Lenape time of sustained European contact in the 1600s and 1700s the Lenape were a powerful Native American nation who inhabited a region on the mid-Atlantic coast spanning the latitudes of southern Massachusetts to the southern extent of Delaware in what anthropologists call the Northeastern Woodlands. Although never politically unified, the confederation of the Delaware roughly encompassed the area around and between the Delaware and lower Hudson rivers, and included the western part of Long Island in present-day New York. Some of their place names, such as Manhattan ("the island of many hills"), Raritan, and Tappan were adopted by Dutch and
Lenape clan system and historically were matrilocal. During the decades of the 18th century, most Lenape were pushed out of their homeland by expanding European colonies. Their dire situation was exacerbated by losses from intertribal conflicts. The divisions and troubles of the American Revolutionary War and United States' independence pushed them farther west. In the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma and surrounding territory) under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in Oklahoma, with some communities living also in Wisconsin and