History Introduction Human History the First People of the Pines the Lenape Sought and Domesticated Beasts That Uman Beings Inhabited the Area Today Europeans Kept

History Introduction Human History The First People of the Pines the Lenape sought and domesticated beasts that uman beings inhabited the area today Europeans kept. It is possible that the regular set- Hknown as the New Jersey Pine Barrens at ting of fires over hundreds of years created a forest least as early as 12,000 years ago. Paleo-Indians that was significantly more open and “park-like” (10,000-8000 BC), wandering in small groups, are than it would have been without human interven- believed to have used the area for tion, but the impacts of Native hunting, fishing and collecting American burning in the Pine food while they camped by its Barrens are not well understood. streams and vernal ponds. The When Europeans first arrived animals hunted by the Paleo- in the area by the late 1600s, the Indians during this period of Lenape were friendly and wel- sub-arctic conditions were coming, sharing information browsers and included mastodon, about where to find the wild moose-elk, caribou and reindeer. foods that grew in the forest and Archeological studies done near how to locate the most favorable Batsto during the 1960s indicate hunting grounds. Though there that this was a temporary though were numerous incidents of vio- repeatedly visited site during the lence between the early settlers Archaic and Woodland periods and the Native Americans of (5000 BC to 1200 AD). northern New Jersey, violent By 1200 AD Native conflict was much rarer in the Americans called the Lenni southern parts of the state. In Lenape settled in the Pine southern New Jersey peaceful Barrens. The Lenape, also called Native American Arrowhead interaction and trade was a com- the Delaware, were an Algonkin- mon practice between the two speaking people who lived in the Delaware Valley groups. and across New Jersey to the Atlantic. In New Nevertheless, killings and massacres did some- Jersey, the Lenape were divided into three major times take place during the 17th and the 18th tribes or bands, each of which consisted of numer- Centuries in this region. European accounts attrib- ous small settlements, both permanent and tempo- uted killings of settlers to the Native Americans’ rary. The Lenape were hunter-gatherers but appear propensity to avenge any wrong or slight, real or to have relied principally for nutrition on the culti- perceived. There is no good record of the Lenape’s vation of a number of wild plants including maize, perspective. The historian Peter Wacker, however, beans, squash, pumpkins and tobacco at permanent has noted that settlers of different nationalities villages. Native Americans living at the shore appear to have had very different relations with the caught quantities of shellfish, as attested by large Native Americans, suggesting that friction and vio- shell middens found at places like Tuckerton. lence was aggravated by the attitudes and practices It is known from early European reports that the of some settlers towards the Native peoples. Lenape, like other aboriginal peoples in North Wacker observes, for example, that Dutch settlers America, used fire to drive game and to alter the appear to have been particularly cruel and to have landscape to their advantage. European settlers had more troubled relations with the Native often remarked on the Lenape’s use of fire. Like Americans than did Swedes or the later Quaker and European settlers who later followed their example, Scotts settlers. it appears that one purpose of setting woodland fires From the first European settlements of the 1620s was to open the forest canopy and burn away brush to the effective elimination of Native peoples from and duff on the forest floor in order to encourage southern New Jersey by 1800, the Lenape acted as the growth of grasses and other herbaceous plants – middlemen between the settlers and Minquas and plants that make good forage for both wild game Susquehanas to the west, trading beaver pelts to the H-2 | The Pine Barrens: Up Close & Natural | Inquiry Based Curriculum settlers in exchange for manufactured goods, of dissenters. A series of wars between England weapons and alcohol. and Holland in the mid-1600’s led England’s King European settlers, however, also brought diseases, Charles II to conquer New Netherland in 1664, such as smallpox, tuberculosis and malaria against both to take over the lucrative beaver fur trade and which the Lenape had no immunity. The Lenape to provide the king with land and business opportu- succumbed to these diseases in such large numbers nities which he could give to family, friends and that by the middle of the 18th century their popula- creditors. Indeed, by 1673, the English had gained tion was greatly reduced. In 1670, one Daniel control of the entire Atlantic Seaboard from Florida Denton wrote, apparently without irony, that “It to Acadia. hath been generally observed that where the The kings of England in the 17th Century English come to settle, a Divine Hand makes way encouraged the English settlement of America by for them, by removing or cutting off the Indians, granting ownership of land and the power to govern either by Wars one with the other, or by some rag- to individuals to whom the English crown owed ing mortal disease.” (Quoted in P. Wacker 1975 p. debts or favors. In 1664, Charles II granted the 87.) land we now call New Jersey to his brother, who Having lost much of their land and living in poor immediately transferred it to two of his friends, conditions, the Lenape petitioned the New Jersey Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. Berkeley Legislature at the Easton Conference of 1758 to and Carteret became the Proprietors and named the provide them a tract of land for their exclusive use. colony New Jersey in honor of the fact that Carteret That same year 3,044 acres were purchased as a had been a governor of the Island of Jersey in the homestead for all Lenape living south of the English Channel. Neither Berkeley nor Cartaret Raritan River. The Lenape land, located in what is came to New Jersey, but they sent Cartaret’s nephew now known as Shamong Township, Burlington to be governor and set up the first English settle- County, became known as Brotherton, the first and ment at Elizabethtown. More English settlers came only Indian reservation in New Jersey. The reserva- south from New England, bringing their strict tion was not successful, and its residents repeatedly Puritan principles with them. petitioned the Legislature to allow them to lease or In 1681, Charles II granted Pennsylvania to sell the land to whites. In 1801, the Legislature William Penn, an early Quaker, in payment of a finally agreed to the sale and dissolution of the massive debt the crown had owed Penn’s father. reservation. The king made William Penn the Proprietor of Pennsylvania, which the king named in honor of European Settlement in William Penn’s father. In 1682, William Penn came Southern New Jersey to Pennsylvania as governor of the new colony, and The first European settlers in what is now New an assembly of “freemen” adopted the Frame of Jersey were Dutch, who founded New Netherland Government of Pennsylvania. In the Frame of under the control of the Dutch West India Government, Penn granted to “all the freemen, Company, with its center of government at New planters and adventurers, in and to [Pennsylvania] Amsterdam (now New York City.) The Dutch cre- these liberties, franchises, and properties, to be held, ated settlements on the Hudson and Delaware enjoyed and kept by the freemen, planters, and Rivers in the early 1600’s at what are now Hoboken, inhabitants of [Pennsylvania] for ever.” Jersey City and Gloucester City. The Dutch settle- After financial problems and quarrels arose, New ments on the Delaware were primarily trading Jersey was broken up into West New Jersey and colonies established to acquire beaver pelts for sale East New Jersey in 1676, the division being a to the European market. Swedes began settlements straight line running from Little Egg Harbor to the along both sides of the Delaware River in 1638. By Delaware Water Gap.West Jersey was sold to a 1700, their descendents had established themselves group of Quaker investors led by William Penn. along the Atlantic coastline as well, but Sweden Thus, both West New Jersey and Pennsylvania never exercised extensive control in the region. came under the control of Penn and his Quaker- England eventually wrested control of all of New influenced principles of government. In contrast to Netherland from the Dutch. New Netherland was the Puritan-dominated East New Jersey, West New relatively weak because Dutch colonization slowed Jersey came to be governed by a mild and, for its due to a reputation for poor government and Indian time, very democratic government. The West New wars, and the existence of better conditions at home Jersey government was based on Quaker ideas of in Europe. In contrast, English colonization equality and the Quakers’ experience of religious boomed, due to very poor economic conditions in persecution in England. The charter for govern- England for many people and religious persecution ment in West New Jersey was the “Concessions and Agreements of the Proprietors, Freeholders and Human History | H-3 Inhabitants of the Province of West New Jersey in One of the most interesting aspects of the rela- America” adopted by the Proprietors in 1676. The tionship between Native peoples and settlers was “Concessions and Agreements” instituted: the means by which settlers obtained ownership of • Freedom of religion: “That no men or number land under colonial laws of southern New Jersey. of Men upon Earth hath power or Authority Both the early Dutch West India Company and the to rule over men’s consciences in religious later Quaker Proprietors instituted formal policies matters …,” requiring settlers to purchase, rather than simply • Creation of a General Assembly of elected appropriate, land from Native peoples of the area.

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