The Unalachtigo were a purported division of the
Lenape (
Delaware Indians
The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory inclu ...
), a
Native American tribe whose homeland ''
Lenapehoking'' was in what is today the
Northeastern United States. They were part of the Forks Indians.
[Goddard, "Delaware," 236]
The name was a
Munsee language
Munsee (also known as Munsee Delaware, Delaware, Ontario Delaware, del, Huluníixsuwaakan, Monsii èlixsuwakàn) is an endangered language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family, itself a branch of the Algic l ...
term for the Unami-speakers of west-central
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
. Moravian missionaries called the Lenape people of the Forks region near
Easton, Pennsylvania
Easton is a city in, and the county seat of, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city's population was 28,127 as of the 2020 census. Easton is located at the confluence of the Lehigh River, a river that joins the Delaware R ...
"Unami," and the Northern
Unami language
Unami ( del, Wënami èlixsuwakàn) was an Algonquian language spoken by the Lenape people in the late 17th century and the early 18th century, in what then was (or later became) the southern two-thirds of New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania ...
-speakers in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
"Unalachtigo." It is debated whether Unalachtigo constituted a distinct dialect of Unami. Unalachtigo words were recorded in 17th-century vocabulary drawn from the Sankhikan band of Lenape in New Jersey.
[Goddard, "Delaware," 215]
The Sankhikan band were enemies of the
Manhattan people, who spoke
Munsee
The Munsee (or Minsi or Muncee) or mə́n'si·w ( del, Monsiyok)Online Lenape Talking Dictionary, "Munsee Indians"Link/ref> are a subtribe of the Lenape, originally constituting one of the three great divisions of that nation and dwelling along ...
[
]
Synonymy
"Unalachtigo" probably came from the term ''wə̆nálâhtko·w'', which according to Ives Goddard has an unknown translation. Some sources translate ''unalachtigo'' as meaning "people who live near the ocean", or "people who live down by the water" Other spellings include Unalâchtigo (1818) and Wunalàchtigo (1798).[
]
History
Linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
Ives Goddard
Robert Hale Ives Goddard III (born 1941) is a linguist and a curator emeritus in the Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution. He is widely considered the leading expert on the Algonqui ...
has determined that the Unalachtigo had their origins around the Lehigh Valley
The Lehigh Valley (), known colloquially as The Valley, is a geographic region formed by the Lehigh River in Lehigh County and Northampton County in eastern Pennsylvania. It is a component valley of the Great Appalachian Valley bound to the no ...
of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, and adjacent portions of New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
. They spoke a Northern Unami or Southern Unami dialect of Lënape.
Recent events
An unrecognized tribe
Unrecognized tribes in the United States are organizations of people who claim to be historically, culturally, and/or genetically related to historic Native American Indian tribes but who are not officially recognized as Indigenous nations by the ...
called the Unalachtigo Band of the Nanticoke Lenni Lenape Nation claims descent from the Lenape of the Brotherton Reservation, an 18th-century Indian reservation, near Shamong Township in Burlington County, New Jersey. The group unsuccessfully filed for federal recognition
This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...
with the Bureau of Indian Affairs on 1 Feb 2002.[List of Petitioners by States (as of April 29, 2011) Accessible as of April 16, 2012]
here
In 2005, the Unalachtigo Band of the Nanticoke Lenni Lenape Nation and their tribal chairman James Brent Thomas Sr. sued the State of New Jersey and Governor Donald DiFrancesco
Donald Thomas DiFrancesco (born November 20, 1944) is a retired American politician who served as the 51st governor of New Jersey from 2001 to 2002. He succeeded Christine Todd Whitman after her resignation to become Administrator of the Enviro ...
for restoration of the Brotherton Reservation lands and the expulsion of non-Indian peoples. Their complaint was dismissed by the Superior Court of New Jersey.''UNALACHTIGO BAND OF THE NANTICOKE-LENNI LENAPE NATION and James Brent Thomas, Sr. v. STATE of New Jersey and Donald Difrancesco.''
375 N.J.Super. 330, 867 A.2d 1222. ''National Indian Law Library.'' Retrieved 9 Dec 2013.
Notes
Citations
References
* Goddard, Ives. "Eastern Algonquian Languages." Bruce G. Trigger, vol. ed. ''Handbook of North American Indians
The ''Handbook of North American Indians'' is a series of edited scholarly and reference volumes in Native American studies, published by the Smithsonian Institution beginning in 1978. Planning for the handbook series began in the late 1960s and ...
, Volume 15: Northwest.'' Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978: 70–77. .
* Goddard. "Delaware." Bruce G. Trigger, vol. ed. ''Handbook of North American Indians
The ''Handbook of North American Indians'' is a series of edited scholarly and reference volumes in Native American studies, published by the Smithsonian Institution beginning in 1978. Planning for the handbook series began in the late 1960s and ...
, Volume 15: Northwest.'' Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978: 213–239. .
* Newman, Andrew. ''On Records: Delaware Indians, Colonists, and the Media of History and Memory.'' Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012. .
External links
Unalachtigo Band of the Nanticoke-Lenni Lenape v. State of New Jersey
{{authority control
Lenape people
Native American tribes in New Jersey
Algonquian ethnonyms
Unrecognized tribes in the United States