The first people of the Delaware shore
Long before the ferry, the farms or the city, the land along the Delaware was the homeland of the Lenape, a people also known in English as the Delaware. The Lenape spoke related Algonquian languages, commonly divided into Munsee in the north and Unami in the south, and the Camden area lay within the Unami-speaking part of the homeland. The region they lived in is often called Lenapehoking, a term that covers New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and parts of southeastern New York. The name Delaware itself comes from the English title of a colonial governor of Virginia, Lord De La Warr, and was applied to the river, the bay and then the people.
The history of this land did not begin with colonization. Archaeologists have found evidence of human presence in the Delaware Valley that goes back many thousands of years, and the Lenape were part of a long tradition.
Ways of life
Descriptions of Lenape life usually come from a mix of archaeology, the accounts of early European observers, and Lenape oral tradition. Each has limits. European writers had their own views and gaps in understanding, and archaeology tells more about objects than about beliefs.
With that caution, scholars generally describe a way of life organized around the seasons. Communities farmed corn, beans and squash, fished in rivers and along the tidal shore, hunted, and gathered plants and nuts. Movement between camps and villages followed the availability of resources, and the tidal Delaware, with its fish and birds, was part of that pattern. Some of the wildlife of the tidal river is described in the account of tidal wildlife. Trails connected communities, and some later colonial roads followed older paths, though the details of individual routes are often uncertain.
Lenape society is commonly described as organized in kinship groups with a significant role for women, including in farming and in descent. Readers should be wary of oversimplified summaries and look to Lenape-authored sources for how the community describes itself.
Contact with Europeans
From the early 1600s, Dutch, Swedish and then English colonists arrived on the Delaware. Trade in furs and goods, land sales, diplomacy and conflict all took place. Epidemic diseases brought from Europe, to which Native communities had little immunity, caused severe losses. As the colonial population grew, land that had been shared or used in different ways was bought, claimed or taken, and these transactions often involved very different understandings of what a sale meant.
By the eighteenth century many Lenape had moved away from the Delaware Valley under pressure, going westward in stages over generations to what is now Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas and eventually Oklahoma, and some northward into Canada. These movements were forced or shaped by pressure in many cases, and the details are different for different communities. For Camden itself, the surviving documentary record of Lenape life on the specific shore is thin, and anyone claiming precise knowledge of a particular village site there should be asked for evidence.
Continuing presence
It is not accurate to describe the Lenape as vanished. Lenape communities and nations continue today. The Delaware Nation and the Delaware Tribe of Indians are in Oklahoma, there are Munsee-descended communities in Wisconsin and Ontario, and several groups in New Jersey are recognized at the state level. Their governments, cultural programs and language projects are the best sources of present information. The status and names of groups change over time, so readers should check current official sources.
Lenape words survive in many place names across the region, an example of how place names carry memory. Many New Jersey names, such as Raritan, Passaic and Hackensack, come from Lenape or related languages, though the meanings given in popular sources are sometimes uncertain.
Learning more respectfully
A few guidelines help.
- Start with Lenape voices. Tribal websites, cultural centers and publications by Lenape authors speak for themselves, and are better sources than older writing by outsiders.
- Use present tense where appropriate. Phrases such as “the Lenape lived here” are accurate, but they should not suggest that the people are gone.
- Be careful with stereotypes. Images from old books, films and sports mascots often distort, and a single generic “Native” culture does not exist.
- Respect sensitive material. Burial sites and sacred places are protected by law in many cases, and digging for artifacts on private or public land can be illegal as well as harmful. Anyone who finds something should contact the relevant state authority.
- Weigh your sources. The skills described under source evaluation apply strongly here, since popular accounts frequently repeat unverified claims. Oral history, treated ethically, has its own role.
Why it matters for local history
Every later story of the Delaware shore, from the ferry to the farm to the city, takes place on Lenape land. Starting there gives a more accurate picture of the region, and it is a reminder that the history of this river is longer than the colonial and industrial periods that tend to dominate local accounts. Readers can follow the same river through the region’s later chapters, starting with the Delaware River in general.