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While everyone knows that William Penn was granted a large portion of land in the colonies, what’s often overlooked is that much of that land was still controlled by the Native American Indians. Being a Quaker, Penn was a pacifist and so unlike other colonizers, he did not set up a military to fight the native inhabitants for control. Thus, Penn purchased land use rights from them, mainly dealing with the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tribe. This is most famously reflected in the story of the Treaty of Shackamaxon of 1682, which you’ve probably seen imagined in a painting by Benjamin West (pictured below). It’s even one of the scenes from American history depicted in the Capitol Rotunda. However, there is no actual proof that this treaty of “perpetual peace” signed by Penn and the Lenape ever existed. Others claim that while the treaty might have been signed, perhaps Penn’s sons destroyed it in order to go back on it to gain more land. Whatever the case, William Penn’s relatively fair deals with the Lenape began to be undermined as soon as he left Pennsylvania, eventually resulting in the expulsion of indigenous people from the region.
Any remnants of this legacy of friendship was destroyed by the Walking Purchase in 1737. Pennsylvania authorities claimed that they discovered a forgotten treaty from 1686 in which the Lenape had ceded tribal land between the fork of the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers (now Easton) for as long as a man could walk in a day and a half. It is unknown if there was any such verbal agreement or unofficial treaty, but it very well might have been a forgery. With its discovery, agents began selling land in that area even though it did not have the right to do so. Any settlement would require the Lenape’s permission, so in August 1737, Thomas Penn and other officials met with four tribal leaders: Manawkyhickon, Tishcohan, Lappawinsoe (pictured above), and Nutimus. It was then that Andrew Hamilton (“The Philadelphia Lawyer” buried at Christ Church) brought out a map which implied the transfer would not involve too big of an area, reinforced by the idea of how far a leisurely day’s walk could go. However Hamilton purposefully created a vague map on an inaccurate scale to make it appear they were not claiming much land. The tribe agreed as long as they would be allowed to remain in their settlements. This was agreed to, but the colonists had no intention to keep that promise. Instead, Penn put out a search for the fastest walkers in the colony. On September 19, three men set out and quite soon were picking up speed. The men far surpassed the borders from Hamilton’s map and forged into the Lenape’s prime hunting grounds. On the second day, one of the men was so exhausted he collapsed from weakness and would later die, however another reached the Tobyhanna Creek at midday, 62 miles from his starting point. Lines were drawn from that point and the resulting borders brought 1,200 square miles into Pennsylvania.
The Lenape rejected this ruse, which modern observers refer to as a land swindle, but their population had already been reduced by disease over the past decades and there was not much they could do. They appealed to the dominant Iroquois Confederacy about this case of stolen land, however they did not choose to intervene and in fact had been co-opted to support the colonials. With no other choice, the Lenape were forced to leave their land and move further west, as had other displaced tribes. Some went beyond the Appalachian Mountains out to Ohio or into French-owned Quebec, and continued to be pushed west over the next century. By 1800 most of the remaining Delawares were in the area of Illinois, and by the mid-1800s entered what is now Oklahoma, then called Indian Territory. The few who remained on their original land were forced to assimilate, as were so many other Native American Indians throughout United States history. The Walking Treaty unexpectedly returned to the agenda when in 2004 the Delaware tribe sued Pennsylvania for a very small portion of the land taken by the Walking Treaty. However a district court found that Thomas Penn acted as a legitimate sovereign and any laws which might help the Delaware’s case did not yet exist at that time. A circuit court upheld that finding and the Supreme Court chose not to hear the case, settling it in favor of Pennsylvania.
As we mark the passing of another Thanksgiving season, we feel it is important to look back and reflect on our shared history -- and explore new onramps and paths forward together.
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