The Lenape and the Susquehannock, Peoples Before Penn

Long before William Penn set foot on this ground, two peoples had shaped it for thousands of years. The Lenape, whose name translates roughly as 'the original people', lived along the Delaware River valley and across much of what is now eastern Pennsylvania. They were farmers, hunters, and diplomats, and their trails ran through dense forests to trading villages long before European roads existed.

Lenape oral tradition places their origins along the eastern seaboard itself, a homeland they called Lenapehoking, meaning 'land of the Lenape.' To the west and north, along the broad valley of the Susquehanna River, lived the Susquehannock, a confederation that Captain John Smith met in sixteen oh eight and drew on his map in sixteen twelve. The Susquehannock were formidable traders and warriors.

Their longhouse villages perched on defensible bluffs above the river. European observers noted their unusual height and bearing; Smith called them 'giants.' Both peoples suffered catastrophic losses after European contact.

Epidemic disease preceded the colonists and struck communities before diplomacy was even possible. The Lenape negotiated with Penn in the sixteen eighties and called him Miquon, meaning 'quill' or 'pen,' and by most historical accounts those early agreements were respected on both sides. But as Penn's descendants ceded authority, the Walking Purchase of seventeen thirty-seven, a fraudulent land seizure executed under Penn's sons, used trained runners to claim seventy miles of Lenape land in a single day.

The Lenape called it the worst betrayal they had suffered. The Susquehannock, meanwhile, were nearly destroyed by a combination of war with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to the north and repeated violence from Maryland and Virginia colonists to the south. By the early seventeen hundreds, survivors had merged with other groups or dispersed entirely.

Their names survive in the landscape. The Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania's longest, carries the Susquehannock name forward. Delaware County, the Delaware River, the town of Lenape, these are the markers of a presence that shaped this ground for millennia.