BULL. 30] 



DELAWAEE 



385 



men, are descended several well-known 

 families of Wisconsin and Minnesota. 



(C. T.) 



Delaware. A confederacy, formerly the 

 most important of the Algonquian stock, 

 occupying the entire basin of Delaware 

 r. in K. Pennsylvania and s. e. New 

 York, together with most of New Jersey 

 and Delaware. Tliey called themselves 

 Lenapeor Leni-lenape, equivalent to 'real 

 men,' or 'native, genuine men'; the Eng- 

 hsh knew them as Delawares, from the 

 name of their principal river; the Frencli 

 called them Loups, 'wolves,' a term 

 probably applied originally to the Ma- 

 hican on Hudson r., afterward extended 

 to the Munsee division and to the whole 

 group. _To the more remote Algonquian 



JACK HARRY (wAIAWAKWAKUMAU, TRAMPING EVERYWHERE) — 

 DELAWARE 



tribes they, together with all their cog- 

 nate tribes along the coast far up into 

 New England, were known as Wapa- 

 nachki, 'easterners,' or 'eastern land 

 people,' a term which appears also as a 

 specific tribal designation in the form of 

 Abnaki. By virtue of admitted priority 

 of political rank and of occupying the 

 central home territory, from which most 

 of the cognate tribes had diverged, they 

 were accorded by all the Algonquian 

 tribes the respectful title of "grand- 

 father," a recognition accorded by cour- 

 tesy also l)y the Huron. The Nanti- 

 coke, Conoy, Shawnee, and Mahican 

 claimed close connection with the Dela- 

 wares and preserved the tradition of a 

 common origin. 



The Lendpe, or Delawares proper, were 

 composed of 3 principal tribes, treated by 



Morgan as phra tries, viz: Munsee, Unami, 

 and Unalachtigo (q. v.), besides which 

 some of the New Jersey bands may have 

 constituted a fourth. JEach of these had 

 its own territory and dialect, with more 

 or less separate identity, the Munsee i^ar- 

 ticularly being so far differentiated as fre- 

 quently to be considered an independent 

 l^eople. 



The early traditional history of the 

 Lenupe is contained in their national 

 legend, the Walam Olum (q. v.). When 

 they made their first treaty with Penn, 

 in 1682, the Delawares had their council 

 fire at Shackamaxon, about the present 

 Germantown, suburb of Philadelphia, 

 and under various local names occupied 

 the whole countrj' along the river. To 

 this early period belongs their great chief, 

 Tamenend, from whom the Tammany 

 Society takes its name. The different 

 1 lands frequently acted separately but re- 

 u:arded themselves as part of one great 

 body. About the year 1720 the Iroquois 

 assumed dominion over them, forbidding 

 them to make war or sales of lands, a 

 condition which lasted until about the 

 opening of the French and Indian war. 

 As the whites, under the sanction of the 

 Iroquois, crowded them out of their 

 ancient homes, the Delawares removed 

 to the Susquehanna, settling at Wyoming 

 and other points about 1742. They soon 

 crossed the mountains to the headwaters 

 of the Allegheny, the first of them hav- 

 ing settled upon that stream in 1724. In 

 1751, by invitation of the Huron, they 

 began to form settlements in e. Ohio, and 

 in a few years the greater part of the 

 Delawares were fixed upon the Mus- 

 kingum and other streams in e. Ohio, 

 together with the Munsee and jNIahican, 

 who had accompanied them from the E., 

 being driven out by the same pressure 

 and afterward consolidating with them. 

 The Delawares, being now within reach 

 of the French and backed by the western 

 tribes, asserted their independence of tlie 

 Iroquois, and in the subsequent wars up 

 to the treaty of Greenville in 1795 showed 

 themselves the most determined op- 

 ponents of the advancing whites. The 

 work of the devoted Moravian mission- 

 aries in the 17th and 18th centuries forms 

 an important part of the history of these 

 tribes (see Gnadenhuetten, Missions). 

 About the year 1770 the Delawares re- 

 ceived permission from the Miami and 

 Piankishaw to occupy the country be- 

 tween the Ohio and White rs., in Indiana, 

 where at one time they had 6 villages. 

 In 1789, by permission of the Spanish 

 government, a part of them removed to 

 Missouri, and afterward to Arkansas, to- 

 gether with a band of Shawnee. By 1820 

 the two bands had f(5und their way to 

 Texas, where the Delawares numbered at 



Bull. 30—05- 



-25 



