Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #454991 in Books
• Published on: 1990-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 564 pages

Customer Reviews

An excellent, well-researched study of Delaware Indians
Weslager combines a flair for description with a scholarly tone to produce what is to date the most fair, accurate study of the Delaware Indians, or Lenni Lenape. Using historical, archealogical, anthropological, and ethnohistorical evidence, Weslager provides an almost complete history of this often neglected Indian tribe. This work is a must read for anyone interested in the early history of the mid-Atlantic region.

The First Book was the Best
The Delaware Indians was the first book I read on the Lenape. ("Delawares" was the name given by European colonists to the Lenape people.) After reading many other books on the Lenape, Weslager's work remains the best book on the subject I've read.

As striking as the exemplary research demonstrated in the book is its accessible style. Cleary Weslager took great pains to make the story of the relatively unknown Lenape people available to as wide an audience as possible. The book is a complete history of the Lenape, and its source material is oral traditions carried down by the Lenape, colonial records and writings, and 20th century records and personal narratives as well.

Weslager also describes Lenape customs, ceremonies and beliefs. His description of the Lenape Big House Ceremony is fascinating. Weslager's accounts of the successive betrayals, deceptions and crimes of the European colonists and their American descendants track the disastrous trail of the Lenape from their original homeland to present day Oklahoma. Readers can easily sense that Weslager's sympathies for the Lenape people border on advocacy. Unsurprisingly, Weslager ends the book by describing the Lenape's attempt to receive compensation owed to them by the USA government for over 100 years.

I highly recommend this book and others by Weslager as well.

PERFECT
I thought this book was perfect! I had a HUGE paper to write on the Lenni-Lenape/Delaware tribe and I couldn't find much information on them. I found this book, I bought it, I read it, I loved it, I wrote my paper using some information from it, and I got an A+ on my paper. I learned so much from this beautifully written book!