Prologue
The internationally recognized Pinelands Biosphere Reserve is the largest open space land mass on the densely populated Mid-Atlantic seaboard, between Richmond, Virginia, and Boston. It covers 22 percent of New Jersey, the third smallest state with the highest population density in the entire nation. New Jersey is home to 1.1 million acres of the Pinelands National Reserve. It covers vast areas of New Jersey’s Atlantic Ocean shore and stretches well inland covering much of south-central portions of the state. Slow moving streams flow among dense pine and oak forests, cedar swamps and wetlands.
The viability of the Pinelands ecosystem depends upon the water that lies beneath in Underlying nearly a third of New Jersey, the Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer is an unconfined aquifer, meaning its waters are not capped by rock, but held within a surface layer of highly permeable sands and gravel. These sands soak up rainfall, leave little runoff, and are the source of the Pinelands slow, meandering streams and rivers, as well as its fragile wetlands.
Only a ninety-minute drive from New York City and well into the 20th century the Pinelands were sparsely inhabited. Underlying the Pinelands and expanding beyond its borders is a massive water system, the 3,000-square-mile, 17-trillion-gallon Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer, one of the East Coast’s largest reserves of fresh water.
A VIEW OF THE NEW JERSEY PINELANDS
Before the European colonists, the Lenni-Lenape Indians occupied this land. It was a vast wilderness of forest, beaches, and arable land encompassing all of present-day New Jersey, Southeastern New York State, Eastern Long Island, Southeastern Pennsylvania, and Northeastern Delaware. That territory is shown in the image below:
Archaeologists believe that the Lenni-Lenape Indians first came to the Mid-Atlantic region of America about 10,000 years ago. This was about 2,500 years after the retreat of the mile-thick ice sheet that covered northern New Jersey.
Many historians believe that during the last Ice Age, that ended 11,700 years ago, sea levels dropped about 150 feet. This opened a land bridge over the Bering Sea between Alaska and Asia. Asians could now cross into America. They walked eastward and eventually reached the Atlantic Seaboard. Other Asians migrated south to Mexico, Central America, and South America.
Some historians disagree with the Alaskan land bridge theory. They propose that Asians may have traveled by boat to the West Coast of the Americas as much as 30,000 years ago. But all agree that indigenous Americans are of Asian descent, however, they arrived.
Lenni Lenape in English means “The Original People.” Neighboring American tribes called them “The Grandfathers.”
Today, only a few Native Americans, Lenni Lenape Indians, remain in New Jersey. Most were driven west as much as twenty times, by the relentless immigration of European colonists, and later, by the United States Government and American settlers. The vast majority of Lenape Indians now live in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario, Canada.
The Lenni-Lenape were part of the Algonquin nation. Some of the other tribes scorned them for their peaceful ways. The Iroquois called them “The Old Women.” Because of their peaceful ways, they were often intermediaries in resolving disputes within the Algonquin nation. Sometimes the Lenape defended themselves from attack by other tribes, usually the Iroquois and Susquehannock. Sometimes, the peaceful Lenape were forced to attack the early settlers in self-defense. There were even wars between the Lenape Indians, other tribes, and the colonists. Bloody massacres occurred on all sides.
During the French and Indian War, some Lenape Indians remained neutral. Some fought with the French against the English. During the American Revolutionary War, the Lenape majority remained neutral. Many fought with the American revolutionaries. Contrary to the Iroquois’s derogatory labeling of the Lenape men as ‘women’, Lenape warriors became known as fierce warriors in these later wars.
The Lenni-Lenape Indians did not have a written language. They had no central chief. They usually lived in small villages near rivers, streams, and lakes.
When they were first encountered by Europeans, the Lenape were a loose association of families who spoke similar languages. They lived in an area they called ‘Lenapehoking.’ The tribe had been called the “Delaware” by the English colonists, though the name is not Native American. ‘Delaware ‘ came from English colonists who named the river separating New Jersey and Pennsylvania the ‘Delaware’, after the first governor of Virginia, the Baron De La Warr. The English then began calling the Lenape the “Delaware Indians” because of where they lived.
The New Jersey Lenni-Lenape spoke dialects of the Algonquin language. They were organized into three sub-tribes.
- In the North, they were called the Munsee, “people of the stony country.”
- In the Central area, they were the Unami, “people down the river.”
- In the South, they were the Unalachtigo, “people living near the ocean.”
The Lenape also lived in parts of Delaware, Eastern Pennsylvania, Southern New York, and Eastern Long Island. They were organized into three clans: Wolf Clan, Turkey Clan, and Turtle Clan. The Turtle Clan was the most powerful. These three clans were then subdivided into thirty-six sub-clans.
The Lenape kinship system is matrilineal. Children belong to the mother’s clan. Through their mothers, they gain social status and identity. The mother’s oldest brother was more influential over the boys than their father, who was generally of a different clan.
Tribal leadership passed through the mothers’ family. Women elders could remove leaders of whom they disapproved. Farmlands were managed by women and given out according to the needs of each woman’s extended family.
Families were matrilocal. Newlywed couples lived with the bride’s family, where her mother and sisters could help her with her growing family. Sons could not marry within their own clan. The Lenape lived in settlements of 25 to 300 people.
The first recorded contact between Europeans and Lenape Indians occurred in 1524 when Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian seaman and explorer for France, briefly anchored his ship in today’s New York Bay. The friendly Lenape Indians met the ship in their dugout canoes. Gifts were exchanged between the men. Some Indians even boarded Verrazano’s ship. The Indians would have remained friendly, but Verrazano tried to abduct several Indians and take them back to France. Fortunately, the Indians escaped but the incident created tremendous distrust. After that conflict, Verrazano did not explore the area or discover today’s great Hudson River, north of the bay.
The second recorded contact with Europeans occurred 85 years later, in 1609, with the arrival of Henry Hudson. Hudson was an English explorer working for the Dutch West India Company. His mission was to seek a Northwest Passage to Asia through America, instead of the long way, around Africa. Hudson ignored his orders to immediately return to the Netherlands if he did not find a Northwest Passage. Instead, Hudson sailed south along the coast. He anchored his ship off what is now Sandy Hook, New Jersey. He was met with the angry Lenape Indians. Unlike Verrazano, Hudson decided to explore the area.
One evening, a small crew of Hudson’s seamen exploring the water depth were attacked. One crew member was killed by an arrow to his throat. Several Lenape were killed with gunshots from the crew.
The next day Hudson set sail to explore the great river that would one day be named after him. He and his men sailed about two hundred miles north to what is now Albany. During the trip, they experienced several ship groundings, but had friendly relations trading with the Lenape. On his return voyage downriver, in New York Harbor, his ship was attacked by a different tribe of Indians. None of his crew members were lost, but many Indians were killed with gunfire.
Hudson’s contact with the Lenape is considered the real beginning of European colonization in America. 15 years later, in 1624, the colony of New Netherland was established by the Dutch West India Company in a place the Lenape called Manna-Hatta. The name meant ‘place to find wood for bow and arrows.’ A successful Dutch settlement began there and was christened New Amsterdam.
In New Jersey, you will now meet our imaginary band of fifty Unami Lenape Indians of the turtle clan. They lived in the heavily wooded south-central area of today’s Pinelands, near the Delaware River. Their homes were small, round wigwams or large oval shaped long-houses. Some long houses were nearly 60 feet long, 20 feet wide and 18 feet tall. The wigwams were constructed of bent, wooden poles, covered with large sheets of freshly peeled tree-bark shingles.
In November 1613, a Dutch fur trader named Adrian Block was preparing to return to Holland with a cargo of beaver, bear, and fox furs. His ship, the Tyger, caught fire and was destroyed while anchored near the tip of Manhattan Island. Over the winter, Block and his crew built the yacht Onrust, to explore Manhattan’s East River. Later that year, Block met up with Hendrick Christiaensen a good sea captain he trusted. Block turned the Onrust over to Hendrickson and went back to Europe.
In 1614, Hendrickson navigated the Onrust to the Toms River in New Jersey. He created the very first maps of southern New Jersey, of Barnegat Bay and Great Bay. In 1615, Hendrickson sailed into Godin’s Bay and up the Zuyd Rivier (now the Delaware River) to the Schuylkill River where Philadelphia would one day be built. He was in search of a site for the Dutch West India Company trading post.
Our story begins as the Onrust is anchored in the middle of the Delaware river, just beside our imaginary Lenape village. This is just a short distance from the river where Welathaket, the village medicine man, will meet with a small group of village children who are celebrating their twelve years of life together. Welathaket will give the children final instructions before beginning their coming-of-age Vision Quests.