In the 17th and early 18th centuries, while struggling to maintain their lifestyle of hunting, fishing and gathering, the Lenape released their lands to incoming Europeans through sales and treaties. The Europeans unwittingly brought with them disease to which Native Americans had little resistance. Interaction was mostly peaceable, but gradually the Lenape moved away from their ancestral lands.
Following the Treaty of Eastonin 1758, most Lenape migrated west eventually settling in Ontario, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. Some of those accepting Christianity remained in New Jersey and in 1759 were moved to the Brotherton Reservation in Burlington County, before relocating up the Hudson Valley in 1801 to join the Mahicans. Smaller numbers of Lenape and other tribes such as the Nanticoke blended into the Euro-American and African-American communities some of them marrying settlers, and ensuring a Native American thread in New Jersey culture today.
Three desdendant Native American groups still live in New Jersey - the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape in Gouldtown, Cumberland County: the Powhatan-Renape Nation who maintain the Rankokus Indian Reservation in Burlington County: and the Ramapough Mountain Indians in Bergen and Passaic Counties. The Nanticoke-Lenni Lenape Indians of New Jersey, which includes the first two of these groups, are recognized as a tribe by the State of New Jersey and promote educational programs of song, dance and arts and crafts. The only federally recognized group of Lenape is what is now known as the Delaware Tribe living in Western Oklahoma.
Links to learn more - New Jersey State Museum, Trenton; Rankokus Reservation, Westampton Township
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