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I acknowledge I am a settler that was raised on Lenni-Lenape, the homelands of the Lenape people. Lenni-Lenape includes New York City, New Jersey, and parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

After the death of William Penn in 1718, his sons, John and Thomas, did a complete 180 in their relationship with the Lenape, often selling the land without the consent of the local tribes. Then came the Walking Purchase, a deal struck in 1737 with the Lenape people by Penn’s sons, in which the Lenape agreed to sell to the Penn family as much land as a man could walk in a day and a half. The Penn family produced an alleged treaty from 1686 that showed the Lenape had already agreed to sell the land even though they could not produce an original copy of the deed, nor does the sale appear in Pennsylvania’s provincial land records. Penn’s descendants then tricked the tribe by hiring fast runners to mark the territory, instead of walkers, forcing the tribe to cede far more land than they had wished. The Lenape refused to leave, and eventually Pennsylvania colonial officials called on the Iroquois to force them out in 1741. In the 1860’s the United States Indian removal policy relocated other self-governing Lenape people against their will to designated Indian Territory in Oklahoma under the 1830 Indian Removal Act. Today federal- and state-recognized Lenape groups live in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Delaware, and New Jersey. Other Lenapehoking are not recognized by federal or state governments. As stated by Curtis Zunigha, cultural director of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, “It is a history of deprivations, of swindles, of murders, of dishonorable behavior by the Dutch, by the British, and later by the Americans. We have been away from our homeland since that time, and yet we have persevered and managed to reorganize and reassemble ourselves”. 

I acknowledge the Lenape as the original and only true sovereigns of this land and express my gratitude for their past, present, and future role as caretakers of these lands. As a settler and witch and pre-colonial reconstructivist of my own indigenous practices, I intend to honor, stand with, and reclaim stolen homes, spirits, and livelihoods with the Lenape people.

Sources

‘We just want to be welcomed back’: The Lenape seek a return home
Native Land: an app to help map Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages
A Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgement
Land acknowledgments meant to honor Indigenous people too often do the opposite