Indians 201: Neolin, the Delaware Prophet

The Lenni Lenape, whose language belongs to the Algonquian language family, occupied lands in what would become New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware at the beginning of the European invasion. British settlers, with their hunger for Indian lands, pushed the Lenni Lenape farther and farther to the west. By the mid-1700s, they were living along the Ohio River in Ohio.

The designation Lenni Lenape means “True Men.” The Lenni Lenape were divided into three major groups: Munsee (Wolf), Unami (Turtle), and Unalactigo (Turkey). Other Algonquian-speaking groups often referred to the Lenni Lenape with the title “Grandfather” as it was felt that their territory had been the original homeland of all Algonquians.

Non-Indians often called them Delaware after the English name of the river which flowed through their territory.

In 1762 the Lenni Lenape prophet Neolin (The Enlightened) had a vision in which he undertook a journey to meet the Master of Life. He was told:

“The land on which you are, I have made for you, not for others. Wherefore do you suffer the whites to dwell upon your lands?”

“Drive them away; wage war against them; I love them not; they know me not; they are my enemies; they are your brothers’ enemies. Send them back to the land I have made for them.”

In her biographical sketch of Neolin in Notable Native Americans, Julie Henderson Jersyk summarizes the vision this way:

“The Master of Life indicated his displeasure that the Indians allowed the white man, the English in particular, to dwell among them and that they had adopted many of his ways.”

Neolin received a prayer which was carved in symbolic language on a stick.

After returning from the vision, the prophet drew a map on a deerskin which was used in explaining his vision. This “great book” was sold to followers so that they might refresh their memories from time to time. The book showed the path of the soul from life to the afterlife.

For Indian people, Neolin preached a powerful message. Julie Henderson Jersyk writes:

“He was reportedly a powerful and emotional speaker; one observer remarked that he was constantly crying as he exhorted his listeners. His message found widespread response, and Indians of many tribes travelled long distances to hear him.”

Neolin’s vision provided the foundation for a pan-Indian movement. According to historian Douglas Edward Leach, in his chapter in the Handbook of North American Indians:

“This powerful influence was spreading through the tribes in the Mississippi valley, overcoming old animosities and creating a new sense of cultural identity among the peoples of the forest.”

Hundreds of Indians from different tribes were soon following his teachings. One of Neolin’s followers was the Ottawa chief, Pontiac.

Neolin’s followers went back to the old, traditional ways of Indian life. Historian Randolph Downes, in his book Council Fires on the Upper Ohio: A Narrative of Indian Affairs in the Upper Ohio Valley until 1795, writes of Neolin’s followers:

“They gave up the use of firearms and hunted exclusively with the bow and arrow. They lived entirely on dried meat and a bitter drink whose purgative quality was supposed to rid them of poisons absorbed by years of white contamination.”

They also dressed in animal skin clothing instead of the imported European cloth.

Neolin’s teaching opposed alcohol, materialism, and polygyny. He emphasized that if the Indians gave up the evil ways brought to them by the Europeans that the Master of Life would bless them with plentiful game.

According to ethnologist James Mooney, in his 1896 book The Ghost Dance:

“The religious ferment produced by the exhortations of the Delaware prophet spread rapidly from tribe to tribe, until, under the guidance of the master mind of the celebrated chief, Pontiac, it took shape in a grand confederacy of all the northwestern tribes to oppose the further progress of the English.”

While Neolin’s message was anti-European, under Pontiac it became anti-British.

Historian Richard White, in his book The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, writes:

“Neolin might denounce white practices, but what he really preached was Indian guilt. Indians were guilty because they had accepted from the whites things that were unsuitable for an Indian way.”

Many of Neolin’s followers felt that he was the reincarnation of Winabojo, the great teacher of the mythic past.

In 1763, Neolin urged the Three Fires Confederacy in Michigan—Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi—to expel the British and to join in Pontiac’s uprising. Pontiac told the people:

“It is important for us, my brothers, that we exterminate from our land this nation which only seeks to kills us.”

Pontiac’s rebellion was defeated in part because of a smallpox epidemic among the allied tribes. Sir Jeffrey Amherst, Commander of the British forces:

“You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race.”

Following the collapse of Pontiac’s Rebellion in 1765, Neolin’s influence as a pan-Indian spiritual leader waned. Neolin’s teachings, however, influenced the later reorganization of the Lenni Lenape. Julie Henderson Jersyk reports:

“The spiritual foundation laid down by the Delaware Prophet became the basis of a national religion, which, in its turn, served as the spiritual underpinning of a national political unit with a principal chief and a national council for centralized decision-making.”

Written history has recorded neither when Neolin was born nor when he died. In the historic record—the one maintained by non-Indians—he appears only as a brief note relating to Pontiac. In some sources Neolin is simply called the Delaware Prophet. His teachings, however, influenced later spiritual leaders including the Shawnee Prophet Tenskwatawa and the Seneca prophet Handsome Lake.