Okehocking people

Last updated
Original Lenapehocking lands Lenape Languages.png
Original Lenapehocking lands

The Okehocking Tribe (also known as Ockanickon) was a small band of Unami language-speaking Delaware Indians, who occupied an area along the Ridley and Crum creeks in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Part of that area is now known as Ridley Creek State Park. Along with the Schuylkill and Brandywine Indians, the Okehocking were known as Unami or "people down the river" by other tribes, in accordance with the Indian way of designating a tribe by geographical location. [1]

Contents

Establishment of villages

In 1701, the tribe approached William Penn for the purchase of a tract of land. Penn allotted them 500 acres. The tribe used the land as their summer fishing camp, moving north during the winter months. [2]

At that time, English and European settlers were not allowed to purchase or occupy any land occupied by Indians. Because settlers could not be certain where the boundary lay around Indian land, they tended to build settlements well away from Indian encampments. However, the survey of the 500 acres allotted to the Okehocking Tribe allowed a clear demarcation of where Indian land began and ended. This meant that the settlers could freely camp and build settlements all around the borders without fear of breaking the law. Later, feeling surrounded by colonial settlers, the Okehocking moved west toward the Susquehanna River and later settled in the Ohio River Valley. [2] [3] [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shamokin Dam, Pennsylvania</span> Borough in Pennsylvania, United States

Shamokin Dam is a borough in Snyder County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,647 at the 2020 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Jersey</span> English possession in North America (1674–1702)

West Jersey and East Jersey were two distinct parts of the Province of New Jersey. The political division existed for 28 years, between 1674 and 1702. Determination of an exact location for a border between West Jersey and East Jersey was often a matter of dispute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lenape</span> Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands

The Lenape, also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lenapehoking</span> Lands traditionally inhabited by the Lenape people

Lenapehoking is widely translated as 'homelands of the Lenape', which in the 16th and 17th centuries, ranged along the Eastern seaboard from western Connecticut to Delaware, and encompassed the territory adjacent to the Delaware and lower Hudson river valleys, and the territory between them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delaware Colony</span> British colony in North America (1664–1776)

Delaware Colony in the North American Middle Colonies consisted of land on the west bank of the Delaware River Bay. In the early 17th century, the area was inhabited by Lenape and possibly Assateague Native American Indian tribes. The first European settlers were Swedes, who established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina in present-day Wilmington, Delaware, in 1638. The Dutch captured the colony in 1655 and annexed it to New Netherland to the north. Great Britain subsequently took control of it from the Dutch in 1664. In 1682, William Penn, the Quaker proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania to the north leased the three lower counties on the Delaware River from James, the Duke of York, who went on to become King James II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Province of Pennsylvania</span> British colony in North America (1681–1776)

The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was a British North American colony founded by William Penn, who received the land through a grant from Charles II of England in 1681. The name Pennsylvania was derived from "Penn's Woods", referring to William's father Admiral Sir William Penn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walking Purchase</span> 1737 agreement between the Penn family and the Lenape Native Americans

The Walking Purchase, also known as the Walking Treaty, was a 1737 agreement between the Penn family, the original proprietors of the Province of Pennsylvania, later the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Lenape native Indians. In the purchase, the Penn family and proprietors claimed that a 1686 treaty with the Lenape ceded an area of 1,200,000 acres (4,860 km2) in present-day Lehigh Valley and Northeastern Pennsylvania, which included a western land boundary extending as far west as a man could walk in a day and a half, which led to its name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delaware Nation</span> American Indian tribe

The Delaware Nation, based in Anadarko, Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized tribes of Delaware Indians in the United States, along with the Delaware Indians based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma and the Stockbridge–Munsee Community of Wisconsin. Two Lenape First Nations are in Ontario, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nanticoke people</span> Native American people

The Nanticoke people are a Native American Algonquian people, whose traditional homelands are in Chesapeake Bay and Delaware. Today they live in the Northeastern United States and Canada, especially Delaware; in Ontario; and in Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shamokin (village)</span> Historic Native American village in Pennsylvania

Shamokin was a multi-ethnic Native American trading village on the Susquehanna River, located partially within the limits of the modern cities of Sunbury and Shamokin Dam, Pennsylvania. It should not be confused with present-day Shamokin, Pennsylvania, located to the east. The village was the focus of missionary efforts, and then was the staging area for raids on English settlements in Pennsylvania during the French and Indian War. It was burned and abandoned by the Lenape in May, 1756. A few months later, Fort Augusta was constructed on the site of the village.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian Munsee</span> Group of Lenape Indians

The Christian Munsee are a group of Lenape, an Indigenous people in the United States, that primarily speak Munsee and have converted to Christianity, following the teachings of Moravian missionaries. The Christian Munsee are also known as the Moravian Munsee or the Moravian Indians, the Moravian Christian Indians or, in context, simply the Christian Indians. As the Moravian Church transferred some of their missions to other Christian denominations, such as the Methodists, Christian Munsee today belong to the Moravian Church, Methodist Church, United Church of Canada, among other Christian denominations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lappawinsoe</span> Lenape Chief

Lappawinsoe was a Lenape chief. His name signifies "gathering fruit" or "going away to gather food". Lappawinsoe sold the land of his tribe to Thomas Penn (1702-1775), and John Penn (1700-1746), the sons of William Penn (1644-1718), the founder, with moderate Quaker philosophies of the Colony and Province of Pennsylvania in 1681, through the controversial and disputed Walking Purchase treaty agreement of 1737. Three other Lenape-Delaware chiefs also signed the agreement: Tishecunk, Nutimus and Menakihikon. Documentation shows that Nutimus was considered the principal Indian leader of the tribes located further southeast in the future State of Delaware.

The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation are a tribal confederation of Nanticoke of the Delmarva Peninsula and the Lenape of southern New Jersey and northern Delaware. They are recognized by the state of New Jersey, having reorganized and maintained elected governments since the 1970s. They are not a federally recognized tribe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conrad Weiser</span>

Conrad Weiser, born Johann Conrad Weiser, Jr., was a Pennsylvania Dutch (German) pioneer who served as an interpreter and diplomat between the Pennsylvania Colony and Native American nations. Primarily a farmer, he also worked as a tanner, and later served as a soldier and judge. He lived part of the time for six years at Ephrata Cloister, a Protestant monastic community in Lancaster County.

Hackensack was the exonym given by the Dutch colonists to a band of the Lenape, or Lenni-Lenape, a Native American tribe. The name is a Dutch derivation of the Lenape word for what is now the region of northeastern New Jersey along the Hudson and Hackensack rivers. While the Lenape people occupied much of the mid-Atlantic area, Europeans referred to small groups of native people by the names associated with the places where they lived.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nora Thompson Dean</span>

Nora Thompson Dean, also known as Weenjipahkihelexkwe, which translates as "Touching Leaves Woman" in Unami, was a member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians. As a Lenape traditionalist and one of the last fluent speakers of the southern Unami dialect of the Lenape language, she was an influential mentor to younger tribal members and is widely cited in scholarship on Lenape culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Munsee</span> Band of Lenape Native Americans

The Munsee are a subtribe and one of the three divisions of the Lenape. Historically, they lived along the upper portion of the Delaware River, the Minisink, and the adjacent country in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They were prominent in the early history of New York and New Jersey, being among the first Indigenous peoples of that region to encounter European colonizers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penn's Creek massacre</span> Massacre of Pennsylvania settlers during the French and Indian War

The Penn's Creek massacre was an October 16, 1755 raid by Lenape (Delaware) Native Americans on a settlement along Penn's Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna River in central Pennsylvania. It was the first of a series of deadly raids on Pennsylvania settlements by Native Americans allied with the French in the French and Indian War.

Mekinges Conner was a Lenape woman.

Pisquetomen was a Lenape chief who acted as interpreter and negotiator for the Lenape in dealings with the Provincial government of Pennsylvania during the mid-eighteenth century. After being rejected in his bid to succeed his uncle Sassoonan as Lenape chief, Pisquetomen joined Shingas and Captain Jacobs in a series of deadly attacks on Pennsylvania settlements at the beginning of the French and Indian War. He eventually participated in peace negotiations that led to the Treaty of Easton in 1758, and is believed to have died in 1762.

References

  1. C.A. Weslager. The Delaware Indians: A History. New Brunswick. Rutgers University Press, 1972. Pg. 35
  2. 1 2 Catherine Quillmann: "Tracing the History of Former Indian Land /A Surveyor is Studying a Tract in Willistown." Records show it was set aside for a tribe by William Penn. Philadelphia Inquirer, November 28, 1996.
  3. Marshall J. Becker. "The Okehocking: A remnant band of Delaware Indians." Pennsylvania Archaeologist 46, no. 3 (1976):50-51.
  4. C.A. Weslager. The Delaware Indians: A History. New Brunswick. Rutgers University Press, 1972.