Delaware (Lenape)

The Delaware Indians, also called the Lenape, originally lived along the Delaware River in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They speak a form of the Algonquian Indian language and so are related to the Miami Ottawa, and Shawnee Indians. The Delawares are called "Grandfathers" by the other Algonquin tribes because they believe them to be the oldest and original Algonquin nation.

The Delawares were driven from their homeland by colonists from Europe. They traveled west after about A.D. 1700 to get away from the European settlers. The Iroquois conquered the Delaware Indians and called them "women." This meant the Delawares did not have the right to sell land or wage war -- according to the Iroquois.

Some Delaware Indians came to live in eastern Ohio along the Muskingum River and some lived in northwestern Ohio along the Auglaize River. The Ohio Delawares became powerful and no longer feared the Iroquois.

Political alliances changed with the times. The Delawares were allies of the French until British traders moved into the Ohio country around A.D. 1740. The French pushed the British out of Ohio and the Delawares were forced to be allies of the French again until the British victory in the French and Indian War. But as French trading posts turned into British forts the Ohio Indians banded together to fight the British.

During the American Revolution the Delawares were allies of the Americans. The Amercans built Fort Laurens in the Tuscarawas valley to protect the Delaware Indian villages. Yet, even before the war was over, some frontiersmen hated the Delaware as bitterly as any other Indians. In 1782, a party of American militia killed ninety-six old men, women, and children at the Moravian Christian mission of Gnadenhutten. This became known as the Gnadenhutten Massacre.The brutality of the massacre turned many Delawares against the Americans. It seemed that no matter who won the whiteman's wars, the Indians lost.

General Anthony Wayne defeated the Delawares and other Ohio Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. They surrendered most of their lands in Ohio with the signing of the Treaty of Greenville.

In 1829 the United States forced the Delaware to give up their last reservation in Ohio. They were sent to live on a reservation in Kansas.

Famous Delaware Indians: White Eyes