The region's tribes still preserve their culture, memories and hopes

By ALAN J. McCOMBS,
The News Journal
Nov. 2, 2007



John Norwood remembers being told in elementary school that he did not exist.

"When I was young and in school, the standard thought [was] Indians were gone and not here," said Norwood, 43, a member of the Nanticoke Lenni Lenape tribe in southern New Jersey, which traces its ancestry to Delaware's Nanticoke and Lenape tribes. "It left me feeling quite delegitimized and wondering if it were something that I could actually claim."

Today, schools might be better informed, but ignorance still is prevalent about the thousands of people of Nanticoke and Lenape descent now living in the region, Norwood said. He and others are working to write the history of the region's indigenous people.

In October, Norwood, of Moorestown, N.J., released a 51-page document about the related indigenous tribes known as the Nanticoke and Lenape people in Delaware, and the Nanticoke Lenni Lenape in southern New Jersey. Norwood said the online report, "We Are Still Here," will form the basis for a book he intends to publish by early next year, alongside a new biography of Chief Marion "Strong Medicine" Gould of the Lenape people of Delaware.

For American Indians, that history has never been dead or lost, Norwood said.

"It was something you talked about quietly with members of the family," he said. "You didn't spend much time proclaiming [it] because of fear of persecution."

At powwows and other community events, that history was discussed more freely. At the Nanticoke Indian Museum in Millsboro, housed in what was formerly a segregated schoolhouse for American Indian children, that history stands on display for visitors.

Certainly, there is a deep and twisting history of American Indians in the region. When European explorers came to Delaware and New Jersey in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, they remarked that the region was heavily populated.

When the Swedes and the Dutch built permanent outposts in the region in the 1600s, relations between the Europeans and the natives ranged from cordial to outright hostile. By the 1700s, disease, discrimination and conflict with the European settlers forced many Nanticoke and Lenape people to leave.

"A lot of our people are not in Delaware," said Assistant Chief of the Nanticoke Larry Jackson, 49, of Milton.." Many moved up into Canada [and] the Ohio area."

Today, the Nanticoke population in Delaware numbers about 1,000, while Chief Dennis Coker of the Lenape people counts about 700 to 800 members.

Some of those who remained in Delaware and southern New Jersey, Norwood said, found themselves in a society in which prejudice refused to acknowledge their presence in the region's history. "I remember my aunts when I was young saying don't ever forget who you are," Norwood said, "but they would say it in hushed tones."

Both the Delaware and New Jersey state governments have acknowledged the region's enduring American Indian population. Since the 1980s, New Jersey has officially recognized the Nanticoke Lenni Lenape people and, in 1903, the Delaware Legislature recognized the Nanticoke people.

However, Delaware does not officially recognize the Lenape people as an American Indian tribe. The Lenapes' last effort to gain official status fell apart in 1993, in part out of concern that the group would build casinos, Coker said.

"It was really an emotional blow to our community to have, in essence, our state not recognize us," Coker said.

None of the American Indians in Delaware and in southern New Jersey are recognized by the federal government, a fact that all three groups say they want to change. Receiving federal recognition is a more tedious and lengthy process than being recognized by state governments, they say.

"The federal government is making it more and more difficult to becoming federally recognized," Coker said.

On paper, receiving federal recognition looks like a two-year process, said Federal Office of Indian Affairs spokesperson Gary Garrison. The government requires groups petitioning for federal recognition to fill out multiple forms proving the continuous existence of the community dating back to at least 1900, as well as other forms detailing the governance of the group, he said. Gathering proof of a group's existence can often extend the process for decades, Garrison said.

"They're just getting around to making decisions on ones that were submitted in 1980," Garrison said.

With a process that lengthy, area tribes say they can wait on getting federal recognition.

"It's something that would be nice to have, but we definitely don't have to have it," Coker said. "We know we exist."

"We have always been here and we will always be here."


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