A Lenape among the Quakers: The Life of Hannah Freeman

Chapter 4. Lenapehoking Lost

chapter four Lenapehoking Lost When Hannah Freeman was a young woman, her father “went to Shamokin and never returned.” As she recounted her life story to Moses Marshall in 1797, she offered little explanation except that he left at a time when “the country becoming more settled the Indians were not allowed to plant corn any longer.”1 In this brief deposition she offers no explanation for what happened to her father, nor his reasons for the journey. It would be easy to dismiss this episode of her life story in light of an absence of details, except that it marked an abrupt change in how Hannah Freeman and her family conducted their lives. It also came at a time when the relationships between Pennsylvania’s provincial government and the Indian peoples living within the colony’s claimed boundaries were disintegrating at an unparalleled rate. The departure of Hannah’s father was an intimate and personal event that she and her family experienced as the loss of a father, a protector, and a provider for their extended family. But that is only part of the story. Her father’s departure to Shamokin connects Hannah and her family to a maelstrom of political goings-on that culminated in an international war that left no one living in the colony untouched. Growth and expansion brought violence and uncertainty into the daily lives of Indian peoples behind the frontier boundaries of the rapidly expanding colony, as was discussed in the previous chapter, and as her father departed for Shamokin, he traveled a wellworn trail that would tie his family to some of the most critical events in the history of colonial North America. Map 3. Colonial Pennsylvania land cessions. PENNSYLVANIA NEW JERSEY DELAWARE MARYLAND Philadelphia New Castle Burlington Pennsbury Manor Schuylkill R i v e r Neshaminy Creek R e d C l a y C r e e k C h r i s t i a n a River O c t o r a r o C r e e k D elaware River S u s q u e h a n n a R i v e r 10 Sept. 1683 From Kekelappan 18 Oct. 1683 from Machaloha 21 Feb. 1683 19 Dec. 1683 from Secetareus et al. 25 June 1683 from Wingebone 14 July 1683 from Secane et al. 14 July 1683 from Ninichican et al. 7 June 1684 from Richard Mettamicont 23 June 1683 from Tammanend et al. 3 June 1684 from Maughousin 15 July 1682 from Idquahon et al. Transferred from John Moll Overlapping Purchases from Machaloha and Kekelappan Overlapping Purchases from Machaloha and Secetareus 0 20 miles 10 108 Lenapehoking Lost Shamokin was many things to many people. It was the largest Indian town in Pennsylvania in the mid-eighteenth century , a center of trade and diplomacy and the epicenter of Indian communication routes. The town was founded early in the eighteenth century, most likely by Lenapes, who named the town Shumokenk after the abundance of deer antlers found in the area. The town was situated at the forks of the northern and western branch of the Susquehanna River, and travelers to the town remembered a series of interconnected settlements located on the eastern and western sides of the river’s north branch and also on a large island sitting midstream. It is unknown whether or not the town was founded on earlier settlements, but it is easy to understand why the Lenapes would find it a favorable place to settle after 1720. Pennsylvania’s immigrant population was exploding, and many Indian people found their ability to hunt, fish, and plant their gardens hampered by the fences , dams, and livestock that the Europeans settlers introduced to the region, just as Hannah recalled. As in the example set by the Brandywine Lenapes’ sachem Checochinican, the Lenapes’ complaints did little to alter the changes colonization brought to the land and the impact of colonial settlements on Lenape resources. Lenape hunting parties were compelled to travel further north and west in order to satisfy the needs of their communities . Fish camps were abandoned on the southern reaches of the rivers as tributary streams because gristmills and dams prevented the shad from making their way upstream. Shamokin offered many advantages to Lenapes seeking to put distance between their families and the colonial expansion that impaired their way of life. The town’s greatest natural advantage was...