Archaeology Magazine - May/June 1982 - 17

of the Marylanders abruptly ended
the power of the Susquehannock,
and their subsequent dispersal left
the lower Susquehanna River a
vacuum. Survivors and disaffected
members of numerous native cultures swept in to fill it. By 1694, at
least some of the Lenape had expanded beyond their old borders to
that river. By 1709 a group of "Delaware" or Lenape had settled at or
near Peshtang or Paxtang, later
Harrisburg, above Conestoga Town,
and were represented at a council
held in Philadelphia on July 25th by
four of their chiefs.
It is not yet known whether this
group represented a Lenape band
that had moved relatively intact
from somewhere along the Delaware
or if they merged from several
groups to form the Peshtang settlement. Tracing the names of the
four chiefs may provide some indication of the migration pattern of
the Lenape bands during this period.
In any event, by 1740 all of the
Lenape bands of southeast Pennsylvania had left their homelands
and were either on the Susquehanna
on the upper reaches of the Schuylkill, or further to the west in the
upper reaches of the Ohio River
drainage.
The final dispersal of the Lenape
had begun. Some of them were
settling in the Ohio Territory by
1750, to be followed by a flood of
their kin in the years succeeding the
Revolutionary War. By the end of
the century they were already well
established in Indiana, and they
eventually pushed as far west
as Kansas in their search for a place
to live. Some of the Delaware are
also believed to have settled in the
Spanish territories, now Arkansas,
in 1789 with the permission of
the Spanish government.
Then in 1800 some of them on
the White River in southwest Indiana tried to consolidate the known
Delaware peoples of that area. They
invited Christian Delawares of
Ohio to join them. Only a few, however, did so and arrived with their
Moravian missionary teachers.
These Moravians found the Delaware on the White River living
in nine villages four to five miles
apart, a continuation of their ancient dispersed settlement pattern.
The Lenape sites in the midwest,
however, were named for their leaders or chiefs, unlike the old ones
in their eastern homelands, and

even when the town moved the same
name was kept. In Indiana, settlements or encampments bear such
names as Muncie, Little Muncie
Town, Nanticoke, and the like. Many
of these groups maintained their
cultural identities despite the
stresses of displacement, and managed to hang onto distinctive traits.
The fact that the Delaware managed
to retain their language and basics of
their culture despite the splintering,
relocation and periodic withdrawals,
is testimony to a remarkable tenacity. Even today in Oklahoma, the
ancient identity of the Lenape is
visible in the present villages of
Lenapah and Delaware, situated
northeast of the oil center of
Bartles ville.
The psychological pressures of
displacement affected various Lenapean groups in different ways,
especially during the decisive period
of movement between 1700 and
1740. Conservative bands tended
to move out early, going west in an
effort to maintain their traditional lifestyle. On the other hand,
other Lenape groups called "centrists" held on as long as possible
on the periphery of colonial society,
attempting to maintain a balance between their traditional lifestyle and
changes generated by contact with
Europeans. Still a third group, including "liberals," so-called deviants
and perhaps the infirm and elderly,
deliberately associated themselves
with the colonists or otherwise
freely interacted with them. This
decision caused these Lenape to lose
their cultural identity. Many became "white," while others were classified as "free blacks" for census
purposes, merging into the fringes
of European society.
These last individuals have become the concern of some of their
living descendants. The Delaware
Valley is now inhabited by millions
of Americans, many of whom have
direct lineal ties to the Lenape
who chose to remain behind while
others pushed west. Centuries of
discrimination against native
Americans have destroyed much of
the oral tradition which would enable investigators to identify these
people. But efforts are now underway to correct some of this damage
"and preserve the existing fragments
of the Lenapean past. In 1977, a
program was initiated to locate individuals and families descended
from the Lenape, and this has met

with some success. Descendants of
the Lenape groups began using
European names very early. Lenape
from New Jersey have been found
still living in that state and as
far away as Kansas, but in most
cases, they have no idea of their
heritage.
The task of preserving Lenape
culture is still formidable. Efforts to
recognize and learn about archaeological sites will help, and studying
documents will permit us to locate
any descendants. The archaeological
information alone is quite literally
priceless. At the Montgomery site,
every effort is being made by the
current landowners to secure it
from developers. The archaeological
record there, like the oral tradition, is precariously thin. Nearly 250
years of constant cultivation has all
but eradicated any trace of these
ancient people. Even so, archaeologists and ethnohistorians will not
give up the search for the Lenape.
The disappearance of their past
would leave us all impoverished.
For Further
Reading on the
Lenape oí southeastern Pennsylvania: M. J. Becker, "The Okehoeking Indians: A Remnant Band of
Delaware Indians in Chester
County, Pennsylvania during the
Colonial Period," Pennsylvania
Archaeologist 46 (1976): 25-63; C.A.
Weslager, The Delaware Indians: A
History (Rutgers University Press,
New Brunswick, NJ 1972), gives
the history of the Lenape after 1740.
On the archaeology of the
Lenape: M.J. Becker, "Lenape
Archaeology: Archaeological and
Ethnohistoric Considerations in
Light of Recent Excavations,"
Pennsylvania Archaeologist 50
(1980): 19-30, summarizes recent
archaeological evidence; "Wampum:
The Development of an Early
American Currency," Bulletin of the
A rchaeological Society of New
Jersey 36 (1980): 1-11, discusses
Indian currency; Barry C. Kent,
Janet Rice and Kakuko Ota, "A Map
of 18th Century Indian Towns in
Pennsylvania," Pennsylvania Archaeologist 51 (1981): 1-19, locates
Indian settlements.
On other American Indians:
James D. Horan, TheMcKenneyHall Portrait Gallery of American
Indians (Crown Publishers, New
York 1972), presents the portraits of
native Americans.

/June1982
May

Archaeology Magazine - May/June 1982

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - May/June 1982