Native American Studies

This guide includes tools and resources for researching and writing about Native American peoples, including about the Lenni-Lenape people who inhabited the land on which Rowan University is situated. The guide also highlights best practices for Native American and indigenous studies research and writing (see, for example, the Research and Writing Resources, which includes information about writing by and about Indigenous Peoples).

The guide creators, Bret McCandless and Andrea Baer, acknowledge that they themselves are not indigenous. To create this resource, they drew from sources created by indigenous authors, as well as library resources that were not created by indigenous authors. The guide creators also acknowledge that archival and scholarly sources that describe Native Americans or Native American history may reflect biases and inaccuracies. The scholarly resources featured in this guide are included because they are believed to reflect cultural sensitivity to research and writing on and by indigenous peoples. Researchers and readers are nonetheless encouraged to critically evaluate all source and to contact the guide creators with any suggestions for improving the guide.

The land upon which Rowan University is situated is part of the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape, called “Lenapehoking.” The Lenape People lived in harmony with one another upon this territory for thousands of years. During the colonial era and early federal period, many were removed west and north, but some also remain among the continuing historical tribal communities of the region: the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation; the Ramapough Lenape Nation; and the Powhatan Renape Nation, the Nanticoke of Millsboro Delaware, and the Lenape of Cheswold Delaware. We acknowledge the Lenni-Lenape as the original people of this land and their continuing relationship with their territory. In our acknowledgment of the continued presence of Lenape people in their homeland, we affirm the aspiration of the great Lenape Chief Tamanend, that there be harmony between the indigenous people of this land and the descendants of the immigrants to this land, “as long as the rivers and creeks flow, and the sun, moon, and stars shine."

- Adapted from the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation

 CC-BY-NC-SA
This guide was created by Bret McCandless and Andrea Baer at Rowan University and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-SA).