Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania

Last updated
Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania [1]
The Lenape Nation Inc. [2]
Named after Lenape people
Formation1996, [2] 2001 [3] [1]
Typenonprofit organization [1]
EIN 23-3025630 [3]
PurposeCultural, Ethnic Awareness (A23) [3]
Headquarters Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. [1]
Location
Membership (2021)
397 [4]
Official language
English
President
Ann Dapice [2]
Revenue (2022)
$72,080 [1]
Expenses (2022)$64,050 [1]
Website lenape-nation.org
Formerly called
Eastern Lenape Nation [4]

The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania (LNPA) is one of more than a dozen cultural heritage organizations of individuals who identify as descendants of the Lenape people, also known as Lenni-Lenape or Delaware people. [5] They are based in Easton, Pennsylvania. [3] [6]

Contents

Status

The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania is an unrecognized tribe. [4] Despite having the word nation in its name, the organization is neither a federally recognized tribe [7] nor a state-recognized tribe. [8] [9] Pennsylvania has no federally recognized or state-recognized tribes. [9]

Bill "Whippoorwill" Thompson founded the group in 1998 as the Eastern Lenape Nation. [4]

LNPA Chief of Education and Tribal Storykeeper [10] Adam "Waterbear" DePaul said, "We were quite successful in that endeavor of hiding, and identifying and passing ourselves off as white." [9] He says the tribe is trying to achieve state recognition, but it does not qualify for federal recognition. [9]

Canadian-American linguist K. David Harrison, who partnered with the LNPA on language classes, writes: “some Lenape stayed behind, hid, blended in, intermarried, or assimilated. Remaining in the traditional homeland of the Delaware Valley, their descendants also claim Lenape bloodlines.” [11]

Journalist Samantha Spengler wrote: "Whether or not Lenape people continued to live covertly in Pennsylvania, it’s undisputed that there was no continuous tribal entity in the region." [4] There are three federally recognized Lenape tribes in the United States and two in Canada. [4]

The organization is actively lobbying the Pennsylvania legislature for state recognition. [12]

Nonprofit

In 1996 [2] and again in 2001, the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania formed The Lenape Nation, Inc., aka The Lenape Nation of Pa., Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, based in Easton, Pennsylvania. [3]

Its current administration is:

Maurice C. DeMund served as president [3] [1] until April 2022. [2] The group has also been based in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. [1]

In 2021, the Claneil Foundation gave them $10,000; PayPal Giving Fund donated $7,646; and the AmazonSmile Foundation gave them $81. [1]

Activities

The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania operates a cultural center in Easton, Pennsylvania. [13] They host an annual powwow at Mauch Chunk Lake Park in present-day Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. [14] Once every four years, they host Rising Nation River Journey along the Delaware River. [9] They also created the Lenape Nation Scholarship Fund. [3]

LNPA member Shelley DePaul and Theodore Fernald launched a Lenape language class at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, beginning in 2009. [11]

The Unitarian Congregation, a church in West Chester, Pennsylvania, decided to pay reparations to the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<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.

The Ramapough Mountain Indians, known also as the Ramapough Lenape Nation or Ramapough Lunaape Munsee Delaware Nation or Ramapo Mountain people, are a group of approximately 5,000 people living in and around the Ramapo Mountains of Bergen and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey and Rockland County in southern New York, about 25 miles (40 km) from New York City. They were recognized in 1980 by the state of New Jersey as the Ramapough Lenape Nation but are not recognized federally. Their tribal office is located on Stag Hill Road on Houvenkopf Mountain near Mahwah, New Jersey. Since January 2007, the chief of the Ramapough Lenape Nation has been Dwaine Perry.

<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">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 family of William Penn, the original proprietor of the Province 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 in colonial 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 languages</span> Native American languages centered around the Delaware River

The Delaware languages, also known as the Lenape languages, are Munsee and Unami, two closely related languages of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family. Munsee and Unami were spoken aboriginally by the Lenape people in the vicinity of the modern New York City area in the United States, including western Long Island, Manhattan Island, Staten Island, as well as adjacent areas on the mainland: southeastern New York State, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware.

<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.

State-recognized tribes in the United States are organizations that identify as Native American tribes or heritage groups that do not meet the criteria for federally recognized Indian tribes but have been recognized by a process established under assorted state government laws for varying purposes or by governor's executive orders. State recognition does not dictate whether or not they are recognized as Native American tribes by continually existing tribal nations.

<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.

The Siwanoy were an Indigenous American band of Munsee-speaking people, who lived in Long Island Sound along the coasts of what are now The Bronx, Westchester County, New York, and Fairfield County, Connecticut. They were one of the western bands of the Wappinger Confederacy. By 1640, their territory (Wykagyl) extended from Hell Gate to Norwalk, Connecticut, and as far inland as White Plains; it became hotly contested between Dutch and English colonial interests.

<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">Unalachtigo Lenape</span>

The Unalachtigo were a purported division of the Lenape, a Native American tribe whose homeland Lenapehoking was in what is today the Northeastern United States. They were part of the Forks Indians.

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">Stockbridge–Munsee Community</span> Federally-recognized Native American tribe

The Stockbridge–Munsee Community, also known as the Mohican Nation Stockbridge–Munsee Band, is a federally recognized Native American tribe formed in the late eighteenth century from communities of so-called "praying Indians", descended from Christianized members of two distinct groups: Mohican and Wappinger from the praying town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and Munsee (Lenape), from the area where present-day New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey meet. Their land-base, the Stockbridge–Munsee Indian Reservation, consists of a checkerboard of 24.03 square miles (62.2 km2) in the towns of Bartelme and Red Springs in Shawano County, Wisconsin. Among their enterprises is the North Star Mohican Resort and Casino.

Anishinaabe tribal political organizations are political consortiums of Anishinaabe nations that advocate for the political interests of their constituencies. Anishinaabe people of Canada are considered as First Nations, and of the United States as Native Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teedyuscung</span> Native American chief

Teedyuscung was known as "King of the Delawares". He worked to establish a permanent Lenape (Delaware) home in eastern Pennsylvania in the Lehigh, Susquehanna, and Delaware River valleys. Teedyuscung participated in the Treaty of Easton, which resulted in the surrender of Lenape claims to all lands in Pennsylvania. Following the treaty, the Lenape were forced to live under the control of the Iroquois in the Wyoming Valley near modern-day Wilkes-Barre. Teedyuscung was murdered by arsonists in the night of April 19, 1763. This marked the beginning of the end of the Lenape presence in Pennsylvania. Teedyuscung's son Chief Bull conducted a raid on the Wyoming Valley that was part of a greater Indian uprising. As a result, the Lenape were forced to move west of the Appalachian Mountains by the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esopus people</span>

The Esopus was a tribe of Lenape (Delaware) Native Americans who were native to the Catskill Mountains of what is now Upstate New York. Their lands included modern-day Ulster and Sullivan counties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delaware Tribe of Indians</span> Federally recognized tribe of the Lenape people

The Delaware Tribe of Indians, formerly known as the Cherokee Delaware or the Eastern Delaware, based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is one of three federally recognized tribes of the Lenape people in the United States. The others are the Delaware Nation based in Anadarko, Oklahoma, and the Stockbridge-Munsee Community of Wisconsin. More Lenape or Delaware people live in Canada.

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

The Minisink or Minisink Valley is a loosely defined geographic region of the Upper Delaware River valley in northwestern New Jersey, northeastern Pennsylvania and New York.

<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.

References

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  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "The Lenape Nation Inc". OpenCorporates. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "The Lenape Nation, Inc". GuideStar. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Spengler, Samantha (6 November 2021). "For Years, People Said There Were No Lenape Left in Pennsylvania. This Group Begs to Differ". Philadelphia: City Life. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  5. "Delaware/Lenape". AAA Native Arts. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
  6. "Who are the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania? · Enduring Presence 2023: Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania Art · Enduring Presence 2023: Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania Art". ds-omeka.haverford.edu. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  7. Indian Affairs Bureau (12 January 2023). "Indian Entities Recognized by and Eligible To Receive Services From the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs". Federal Register. 88: 2112–16. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  8. "State Recognized Tribes". National Conference of State Legislatures. Archived from the original on 1 September 2022. Retrieved 6 April 2017.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Cooper, Kenny (30 July 2021). "'We just want to be welcomed back': The Lenape seek a return home". WHYY. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  10. "Chief of Education and Tribal Storykeeper to Speak at Birmingham Meeting". Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
  11. 1 2 Harrison, K. David (2010). The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society. pp. 257, 293. ISBN   9781426206689.
  12. 1 2 "Unitarian Congregation of West Chester to pay reparations to the Lenni Lenape people". Daily Local News. April 10, 2023. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  13. "Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania Cultural Center". Sigal Museum. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  14. Hood, Micaela (8 September 2021). "Pocono pow wow celebrates the history and culture of the Lenape of Pennsylvania". Pocono Record. Retrieved 22 February 2023.