I.

Introduction

Delaware (people), Native Americans of the Algonquian language family and of the Northeast culture area. The Delaware originally resided in what are now the states of New Jersey, New York (Staten Island, Manhattan, western Long Island, and the west side of the lower Hudson River), eastern Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The Delaware call themselves Lenape or Lenni Lenape, meaning “original people.” Europeans named them Delaware because they lived along the Delaware River (itself named after Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, first governor of colonial Virginia) and its tributaries.

The Delaware are sometimes known as the Delaware Confederacy because they were a loose alliance of Algonquian-speaking bands. Based on dialects, the various bands, each with a distinct political identity, are grouped as three divisions: the Munsee in the north, the Unami in the south, and the Unalachtigo along some of the Atlantic coast. Members of other Algonquian tribes held the Delaware in esteem and respectfully addressed them as “grandfather” because Delaware territory was considered the ancestral homeland of all Algonquians.