Sassoonan (Allumapees): The Last Lenni Lenape King
Posted: Saturday, October 01, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
Sassoonan, also known as Allumapees, was the last “king” of the Lenni Lenape/Delaware, an east coast American Indian tribe. The personal decline and deterioration of Sassoonan mirrors the fate of his tribe. His story is a microcosm of the fortune and history of most of the indigenous people who stood in the path of expansion by the “more advanced” cultures in the colonial era.
In colonial times, however, the Iroquois Confederation was the true center of Native American power and, by 1676; the Lenape had been conquered and subjugated by them. When William Penn and Tamanend negotiated The Great Treaty in 1683, the famous chief, technically, did not have the authority to sell land. The Pennsylvania government eventually realized that, and, after 1700, began to deal directly with Iroquois representatives.
Tamanend died sometime around the turn of the 18thcentury and was succeeded as head chief by Scollitchy. Sassoonan appears to have become leader of the Lenape in about 1709. When the Pennsylvania Provincial Indian Affairs chief, James Logan, began to make efforts to legitimize land purchases made by William Penn (most of the ‘deals’ had been verbal), he held council with Sassoonan. Both Logan and Sassoonan realized that nothing could be accomplished without Iroquois approval.
In 1712, after a council in Philadelphia, Sassoonan and a group of lesser Lenape chiefs went to Onondago, the Iroquois capital, with gifts from the Pennsylvania Assembly and the Governor. The objective of the mission was to forge an alliance with the powerful Confederation that controlled what would become central and northern Pennsylvania. The delegation came back with return gifts and an agreement to “parlay.”
Over the next several years Logan was able consolidate all the land purchases made since 1682. Additional “pay-offs” were frequently required, but deeds were secured. At these councils, in 1715 and 1718, Sassoonan was recorded in governmental documents as the King of the Lenape, though the tribe did not actually have a king, or even a single head chief. All the purchases were approved by Iroquois overseers. Sassoonan and many of his tribesmen moved off the relinquished land and settled at Shamokin Village (present day Sunbury, PA). He had little additional dealings with the provincial government for almost a decade.
As more and more immigrants came to Pennsylvania, lured by the freedom of thought and worship Penn had built into the provincial constitution, settlement began to expand beyond the deeded lands. On June 4 and 5, 1728, Sassoonan again met with the Governor and his council to discuss German settlers “trespassing” in the Tulpehocken Creek Valley west of present-day Reading, PA. Logan convinced Sasoonnan to not take any hostile action against them.
Negotiations went on for several years. While efforts to reach a mutually satisfactory conclusion were still underway, Sassoonan got drunk and killed his nephew, Shakatawlin. At about the same time, another nephew, Opekasset, died. Both were important Lenape chiefs. Inter-tribal squabbling nearly ended the negotiations. Over his personal behavior and the resulting fragmentation of his tribe, Sassoonan went into a deep depression, refusing to eat. Proprietor Thomas Penn and James Logan had always had good relations with the “king,” and considered him a friend. They invited him to spend some time in Philadelphia in August of 173, so they could console and encourage him.
Finally, in 1736, a settlement of the “Tulpehocken problem” was reached. Sassoonan, ten other Lenape chiefs, Iroquois representative, Shikellamy, and renowned emissary and interpreter, Conrad Weiser, accompanied him to the council at Philadelphia. Thomas Penn finally relented and agreed to pay an exorbitant price for additional land in the upper Schuylkill Valley. Logan insisted that a dispute with minor Lenape chief, Nutimus, over the Forks of the Delaware area also be settled. Consequently, all the land drained by the Delaware River south of the Blue Mountain was included in the land sale, and the details of the Walking Purchase were worked out.
After this council, Sassoonan and most of his tribe migrated out of their ancestral homeland, and, by 1740, were settled west of the mountains. He attended another council at Lancaster in August of that year and told his friend, Thomas Penn, that he had come from “Allegheny, a long way off.” Sassoonan attended one more treaty signing, when the Walking Purchase dispute was settled, in July 1742, but then disappeared for several years.
James Logan received a letter from Conrad Weiser dated July 20, 1747. He had visited Sassoonan in the Ohio Valley. Weiser wrote: “Allumapees (Sassoonan), would have resigned his crown before now, but as he had the keeping of the public treasure (that is to say, the council bag), consisting of bolts of wampum, for which he buys liquor, and has been drunk for this two or three years almost constantly, and it is thought he won’t die so long as there is one single wampum left in the bag.” About a year later, Logan received another letter from Weiser in which he announced the sad news, “Allumapees is dead.”
Sassoonan is the last recognized Lenape King. His tribe was subordinate to the Iroquois before he came to power and he accepted his subservient role. During his nearly forty years of rule, he saw the total loss of his tribe’s original homeland and their relocation to Ohio. He fell victim to the white man’s curses of wealth and whisky. Sassoonan stands as a prime example of the tragic results that so often occur when a stone age culture attempts to live side by side with a culture of iron and brick, regardless of how benevolent the intentions of both parties may be.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)I always feel so sad when I read about American Indians falling victim in this way. Thanks for sharing this, Jack, it was really interesting, although tragic, to read.Thanks. Inevitable.
The Lenape spoke Old Norse when they walked away from Greenland in 1346 at the start of a 4,000 mile, 150 year migration to the Dakotas and back to the Atlantic Coast. [Google "Lenape Epic"] "Sassoonan" probably meant, "the youngest son." "Allumapees" morphed from "Aarum Tids," which meant "Yearly Time." "Yearly Time" was the title of the tribe's historian.
The historian created the pictograph and composed a stanza for each year's major events.
Sassoonan's contribution may be in the 6th chapter of the Maalan Aarum. ("Engraved years," a.k.a. Walam Olum.)Gee. I'll have to look it up. I am writing a history of Richland Friends Meeting in Quakertown, PA, not the Lenape, though. Thanks for reading and commenting
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