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DELAWARE INDIAN NATION OF OKLAHOMA

The name DELAWARE was given to the natives who occupied the Delaware River Valley during the colonial occupation of English Governor Lord de la Warr. In their language they are LENAPE (len-ah'-pay) which means "The People" and belong to the Algonquian linguistic group. They were among the first Indians to come in contact with Europeans (Dutch, English, & Swedish) as early as 1600. They were considered a "Grandfather" tribe whose power, position, and spiritual presence served to settle disputes among rival tribes. Known also for their fierceness and tenacity as warriors they are recorded, however, as choosing a path of accommodation with the Europeans, treating William Penn for eastern Pennsylvania [THE WALKING PURCHASE] and signing the first Indian treaty with the United States (Sept. 17, 1778). Through war and peace the Lenape continued to give up their lands and moved westward (Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana). A small contingent of Delawares fled to Canada during a time of extreme persecution (1790) and today occupy two small reserves in Ontario province (Moraviantown and Munsee).

By 1820 they crossed the Mississippi River into Missouri and, during the next 40 years, produced 13 treaties which established a reservation in Kansas and ultimately a final move to the Indian Territory in 1866. Their 1867 agreement with the Cherokees allowed them to purchase a district to reside as Delawares within the Cherokee Nation. Since then they have primarily occupied modern-day Washington and Nowata Counties in Oklahoma and have continually maintained their cultural and governmental identity.

The Delaware of today number close to 10,000 and are headquartered in Bartlesville where the tribal government operates service programs. A small group of separately-organized Delawares (the Absentees) are located in Anadarko, Oklahoma on lands they jointly control with the Wichitas and Caddos. My roots are in this group. There has been a recent revival in cultural programs (language, song, and social dance) which has pleased the few remaining full-blood elders who feared cultural extinction.

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The Walking Purchase In Lenape history there is the story of the "Walking Purchase" which took place in 1737. William Penn had always dealt fairly with the Lenape, but after he returned to England his sons and other agents began to sell land to pay their creditors, and these were lands which were still owned by the Lenape.

In order to convince the Lenape to part with the land, the Penns falsely represented an old, incomplete, unsigned draft of a deed as a legal contract. They told the Lenape that their ancestors some fifty years before had signed this document which stated that the land to be deeded to the Penns was as much as could be covered in a day-and-a-half's walk.

Believing that their forefathers had made such an agreement the Lenape leaders agreed to let the Penns have this area walked off. They thought the whites would take a leisurely walk down an Indian path along the Delaware River. Instead, the Penns hired three of the fastest runners, and had a straight path cleared. Only one of the "walkers" was able to complete the "walk," but he went fifty-five miles.

And so by means of a false deed, and use of runners, the Penns acquired 1200 square miles of Lenape land in Pennsylvania, an area about the size of Rhode Island! The Lenape people complained about the way the "walk" had been done. Lenape chief Lappawinsoe expressed the frustration and dissatisfaction of the Lenape when he said:

[the white runners] should have walkt along by the River Delaware or the next Indian path to it . . . should have walkt for a few Miles and then have sat down and smoakt a Pipe, and now and then have shot a Squirrel, and not have kept up the Run, Run all day.

Nonetheless, the Lenape felt honor bound to fulfill what they thought their ancestors had agreed to, and thus began their movement westward. The Lenape were given place after place. Each time it was promised by the government that it would be their permanent home, only to have to move again. Their trek, which lasted 130 years, finally brought them to what was known as Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.

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