The Indians of Delaware

A Native American Paradise

Jul 23, 2006

For the Indians of Delaware their land was a paradise. The waters abound with game, fish, and fowl, the woodlands with fruit, berries and nuts. Then the Europeans came.

The plains of Delaware, except for marshlands, were covered by thick woodland that was almost impenetrable with tangles of undergrowth, brambles and shrubs. This abundance of vegetation was topped by oaks, tulips, beeches, chestnuts, walnuts, hickories, maples, and pines. Here, the Indians lived on quantities of wild grapes, cherries, plums, raspberries, and strawberries, as well as what they grew in the few places that they had cleared the land to make fields.

A Land of Bounty

It was virtually a paradise for the Indians, this land they shared with the elk, deer, bears, wolves, panthers, wildcats, and foxes. Delaware's roaming predators, both man and animal, were also joined by squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and minks. This abundant paradise extended to the Delaware lakes and rivers, and even the nearby ocean, where beavers, otters, and muskrats raised their young. Here, too, shad, halibut, mackerel, rock, pike, bass, perch, and herring swam.

The skies over Delaware contained their own kind of bounty as well. There, soared eagles, hawks, and owls. Also lords of the sky but more prone to dwell closer to the earth and waterways were ducks. The woodlands abound with turkeys and pheasants.

Lenni-Lenape and Nanticoke

This was the land of the Lenni-Lenape who lived in the upper two-thirds of Delaware, and the Nanticoke who resided to the south. Both belonged to the Algonkian-speaking family.

At times, parties of Minquas, of the Iroquois group, traveled down the Christina River. Their purpose for entering either the Lenni-Lenape or the Naticoke's land was to trade pelts and furs, and sometimes to make war.

First European Settlers

In spite of these groups of Native Americans' tendency to make war with each other, they were generally friendly, peaceful, and helpful to the early settlers. However, there was one early exception; the first Dutchmen who arrived in 1631, attempted to establish a home near the present town of Lewes. All thirty of these Dutch invaders were wiped out within a year.

The copyright of the article The Indians of Delaware in American History is owned by Mary Trotter Kion. Permission to republish The Indians of Delaware in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.