By any measure, 12,000 years is a long time, but that’s how far back you can trace the lineage of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape peoples in what we’ve come to know as South Jersey and the Delaware Valley.
That’s roughly 500 generations and when you measure their connection to our area in this way, 1982 seems like the blink of an eye. That was the year that the New Jersey legislature, via concurrent resolution, officially recognized the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation.
Of course, for those of us raised in this area, they are our friends and neighbors and colleagues and even family — the resolution reminded us of what we already knew — that the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Nation was here long before anyone else put stakes in the ground.
The 1982 concurrent resolution was far more than ceremonial; the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation had to provide genealogical records, the mechanisms of self-government, testimonies and whatever else was necessary to establish their bona fides as a distinct tribal nation, which they did.
Read the entire article at nj.com.