Comanche Paul Chaat Smith urges us to “look . . . for [the] Indian history beneath [our] own feet.”[3] This land acknowledgment seeks to do that for this land. Following Metis Chelsea Vowel, we treat this land acknowledgment not as a vehicle to absolve the guilt of, or give permission to, non-Indian people for occupying this land but rather as a “site of potential disruption” which necessarily creates discomfort.[2]
Until 1758, the Delaware Nation owned all the land that is currently New Jersey and parts of what is currently other states.
Delawares suffered huge population losses as a result of violent confrontations with settlers and disease. Through at least 13 different treaties, first the British, then the Americans stole the Tribe’s land and swindled these Indians out of millions of acres of land ,[1] including the land we stand on today.
Successive thefts of Delaware land led to the forced removal of most Delawares to Ohio in 1758, to Kansas in 1829, and to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in the late 1860s.[1] In Ohio, the Delawares were driven “by force of arms” from homes that had been “solemnly guaranteed [to] them.”[1] Their villages were burned, and cornfields, destroyed.[1]
In Kansas, their homeland was overrun by settlers who broke their fences, murdered their people, raped their women, stole their cattle, and seized their timberlands.[1] In 1861, settlers stole almost a half million dollars in Delaware tribal funds.[1] Less than a decade later, the Tribe’s remaining funds were handed over to the Cherokee Nation as Delawares were stripped of their sovereignty and separate nationhood.[1]
Many descendants of the Delawares who remained in New Jersey prefer the name Lenni Lenape. They have no tribal trust land and no federal recognition of their sovereignty and nationhood. The Delawares who ended up in what is now Oklahoma prefer the name Delaware. They exist as two different federally-recognized Delaware Nations.
This is the history of this land and its original owners that we acknowledge today. We would also like to acknowledge the fact that we are all currently residing on these stolen lands and complicit in the settler-colonial project of trying to eradicate Indigenous peoples. But we Natives will not be silenced, and we are not invisible. We are still here.
References
[1] Jackson, Helen Hunt. A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government’s Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes. Boston, MA: Roberts Brothers, 1890.
[2] Native Land. “Territory Acknowledgement.” https://native-land.ca/territory-acknowledgement/
[3] Smith, Paul Chaat. Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong. Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press, 2009.