Delawares

The Delawares, or Lenape, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their traditional homeland centered on the Delaware River valley, encompassing parts of present-day Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and southern New York. The name Delaware is a European designation derived from the Delaware River; the people prefer their own name Lenape, meaning “the people.”

They spoke Lenape, an Algonquian language with two major dialects—Unami in the south and Munsee in the north. Social life followed a clan-based system organized around villages; leadership typically included sachems and clan mothers who guided decisions. They practiced agriculture alongside hunting and fishing, and traded widely with other Indigenous nations and European settlers.

From the 17th century, successive European colonists—Dutch, Swedes, and later English—established settlements in Lenape country, leading to land cessions and population displacement. In the 18th and 19th centuries, many Lenape were forced to move westward, with treaty agreements and removal ultimately separating them from most of their traditional homeland.

Today descendants are enrolled in several federally recognized tribes in North America, including two Oklahoma-based groups—the Delaware Nation and the Delaware Tribe of Indians—and a Canadian First Nation known as the Delaware Nation in Ontario. In the United States, Delaware communities also exist in states such as New Jersey and Pennsylvania as part of broader Lenape populations. Cultural and language programs support revival and preservation, with efforts in education, ceremonies, and traditional crafts.