Delaware: Indigenous people

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3:11

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Delaware's Indigenous nations—primarily the Lenape and Nanticoke—had, by the Revolutionary era, largely integrated into local communities rather than remaining in distinct tribal territories. That integration, together with generations of mixed-race community formation, makes them particularly difficult to trace in the record. Race was inconsistently documented, and the same term could be applied to people of very different backgrounds. Edward Harmon, a Sussex County veteran identified in one pension document as a “mulatto,” is believed through genealogical research to have been of Nanticoke and African American descent. He is just one example of the layered Indigenous presence in Delaware's Revolutionary story. Researchers recognize that uncovering the full extent of Native American participation in Delaware's war effort will require both additional scholarship and direct engagement with Lenape and Nanticoke descendant communities, who may hold knowledge never captured in the government records.

Interviewees

Charles Fithian
- Delaware Archeologist, Delaware Historical Society
Joseph Sullivan
- Welcome Center Supervisor, Delaware Public Archives

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