History
The Nanticoke people may have originated in Labrador, Canada, and migrated through the Great Lakes region and the Ohio Valley to the east, along with the Shawnee and Lenape peoples. [1]
In 1608, the Nanticoke came into European contact, with the arrival of British captain John Smith. They allied with the British and traded beaver pelts with them. [1] They were located in today's Dorchester, Somerset and Wicomico counties. [2]
In 1668, the Nanticoke Emperor Unnacokasimon signed a peace treaty with the proprietary government of the Province of Maryland. In 1684, the Nanticoke and English governments defined a reservation for their use, situated between Chicacoan Creek and the Nanticoke River in Maryland, see Vienna. [1] Non-native peoples encroached upon their lands, so the tribe purchased a 3,000-acre tract of land in 1707 on Broad Creek in Somerset County, Maryland (now Sussex County, Delaware). In 1742, the tribe met with neighboring tribes in nearby Wimbesoccom Neck to discuss a Shawnee plot to attack the local English settlers, but the gathering was discovered, and the leaders involved were arrested. Some moved up to Pennsylvania in 1744, where they gained permission from the Iroquois Confederacy to settle near Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and along the Juniata River. The city of Nanticoke is named after one of their settlements. While settled along the Susquehanna River, the Nanticoke used a path that they had established during their migration to return to the Delmarva Peninsula for seasonal gathering and fishing. [3] They moved upriver a decade later. They joined the Piscataway tribe, and were both under the jurisdiction of the League of the Iroquois. [1] The reservation on Broad Creek was sold in 1768. Some Nanticoke migrated slightly north into New York, where they established a settlement in what became the town of Nanticoke there.
Members of the Conoy people joined the Nanticoke in the 1740s. Together they were neutral in the French and Indian War. During the American Revolution, they allied with the British. In 1778, two hundred Nanticoke moved north to Fort Niagara because of their alliance. Later the British resettled them at the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ontario, Canada, giving them land in compensation for what they had lost. [1] Other Nanticoke stayed at Buffalo River, New York. Another group of Nanticoke joined the Lenape and migrated to Kansas; in 1867, they moved with the Lenape to Indian Territory. [1]
There are several towns and places named for this tribe. This includes Nanticoke, Pennsylvania and Nanticoke, New York, as well as Nanticoke and Nanticoke Acres in Maryland, and Nanticoke, Ontario.
Modern day
Today, some Nanticoke people are part of the federally recognized Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in Ontario, Canada. [1] The ones who traveled west with the Delaware are part of the federally recognized Delaware Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma. [10]
The Nanticoke Indian Association of Millsboro has been a state recognized tribe in Delaware since 1922. [11] The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Indians are a state recognized tribe in New Jersey.
Nanticoke Indian Association
In 1744 some Nanticoke settled near the Indian River in Delaware. They reorganized as the Nanticoke Indian Association and were recognized as a tribe by the state in 1881. [12] They have their headquarters in Millsboro. In 1922 they were chartered as a non-profit organization. They organized annual powwows, carrying them on until the mid-1930s, during the Great Depression. In 1977 the tribe revived the annual event. Later they built a museum in honor of their heritage, to teach their children and other Americans. [12]
Sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and associated with the Indian River Community, include: the Robert Davis Farmhouse, Harmon School, Isaac Harmon Farmhouse, Harmony Church, Ames Hitchens Chicken Farm, Indian Mission Church, Indian Mission School, Johnson School, Coursey and Daisey Indian Burial Ground and Warren T. Wright Farmhouse Site. [13] [14]
In 2002 Kenneth S. "Red Deer" Clark Sr., the head chief of the association, and Assistant Chief, his son "Little Owl" Clark, resigned. [15]
"Tee" Norwood was elected chief and served until 2008. That year Larry Jackson was elected as chief, and Chief William H. "Thunder Eagle" Daisey lead the organization until 2016. [16] Natosha Carmine was elected in 2016 and was chief of the association until 2023. [17] Avery "Leaving Tracks" Johnson is currently chief of the association as of 2023. [18]
Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Indians
Some Nanticoke settled across the Delaware Bay in southern New Jersey, where they joined the Lenape and intermarried with them. [19] The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Indians of New Jersey are recognized by that state and based in Bridgeton. [12] They have numerous members with mixed Nanticoke and Lenape ancestry. Both tribes were historically Algonquian speaking, and there have been years of intermarriage between them.
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 Algonquians are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. They historically were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and in the interior regions along Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages.
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.
Buckongahelas was a regionally and nationally renowned Lenape chief, councilor and warrior. He was active from the days of the French and Indian War through the Northwest Indian Wars, after the United States achieved independence and settlers encroached on territory beyond the Appalachian Mountains and Ohio River. During the Northwest Native American Wars, he led Native American troops along with Little Turtle & Blue Jacket, achieving the greatest victory won by Native Americans against the US government in St. Clair’s Defeat, killing over 600 American soldiers. The chief led his Lenape band from present-day Delaware westward, eventually to the White River area of present-day Muncie, Indiana.
Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands include Native American tribes and First Nation bands residing in or originating from a cultural area encompassing the northeastern and Midwest United States and southeastern Canada. It is part of a broader grouping known as the Eastern Woodlands. The Northeastern Woodlands is divided into three major areas: the Coastal, Saint Lawrence Lowlands, and Great Lakes-Riverine zones.
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 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 Piscatawaypih-SKAT-ə-WAY or Piscatawapih-SKAT-ə-WAY, PIH-skə-TAH-wə, are Native Americans. They spoke Algonquian Piscataway, a dialect of Nanticoke. One of their neighboring tribes, with whom they merged after a massive decline of population following two centuries of interactions with European settlers, called them the Conoy.
The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation is 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.
The Doeg were a Native American people who lived in Virginia. They spoke an Algonquian language and may have been a branch of the Nanticoke tribe, historically based on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The Nanticoke considered the Algonquian Lenape as "grandfathers". The Doeg are known for a raid in July 1675 that contributed to colonists' uprising in Bacon's Rebellion.
Piscataway is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken by the Piscataway, a dominant chiefdom in southern Maryland on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay at time of contact with English settlers. Piscataway, also known as Conoy, is considered a dialect of Nanticoke.
Nanticoke is an Algonquian language formerly spoken in Delaware and Maryland, United States. The same language was spoken by several neighboring tribes, including the Nanticoke, which constituted the paramount chiefdom; the Choptank, the Assateague, and probably also the Piscataway and the Doeg.
The Nanticoke Indian Association is a group of Nanticoke who have their headquarters in Millsboro, Delaware. They were recognized as a Native American tribe by the state of Delaware in 1922. The Nanticoke are one of few state-recognized Native American groups in Delaware.
The Choptank were an Algonquian-speaking Native American people that historically lived on the Eastern Shore of Maryland on the Delmarva Peninsula. They occupied an area along the lower Choptank River basin, which included parts of present-day Talbot, Dorchester and Caroline counties. They spoke Nanticoke, an Eastern Algonquian language closely related to Delaware. The Choptank were the only Indians on the Eastern Shore to be granted a reservation in fee simple by the English colonial government.
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.
The Assateague were an Algonquian people speaking the Nanticoke language who historically lived on the Atlantic coast side of the Delmarva Peninsula.
The Okehocking Tribe 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.
The Indigenous peoples of Maryland are the tribes who historically and currently live in the land that is now the State of Maryland in the United States of America. These tribes belong to the Northeastern Woodlands, a cultural region.
