Lenape
The Lenape (English: /ləˈnɑːpi/, /-peɪ/, /ˈlɛnəpi/; Lenape languages: [lənaːpe]), also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada.
Lënapeyok | |
|---|---|
The Lenape territory, known as Lenapehoking, as of the 16th and 17th centuries, with speakers of Munsee (north), Unalachtigo (center), and Unami (south). Inset: The location of the region in the present-day United States. | |
| Total population | |
| c. 16,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Oklahoma, U.S. | 11,195 (2010) |
| Wisconsin, U.S. | 1,565 |
| Ontario, Canada | 2,300 |
| Languages | |
| English, Munsee, and formerly Unami | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, Native American Church, traditional tribal religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Other Algonquian peoples | |
| Person | Lënape (Monsi / Wënami) |
|---|---|
| People | Lënapeyok (Monsiyok / Wënamiyok) |
| Language | Lënapei èlixsuwakàn (Monsii èlixsuwakàn / Wënami èlixsuwakàn) |
| Country | Lënapehòkink (Monsihòkink / Wënamihòkink) |
The Lenape's historical territory includes present-day northeastern Delaware, all of New Jersey, the eastern Pennsylvania regions of the Lehigh Valley and Northeastern Pennsylvania, and New York Bay, western Long Island, and the lower Hudson Valley in New York state. Today they are based in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario.
During the last decades of the 18th century, European settlers and the effects of the American Revolutionary War displaced most Lenape from their homelands and pushed them north and west. In the 1860s, under the Indian removal policy, the U.S. federal government relocated most Lenape remaining in the Eastern United States to the Indian Territory and surrounding regions. Lenape people currently belong to the Delaware Nation and Delaware Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma, the Stockbridge–Munsee Community in Wisconsin, and the Munsee-Delaware Nation, Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and Delaware of Six Nations in Ontario.