James Lone Bear Revey
The Delaware Indians of New Jersey. From Colonial Times to the Present.
I am happy to participate in this symposium on the Lenape or Delaware Indians, and to be able to talk about those Delawares who remained in the State of New Jersey since the Colonial period.
As chairman of the New Jersey Indian Office, which is the headquarters for those of us who are descended from the original Lenape people, I have devoted many years to researching the history of my people. In this endeavor I enjoyed the help of many other Indians of Lenape ancestry and I am very grateful for their assistance. Together we accumulated genealogies, tribal rolls and historical documents relating to the Indians of New Jersey.
There are many interesting facts about the Delaware Indians that have been overlooked by historians and scholars. I will talk about some of this today. We Delaware Indians in New Jersey, although separated from the main body of our people who moved to Oklahoma, Canada, Wisconsin and elsewhere, are very proud of our heritage. We are trying to preserve our history and culture and make it better known.
Henry Hudson's voyage of 1609 opened New Jersey and New York to settlements by Europeans. Gradually Dutch, Swedes, English and others began to establish farming and trading centers on lands that had once belonged exclusively to the Lenape people and their ancestors. The name Lenape, meaning common person, was what the Unami-speaking people called themselves, but the English started the practice to call them "Delawares", a name that is still in use today. Both names, Lenape and Delaware, will be used in this paper.
The newcomers' way of life was so very different from that of the Indians in manner of dress, housing, farming practices and especially religion, as to cause constant conflict and disparagement. The Europeans wanted the Indians' lands, but without the Indians. Superior weapons, epidemic diseases, rum and intimidation forced the Lenape people to part with their fields and forests and to move west. By the year 1710, most of the land in what is now New Jersey had been sold or bartered away to European colonists and land speculators, but despite the loss of their traditional homelands, many Lenape Indians remained in New Jersey. This paper will concern itself with those Indians who chose to stay.
It has been stated that about eight to twelve thousand Lenape Indians lived in New Jersey and the surrounding areas at the time of European contact. Today, some scholars and Indian people, among them Nora Thompson Dean and Jasper Hill, would increase this number to twenty or twenty five thousand. Actually, the Lenape people, including the Unami- and Munsee-speaking Indians of the northern parts, occupied all of New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, southeastern New York and northern Delaware.
The question concerning the numbers of Indians who remained in New Jersey has confused many writers. Part of the problem was record-keeping, part was due to geographical circumstances since New Jersey was divided into two segments after 1676. A line drawn northwest from Little Egg Harbor to a point on the Delaware River north of the Delaware Water Gap separatedEast Jersey from West Jersey (map 10).
In 1758, the date of the Treaty of Easton, there were about three hundred Indians living in West Jersey and, perhaps, a hundred or more in East Jersey; the records are unclear. The journal and letters of the Presbyterian missionaries David and John Brainerd inform us about some of the Indians of West Jersey. In a letter dated August 24, 1761 Rev. John Brainerd tells us that Brotherton is a fine, large tract of land, and very commodiously situated for their [Indian] settlements, there are something upward of an hundred, old and young. He goes on to say, about twelve miles distant there is a small settlement of them, perhaps near forty, about seventeen miles farther there is a third, containing possibly near as many more, and there are yet some few scattered ones still about Crossweeksung. And if all were collected there might possibly make two hundred. This figure of two hundred is often, and mistakenly quoted as the number of Indians on the Brotherton Reservation. The History of the Colony of Nova Caesaria or New Jersey written by Samuel Smith (1765) indentifies the following Indian groups living in New Jersey in 1758: Ancocus (Rancocus) Indians, Crosswick Indians, Indians from Cranbury, Mountain Indians, Rariton Indians, and Southern Indians. In other parts of his book Smith says: There are about sixty persons seated here [at Brotherton in 1758], and twenty at Weekpink, on a tract formerly secured by an English right to the family of King Charles, an Indian Sachem (Smith 1765:484). The Indian name of King Charles was Machamickwon.
Samuel Smith's list of seven Indian groups is interesting because of this number only the Cranbury, a primarily Christianized group of Indians, occupied the Brotherton reservation. Of the remaining six, only those living at Weekpink were close to this reservation. The Rancocus lived along Rancocus Creek in the vicinity of present day Mount Holly. The Indians at Crosswick were those who had chosen to remain after Rev. David Brainerd had relocated his mission to the new Indian town of Bethel in what is now Jamesburg. The Mountain Indians included those Delaware Indians who in Colonial times retreated into the Pohatcong and Schooley Mountains in northwestern New Jersey, and those Minisink, Pompton (Wappingers), Hackensack and Tappan Indians who remained in the mountains of the northwestern part of the state. The Raritan included those Indians who still lived on Staten Island, New York, and in parts of Burlington, Monmouth and Middlesex Counties in East Jersey. The Southern Indians were those native people who remained in the southern portion of the State and in the southern Pine Barrens. Many of these Indians were not within the area over which the Presbyterian missionaries Rev. David, and later John Brainerd, had jurisdiction and so they did not visit them or include them in their correspondence.
These and other accounts demonstrate that many Indians were living both on and off the reservation. It is unfortunate that so many writers convey the impression that all of the Indians who remained in New Jersey were confined to Brotherton. In fact the majority were living in small communities some distance from this place.
Reverend David Brainerd and his brother, John, had an exeptional concern for the Indians. Most of the European colonists and their descendants were concerned only with their own welfare, and few of them respected the rights and beliefs of the native people. Moreover, the Euro-Americans had superior weapons, rum, lethal diseases and an inflexible belief that might made right and that God was on their side. The Indians, unaccustomed to such arrogant behavior, unable to tolerate "fire water", and highly susceptible to the white man's diseases, were at a considerable disadvantage.
In 1702 there were already more than 1,500 Europeans living in New Jersey, and by 1726 this number had reached 32,442, including 2,550 black slaves. By 1745 the Colonial population had almost doubled to 61,383 whites and 4,605 slaves. (Anonymous 1946:41). At this rate the Indian populations were quickly becoming an insignificant minority.
The date 1745 was in certain respects a critical one for the Indians who were now impoverished and largely landless. The fur-bearing animals and the deer population had been hunted and trapped to the verge of extinction and the trade in furs and deer hides was the event of the past, for the Delaware at least. It was the time of decisision for the remaining Indians.
Some of the Delaware did adopt European ways; they became farmers and craftsmen. Many had also learned the English language well enough to participate in the socioeconomic affairs of the time. Many of the Indians even adopted European nameslargely because the newcomers had difficulty pronouncing the Indian names, and because the Indians were trying to imitate the ways of the white people. Some Indians copied the names of Europeans whom they especially liked, or used the names the Europeans called them. Others liked the sounds of European words and used them. The Indians baptized into Christianity were given first names from the Bible, and last names of prominent Presbyterians and Quakers. Such European-sounding first and last names have continued to this day, but the more conservative Native Americans retained the custom of having Indian names. There were also instances in which the Indians kept their Indian names as their last names, for example: Ashatoma, Cuish and Moolis. Others simply rendered their Indian names into English. Last names as Stonefish, White Eye, Elk Hair and Fall Leaf are still found among Delaware and Munsee Indians.
Marriages between Indians and whites were not uncommon. As early as 1705 it is recorded that an English woman from Monmouth County married an Indian man, and there were other instances of marriage both within the church, and without benefit of clergy.
The Indians were using European style clothing by 1745, especially for ceremonial occasions. Moccasins were still made from Indian tanned deer hides, but the white man shoes and boots were very much desired by the Indians. The men wore trousers, shirts, coats and hats of European or Colonial fashions and Indian women adapted the Colonial frock of the time. Such clothing was usually given and added Indian touch with decorations made from beadwork and bangles of brass and tin.
The more conservative Indians who preferred the old ways moved to areas far removed from the Colonial settlements. The largest Indian population was in central New Jersey, in Burlington and Monmouth Counties and in adjacent parts of contiguous counties. By the mid-eighteenth century almost all of the land in the State was owned by whites, as various tracts were so designated on the maps of the time. In fact, however, many interior areas were stil inhabited and used by the Indians.
One important reason why the Delawares avoided the Colonial settlements was the fear of being captured and pressed into slavery. African slaves were used on many Colonial farms in New Jersey, and children and young persons of Indians descent were often abused in this same manner. Indians in dire poverty or distress sometimes sold themselves into slavery as their only means of surviving.
Not all Delaware Indians were poor, however. Many Indians owned land which they farmed;they also owned cattle and even used slave labor. Such farms were usually small and seldom supplied more foodthan the family itself consumed. (Illustration: Early woodcut of "A Delaware Indian of the Colonial Period wearing Aboriginal Headdress".)
Some Indian men joined the provincial armies, which not only solved their economic problems, but also fulfilled their warrior instincts. This tradition of Indians serving in the arm forces continued to this day. In fact, the Delaware Indians have fought in all of the American wars and have earned a fine record in the service of this country.
Because the Lenape who remained in New Jersey were so few in numbers, they were of no concern to the provincial government. Most were pitiful, ragged, and landless people chased from place to place by the whites. The plight of these original people finally aroused the sympathy of the Presbyterian Church. Trough the "Society of Propagating Christian Knowledge", money was appropriated to send a missionary to work among them.
Rev. David Brainerd, a sickly young man suffering from lung desease, was chosen to serve the Delaware Indians. He had been ministering to the Mahican Indians at Kaunaumeek (now Columbia County, New York), but in 1743, when he moved south to the "Forks of the Delaware" (now Easton) in Pennsylvania, his Mahican flock at Kaunaumeek joined other fellow converts at Stockbridge, Massachusetts where the main body of the Mahican tribe was living. While at the "Forks", Rev. Brainerd tried to convert the Northern Unami and Minisink Indians, but they refused his message. In 1745 he gave up on these people and devoted his full time to the remnant bands in New Jersey. Settling in the place called Crosswick, or Crossweeksung, as the Indians called it, in the northern part of Burlington County, he gathered a few Indian families together and formed a church. Rev. Brainerd tried to learn the Lenape language, but in this he was only partially succesful and had to rely upon native interpreters. He visited many places where the scattered Indians were living and was able to convert many women and children, but most of the men refused to listen to his message (Brainerd 1941).
Rev. Brainerd also started a school at Crosswick and by 1746 this mission had a population of 130 Indians. The rapidly expending congregation caused Rev. Brainerd to think about finding a new location since the area was incapable of growing enough food to support the people. The nearby whites were also becoming apprehensive about the growing Indian population, and various types of harrasment ensued. As a result ot these conditions the group decided to move some fifteen miles north into Middlesex County. There, in late 1746, they formed a new town called Bethel. At that time the nearest town was Cranbury; therefore, the mission has often been called the Cranbury Mission. Bethel was actually a part of the present-day town of Jamesburg. The building used as a church and school was located in what is now Thompson Park in Jamesburg.
The health of Rev. David Brainerd deteriorated rapidly and in 1749 he died of age twenty-eight years. His brother John, also a Presbyterian minister who had served for a time in Newark, New Jersey, now took over his brother's mission at Bethel (Brainerd 1941:31).
Not all of the Christian Delaware moved to Bethel; twenty or so were living at Weekpink near present-day Vincentown in Burlington County. This Weekpink, known by the Indians as Okokathseeme, had formerly belonged to the Indian sachem known as King Charles.
Although the Indians at Cranbury were trying to live good constructive lives and were learning the European methods of farming and stock raising as well as Christianity, they continued to be harrased by the surrounding whites who simply did not want to have Indians living so near to them. A prominent New Jersey Chief Justice, Robert Hunter Morris, went so far as to use a questionable deed to claim the lands occupied by the Indian Mission.
The Quakers also became concerned about the problems of the native people and form the "New Jersey Association for Helping Indians". This organization sought to finance a new and larger tract of land; one that would not have a disputed claim. Unfortunately, this wish never came into being.
By this time other problems were being created: the French and Indian War. DisgruntledIndians, many of whom had formerly lived in New Jersey, and who had been, or thought they had been, cheated by the English, now sided with the French. From bases in Pennsylvania they raided white settlements and farms in Northern New Jersey.
As a result of these hostile actions the Indians in Bethel felt even more endengered. They were surrounded by whites who made no distinction between peaceful and warlike Indians, regarding all as potential enemies. The raiding war parties also considered the Christian Indians at Bethel to be traitors because they were not fighting the English. Caught in this dilemma the Bethel Indians appealed to Governor Jonathan Belcher of New Jersey. In 1755 Governor Belcher issued a law entitling the peaceful Bethel Indians to obtain a certificate proclaiming them non-hostiles, and as a form of identification they were given a red ribbon to wear around their heads. This precaution was necessary to distinguish them from the hostile Indians who were raiding in Northern New Jersey. In 1756, Governor Belcher felt compelled to put a bounty of 150 Spanish dollars on the heads of all hostile male Indians fifteen years of age or older. This bounty was to be paid if the Indian was brought to a jail or fort. Fifty Spanish dollars were to be paid to any one who killed a male Indian fifteen years of age or older, and who could produce the scalp of the slain Indian. The sum of 130 Spanish dollars was also to be paid for any enemy male or female under fifteen years of age, deliveredto the government authorities. The Indians at Bethel and Weekpink were warnedto stay within certain areas. No Indian was allowed to be carried across the Delaware or Raritan Rivers without permission from the Government. This decree was intended to stop young Delawares from crossing the rivers to join those Indians hostile to the English.