Late Woodland period c.1100-1737
This Land
02
The Lenape People
“We lived off of the bounty of the forest, the bounty of the rivers, and the bounty of the oceans. And it was a holistic lifestyle, in the sense that all things had a living spirit. And we were given a way of life, to live and balance in harmony with those spirits.”
-Curtis Zunigha, enrolled member and cultural director of the Delaware Tribe of Indians
According to The First 300, a publication by the Lower Merion Historical Society, prior to the arrival of European settlers, this land was woodland. Thick forests of chestnuts, hemlocks, white pines covered the land, so thickly that it has been said 'a squirrel could cross America from treetop to treetop without ever touching ground.'
Ancestors of the Lenape had hunted in eastern regions of North America for thousands of years, adapting through time to the changes in climate and landscape. By 1200 A.D. these small and highly mobile communities had developed new strategies that gave them more efficient use of the land and its resources. Within a few hundred years they had formed into several nations. One of these communities called themselves the Lenape (len-AH-puh).
They lived along the Atlantic coast, from what we now call northern New Jersey, south to Delaware." (The First 300, p.6) There were two distinct dialects among the Lenape, Munsee in the north and Unami in the south, but they were mutually intelligible.
What today we know as the Delaware River takes its English names from Sir Thomas West...the first governor of the Virginia colony. To the Lenape, this river and the land around it was called Makeriskhickon and, in many ways, this always flowing river was the lifeblood of these people. In their own terms these people called themselves Lenape, meaning 'the people' (or, according to Lenape sources) 'the real people'. (The First 300, p.6)
Each Lenape community had its
...own area for winter hunting, and its own summer station along the Delaware River. Most of the year was spent at these summer fishing stations...They traditionally summered in the rich swamps at the mouth of the Schuylkill, but hunted over the entire southwestern side of the Schuylkill River drainage which was their foraging territory.
The Lenape living in the resource-rich area of southeastern Pennsylvania developed a sophisticated foraging life-style...They hunted and fished and gathered many different kinds of plants such as goosefoot and wild millet, in order to feed themselves. In the fall, hickory nuts and acorns were gathered and processed for food. Among the animals collected by Lenape women for food were bird eggs, nestlings, frogs, turtles and shellfish.
During the summer, everyone helped fish for shad, sturgeon, striped bass, eel and many other water-dwelling creatures, using complex woven traps, large nets and harpoons. Lenape men also hunted in the surrounding forests for deer, elk, bear and birds, using the bow and arrow tipped with flat, triangular stone heads...finely chipped and very sharp... (The First 300, p.6)
The arrival of the Europeans and the fur trade
Dutch traders from Fort Amsterdam, located on the North (Hudson) River, came down to what the called South River in 1623, specifically to trade with the Susquehanock. (The Susquehanock), the most powerful native nation in Pennsylvania, brought furs overland to the Delaware River to avoid the renewed conflicts between the Powhatan Confederacy and the English colonists on the Chesapeake River. The Dutch put up a tiny trading post, Fort Nassau, on the Jersey side of the river opposite the mouth of the river they called the "Hidden Stream" (schuylkil in Dutch)...The Dutch came to 'their' South River to trade but never set up permanent(ly)...
The Swedes arrived in 1638 and set up a colony at what is now Wilmington, primarily to trade furs. They could not compete with the Dutch so they moved further into the Schuykill Valley and bought land from the Lenape where they built a small fort on the west banks of the Delaware. The Lenape sold furs to the Swedes, and later maize, which "provided a new and useful means by which the Lenape could make it through particularly bad winters. If the hunting were bad, Lenape families could rely on the Swedes for supplementary rations during the "starving time'. (The First 300 p.8)
Land Sales
The lands that became Pennsylvania came as a Crown grant to William Penn. Penn believed that the wholesale purchase of land from its native owners and the subsequent division and resale of small plots, would make him fabulously wealthy. By the time Penn received his grant and developed his plans for what became 'Pennsylvania,' thousands of English colonists already had come into the area.
This increase in population, most of whom purchased tracts along the Delaware River began to influence native fishing and foraging strategies by the 1660s. Rather than sustaining their summer fishing stations directly on the Delaware, individual Lenape bands began to shift their summer stations further up their respective streams. From c.1660 to 1680, the Schuykill River and other communities were also relocating their summer stations further up river, with the South Schuykill community shifting to a location at the bend of the Schulkyill River. Here, due to the water's change in direction, there is a natural pool of warm water where the fish congregate and they were able to trap fish. Tradition holds that the Lenape also camped in the area "because it was a source of chert, a flint-like stone used in the manufacture of spearpoints and arrowheads." These black rock can be seen where Mill Creek passes under Black Rock Rd in Gladwyne. (The First 300, p.8)
Penn's Purchases
Between 1682 and 1701, Penn patiently negotiated the purchase of all the holdings of every one of the Lenape bands, except those areas on which the individual bands 'were seated' (had their summer stations)...These sales did little to change Lenape lifeways, other than to provide them with a vast quantity of useful goods. From the list of goods that Penn used to "buy" this tract, we can estimate the band size: 30 adults and possibly and equal number of children, since the goods involve items in multiples of 15. For the men, there are 15 guns, knives, axes, coats and shirts plus 30 bars of lead. For women, there are 15 small kettles, scissors and coms, but 16 pairs of stockings and blankets.
Only in the 1730s was the density of the English settlement and the subtle influences it had on native lifeways considered a potential problem to the Lenape. Many were marrying or settling among the colonists and the traditional modes of living were becoming difficult to follow in the Lower Delaware Valley. As colonists moved further west from the Delaware River, so did the Lenape. By 1733 and 1740, all of the conservative members of many Lenape communities had decided that economic opportunities and the chance to maintain the old ways lay in moving west. (The First 300, p.9)
The Walking Purchases
According to Curtis Zunigha, an enrolled member and cultural director of the Delaware Tribe of Indians,
the Penn family was not immune to 'swindling'...After the death of William Penn in 1718, his sons, John and Thomas, did a complete 180 in their relationship with the Lenape. Though William Penn would purchase land from the Lenape to sell to colonists, his sons would often sell the land without the consent of the local tribes."
According to The First 300,
With more and more people coming into the region, the Penn brothers and Provincial Secretary James Logan found it necessary to obtain the upper Delaware and Lehigh River valleys from the native people.
And then came the Walking Purchase of 1737.
According to the article that published the interview Zunigha,
The Penn family produced an alleged treaty from 1686 that showed the Lenape had already agreed to sell the land. However, the Lenape claimed that the deal was a fraud. According to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, “it is very likely that the reason for the Indians’ ignorance of the 1686 sale is that it never happened. Logan could not produce an original copy of the deed, nor does the sale appear in Pennsylvania’s provincial land records.”
Feeling duped, the Lenape refused to leave and sought the help of the Iroquois — to no avail. Eventually, the Lenape agreed to the purchase in 1737. However, the conditions stated that the land that was to be handed over would start near what is now Wrightstown, Bucks County, to as far 'as a man could walk in a day and half.'
At the time, that typically would have been considered a fair unit of measurement. But the Penns hired three walkers. Though two were unable to keep up a fast pace, a third managed to make it all the way to what is now the Borough of Jim Thorpe because the Penns had previously hired scouting parties to clear a path.
The Lenape refused to leave, and eventually Pennsylvania colonial officials successfully called on the Iroquois to force them out in 1741.
The Changing Landscape
With European settlers came change to the natural landscape. Settlers cleared land for homesteads and farming with logging and slash-and-burn methods. Logging also supported the growing shipbuilding industry and local saw and papermills on Mill Creek. In addition to this deforestation, as paper mills were constructed and stream were dammed for water power, the watershed was altered.
Researchers from discovered fossil leaves while investigating the lingering effects of milldams and revealed that the thousands of small dams — which powered mills, forges and other industry — changed the water table, altering the plants growing nearby and eventually changing the landscape from wetlands to deeply incised, quickly flowing streams. Before Europeans arrived, American beech, red oak and sweet birch trees grew here, but now, the same spot is now home to mostly box elder and sugar maple trees.
Infestations of insects such as aphids and the emerald ash borer, diseases such as chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease, funguses and fungus-like organisms have continued to deplete our forests.
Invasive species such as the Norway maple were introduced as well, either trees grown for timber or as ornaments that escaped into the wild and out-compete native forests. (Oskin, 2013)
Sources:
Choi, C. (2009, April). Live Science link
Cooper, K. (July, 2021). 'We just want to be welcomed back': The Lenape seek a return home. link
Oskin, B. (2013, November). Live Science link
Lower Merion Historical Society link
The First 300: The Amazing and Rich History of Lower Merion. (2000). Lower Merion Historical Society.
