Delaware Complaint

The Delaware Complaint


One of the main issues among the Iroquois tribes and the Pennsylvanians was that of the “Walking Purchase” and the Delaware Complaint against the contract. Between 1630 and 1767 the Lenni Lenape Indians of New Jersey and Pennsylvania signed many deeds of land to colonists that numbered around 800. Little did the Indian people know, the Europeans would use the land to eventually push the Native Americans out of their homeland. One man named William Penn claimed to have discovered a document in 1734 that would give him land based upon the idea that Delaware chiefs agreed to give away land to his father and his heirs. The constituents of the document referred to the idea of giving the amount of land that a man could walk in a day and a half. The chiefs agreed unwillingly to the idea and Penn took many miles when the Indians gave a few inches. The Delaware would not have given the land away, but felt obligated to fulfill what Penn had said about their ...