Who are the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania?

Map of Lenapehoking showing spoken dialects by area

Alex Rodriguez-Gomez

The Lenape are the original people of present-day New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and southern New York. While colonial settlers historically pushed many Lenape as far as Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario Canada (which all are home to Lenape communities today), some Lenape (of whom the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania are descendants) remained in the homeland in secret, forced into hiding or assimilation. Through their cultural center in Easton Pennsylvania, the recurring signing of the Treaty of Renewed Friendship, collaboration with academic institutions like Haverford College, and an interconnected community, the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania continues to thrive despite the legal hurdles of federal and state recognition. 

Through their non-profit organization the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania preserves, revitalizes, and showcases Lenape culture and history within Pennsylvania. This work is especially important after years of forced displacement and violence towards Lenape people forced the Lenape who remained in Pennsylvania to hide their heritage behind closed doors. Until the American Indian Movement of the 1960s, Lenape heritage was preserved through generations of oral histories and genealogies. The hostile conditions of settler-colonial Pennsylvania prevented Lenape people from openly displaying their culture; nevertheless Lenape women married into settler communities and passed their culture along to their children through traditional stories, symbolism throughout the home, and encouraging relationships with other Lenape. Intermarriages with white settlers allowed Lenape to physically remain in the homeland, and often buy land. Clanmother Carol Kuhn explains: “The goal of my grandmothers was to maintain their way of life on their land. And so they married white husbands who held the land on which their ancestors had lived, in order to pass it on from one generation to the next” (Seldin et al, 2008). 

For the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, federal recognition is kept out of reach by requirements to prove a continuous state-to-state relationship with the United States government – an impossible task due to the concealment that was necessary for their survival in Pennsylvania. The state of Pennsylvania does not recognize the Lenape, or any Indigenous peoples, doubling down on the violence of physical removal with the violence of erasure. Efforts for state recognition are ongoing. 

With or without the state’s acknowledgement, the Nation is very active in creating educational exhibits for the public like the one at Haverford, as well as two recent exhibits in nearby Philadelphia: Everyday Artistry, Enduring Presence at Temple University (2019) and Fulfilling a Prophecy at University of Pennsylvania (2008-2010). The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania continues to care for the land and the Delaware River through environmental advocacy and collaboration with environmental organizations. Genealogical work, oral history, and language revitalization keep the culture and history alive, while new traditions, like the Rising Nation River Journey, continue to take shape.