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Lenape territories in 16th and 17th centuries.

Native Americans in Camden and Southern New Jersey

Native Americans have occupied the land that is now New Jersey since well before the common era (approximately 6,000 BCE). By the 17th century, the native peoples of New Jersey, named the Lenni Lenape or “original people,” were divided into the Minsi, Unami, and Unalachtigo subgroups. The Unalachtigo people resided primarily in the Southern New Jersey area and along the banks of the Lenapewihittuck river, which was then named the Delaware river by the first governor of the Virginia Trading Company. Subsequently, the Native Americans of the region came to be known as the “Delaware Indians” by early settlers – a name which even the natives themselves eventually came to adopt.

Lifestyle

The Lenni Lenape were a group that generally sustained themselves through hunting and the farming of land. They were known to frequently relocate in search of uncultivated soil and thus occupied multiple areas along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. When settled, they lived in wooden huts constructed with natural resources called wigwams. The division of labor in Lenape tribes tended to be along the lines of gender, with men and boys leaving the home for hunting excursions and women staying behind to tan hides, sew, garden, cook, and forage. Lenape men were accustomed to wearing breechcloths or fur robes depending on the season. Women would also wear similar clothing, though their attire generally consisted of wrap-around skirts in the summer and fur robes in the winter. Both genders used bear grease to style their hair, and they used paint to outline various colored designs on their bodies. Women often used a number of objects such as rocks and animal claws as jewelry and adornment.

Politics & Native-Colonial Relations

The Lenni Lenape tribes in the Southern New Jersey area generally lived in interspersed towns that were strongly allied with each other and with colonial Europeans with whom they held various trade deals. The politics of these towns were overwhelmingly egalitarian and democratic in nature, and decisions were often made through a process of holding council that involved sachems, elders, and other tribal leaders who were all tasked with representing and preserving the will of the collective townspeople. Lenape groups held strong values of personal liberty while also clinging to communal ideals – they often lived in familial settings and shared a strong belief in a concept of reciprocity similar to the Golden Rule (“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you”). When it pertained to treaty-making and negotiating, the Lenape sought resolution first and foremost before making or acting on threats of violence. They were strongly opposed to the institution of slavery and did not allow it on the lands which they sold to European settlers.

The land of New Jersey, or “Scheyichbi” as it was called by the Native Americans, was considered indigenous property by European settler nations, though they did employ various legitimate and illegitimate tactics in order to acquire pieces of the region from them and make claims to it under the pretense of exploration. Increased European presence in New Jersey ultimately resulted in the decline of the Lenni Lenape population over the course of a few decades due to factors such as alcoholism, smallpox, emigration (forced or unforced), and murder by settlers. This forced the various tribal groups to merge into larger communities to compensate for their dwindling numbers. Eventually, the Lenni Lenape and most Native American tribes within New Jersey were relegated to the Brotherton reservation, which was the first U.S. reservation to ever be constructed in 1758. In 1802, the remaining Native Americans largely departed from New Jersey as an ethnic group.

Legacy

Despite the steep decline in the Native American population in New Jersey in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, there has been a rise in their numbers in the past century. In 1900, the U.S. Census Bureau reported 63 Native Americans in the state. In 1960, that figure rose to 1,699, and as of 2020, there are an estimated 51,186 natives in New Jersey.

Camden's Earliest Colonial Developers: The Cooper Family

Aside from a period in which some small houses lined the Delaware river near the ferries which carried goods from Western New Jersey to Philadelphia for trade purposes, the first major colonial settlement in the Camden area was established by William Cooper . An English Quaker born in 1632, Cooper emigrated with his wife and children to America in 1679 as a means of avoiding religious persecution in England and with the hopes of participating in the development of a settlement along the Delaware river – a project which was being headed by William Penn, a Quaker leader and fellow member of the Upperside Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends. Cooper purchased several acres of land in Burlington, New Jersey upon his arrival in 1679 then procured an expanse of land across the Delaware river from Kensington, Philadelphia (then called Shackamaxon) in 1682 and moved himself and his family to Cooper’s Point, where he had his permanent home built.

Painting by Benjamin West titled Penn's Treaty with the Indians. Completed in 1772, the painting depicts William Penn's meeting with the Lenni Lenape, where William Cooper is said to have attended.

Throughout the course of his life in the Southern New Jersey area, William Cooper consistently contributed to the transfer and development of land by English and Irish colonial settlers. In 1682, Cooper was said to be present at the Treaty of Penn in which William Penn famously established a vow of friendship with the Native Americans of the area (though the occurrence of this event is disputed and a lack of paper records documenting it has led some to doubt its authenticity). After serving for a number of years as commissioner for the division of lands and acting as an attorney for Quakers interested in purchasing lands surrounding the Delaware river, he was appointed as the judge of the County Court of Gloucester. In 1710, Cooper passed away in Delaware county. After his death, Cooper’s descendants continued to acquire land and develop it through the construction of farms and buildings that formed the most developed tracts of the entire Southern New Jersey area.