Heckewelder's Delaware account of first contact with Henry Hudson

Unlike other colonialist ethnographies of the indigenous people, John Heckewelder here recounts a Delaware/Lenni Lenape story. The retelling of this story to his English-speaking audience serves two related functions: one, to offer a glimpse of Lenni Lenape worldview, and second, to show how Native Americans created historiography via the medium of storytelling. Although Heckewelder tells the story to readers, ultimately the narrative is told from the perspective of the Lenni Lenape. Heckewelder starts off by saying that he received the story from an “intelligent Delaware Indian,” and claims to preserve “as much as possible in their own language,” albeit still translated to English (103). Switching to the point of view of the Delaware storyteller, Heckewelder commences with the tale of the first encounter with Henry Hudson. The overall effect of the story is tremendously powerful, inviting the reader to imagine what it would have been like to have seen the arrival of Hudson’s massive ship, looming as large as a house, carrying a strange new breed of people. News spread fast. The onlookers warned all their people about this strange apparition. Having never seen or heard of anything quite like it, they thought its origins were supernatural. Many started to perform rituals or make sacrifices; most were “distracted between hope and fear,” (Heckewelder 104). When they spied the captain in a red coat trimmed with gold lace, they presumed he could be the Great Mannitto, the Supreme Being. His white skin was unlike any the people had ever seen, enhancing his unearthly appearance. It is unsurprising that the reaction of the native people would be one of awe and fear, given they had never before encountered any people other than their own neighbors. Heckewelder does an excellent job capturing the sense of complete shock and awe. The native people project onto Hudson and his crew the same social structures that they are familiar with, viewing his crew as either servants or chiefs, depending on their role or status. In more ways than one, their observations prove correct, as the European social order is not appreciably different from their own. The “Mannitto” might not be a deity, but he is a person with official status and power. Then something interesting happens: liquor gets passed around. It is a peace offering that becomes a humorous farce as, having never before drank a distilled beverage, the chief collapses from ecstatic intoxication: “he never before felt himself so happy as after he had drunk the cup,” (Heckewelder105). Also comedic is the way the Europeans give them their farming tools, which the Delaware know nothing about and believe to be body ornaments. In any case, the encounter shows how different their lives were, and how culture completely shapes a person’s sense of their place in the world as well as their relationship with the land. One aspect of Heckewelder’s story that bears further clarification is how the Europeans were actually able to communicate in detail that they would return a year’s hence to settle and grow crops; this seems too complex a communication to convey using gestures.