| Year |
History |
| 1524 |
Giovanni da
Verrazano entered New York harbor through the strait which bears his name |
| 1609 |
Henry Hudson
explored Delaware Bay |
| 1613 |
Dutch opened their
first trading post (Fort Nassau) on Castle Island just south of Albany |
| 1617 |
Dutch abandoned Fort
Nassau due to war with Mahican and Mohawk |
| 1624 |
Dutch brought 30
families to the area and built a new post (Fort Orange) at Albany |
| 1625 |
Pieter Minuit,
governor of New Netherlands, purchased Manhattan from the Metoac tribe [?]
and built Fort Amsterdam |
| 1626 |
Unami and Unalactigo
attacked by the smaller Susquehannock driving them into New Jersey and
Delaware |
| 1628 |
Several of the
northern Munsee groups were conquered by the Mohawk and forced to pay
tribute |
| 1629 |
Dutch purchased land
on Delaware Bay from the Unalactigo |
| 1631 |
Dutch purchased a
second parcel at Cape May (southeast New Jersey) and started a small
settlement (Swanendael); a Dutch colonist killed a Lenape sachem, and the
Sickoneysinck retaliated by killing all of the 32 Dutch colonists |
| 1635 |
Smallpox epidemics
(1635-1638) |
| 1638 |
Swedes arrived on
lower Delaware River; the fighting had ended |
| 1639 |
Dutch governor Kieft
demanded and received a tribute of corn from a Unami village |
| 1640 |
Kieft attacked
Raritan Unami on Staten Island with 100 men in retaliation for stolen pigs
(likely actually stolen by other Dutch) killing severral Raritan and
taking a sachem hostage; "Pig War" Raritan retaliated by burning a
plantation and killing four field hands |
| 1643 |
Wappinger War
(Governor Kieft's War, 1643-45).a number of Delaware tribes while the
English aided the Dutch |
| 1645 |
Peace signed at Fort
Orange |
| 1651 |
Dutch purchased
Lenape land from the Susquehannock; Susquehannock war with the Mohawk
dragged the Delaware into the conflict |
| 1654 |
Smallpox epidemics
(1654-1657) |
| 1655 |
Dutch captured New
Sweden; peace ensued |
| 1659 |
First Esopus War
(1659-60), Esopus attacked the Dutch settlements in the Esopus Valley,
prisoners were burned alive, and the colonists besieged for three weeks;
tribe retreated to the mountains after the arrival of 200 men |
| 1660 |
Dutch destroyed the
Esopus fort near Wiltmeet; captured men sold a slaves in Carribean |
| 1663 |
Esopus attacked
Dutch settlements (Second Esopus War 1663-64) killing 24 and taking 45
captives at Wiltwyck |
| 1664 |
Combined Seneca and
Mohawk attack destroyed several Munsee villages killing hundreds until the
Esopus made peace with the Dutch; English fleet captured New Amsterdam |
| 1666 |
Connecticut Puritans
founded Newark and began expanding into New Jersey; Unilatchtigo had been
absorbed by the Unami |
| 1673 |
Lenape sold some of
their northern New Jersey lands to the English |
| 1675 |
Iroquois defeated
the Susquehannock resulting in the Delaware becoming part of the "Covenant
Chain" |
| 1677 |
Iroquois allowed the
Munsee to sell large tracts of land to French Huguenots |
| 1682 |
Charles II granted
Pennsylvania to a religious dissenter, William Penn |
| 1732 |
All that remained of
the Lenape homeland was a small part of New Jersey and the Lehigh Valley
(Allentown) in northeast Pennsylvania |
| 1737 |
Pennsylvania
authorities "found" the infamous Walking Purchase agreement, a treaty
supposedly signed in 1686 in which the Lenape ceded the land between the
junction of Delaware and Lehigh Rivers as far west as a man could walk in
a day and a half (about 40 miles |
| 1740 |
Most of the Munsee
moved west to Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley where Moravian missionaries
began work among them |
| 1742 |
Iroquois evicted the
Unami from their lands and forced them to move west; angered by the
Walking Purchase and Iroquois insults, small groups of Delaware also left
the Susquehanna, without Iroquois permission |
| 1751 |
Delaware had split
into two groups: those in the west along the upper Ohio River; and the
Munsee and about one-third of the Unami who had remained on the upper
Susquehanna or the Wyoming Valley in the east. |
| 1754 |
Pennsylvania seized
and hanged a Delaware-Shawnee delegation sent to protest the Iroquois sale
of Ohio; Delaware and Shawnee attacks on the Pennsylvania, Maryland and
Virginia frontiers followed |
| 1755 |
Munsee attacked the
Moravian mission at Gnadenhuetten (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) massacring 11
missionaries; the Delaware and their allies began attacking the frontiers
of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York; colonial militia under Colonel
John Armstrong attacked and burned the principal Delaware village of
Kittaning on the Allegheny River, most escaped |
| 1757 |
Munsee raided Orange
and Duchess Counties in New York and the frontier in northern New Jersey |
| 1758 |
Munsee attacked
Walpack, New Jersey; Second Treaty of Easton provided for payments for the
Munsee and Pompton lands taken by New Jersey without compensation; a 3,000
acre reservation at Brotherton |
| 1759 |
Fort Pitt Treaty,
the Delaware were holding more than 600 white prisoners at a Caughnawaga
(Christian Iroquois) village on the Ohio River, almost half of the white
captives refused repatriation and stayed with the Delaware and Shawnee |
| 1761 |
Delaware Prophet,
Neolin (The Enlightened) from a village near the Ohio River, rged the
rejection of the white man's trade goods (especially rum) and a return to
traditional native culture and values; his teachings gained a large
following among the Delaware and Pontiac of the Ottawa |
| 1763 |
Ottawa were French
allies, Pontiac's acceptance of Neolin's new religion provided a basis for
the Delaware, Shawnee and Mingo to unite with the tribes of the French
alliance against the British in what has been called the Pontiac
Conspiracy; the rebellion captured nine of the twelve British forts west
of the Appalachians; Delaware, Shawnee, and Mingo surrounded Fort Pitt
cutting if off from the outside world and then attacked the Pennsylvania
frontier killing 600 colonists; tribes at Fort Pitt given smallpox laden
blankets [?] starting epidemic; a bloody two-day battle at Bushy Run just
east of Pittsburgh, Colonel Henry Bouquet defeated a Delaware, Shawnee,
and Mingo ambush and reached Fort Pitt; settlers burned a Delaware village
in Wyoming Valley; a Delaware party then killed 26 colonists near
Allentown; 140 Christian Delaware were confine to a warehouse for more
than a year with 56 dying of smallpox |
| 1764 |
Preliminary peace
treaty at Presque Isle (Erie, PA); the British rejected the treaty until
Delaware and Shawnee signed a peace with the British at Coshocton and
released the 200 white prisoners they were holding; the last of the
Pennsylvania Delaware left for Ohio |
| 1771 |
Delaware obtained
permission from the Miami to settle in Indiana |
| 1772 |
Moravian
missionaries followed 400 of their Delaware converts to Ohio and
built three missions along the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Rivers |
| 1774 |
Delaware chief Bald
Eagle was ambushed by vigilantes, scalped, and his body placed upright in
a sitting position in his canoe to float down the river to his tribesmen |
| 1775 |
Traditional Delaware
had accepted the Moravian villages as equal members |
| 1777 |
Treaty at Fort Pitt
between Delaware and United States |
| 1779 |
General John
Sullivan's campaign against the Iroquois in which Munsee villages were
also destroyed, and they retreated to southern Ontario; when the war
ended, most stayed in Canada and did not return to the United States |
| 1780 |
Most of the Delaware
had joined British Captain Pipe at Pluggys Town; the only neutral Delaware
were the Moravians; Pennsylvania volunteers from Washington County,
Pennsylvania commanded by Colonel David Williamson decided to execute the
Moravian Delaware in two slaughter houses where 90 Christian
Delaware - 29 men, 27 women, and 34 children - were taken inside in small
groups and beaten to death with wooden mallets; Colonel William Crawford
was burned at the stake to atone for the Gnadenhuetten Massacre |
| 1783 |
Delaware moved most
of their villages in east-central Ohio to northwestern Ohio and southern
Indiana; the British formed an alliance to keep the Americans out of Ohio
including Delaware, Miami, Wyandot, Iroquois, Kickapoo, Fox, Sauk,
Shawnee, Ottawa, Ojibwe, Chickamauga (Cherokee), and Potawatomi |
| 1784 |
Some of the Delaware
and Shawnee peace factions separated from the militants and moved to Ste.
Genevieve, Missouri in Spanish Louisiana |
| 1785 |
Delaware, Ojibwe,
Ottawa and Wyandot signed the Treaty of Fort McIntosh acknowledging
American sovereignty in Ohio; Fort McIntosh Treaty did not receive the
approval of the majority of the Delaware, and as a result, Captain Pipe
was replaced by Big Cat; fighting resumed |
| 1790 |
Moravian Delaware
left Ohio for southern Ontario |
| 1792 |
Established
Moravians of the Thames |
| 1793 |
Baron de Carondelet,
the Spanish governor of Louisiana, made a formal land grant (25 miles
square) at Cape Girardeau to the Missouri Shawnee and Delaware |
| 1795 |
Fort Greenville
Treaty ceded all of Ohio except the northwest corner and left the Delaware
without land, with the exception of Captain Pipe's small band on the upper
Sandusky; others relocated to present Muncie on Miami land |
| 1803 |
Delaware ceded part
of their land in southern Indiana |
| 1806 |
Tenskwatawa, the
Shawnee prophet, denounced all who disagreed with him as witches and began
having them killed including a large number of Delaware, particularly
Christian converts |
| 1808 |
William Anderson (Kecklawhenund)
became Delaware chief and was opposed to Tecumseh and the Prophet |
| 1813 |
Moravians of the
Thames village burned down by the American Army; Harrison moved the
Delaware from Indiana to Piqua, Ohio |
| 1814 |
Delaware returned to
Indiana from Piqua where they were joined by a group of Stockbridge from
New York |
| 1815 |
Most of the Cape
Girardeau Delaware and Shawnee (Absentee Delaware and Shawnee) had left
for Texas where they were welcomed by Spanish government as a defense
against Comanche raiders |
| 1818 |
St. Marys Treaty
ceded their Indiana lands and they agreed to move west of the Mississippi |
| 1822 |
The Brothertons sold
their remaining lands in New York and moved to a reservation established
for the Oneida near Green Bay |
| 1824 |
Delaware hunting
party was attacked by Osage in Missouri |
| 1826 |
Delaware and
Kickapoo united against the Osage after a raid |
| 1829 |
Ohio Delaware ceded
their reserve and agreed to join the Delaware west of the Mississippi;
Delaware on the James Fork agree to exchange their Missouri lands for a
new reserve in northeast Kansas just north of the Shawnee to find that
much of the land belonged to the Pawnee |
| 1831 |
Delaware hunting
party on the plains was attacked by Pawnee warriors |
| 1832 |
Pawnee attacked
another Delaware hunting party killing a chief; the Delaware burned the
main Pawnee village on the Republican River; Ohio Delaware joined the
other Delaware in Kansas |
| 1835 |
Delaware hunting
party killed 12 Pawnee they caught trying to steal their horses |
| 1837 |
Two groups of
Moravian Munsee also left their reserve in southern Ontario and emigrated
to Kansas; eighty-seven Delaware enlisted in the American army and served
in the Seminole War |
| 1841 |
Delaware hunting
party attacked: by Santee Sioux near Des Moines, Iowa |
| 1843 |
Sold some Kansas
land to the Wyandot; Absentee Delaware (Red River Delaware) were moved to
a reservation with the Caddo and Tonkawa on the upper Brazos River, Texas |
| 1845 |
Delaware hunting
party attacked by Sioux and Cheyenne on the Smokey Hill River in Kansas |
| 1850 |
Delaware, Shawnee
and Kickapoo oined the Potawatomi during a brief war between the emigrant
tribes |
| 1852 |
Delaware hunting
party attacked by Sioux on the upper Platte |
| 1854 |
Munsee chose to join
the Swan Creek and Black River bands of the Ojibwe near Ottawa, Kansas |
| 1856 |
A separate reserve
was created for the Stockbridge, Brotherton, and Munsee on land purchased
from the Menominee in Wisconsin |
| 1859 |
Much of Ottawa,
Kansas lands lost to allotment; many Muncee returned to Canada |
| 1860 |
Delaware signed the
Treaty of Sarcoxieville agreeing to allot their remaining lands |
| 1861 |
170 of the 200
able-bodied Delaware men of military ages served in the Union Army, mainly
in the 6th and 15th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry |
| 1862 |
Kansas Delaware and
Shawnee attacked the Wichita Agency in southern Oklahoma which had been
seized by the Confederates forcing the Tonkawa who lived there to return
to Texas |
| 1863 |
Kansas legislature
called for the removal of all Indians from Kansas |
| 1866 |
Delaware ceded their
remaining lands and most removed to Oklahoma; |
| 1867 |
Cherokee sold
Delaware Oklahoma land for $280,000 and Delaware would become part of the
Cherokee Nation |
| 1868 |
Difficult move to
Oklahoma, settled near old enemies the Osage and the Cherokee who fought
on the side of the south in the Civil War |
| 1895 |
Curtis Act dissolved
tribal governments |
|
|
| 1907 |
Delaware lands were
allotted |
| 1979 |
BIA terminated the
separate tribal status of the Delaware and Shawnee living among Cherokee
in eastern Oklahoma in favor of the Cherokee Nation |
| 2005 |
Termination ruling
reversed |
