Rising Nation River Journey

Alex Rodriguez-Gomez

Every four years since 2002, the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania embarks on the Rising Nation River Journey culminating in the signing of the Treaty of Renewed Friendship. The text of the Treaty describes it as “an agreement of heart, mind and spirit” rather than a legally-binding one, offering an opportunity for restoration “in the spirit of Chief Tamanend and in the spirit of William Penn.” Organizations and individuals dedicated to supporting the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania through efforts of revitalization, education, and environmental protection of the Lenapehoking, can sign the Treaty to show their commitment to caretaking the land and its people. A three-week canoe trip down Lenape Sipu (the Delaware River), the Rising Nation River Journey commemorates each treaty signing in a new tradition that marks the end of a time of hiding, and the beginning of restoration. 

The most recent River Journey and Treaty Signing occurred in August 2022, with a stop and signing at Haverford College. Haverford College was chosen as the location for the event to celebrate the strong relationships that were fostered between the Nation and the people at the College. Enduring Presence 2023 is the latest manifestation of this ongoing relationship, but the Lenape, primarily through Adam Waterbear DePaul (Storykeeper and Academic Liaison for the Nation) has worked collaboratively with the College community on numerous occasions in recent years. DePaul was invited as a speaker and Distinguished Visitor for Anthropology and Linguistics classes respectively, and spoke to student interns through the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship during their Philadelphia orientation program. 

Staff from Haverford College's Arboretum with help from Shelley Windamakwi DePaul (the Nation’s Chief of Education) are working to develop a Lenape Reflection Garden off the Nature Trail near the Haverford College Apartments. “This project came about as a result of the many meetings we had last year … with members of the community and the Arboretum Advisory Committee in order to take a more in-depth look at the Treaty Elm and how we were telling our indigenous history as an Arboretum,” says Jennie Kelly, Arboretum Program Coordinator. “We realized while having these discussions that (at that time) there was nowhere on campus where a land acknowledgment statement was displayed and decided that installing a Lenape Reflection Garden off of the Nature Trail would be a good way to inform the public of the original caretakers of Arboretum land, as well as celebrate our continued relationship with the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania and the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape of South Jersey.” At the time of writing, the garden is under construction and slated for completion in fall 2022. It will include two benches, plant labels with scientific, common English, and Lenape names, a land acknowledgement statement, and an educational interpretation. 

Haverford’s efforts towards environmental stewardship and a relationship with the Lenape are relatively new in the College’s history, where the institutional relationship with the land was established as a fundamentally proprietary one. Research conducted in Quaker & Special Collections archives reveals records of the Haverford Corporation delineating a century and a half of legal claims to the land that is now Haverford College. The earliest document, a copy of the 1682 deed between William Penn and Richard Davies, marks the beginning of a long line of deeds, leases, mortgages, and wills between early Quaker settlers that would eventually lead to the sale of the land to the Haverford School Association in 1830, three years before the College’s founding. The 1682 deed signed ownership of 1250 acres of land over to Richard Davies, who settled in the area after Penn’s negotiation of the Welsh tract (a section of Pennsylvania which included all of Haverford and Lower Merion Townships). William Penn’s proprietary claim over the land came from King Charles II as repayment for Penn’s father’s personal donation to the Royal Navy. 

Later, the development of the Campus Club (around the turn of the Twentieth Century), which would become the Arboretum, extended this proprietary relationship with the land into aesthetic concerns, in line with aesthetic movements of the time. Care of campus land was a landscaping endeavor, not an ecological one, and did not engage with the original stewards. 

Lenape cultural views of their ancestral land, however, do not recognize ownership but rather stewardship and care. The treatment of the environment in Lenape culture is guided by respect for non-human life in its own right, reciprocity, and the consideration of both ancestors and descendants. In a talk with the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Shelley Windamakwi DePaul says, “It’s really the thought, the deep thought of our people, and many other Native American tribes, that you don’t make a move unless you consider how it will affect the next seven generations.” 

“One of the main things that we’re taught from our early stories, going back, is that when we take something, we give thanks,” says Ceremonial Chief Chuck Gentlemoon in a Virtual Valley talk with the Friends of the Wissahickon. “So one of the most important things is, I always tell people, you don’t have to be Indigenous to say ‘thank you’ … It’s real easy to be more earth-based and real easy to understand the system of us as people being in need of everything else around us, you know? We’re the only species that needs everything around us to survive. So in order for that, the old ceremonies, the big house ceremonies especially, was a time that was directed for us to be able to give thanks to the universe, and to take care of the universe, because the universe takes care of us.” 

Chief Bob Redhawk Ruth says in that same talk: “Our people have been there for tens of thousands of years, you know, when we’re walking on a trail or by the Wissahickon River, how many of our people are buried there? We don’t know. So we always take every step to keep in harmony and to protect that area … That was the reason, I think, that we started the River Journey – we found that we couldn’t do it ourselves.” 

The Rising Nation River Journey asks: how can we rebuild from a painful colonial past a collective sense of stewardship over each other and our shared home? The growing relationships between the LNPA and the community at Haverford College open the door for more collaborative projects towards a sustainable future on the Lenapehoking – one driven by mutual care and meaningful connections.