Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-2015

Abstract

A review of documents mentioning Native carriers of mail, within and among the American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, strongly indicates that members of the Lenape tribe, of all those resident in the lower Delaware valley, were considered to be the most reliable and trusted. At later dates the Lenape were recognized as dependable in their skills as guides and explorers, a characteristic noted into the twentieth century. The efforts of Native letter carriers, who did their tasks on foot, also provide us with a broad perspective on the realities of indigenous life and how these peoples integrated European activities into their own separate systems for making a living. Popular images of the European impact on the many different native cultures generally describe them as if they were a single entity; all as passive victims of imperialistic invaders. Recent scholarship demonstrates this to be a deeply flawed view. Through detailed studies of the 300 years of interaction between each individual and distinct Native culture, and a surprisingly diverse array of distinct immigrant peoples, the realities of each Native tribe’s responses are being delineated.1 Some modern scholars are even recognizing what I have long noted; that class differences within each colonial group (Dutch, Swedish, English) provided the basis for very different interactions with each specific tribe.

Publication Title

Postal History Journal

ISSN

1945-1504

Publisher

Vatican Philatelic Society

Issue

160

First Page

16

Last Page

27

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