Indigenous peoples in NJ

Historical description of the presence of Native Americans in NJ after European arrival has undergone a shift in keeping with changes in overall interpretation of indigenous peoples in the Americas. Today, most historians, reinterpreting the archives of Europeans in North America, give greater emphasis to indigenous presence and agency. The evidence for this is abundant, even though written records are absent from native peoples of the region.

A 2015 book by Soderlund argues for the dominance, both in terms of population and political control, of the Lenape in what are today central and southern New Jersey. The book also treats Pennsylvania and Delaware, although my interest is New Jersey. Until the late 17th century, safe movement through southwestern NJ required an Indian guide, and the Lenape controlled territory by limiting European residents to the formation of trading posts rather than agricultural settlements. This was reinforced by the Swanendael incident of 1631, when a band of Lenape murdered Dutch residents of a farming settlement to which the Lenape had not agreed. The incident stands as an exception to the general rule, often credited to Quaker approaches to indigenous groups, that Lenape areas near what became Philadelphia saw relatively little conflict with Europeans.

“The Lenapes in New Jersey have received much less attention from historians. Useful works include Gregory Evans Dowd, The Indians of New Jersey (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1992); Herbert C. Kraft, The Lenape: Archaeology, History, and Ethnography (Newark: New Jersey Historical Society, 1986); Peter Wacker, Land and People: A Cultural Geography of Preindustrial New Jersey: Origins and Settlement Patterns (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1975); and C.A. Weslager, The Delaware Indians: A History (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1972). While Robert S. Grumet focuses primarily on the Munsees in The Munsee Indians: A History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009), he offers substantial evidence about the Lenapes as well.” (Soderlund, Jean R. Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society before William Penn. Early American Studies. Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.)

A more recent book by Camilla Townsend and Nicky Kay Michael, On the Turtle’s Back: Stories the Lenape Told Their Grandchildren (Rutgers University Press, 2023), lists these additional works: “Jean Soderlund, Separate Paths: Lenapes and Colonists in West New Jersey (Rutgers, 2022), as well as Amy Schutt, Peoples of the River Valleys: The Odyssey of the Delaware Indians (University of Pennsylvania, 2007).”

It is gratifying to see the geography of NJ by Peter Wacker, a professor in the department where I got my PhD, cited in this context. This work, together with the two books by Soderlund, the one by Amy Schutt, and the book on the Munsees (northern NJ), could form part of a course in the historical geography of NJ.