00:08 - Today we're speaking with Christopher Pearl,

00:11 - chair of the history department at Lycoming College.

00:14 - Now the walk in purchase takes place in 1737.

00:17 - What was colonial life like at that time?

00:21 - Colonial life in the 1730s is,

00:24 - it's.

00:24 - If you figured about the colony,

00:26 - if you think about the colony of Pennsylvania

00:27 - and you think about its population, it's relatively small.

00:31 - It's clinging to,

00:34 - really the, the eastern seaboard.

00:36 - But there are there are things that are changing.

00:39 - There's an immigration, particularly from,

00:42 - the Irish, the, the Irish plantations,

00:45 - from the German provinces.

00:48 - And it's increasing the population in a short span of time.

00:52 - Pretty rapidly.

00:53 - And it's challenging

00:56 - the basic boundaries of what the Penn's,

01:01 - right.

01:03 - And you have to think, well, why would you know, incoming

01:07 - migrants or even naturally born in the colonies?

01:10 - Why would that change the situation?

01:13 - Well, my typical farm family, you just think of a middling

01:18 - or lower income farm family.

01:21 - They need about 150 acres of farmland to.

01:24 - That's just to meet what we would call competency, right?

01:28 - That's not making a whole bunch of money, right?

01:31 - That's just survival and living sort of decently.

01:36 - That's a very difficult thing to achieve.

01:38 - Because for two reasons.

01:40 - In the 1730s,

01:43 - one is the availability of land that you can purchase legally.

01:48 - And two, the reason that you can't really purchase that legally has

01:53 - a little bit to do with the boundaries

01:57 - of what has been purchased by,

02:00 - the peasant family from local native

02:02 - peoples, like the will not be done, but it also has to do with the fact

02:07 - that Pennsylvania's land system

02:10 - benefits those with the ability to buy.

02:16 - A host of acres together

02:17 - so it benefits speculators.

02:21 - So you have particular people that are involved in the land office

02:25 - or in, the,

02:29 - the Penn with the Penn family in particular

02:32 - by kinship, connections, friendships, etc..

02:35 - They own just thousands and thousands of acres of land,

02:39 - and they're selling it at a rate to incoming migrants

02:42 - or others looking for it, that they don't have the ability to buy,

02:47 - which is also putting pressures on Native American land.

02:50 - If you're looking at it from and beyond a colonial perspective,

02:54 - you're looking at it from a Native American perspective.

02:58 - What you see in the 1730s

03:01 - is a steady wave of encroaching settlers,

03:07 - surveyors and

03:09 - other government agents that are trying to consistently either

03:13 - purchase or remove you from the land

03:17 - in which you've lived in and or millennia.

03:20 - Right. And so it becomes

03:23 - a sort of tense decade in relationship

03:26 - between native peoples and,

03:30 - the American colonies in Pennsylvania in particular.

03:34 - And how did Native Americans

03:36 - view land ownership?

03:39 - Native Americans,

03:40 - they have an understanding of, obviously basic understanding of ownership.

03:45 - It's just different from the way that Europeans see it.

03:48 - So they have an understanding of individual.

03:50 - So some Native American understanding is what we would call use of profit,

03:55 - like use rights, but they also understand territorial sovereignty,

04:00 - that, that, that they own it as a particular clan,

04:04 - might own a section of land or a nation might ownership,

04:09 - a section of land or even a kinship network owns a section of land.

04:14 - And that land has

04:16 - particular uses to it that you could essentially sell

04:21 - a portion of land for the use of it to, let's say, farm or let's say hunt.

04:26 - But that doesn't mean

04:27 - that you have a quitclaim or a fee simple right to the land that it has been sold.

04:32 - Does that make sense that you're selling the use of of something.

04:35 - And so if you can explain sort of ownership in another way,

04:40 - for many, not all native peoples believe this right away.

04:43 - I mean, there's a great variety in terms of the ways that different

04:46 - Native Americans understand ownership or conceptualize ownership.

04:51 - For Lenape, by and large,

04:54 - it is very much use oriented.

04:57 - So if you own

05:00 - a particular thing, whether that's a material object

05:03 - or a piece of land because of its use, and when it's no longer useful, right,

05:08 - that ownership can pass to someone else, if that makes sense.

05:14 - And how do the Native

05:15 - American settlements differ from colonial?

05:20 - They differ quite a bit.

05:23 - So a lot of people want to like that.

05:26 - I see that when I talk to you.

05:27 - They want to locate particular like Native American towns.

05:31 - Right.

05:32 - And the reason I put air quotes around towns is because whenever you say

05:35 - that word town or village, people assume and they think of Europeans

05:40 - type towns or villages in which they're permanent.

05:45 - And when you think about a, Native American, town or village,

05:50 - you want to think of a larger territorial space

05:52 - in which there can be movement within that territorial space

05:56 - that they have ownership over and sovereignty over.

06:00 - Typically for the Lenape,

06:02 - a you're talking about,

06:05 - nuclear homes.

06:08 - That might be a bit extended to include maybe

06:11 - grandfathers or someone else, but this is a nuclear home.

06:17 - So that's different from like

06:18 - the a Shoni or an Iroquoian speaking peoples that are in long houses.

06:22 - And they can sometimes be,

06:25 - can like densely settled, but most times it's,

06:30 - more of a sort of dispersed settlement over a larger,

06:34 - space of land.

06:37 - And those.

06:40 - Settlements are often seasonal.

06:43 - So October you're, you would have a different

06:46 - seasonal settlement about a day's walk away, for hunting.

06:51 - And if you get to June in July,

06:54 - you're getting into sort of spring planting and harvest.

06:57 - So then there's a movement back.

06:59 - You might also have a fowling season or a fishing season.

07:02 - So there's this season of movement patterns.

07:04 - Typically if you're thinking about the settlement, it's like, why of,

07:09 - native people settle in this places that they settle.

07:12 - It's not all that different from Europeans.

07:14 - It's, water access, drainage.

07:18 - Right.

07:19 - And climate, I mean, those are three key resources.

07:23 - So there's a lot of

07:25 - it's a there's a lot of settlement along river systems in forks.

07:29 - That's to move from both movement and trade and travel etc..

07:34 - But it's also, significant for,

07:37 - ceremonial

07:38 - practices like, let's say a sweat lodge, for example,

07:42 - or it's really important for agriculture, etc..

07:49 - And this land purchase was with the Lenape.

07:52 - What were the major players on the Native American side?

07:56 - Yeah.

07:56 - So the so the major players

07:58 - and you have to realize something when we talk about like the Lenape.

08:02 - So what is a loose confederation of different

08:05 - peoples, clan groups.

08:08 - And so the individual clan

08:11 - groups have their own factions or chiefs

08:14 - that are really

08:16 - beholden to that particular group.

08:19 - They're not like the Europeans constantly want to call them kings,

08:23 - like they have this overwhelming authority and they really don't.

08:27 - So it's a very decentralized system of governance.

08:30 - And so if there is a land deal, as in this case,

08:34 - there's no one person that you can go to.

08:37 - There is many people, for different clan and kin groups

08:42 - that ultimately have to have to bring that information

08:45 - back to a whole host of other people, to negotiate.

08:48 - So for our purposes,

08:49 - if we're thinking about the walking purchase, you're it's not a mess.

08:53 - Is, a very important player in the walking process because he,

08:58 - lives and, has authority over a good chunk of the land

09:02 - that's part of the walking purchase.

09:05 - Man, a hawkin is another really important,

09:12 - Player in the walking purchase,

09:14 - because he also is, is in this area of the forks of the Ohio.

09:17 - You have to how can he was also a pretty important player

09:21 - in terms of, the north part of the Lehigh Valley.

09:26 - And so you if you're going to make a deal, you have to actually bring this

09:30 - to a host of, of native leaders.

09:35 - And have any of these leaders met

09:37 - with the colonials at the time?

09:41 - Yeah.

09:41 - I mean, they've had, several interactions,

09:45 - of since at least 1682 with,

09:50 - with colonial leaders in Pennsylvania's case.

09:52 - But if we move, take Pennsylvania out of that picture that goes back even farther.

09:57 - Right.

09:58 - With Dutch settlements and Swedish settlements, and etc..

10:02 - So for this particular case, not a miss has had a lot of interaction with,

10:08 - colonial leaders.

10:10 - Just if he was there

10:13 - during some of the original agreements with William Penn,

10:16 - he was there in the 1700 agreement which gets brought back up.

10:20 - Through to the walking purchase that becomes kind of a contested moment.

10:25 - So he has a very good understanding,

10:29 - and memory really, of all of those past agreements

10:32 - that makes some of the claims that colonial leaders are using

10:36 - during this walking purchase.

10:39 - Suspicious. Right.

10:40 - And there's a reason that that Natomas continues to resist.

10:44 - And one of the things I would point out to is when we're thinking about, like,

10:48 - so this is walking purchase and have they had interaction with Europeans

10:52 - is that if we're thinking

10:53 - about the walking process itself, it's a series of agreements.

10:57 - So there's there's a moment in 1737 that we often point to,

11:01 - but there was a similar negotiation in 35, a similar negotiation

11:06 - 30 or so, 37 is a continuation of a much longer, sort of dialog

11:12 - and debate over this territory, this area that the depends so desperately want.

11:19 - And who

11:19 - are the Pennsylvanians pushing for this purchase?

11:23 - Well, there's a lot of them pushing for this purchase.

11:26 - Many of them are speculators, but there's also settlers.

11:30 - And there's also the Penn family in particular.

11:33 - So start with the Penn family.

11:37 - William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, dies in 1718.

11:41 - And then there's a dispute over,

11:45 - who's going to inherit Pennsylvania.

11:48 - Is it going to be from his second wife or from the first wife?

11:53 - And ultimately comes down to, John Thomas and Richard Penn,

11:59 - as the inheritors of Pennsylvania

12:02 - after a little, legal dispute.

12:06 - So John Thomas and Richard

12:07 - not only inherit Pennsylvania, but they inherit

12:10 - their father's debt.

12:13 - And they are in considerable debt, and they are land poor.

12:18 - This is also providing,

12:20 - a little bit of push for the parents to purchase this land by hook or by crook,

12:26 - because they need to they need to fill their coffers

12:29 - because it looks like they might actually lose the colony.

12:31 - John Penn just, in 35, 17, 35,

12:37 - gets an offer for 60,000 pounds to purchase Pennsylvania.

12:41 - And he's actually thinking about it.

12:42 - It probably would have went down if Thomas Penn, the sort of middle child,

12:47 - wouldn't have resisted or at least delayed the process.

12:51 - So Pennsylvania could have been sold.

12:54 - So they're

12:55 - looking really, at this territory to purchase,

12:59 - and one of the reasons that they see value in that land.

13:02 - So the land in the Lehigh Valley and the forks in the Delaware

13:06 - is that settlers had already started moving their,

13:11 - you have the Irish tract or craggs

13:13 - tract, you have hunters tract, of squatters.

13:17 - Essentially, they were taking advantage of a few years of chaos.

13:20 - The land office after William Penn dies.

13:23 - So you have the Penns that really want this.

13:26 - You have James Logan that really wants this.

13:29 - He has speculative ventures in,

13:33 - the forks, of, of the of the Delaware.

13:36 - You he has, the Durham tract, which is above

13:40 - what's called the he can Creek, which is on anonymous land.

13:43 - He has an arrangement with not to use this, but he doesn't have

13:47 - simple access to it.

13:49 - Then you have another guy, William Allen.

13:52 - Right?

13:53 - William Allen is a major player, in Pennsylvania politics and proprietary

13:57 - politics.

13:59 - And he is purchased already from the Penn's 20,000 acres

14:03 - in this vicinity, and they haven't even bought it yet.

14:08 - The Penn's are selling

14:10 - land above to he Can Creek in the Lehigh Valley

14:15 - before there's even negotiations for those purchases.

14:18 - Because, like I said, they are land for and they are in debt.

14:22 - So those are some key people that really see the value

14:27 - in purchasing this land and getting the Lenape to purchase this

14:31 - land, and they're going to use any means at their disposal to do this.

14:35 - Can you break down the final agreement between both parties?

14:39 - The 1737 agreement is.

14:45 - An interesting moment because it's hard to say what they both gain,

14:49 - because they walk away with different perspectives of what just happened.

14:55 - So. This all starts

15:00 - really at about 1734

15:03 - when the Penns have arrived.

15:05 - So Thomas Penn has arrived in Pennsylvania.

15:09 - It his son there, his son, his brother

15:11 - John also arrives because he's trying to shirk his creditors.

15:15 - He thinks he's going to go to debtors prison.

15:18 - And so he leaves and goes to Pennsylvania,

15:21 - and they're trying to negotiate a land deal with the Lenape,

15:24 - particularly above,

15:27 - so he can Creek and above what was purchased in 1682.

15:31 - So they have meetings.

15:35 - The first one is in Durham, on, James Logan's land, and.

15:40 - Well, it's not really James Logan's land. It's none of.

15:42 - It's just land.

15:44 - That doesn't go well because they tried to articulate

15:48 - that their father, William Penn,

15:51 - had purchased from the Lenape a land

15:55 - that was to be sighted by a day and a half walk in 1686,

16:01 - according to, a deed that they have

16:04 - that is, has not been executed, actually has blank spots in it.

16:09 - But they believe that they had paid for.

16:11 - Well, they argue that they had already paid the Lenape before,

16:14 - but they had not walked yet.

16:16 - So this is the argument that they're making.

16:19 - Whether that actually occurred or not,

16:22 - it's hard to tell because of the historical record.

16:25 - But it looks like it never did that.

16:27 - This was made up.

16:29 - Or at least there was a negotiation for it.

16:32 - And that negotiation never actually

16:35 - worked in the colony's favor or Indepen favor.

16:39 - So to achieve what they want, because in 1734 at Durham,

16:44 - it doesn't work that the lobby absolutely refused to sell the forks.

16:49 - The Delaware.

16:50 - Then in 35 they go to Pennsboro Manor.

16:53 - I'm William were William Penn's all the state

16:57 - again they tried to harass anonymous to sell land.

17:01 - He refuses and the other leaders refused.

17:05 - Manor Hockett is upset,

17:07 - at that meeting as well.

17:10 - He's actually threatening to go to war over it and not a mess, is it?

17:14 - Feels, utterly harassed by 1735.

17:18 - And there is just no agreement

17:21 - in the interim, between 1735 and 37,

17:24 - when the deal is broken down.

17:27 - Penn.

17:28 - Thomas Penn just started selling the land.

17:30 - Surveyors are going out and marketing it.

17:33 - William Allen has already bought 20,000 acres in which he has a right,

17:36 - according to and according to the patents, to start surveying the land

17:41 - or the warrant to actually survey the land and locate it.

17:44 - They haven't even purchased it yet.

17:45 - In 36, before the 37, agreement

17:50 - that the Penn's orchestrate a lottery in Pennsylvania

17:53 - in which they believe that they're going to make $15,000

17:55 - or 15,000 pounds by selling tracts of land,

18:00 - 500 acre tracts in, the in the forks, the forks of the Delaware.

18:05 - This is really problematic, obviously.

18:08 - And they realized that they're not going to make any real money on this

18:12 - unless they have they can give people free and clear title of this land.

18:16 - So what do they do?

18:18 - In 1737, they start negotiating again, and they use a bit of trickery.

18:23 - The first thing that they do is they explain that to not and others

18:28 - who are questioning, like,

18:29 - what are the boundaries of this purchase that you're requesting?

18:33 - Like, what are the limits of this?

18:35 - Because they are experiencing those settlers, they're experiencing

18:39 - those surveyors and etc..

18:41 - So what James Logan and

18:44 - other officials do, particularly Andrew Hamilton, who devises this map,

18:49 - they have a sort of rough drawn map in which

18:54 - it looks as if the walk is going to take place

18:58 - from the the Delaware River up,

19:03 - sort of like the necessary creek

19:05 - to what is called tihe Kin Creek,

19:08 - because the map takes Jimmy Creek and makes it huge,

19:12 - and it would reach almost up to weaken.

19:16 - If that makes sense.

19:17 - But they label that creek that tohe creek, they label it

19:21 - the West branch of the Delaware, which is essentially the Lehigh,

19:24 - the Lehigh River

19:27 - we had river is nowhere near the creek.

19:30 - So they have they have manipulated the map to make it

19:34 - look to the native, to their Native American

19:38 - or Lenape leaders and negotiators, as if all they want is to go from the old

19:45 - spruce tree and the Delaware River up to to He Can Creek,

19:48 - which they are totally willing to negotiate and sell.

19:53 - What they don't realize is they've just signed away a day and a half

19:57 - walk all the way up to the Lehigh River,

20:00 - which takes in the forks, of the Delaware

20:04 - and all of the land or fatigue and creek.

20:09 - So they walk away thinking that they have basically agreed

20:12 - to something that was already kind of established back in like 1700.

20:16 - And none of us was there to at that agreement.

20:20 - And they walk away with the promises

20:22 - of compensation, and gifts.

20:25 - They also walk away with another crucial promise.

20:29 - Thomas Penn agrees that they shall have the use access

20:34 - to the land that they've just sold,

20:37 - so they can continue to use

20:39 - and hunt and live on this land.

20:43 - And that is a verbal agreement that is made in 37.

20:47 - However, in the deed.

20:49 - So now I'm going to talk about the Pennsylvanians

20:51 - get out of it, but the Pennsylvanians get out of it.

20:54 - Is that and the Penns in particular.

20:55 - And Logan is that this is going to be much more north

20:59 - and east than to he can Creek.

21:03 - It's going to encompass over

21:06 - a territory larger than Rhode Island.

21:11 - They're also going to get a quitclaim

21:14 - to the entire area, because in the deed that they mark,

21:18 - which is different from the verbal agreement,

21:21 - those Native Americans no longer get use rights.

21:25 - They have.

21:25 - They have to claim the property, that area and leave

21:30 - and they are barred.

21:31 - It says literally in the language are debarred from ever living there again.

21:36 - So they have signed something

21:39 - that was fundamentally different to what they were told in the verbal agreement

21:44 - and agreed to.

21:47 - So these are where we get this sort of dispute

21:50 - over the walking versus

21:53 - a unique factor in this purchase

21:55 - is the actual walking process to measure land ownership.

21:59 - Is that, common practice with Native Americans?

22:03 - Yeah, it's a common practice, for Native Americans.

22:06 - I mean, think of it this way.

22:08 - Even when they go on for hunting season, they typically measure

22:12 - where they're going in the days or time that it takes to get there.

22:18 - They that walk, usually when it's a standard

22:21 - unit of measurement, is, is supposed to be at a leisurely pace.

22:27 - And this is how

22:28 - they would negotiate a land sale along with the like.

22:32 - I should say this too, although they say walk right at a leisurely pace,

22:37 - they are also making clear distinctions

22:40 - of the natural geography or topography.

22:44 - So it's not just like walk wherever you want.

22:46 - They're also pointing out, like on maps, the topography of an area.

22:52 - So you can walk to here, and that takes a day or a day and a half.

22:56 - From a Native Americans perspective, what occurred on

22:58 - September 19th, the day of the walk,

23:02 - they call it the hurry walk.

23:05 - And the reason they call it the hurry walk is that the the,

23:09 - James Logan contact the local sheriff of Bucks of Bucks County

23:13 - and he has them hire the three fastest runners in the province.

23:18 - They're

23:18 - going to cover that day and a half walk.

23:22 - And the and the, the fastest, the one that goes

23:24 - the farthest will be the one that decides how far that is.

23:28 - I think he goes 60 miles.

23:31 - In that day and a half.

23:36 - The walk

23:39 - is sort of interesting because,

23:40 - and this is not often brought up about the walking purchase.

23:44 - This is that route has already been traced and it was traced back in 1735.

23:50 - They actually did a trial run in 1735 to see how far they could go.

23:55 - And once they did the trial one, then they were able to clear parts

24:00 - of those parts of that path so that this person would have a clear shot

24:04 - to the Lehigh River, which then they could take perpendicular

24:08 - over to the east, which gives them the forks of the Delaware.

24:14 - Only one

24:14 - of the runners actually makes it that entire way to at 60 miles.

24:18 - His name is Edward Marshall. Yeah.

24:21 - Edward Marshall's the one that actually finishes the run.

24:24 - So the three fastest runner, the collar, in the colony, Edward

24:28 - Edward Marshall, Solomon Jennings, James Yates.

24:32 - They had to run this pre-prepared trail, essentially.

24:37 - But only Marshall makes it.

24:38 - And that's actually a significant moment.

24:41 - And significant,

24:43 - fact for what happens later and after your extensive research

24:47 - on this event of the walk in purchase, what are your major

24:50 - takeaways?

24:54 - I think for me,

24:55 - some of the major takeaways from what happened,

24:59 - is that we start to see the sort of financial situation.

25:02 - We see the real financial situation that the pens are in,

25:07 - because of the debts, that

25:10 - their father had taken on in an experiment that he thought would be lucrative.

25:13 - But it was essentially not.

25:16 - Another takeaways.

25:17 - We see the just the power of land speculation

25:20 - in determining outcomes.

25:25 - A3I think we see the importance

25:30 - of native nations and native lands to

25:37 - the history of the colony and how the colonies established

25:40 - and really the foundations of the country.

25:44 - Right.

25:44 - Because what happens here if we just looking at a snapshot

25:47 - like, okay, here's 1737, in which, the Lenape are swindled,

25:52 - I mean, literally swindled out of, of a great deal of land,

25:55 - which was still they're still in the court's 2004,

25:59 - if we end it there and say, oh, well, the walk happens.

26:03 - There's a displacement, particularly after 1742,

26:07 - that doesn't mean that that history

26:10 - and that experience in those negotiations didn't have an impact down the road

26:14 - that significantly shaped the trajectory

26:17 - of, Pennsylvania's history.

26:20 - We've been speaking with Christopher Pearl, chair of the history department

26:23 - at Lycoming College. Thank you.

26:26 - Thank you very much for having me.