Which Native American tribes inhabited in Pennsylvania?
(WHTM) – Long before the arrival of the first European settlers, the area that is now Pennsylvania was first home to many Native American tribes beginning as early as 16,000 years ago, according to Millersville University.
Among these indigenous peoples were six main tribes: the Erie, Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee), Shawnee and Ohio Valley, Munsee Delaware (or just Munsee), Susquehannock, and the Lenape Delaware, or Unami Delaware.
Though it is impossible to create an exact map today, according to Millersville University, the Erie tribe covered parts of Erie, Crawford, and Warren counties.
The Shawnee tribe covered parts of Crawford, Mercer, Lawrence, Beaver, Washington, Greene, Fayette, Westmoreland, Allegheny, Butler, Venango, Warren, McKean, Forest, Clarion, Armstrong, Indiana, Somerset, Bedford, Fulton, Franklin, Adams, Cumberland, Perry, Juniata, Mifflin, Blair, Huntingdon, Snyder, Union, Northumberland, Montour, Columbia, Schuylkill, Luzerne, Wyoming, Bradford, Sullivan, Lycoming, Tioga, Potter, Elk, Cameron, Clinton, Clearfield, Cambria, and Centre counties.
The Susquehannock tribe covered parts of Adams, York, Lancaster, Lebanon, Dauphin, Cumberland, Perry, Juniata, Snyder, Northumberland, Schuylkill, and Columbia counties.
The Lenape tribe covered parts of Lancaster, Lebanon, Schuylkill, Chester, Delaware, Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Northampton, Berks, Lehigh, Monroe, Carbon, and Luzerne counties.
The Munsee Delaware tribe covered parts of Susquehanna, Wayne, Wyoming, Lackawanna, Pike, Monroe, Carbon, and Luzerne counties.
The Iroquois tribe covered parts of Warren, McKean, Cameron, Potter, Tioga, Lycoming, Sullivan, Wyoming, and Bradford counties.
Words Pennsylvanians say that are unique to Pennsylvania
Out of the six tribes, three of them spoke Iroquoian and the other three spoke Algonquian. The three that spoke Iroquoian were the Erie, Iroquois, and Susquehannock tribes. The three tribes that spoke Algonquian were the Shawnee, Munsee, and Lenape Delaware.
According to the National Park Service (NPS), there were around 5,000 to 7,000 Susquehannock Indians in the early 1600s. NPS also states that the Lenape Delaware and the Susquehannock tribes were the original inhabitants, and the other tribes came to Pennsylvania due to the Europeans arriving in North America.
But what happened to the these six tribes?
According to Millersville University, about 16,000 people of the the Lenape Delaware, or the Unami Delaware, still live in parts of Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, New Jersey, and Canada.
About 14,000 people of the Shawnee and Ohio Valley tribes now live in Oklahoma, and about 3,500 people of the Munsee tribe now live in parts of Ontario, Canada, and Wisconsin.
The Iroquois now mostly reside in parts of New York and Canada with numbers in the thousands.
According to the university, the Erie tribe is now considered extinct, with some descendants in other Iroquoian lineages. The Susquehannock is also considered extinct, mostly wiped out by disease and massacre.
According to the last U.S. Census, 20,798 Native Americans are living in Pennsylvania.
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