Describes the history of the Delaware Indians, their social life, religion, encounter with Europeans, and the Native Americans today.

Here is a story of the Lenape Indians who lived in what is now New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. It describes their culture, crafts, and language as no other book has done. Hunters, fishers, artisans of flint and skins and basketry, tellers of traditional tales, dwellers in a region of hills and barrens, of rivers and forests, they had developed a way of life adjusted to the world around them. In presenting the lore and heritage of the Lenapes, Dr. M.R. Harrington does so through the eyes of a shipwrecked English boy who became a captive of the Indians, and was eventually adopted into the tribe. The narrative is lively reading, and the facts on which it is based are accurate. With the accompanying Clarence Ellsworth line drawings, the reader can understand and even reproduce many of the objects the author describes: the Lenape bows and arrows, muccasins and mats, baskets and bowls. This new edition is a reissue of an often asked for an unavailable New Jersey classic, first published in 1938.

David Cohen lived among the Ramapo Mountain People for a year, conducting genealogical research into church records, deeds, wills, and inventories in county courthouses and libraries. He established that their ancestors included free black landowners in New York City and mulattoes with some Dutch ancestry who were among the first pioneers to settle in the Hackensack River Valley of New Jersey.

In 1631, when the Dutch tried to develop plantation agriculture in the Delaware Valley, the Lenape Indians destroyed the colony of Swanendael and killed its residents. The Natives and Dutch quickly negotiated peace, avoiding an extended war through diplomacy and trade. The Lenapes preserved their political sovereignty for the next fifty years as Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, and English colonists settled the Delaware Valley. The European outposts did not approach the size and strength of those in Virginia, New England, and New Netherland. Even after thousands of Quakers arrived in West New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the late 1670s and '80s, the region successfully avoided war for another seventy-five years. Lenape Country is a sweeping narrative history of the multiethnic society of the Delaware Valley in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. After Swanendael, the Natives, Swedes, and Finns avoided war by focusing on trade and forging strategic alliances in such events as the Dutch conquest, the Mercurius affair, the Long Swede conspiracy, and English attempts to seize land. Drawing on a wide range of sources, author Jean R. Soderlund demonstrates that the hallmarks of Delaware Valley society—commitment to personal freedom, religious liberty, peaceful resolution of conflict, and opposition to hierarchical government—began in the Delaware Valley not with Quaker ideals or the leadership of William Penn but with the Lenape Indians, whose culture played a key role in shaping Delaware Valley society. The first comprehensive account of the Lenape Indians and their encounters with European settlers before Pennsylvania's founding, Lenape Country places Native culture at the center of this part of North America.

Our Readers (also known as "primers") are modeled after the popular nineteenth-century McGuffey Readers, which were used to teach life lessons and reading skills to young children. Using colorful illustrations and a variety of writing forms, The New Jersey Reader showcases the state's rich heritage and natural charms, as well as its place in American history. Poems, state symbols, and riddles engage beginning readers. Prose, biographies, and short stories challenge more advanced readers. Topics include early Native American culture, the state nickname, famous citizens (Molly Pitcher and John Woolman), and the Revolutionary War. A timeline listing major events in state history is also featured.Trinka Hakes Noble's many awards include ALA Notable Children's Book and Booklist Children's Editors' Choice. Trinka lives in Bernardsville, New Jersey. K. L. (Kate) Darnell has illustrated all of the books in the Reader series. In addition to her work as an illustrator, Kate is an art instructor. She lives in East Lansing, Michigan.