DELAWARE

See also:

• INDIANS, NORTH AMERICAN

INDIANS  , the English name for the Leni Lenape, a tribe of North American Indians of Algonquian stock . When first discovered by the whites the tribe was settled on the banks of the Delaware river . The French called them Loups (wolves) from their chief totemic division . Early in the 17th century the Dutch began trading with them . Subsequently William Penn bought large tracts of land from them, and war followed, the Delawares alleging they had been defrauded; but, with the assistance of the Six Nations, the whites forced them back west of the Alleghenies . In 1789 they were placed on a reservation in Ohio and subsequently in 1818 were moved to Missouri . Various removals followed, until in 1866 they accepted lands in the Indianterritory (Oklahoma) and gave up the tribal relation . They have remained there and now number some 1700 .