The story begins near Trenton, New Jersey in the early 1700's. William Penn died in 1718, and the peace that "the Great Good Man" had famously negotiated with the Six Nations of Indians was in jeopardy. Influxes of white immigrants were threatening established Indian camps near the burgeoning port cities along the Delaware river. At the same time, fashions were changing in England, and beaverskin hats were no longer in vogue. So the Indians began to lose their market for a valuable commodity that they had been trading with the Europeans.
William Penn's sons shared neither their father's Quaker faith, nor his sense of justice toward the native Americans, and they allowed progressively more settlement on lands that Penn had promised to the Tribes, including the infamous "Walking Purchase." Many respected English-speaking Delaware Indians were worried about the growing white population and
decided to abandon the Trenton area. One clan moved north to the juncture of the Lehigh and Delaware rivers, to a place called "The Forks" (now Easton, Pennsylvania). (*The Native word for the Lehigh River was Lechau-weki, meaning "the fork in the road." The Germans shortened this to Lecha, and later the English made it the Lehigh River.) Other Delaware Indian clans followed the Schuylkill and Brandywine Rivers to establish different settlements. We'll be coming back to them later.
Here it is necessary to understand a little about the Delaware Indians in relation to the other Five Tribes that inhabited Pennsylvania when William Penn arrived in 1682. Of course the tribes that we today call the Delawares would have called themselves by other names, such as the Lenopi or Lenapi. Today we lump them together and name them for the river whose cool, wooded valleys they inhabited. (The Delaware River itself, though, is named for British Lord De La Warr -- who was obviously not a native American.)
The Delaware tribes were the most peaceful of the Indian nations in the region. Moreover, they openly accepted subjugation to the more powerful nations like the Iroquois. There are conflicting explanations for the Delawares' tributary role. The other tribes often boasted that they had vanquished the Delawares in battle, and had "made them women." Other scholars argued that the Delawares had actually been honored with the role of Tribal Peacemakers, but that over time this "honor" was interpreted as shameful weakness. These peaceful people traded extensively with the white settlers in the Trenton area, mostly in furs, woven baskets and brooms. Over time they fell into the typical cycle that accompanies economically interdependent cultures: there was growing concern that they were becoming too dependent on the white man, and that they were losing their traditional customs and values.
A well-justified apprehension of the Europeans, combined with over-hunting the deer, rabbit and beaver populations encouraged the Delawares' withdraw to the woodlands north and west of Trenton and Philadelphia. The leaders or elders of the Delaware clans were known as Sachem. It's problematic to call these leaders "chiefs," because prior to European influence the Indians didn't typically have a single authority, and there was considerable fluidity among the tribes. But by now the Delaware Indians had become very connected to the Europeans, and we know the party that moved north to "The Forks" by their English names. The father Sachem was "Old Captain Harris," and he had six sons, Captain John, Young Captain Harris, Tom, Joe, Sam Evans, and Honest John. Honest John's Indian name was Teedyuskung - "He who makes the Earth tremble."
In the story that follows we'll read about heroism and charity, as well as vengeance and hatred. There are obvious heros and undeniable villains. But there is one character who will continually reappear, and who is as mysterious and tragic today as he was while he lived. That character is Teedyuskung.
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