I wrote the open­ing col­umn for the Jan­u­ary Friends Jour­nal, which looks at Indige­nous Peo­ples and Friends. As reg­u­lar read­ers of this blog already no doubt know, I’m a fan of local his­to­ry, espe­cial­ly contact-era and colo­nial his­to­ries and espe­cial­ly about rela­tions with the Indige­nous Lenape and the enslaved Africans.

The whole issue is real­ly pow­er­ful and I hope you find it as enlight­en­ing as I did.

Where I live, in one of the colonial-era Quak­er colonies of the Mid-Atlantic Unit­ed States, there has long been a benev­o­lent por­tray­al of Quak­ers’ rela­tions with the local Indige­nous Peo­ples. We are told that ear­ly Friend William Penn nego­ti­at­ed the Treaty of Shacka­max­on with Lenape leader Tama­nend, a moment memo­ri­al­ized by parks, stat­ues, and a famous paint­ing by Ben­jamin West. The great French philoso­pher Voltaire declared it “the only treaty nev­er sworn to and nev­er bro­ken.” The new set­tlers bought each plot of land from the local Lenape bands. Vio­lence in the first half-century of Quak­er gov­er­nance was rare; coop­er­a­tion and good will were the norm.

And yet: there is no fed­er­al­ly rec­og­nized Indige­nous Nation left in this for­mer Lenape ter­ri­to­ry. Every boat­load of Quak­ers that sailed up from Delaware Bay brought the threat of anoth­er round of dead­ly small­pox. Every creek dammed to pow­er a mill cut off the spawn­ing fish runs that stocked upland creeks. Every pig let loose from an Eng­lish farm­stead ate through near­by Lenape maize and squash plantings.