Interconnection between People and Land in the Colonization of the Lenape 

The Lenni Lenape are the original peoples of New Jersey and parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. “Lenape” means “Real People” in the Unami dialect, also translated as “original people” or “common people”. Diverse Lenape clans lived in coexistence with each other, based on trade relations and common responsibility for land and ecosystem. But “each of the three [Lenape] autonomous divisions maintained its own territory; there was never any political unity” (Pritzker). It is estimated that Lenape people first encountered non-Natives in the mid-16th century. They controlled, authorized, and regulated trade, travel, and residence while Dutch, Swedish, and Finnish settlers built up communities on their land throughout the 17th century. But towards the end of the century, the majority of Lenapes had been killed by disease or warfare. It is the process of colonization during this period, and a little further towards the present as well, that will be examined further herein. Particularly, the indigenous experience of this process of colonization – especially the aspects that are culture-bound – are in focus. And the extent to which the descendants of colonists still do not understand this perspective today is of concern too.

Lenape minister John Norwood believes that Lenape traditional cultural worldview is based primarily upon “the interconnectedness of all creation, a spiritual connection to the land, and a sense of kinship with other creatures.” This perception of interconnection between people and land is a crucial difference between Natives and colonizers. Whether the difference is attributed to culture or the act of colonization, it is certainly present and still lacking in the U.S. today. That is to say, that I can say with certainty that contemporary U.S. culture does not recognize the interconnectedness of land and people, or of people with all other organisms, to an adequate degree. But I would not say with the same certainty that this blindness is inherent to European culture. It is entirely possible that a recognition of interconnection is and has always been lacking in European culture. But there remains also the question of self-selection among individuals who decided to leave their homeland for another continent, as well as the elective conscious-subconscious neglection of values to the end of conquering. However, the more central matter here is how this difference played out in the colonization of Lenape land.

We can inspect, for example, the case of Manahatta Island. “In 1626, the Manhattan band of Lenápes traded the use of Manhattan Island to a Dutchman for about $24 worth of goods. This arrangement was quickly interpreted as a sale by the Dutch, who, unlike the Lenápes, valued property ownership” (Pritzker). While the Lenapes were convinced from their perspective to be trading for use of land, the colonizers slyly greedily possessively moved forward their scheme to take over this land. It is possible that it was entirely unimaginable to the Lenapes to cede their land at this time, as the full development of the logic of human-land interconnectedness makes the land an integral part of the people, and the people an integral part of the land. It is possible that some Lenapes could imagine no personal existence without that land, and no existence of the land without their presence. This reality was not only disregarded by colonizers but wrecked without regard. Ironically, John Norwood writes in immediate succession to his explication of Lenape traditional cultural worldview that:

The principles of harmony and balance are at the centre of the notion that all is connected; what affects one aspect of creation will, in some way, impact the rest of creation. This interconnectedness is one of the reasons for ‘walking in a good way’, which is a reference to the need for ethical and moral behaviour, or a call for righteous conduct.

Whether this chain of logic is a result of colonization or has always been the narrative of Lenape interconnectedness, we may never know.

            We do know, however, that ideals of leadership differed vastly between Natives and colonizers – a dynamic that is still visible today. Among the Lenape, “the chief had no coercive powers, instead acting as mediator, adviser, and hunt leader” (Pritzker). Negotiation between chiefs was thus likely to be far more collaborative and considerate than the dealings with colonizers. “Increased white settlement also inevitably led to conflicts and violence, despite the Lenápe's traditional expertise at negotiating peaceful coexistence with neighbors” (Marsh). Marsh highlights here again that negotiation was actually a cultural(ly characteristic) skill of the Lenape – especially peaceful, reasonable, honest negotiation respectful of another’s rights and independence. Ironically, the colonizers who assert individual rights above all else have demonstrated a lack in ability to respect those rights for others – especially in business.

Sensibly, Lenape leaders probably expected a far higher degree of consideration, mutual strategization, and honesty in their negotiations with colonizers than they did in fact encounter. The Walking Purchase of 1737 is a legendary instance of such deception:

One of the most flagrant abuses of native American property rights in American history, the Purchase involved the defrauding and dispossession of the Delaware tribe at the hands of John and Thomas Penn (sons of William). Having produced an old Indian land deed of decidedly dubious authenticity, the two brothers demanded to take possession of their "ancient" claim. The Delaware were railroaded into ratifying the deed, which asserted that the amount of property in question would be determined by the distance a man could walk in a day and a half from a particular starting place. When it came time to actually walk the walk, the Indians were outraged to find that the Penn brothers had premarked the trail and that they had hired three trained athletes to do the walking. Nevertheless, the walk took place, a very liberal interpretation of the boundaries was made, and the Delaware were summarily dispossessed of 750,000 acres (Luck).

This social dynamic of extortion and disregard has continued throughout Native dealings with colonial U.S. government to the present day (Kimmerer, Marsh, Soderlund). And, as Robin Kimmerer so eloquently points out, a plethora of opportunities for optimization and synergy through collaboration are lost in modern U.S. society due to this cultural gap. In fact, the role of a mediator is noticed in its absence too, as polarization and social division prevent harmony and progress in this country today (West). The knowledge and prioritization of the wisdom to collaborate with one’s neighbors in order to strengthen one another was lost on and by the colonizers. And, in addition, the colonizers were ignorant of their vis-à-vis’ worldview.

To enquire a little further into the concrete modes of Lenape displacement, Marsh’s explanation that “the processes and programs of colonization led to the loss of Lenápe lands” leaves much to be desired, in specifics and details of Lenape displacement. “Treaties, the encroachment of European and American settlements, and the decisions of Lenápe leaders explain most of these relocations.” However, the insights of Eva Bischoff on Quaker colonization of Australia actually address this gap. It was the Quakers who finally drove the Lenape from their land, as the Lenape had existed in peace and political authority before their arrival.

Analyses of settler imperialism even move one step further and posit that only in examining the small-scale, local, everyday actions of settlers (squatting, clearing, fencing or tilling the land) we are able to grasp the rhizomatic series of events that altered the landscape and displaced Indigenous people by destroying the material foundation of their lives and cultures, eventually on an Anglo-world scale.

And Marsh does add later that “town leaders and sachems made decisions to distance themselves from white settlements, and kin-based groups elected to follow or remain.” So Marsh posits in total that it was the continual conflict and violence that arose with colonists’ presence on Lenape lands, that caused them to move further inland. As though an annoying and emotionally toxic neighbor had pushed them off of their sacred homeland – little did they know then that this annoying neighbor would continue to push at the bounds of their territory, caught in such an expansionist craze that they wanted to occupy all they could possibly reach – by murder, enslavement, encampment, separation of families, and active prevention of transmission of cultural knowledge and tradition.

            Linda Sue Warner (a member of the Comanche Tribe of Oklahoma and writer at The California Indian Culture & Sovereignty Center, California State University San Marcos) and Keith Grint (professor of Public Leadership at Warwick University) bring another perspective to the divergent views on leadership in their collaborative text “The case of the noble savage: the myth that governance can replace leadership.” In this trope “the nature of American Indians is reduced to an interpretation of the ‘noble savage’ in which their either anarchic or tyrannical culture can only be tamed by the imposition of western governance systems. This implies displacing the indigenous cultures of leadership with the ‘universal’ culture of democracy.” It is thus that the U.S. has undermined Natives since its inception as a governing body. And simultaneously, it is how the U.S. has sabotaged itself into ineffective organization and communication. Contrary to the countless statements of 17th through 20th century colonists, indigenous leadership was not in fact inadequate to America. Truly, colonists were inadequate for mediating, advisory, non-coercive leadership. As they still seem to be today. My pseudo-psychological analysis of the situation is that, because the colonizers felt incapable and inadequate in the face of this novel and perhaps superior societal system, they rejected it violently and tried to undermine it, like many an immature self-aggrandizing young man.

Works Cited

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