Resiliency as Resistance: Eastern Woodland Munsee Groups on the Early Colonial Frontier

Abstract

A growing body of data from Contact-period sites throughout the Northeast and Middle-Atlantic regions demonstrates the prevalence of Native-American cultural resiliency in the face of European colonization. This article considers the resiliency of cultural traditions among Munsee groups of northern New Jersey, southeastern New York, and northeastern Pennsylvania during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Patterns of population movement and the contextual association of traditional craft items with European trade goods at contact sites throughout this area are examined and reveal a pattern of active resistance to the incessant demands of colonial expansion and acculturation.