely based on the environment and respect for nature. The tribe travelled with the seasons to make the most of Earth’s resources. In the spring, gardens were planted for a vegetable-based diet. In the summer, many people would camp out near the ocean to catch shellfish for the season. In the fall, members would move back to their homes and villages to settle in for the winter, when they would hunt deer for food. This lifestyle also depended on the subtribes within the Lenape tribe: the Minsi in the northern part of NJ, the Unalachtigo in the southern part, and the Unami in the central area.
Relations with European settlers were peaceful at first. The Lenape tribe was looking for trade opportunities, such as exchanging pelts and furs for rum and guns. To the white settlers, however, these new people were looked down upon for being uncivilized, and many hoped to turn them into slaves once their trade relationship could no longer be exploited. Throughout the 1600s, several conflicts and massacres took place between the tribe and the Dutch settlers, but in 1664, the English came and took over, forming a new relationship with the native people.
Although there was less hostility, the English had ideas about land ownership that directly conflicted with the Lenape way of life. In exchange for meaningless trinkets, the Lenape tribe traded away their land, essentially handing it over for nothing. They had no way of knowing this deal was unfair, and the English exploited the tribe to own more land. In response, many members moved to the north or farther west to get away from the increasingly oppressive white control that came along with this extensive land ownership. If members chose to stay, they had trouble surviving through the diseases that decimated the native population. After just under 100 years of Europeans infringing on their land, the Lenape people were close to extinction.
The first reservation was formed in Burlington County in 1758, where the tribe was forced to live without any rights except hunting privileges. After hearing of the dwindling members’ horrible conditions, a tribe in upstate New York called the Oneida people–also part of the Algonquin nation–offered to let the remaining Lenape people stay with them. In 1801, the New Jersey Assembly sold the reservation, dividing up the proceeds to the mere 85 members still left, and then they moved to New York where the Lenape tribe members lived among a different native people, eventually spreading throughout the continental US and Canada, but never returning to their home: New Jersey. The Lenape lineage is not completely gone, as some chose to stay and marry settlers or African Americans and pass the Lenape culture onto their children, but it did not thrive as it once had, and the original culture was often marred by assimilation, forced by the white settlers who refused to accept anyone different from themselves. This oppression lives on today, as Lenape history and culture is erased from New Jersey’s history and is rarely recognized.
For those looking to explore the remnants of the Lenni Lenape culture in New Jersey, there are a few monuments that honor the native people. The Indian King Tavern Museum in Haddonfield, NJ commemorates the benevolent people’s culture and history. The Franklin Mineral Museum contains artifacts from when the Lenape people lived in this area, and can be visited in Franklin, NJ.
The erasure of native culture is not unique to New Jersey, and too many tribes are “forgotten” because their existence was conditioned by white settlers. It is the responsibility of each individual to learn the history of the land they stand on and to honor those whose culture and humanity was silenced to create the America that exists today. Although this culture has been nearly entirely erased, it will never be forgotten so long as people open their minds and expand their perspectives to include the experiences of Native Americans.
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