In 1600, Lenape territories included all of New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, the southern tip of New York as well as small sections of Delaware and Connecticut.
The Lenape were divided into three distinct communities each with it's own dialect: the Munsee, the Northern Unami and the Southern Unami.
At this time, the Lenape population was estimated at 8,000 people.
King Charles II, granted the Province of Pennsylvania to William Penn by Royal Charter dated March 4, 1681. An estimated 90 ships carrying 7,200 people arrived in Pennsylvania between 1682 and 1685.
By the 1685, the Lenape population has been reduced to 4,000 people, after exposure to European diseases for which they had no immunity.
William Penn needed land for the incoming colonists. His first purchase of Pennsylvania land from the Lenape was by deed dated July 15, 1682, negotiated by William Penn's agent, William Markham.
On June 23, 1683 William Penn made a second purchase for a parcel of land to the west, followed by several more parcel purchases later that year.
William Penn came to be known for his honest dealings with the Native Americans. His treaty with them outlined a number of unusual provisions for the times.
The Provisions
"There shall be no buying and selling, be it with Indian, or one among another, but what shall be performed in public market, when such places shall be set apart, or erected, where they shall pass the public stamp or mark."
"That no man shall by any ways or means, in-- word or deed, affront or wrong any Indian, but shall incur the same penalty of the law as if he had committed it against his fellow planter."
"That the Indians shall have liberty to do all things relating to improvement of their ground, and providing sustenance for their families, that any of the planters shall enjoy."
Key to his reputation was that the Lenape were to be paid for any land transaction, and that they were given the right of passage through any lands sold--a practise that continued in Pennsylvania even after Penn returned to England in 1684.
In 1699, William Penn came back to Pennsylvania for 2 years. When he returned to Enlgand, he left James Logan and his son Thomas Penn in control of the land office.
James and Thomas secretly warranted, surveyed, and took payment for thousands of acres in Bucks County and the Lehigh Valley--land that was not cleared of Native American claims.
Finally, Thomas and James summoned the Lenape Chiefs to treat with them about making an official land purchase. They were called to meet at Durham Furnace on October 8, 1734. Over the course of the next few days 20 Lenape Sachems arrived including Nutimus, Lappawinzo, Tishcohan, Tatamy and Teedyuscung but Thomas and James refused the Lenape asking price for the land and so the negotiations ended.
On May 5, 1735 at a second meeting with the Lenape held at Pennsbury Manor, Thomas and James falsely claimed that the Penn family had purchased the coveted lands from their ancestors in 1686.
Unlike previous dealings with William Penn, Thomas Penn and James Logan dealt falsely with the Lenape.
He presented a forged deed with no bounds, no signatures, no mention of payment, and false witnesses.
The Lenape leader, Nutimus, argued that he was Sachem to the Lenape north of Tohiccon Creek. He insisted that if Lenape had sold that land to Penn, they had no power to do so.
Logan accused Nutimus as being "too young to witness the negotiations." Nutimus said he had it from his fathers. Besides "From the Indian way of selling Land he could not but know.”
Nutimus then lectured Logan on the Lenape way: “No Land can be sold without all the Indians round being made acquainted with the Matter,” because “the Chief always—with the Leave of the others—undertook to sell.
Logan asked Nutimus how he had any rights to land since he was born in Jersey. “Nutimus said his mother came from this side the River, & by her he had a right here.” Nutimus turned the question on Logan by asking “How he came to have a right here as he was not born in this Country?”
Logan claimed that he was a “big man” while Nutimus, by contrast, was “as the little Finger of his left hand.” Still, Nutimus was unmoved to sign.
In 1736 James Logan tried to outwit Nutimus by executing a treaty between Pennsylvania and the Iroquois Confederacy to whom the Delawares served fealty.
October 27, 1736, 15 of the Iroquois chiefs signed the treaty.
“It went very hard about syning over their right upon Delaware because they sayd they had nothing to doe there about the land, they were afraid they should doe any thing a mis to their [cousins] the delawares.”
On August 25-26, 1737 Logan invited for Lenape leaders, Nutimus, Monikyhiccon, Lapowinzo, and Tishecunk to Stenton, his estate north of Philadelphia, for a meeting to further discuss the purchase.
The Lenape sachems came with information from their elders that they concurred that a 1686 agreement had been reached, “but without making the Indians any Pay for the Lands.”
William Penn's son,Thomas attended the meeting presenting the forged August 1686 document as evidence that land north of the 1682 purchase had been not only negotiated but paid for by Penn.
Portrait of Thomas Penn by Arthur Devis 1752
Monikyhiccon stated “He should be sorry if after this mutual love and friendship anything should arise that might create the least misunderstanding.”
The Delawares were hesitant to agree to terms because they were not sure exactly how much land the Penns were asking for.
Andrew Hamilton then drafted a map “to shew and explain to the Indians the Boundaries of the said Land and the Course of the one and Half Day’s Walk, which was to determine and fix the Extent or Head Line of that Purchase to the Northward.”
Andrew Hamilton’s map offered a misleading scale to convey the impression that all they were relinquishing was land south of Tohickon Creek and suggested that the walk would be nearly parallel to the general course of the Delaware River rather than the course of the actual walk.
Monikyhiccon “said that all that they had heard, touching the said Deed, and now seeing the lines in it laid down they are sufficiently convinced of the truth thereof, and that the lands therein mentioned were sold by their ancestors to William Penn, and that they have no objection, but are willing to join in a full and absolute confirmation of the said sale.” The sachems marked a document that confirmed the 1686 deed-draft and called for the walk to be made “forthwith.”
The Walking Purchase deed betrayed Thomas Penn’s verbal, recorded promise that Lenape could remain on the landscape “tho[ugh] within that purchase, without being molested.” instead it read:
"The Delaware Indians fully clearly and absolutely remove, release, and forever quit claim unto the said John Penn, Thomas Penn and Richard Penn all our Right, Title, Interest, and Pretensions whatsoever of in or to the said Tract or Tracts of Land and every Part and Parcell thereof so that neither we nor any of us or our children shall or may at any Time hereafter have challenge, claim or demand any Right Title Interest or Pretensions whatsoever of in or to the said Tract or Tracts of Land or any part thereof, but of and from the same shall be excluded and forever debarred."
The 1737 Walking Purchase circumscribed an area slightly smaller than Rhode Island -- 710,000 acres.
Mural depicting the Walking Purchase by George Gray. Displayed at Hotel Bethlehem
"Preliminary trial-walks were secretly made to determine the best route, and to test out the qualities of the walkers. One trial- walk was around the western base of Haycock Mountain. That mountain, 965 feet high, is exceedingly rough and almost impossible to cross over, forcing them to go around it. The route finally selected was around the eastern base, along which trees had been blazed. Walker's trained for nine days--at a running instead of a walking pace."
"Three walkers were finally selected, Edward Marshall, Solomon Jennings and James Veates. They started out at sunrise on the morning of September 19, 1737, in the presence of John Chapman, the surveyor general; Timothy Smith, the sheriff; two of his deputies and a number of other white men. Some of the party were on horseback. Three young Lenape accompanied them to watch the proceedings."
Placing their hands on the chestnut tree where the monument now stands near the Wrightstown meeting-house, they awaited for sunrise, and then started off at a given signal on their race to outwit the Lenape.
English accounts (inscribed at the monument at Ottsville) state that Jennings could not keep up the pace, and fell by the wayside during the forenoon at Red Hill, now Ottsville, 19.2 miles out from Wrightstown. Lenape oral histories say that Jennings was friends with the Lenape observers and when he saw Marshall and Veates go off at a run instead of a walk he left in disgust and returned to his home.
The remaining two men "traveled over the Durham road from Wrightstown to Gallows Hill. The walkers left the Durham road at Gallows Hill, where it bears to the right. From Gallows Hill, where the Three Tuns Tavern stands, they turned slightly to the left or north. The distance from Wrightstown to Gallows Hill is 24.3 miles."
"They followed a well-beaten path, marked by blazed trees, winding its way through the valleys, between high hills, crossing the main branch of Durham Creek, travelling an additional 5.6 miles and stopping to eat their midday meal, making 29.9 miles traveled during the forenoon of September 19, 1737."
"From here they followed over a trail, now a state road, leading through Leithsville and Heller- town, to the Saucon Creek, which they forded, thence to the Lehigh River, where at Jones' Island, about one mile below the present Market Street bridge, Bethlehem, they crossed over. Yeates took too much "toddy" and, acording to Marshall's account, fell into the Lehigh River, on the second day of the walk, and retired from the race."
"Thence through the present city of Bethlehem, crossing the Monocacy Creek, thence to what is now the borough of Northampton, where at the eastern approach to the bridge over the Hokendauqua Creek."
"Marshall alone was the only one with sufficient endurance to continue to the end, at an estimated distance of 66 miles, to the north side of the Pocono Mountain, about three miles east of Mauch Chunk. The [Lenape] watchers, appointed to accompany the walkers, left in disgust when they became aware of the intention to make the walk an endurance test, and grab their lands beyond the Lehigh River."
At a meeting in Philadelpha in 1742, Nutimus presented his case of the fradulent walking purchase to Logan and other Chiefs. In response, Canasatego, the Iroquois chief, pronounced sentence. "Cousins," he said, "You ought to be taken by the Hair of the Head and shaked severely till you recover your Senses and become Sober; you don't know what Ground you stand on, nor what you are doing.How came you to take upon you to Sell Land at all? We conquered You, we made Women of you. You know you are Women, and can no more sell Land than Women. Nor is it fit you should have the power of selling Lands since you would abuse it... What makes you sell Land in the Dark? Did we ever receive any Part, even the Value of a Pipe Shank, from you for it?"
"For all these reasons, we charge You to remove instantly. We don't give you the liberty to think about it."
This map shows the land cessions made by the Iroquois from 1736 to 1792, spanning from Lake Michigan in the west to the Atlantic Ocean, often without the consent of those tribes who occupied the land.
The Lenape never forgave the English people for the wrong done them. By 1755, upwards of fifty persons had been killed by the Native Americans, and many homes throughout the county were burned. In their revenge they drove every family out of the county for fifty miles above Easton. But by the end of the 1790s, the Delaware and Shawnee had been effectively forced out of Pennsylvania.
Following the Walking Purchase of 1737, the majority of the Lenape left the region and settled first in the Wyoming Valley along the Susquehanna, and later they moved to Ohio. By 1845 there were only 2,000 Lenape living in both the United States and Canada. The bulk of the Lenape moved to Oklahoma settling with the Cherokee Nation. During the 20th and the 21st centuries, the Lenape have struggled with U.S. courts to receive legal recognition as the Delaware Tribe of Indians.
In 2009, The United States Department of the Interior notified the tribal office in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, that the Delaware were again a federally recognized tribe (10,500 members). In addition the Delaware Tribe of Western Oklahoma has full recognition, residing near their tribal headquarters at Anadarko, Oklahoma. (1,440 members). Members still remaining in New Jersey sued unsuccessfully for reparation in 2004 and have once again filed in 2018. In northeast Pennsylvania, a small group of Lenape continue to reside, known today as the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania.
On October 23, 1925 at the unveiling of the Springfield monument, Dr. B.F. Fackenthal stated that it was constructed "Not to glorify the Indian Walk, as all true Americans should blush with shame for the injustice done the untutored Indians by the civilized white men. It is placed here simply as an historical marker to indicate the route of the walk.”
Chief Joseph Strong Wolf, a full bred Ogibeway Indian, attended the ceremony saying, "After I had observed so much evil in the race from whom I was to learn the secret of civilization,” said Chief Strong Wolf, "I lost faith in the white man and going to my teacher, I expressed desire to be done with all and to return to the great open space, because I saw no chance of learning from those who had nothing to teach. When I explained that I had seen nothing but wickedness in my searchings, my teacher replied that I had looked for nothing else and he made me pledge that I would look only for the good side from then on... From that moment I saw things with a different view and I might mention hundreds of people that are making sacrifices every day, these without the flying of banners, nor the blaring of bands."