A delegation of the Delaware Tribe in Washington, D.C., sometime between 1860 and 1865. Photo from Kansas Historical Society
The Delaware Tribe and the Delaware Nation have long been allies of the United States and their ancestors even fought on behalf of the Union in the Civil War. But they still suffered at the hands of the federal government, author Thomas J. Ryan explains:
Capt. Fall Leaf, a Delaware, had served as a scout for the U.S. army prior to and during the Civil War. The government demonstrated its confidence in this man by assigning him to accompany the Prince of Wales while he was touring this country in 1860. The prince would later become King Edward VII of England. Fall Leaf served under Union Maj. Gen. John C. Fremont once the Civil War erupted. He raised a company Delaware soldiers and proceeded on a mission into Missouri. Upon his return, Fremont promised to reward him with 160 acres of land. As Richard C. Adams relates in “A Brief History of the Delaware Indians,” in 1862, Fall Leaf and his men engaged in combat against the Choctaw tribe. Despite their service, in which they provided their own horses, none of the men received payment. By war’s end, the Delaware soldiers petitioned the government to send them to their Kansas reservation to be discharged, rather than in isolated locations in the field, because they “were afraid of our homes, and want … to protect our own women and children, and our own property” from hostile tribes. Adams sums up the sad tale of the “original people” who had once inhabited the banks of the Delaware River with their ultimate fate. In a post-Civil War treaty, the Delaware Nation was removed from Kansas to the Indian Territory. There was no happy ending to this story. In a reprisal of the 1830s Cherokee “Trail of Tears,” the Delawares were herded from their land in mid-winter, with many dying along the way. It is noteworthy, however, that their resiliency as a tribe was reflected in the superiority of their farms and homes once they settled in this new territory that became known as Oklahoma after the turn of the century.Get the Story:
Thomas J. Ryan: Delaware tribe’s unrequited loyalty to the Union (The Coastal Point 6/10)
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