PETITION FOR STATE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF
THE DELAWARES OF IDAHO, INC.
AS AN INDIAN TRIBE

I

INTRODUCTION

This peti­tion seeks state acknowl­edg­ment of the Delawares of Idaho, Inc. and its mem­bers as a tribe of Delaware Indians.

The name and address of Peti­tion­ers are:

Delawares of Idaho, Inc.
3677 N. Maple Grove Rd.
Boise, Idaho 83704

The name and tele­phone of the Chair­man of the Com­mit­tee appointed to act as spokesman for the group is:

Char­lotte Sim­mons
10170 Sagramore Ave.
Boise, Idaho 83704
(208) 377 — 1984

The attor­ney for the Delawares of Idaho, Inc. is:

W. Anthony Park
Park and Meule­man, Char­tered
Attor­neys at Law
P. 0. Box 2762
Boise, Idaho 83701
(208) 336‑2820

II

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF PETITIONERS

All of the mem­bers of Delaware Indi­ans of Idaho, Inc. trace their Indian blood to a com­mon group of Delaware Indian ances­tors. We have avail­able, and sub­mit here­with, six mas­ter charts which describe the Indian ances­try of six indi­vid­u­als: Grace Creech, Arthur A. Creech, Viola Creech, Elsie D, Creech, Bruce L. Creech and William Fent. (Exhibits “A” through “F”). The remain­der of the mem­bers of our group are then keyed into these mas­ter charts by trac­ing the member’s ances­try to one of the six named indi­vid­u­als. Birth cer­tifi­cates and other doc­u­men­tary evi­dence have been filed with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Musko­gee, Okla­homa, in proof of the lin­eal blood­line for each mem­ber of the Delawares of Idaho, Inc. with the excep­tion of sev­eral new­born children.

Our group’s ances­tors do not appear on either the Dawes Com­mis­sion Roll of 1906 or the 1940 Base Recon­structed Cen­sus Roll, upon which eli­gi­bil­ity for recog­ni­tion as Delawares has been pri­mar­ily based in the past. The rea­son for this omis­sion is shrouded in mys­tery. The member’s eldest known ances­tor, Rebecca Lucas, was clearly a mem­ber of the tribe as it existed in 1867. The remain­der of whose mem­bers even­tu­ally became known as the “Chero­kee Delawares.” She is listed as Entry No. 638, Allot­ment No. 929, on the 1867 John C. Pratt’s Reg­istry of Delaware Indi­ans which listed the Delawares who elected to remove from Kansas to Okla­homa, pur­suant to the Treaty of 1866. Rebecca Lucas’ daugh­ter, Lucinda Mar­shall, appears on the same roll as Entry No. 310, Allot­ment No. 928, along with her hus­band William Mar­shall, Entry No. 399, Allot­ment No. 333. Copies of per­ti­nent por­tions of the Pratt Reg­istry are included as Exhibits “G” and “H”. The orig­i­nals may be found in the National Archives in Record Group No. 75.
Rebecca Lucas and William and Lucinda Mar­shall are also listed as Delaware Indi­ans on a num­ber of receipts pre­pared by the United States in order to record the pay­ment of var­i­ous allot­ments. Rebecca Lucas received $125.00 in 1867 (Exhibit “I”) and a total of $75.00 in 1868 (Exhibits “J” and “K”). It is note­wor­thy that the receipts are signed by Lucinda Mar­shall as “daugh­ter and head of fam­ily of allot­tee.” Lucinda also received $75.00 on her own behalf in 1868 (Exhibit “L”). William Mar­shall received some pay­ments in 1868 as one of the heirs of a cer­tain Annie Mar­shall (Exhibits “M” and “N”). In addi­tion, a for­mal doc­u­ment record­ing William Marshall’s 1865 land allot­ment as a Delaware is attached as Exhibit “O”.

There are a num­ber of other records describ­ing William and Lucinda Mar­shall as Delaware Indi­ans. William’s name appears on the 1896 pay­roll of Chero­kee Delawares pre­pared by D. W. Lipe (Exhibit “P”) He is also listed on the 1898 roll of Delawares resid­ing in the Chero­kee Nation under the name William Mar­shall Connor-Washer, Despite the addi­tion of the name Connor-Washer, his true iden­tity is estab­lished by the use of his entry num­ber, which cor­re­sponds with the num­ber issued to him on the Pratt Reg­istry. Lucinda Mar­shall appears on the same roll, and a copy of the orig­i­nal record on file with the Kansas State His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety is attached as Exhibit “Q”.

William and Lucinda Mar­shall had a daugh­ter named Mary Fran­cis Mar­shall, who was appar­ently born in 1846. In 1866, Mary Mar­shall mar­ried James R. Fent and a cer­tifi­cate regard­ing the mar­riage record is attached as Exhibit “R”. Mary Mar­shall is listed as a mem­ber of the Chero­kee Delawares in an 1887 Pine Book on file with the Fed­eral Records Cen­ter in Fort Worth, Texas. Our group has been unable to obtain a copy of this doc­u­ment, but the BIA may be able to do so. Mary’s Delaware ances­try is estab­lished, how­ever, by her death cer­tifi­cate (Exhibit “S”) which lists William and Cynda (Lucliada)’s Mar­shall as her parents.

James Fent and Mary Mar­shall had nine chil­dren, includ­ing William Fent and Otelia E. Creech (nee Fent) (Exhibit “T”). All of the group’s mem­bers are direct lin­eal descen­dants of either William Peat and Otelia B. Creech, and they are able to trace their ances­try in an unbro­ken line to mem­bers of the Delaware tribe who were liv­ing adults when the Delawares’ Kansas Land was ceded to the United States. See 14 Stat. 793 (1866).

Because of the neg­li­gent, and per­haps will­ful, fail­ure of the Dawes Com­mis­sion to enroll the prog­en­i­tors of the peti­tion­ing group and because of the result­ing fail­ure to issue an allot­ment of land to them, the fol­low­ing named Delaware Indi­ans who were enti­tled to receive land under the July 4, 1866 treaty were uprooted. See Exhibit “Ta”. A tem­po­rary area office for Delawares fil­ing com­plaints for non allot­ments of land was estab­lished at Billings, Mon­tana. This band of Delaware Indi­ans endured much hard­ship to reach Billings, Mon­tana, trav­el­ing in makeshift wag­ons all the way from the Verdigree’s Val­ley of Okla­homa. It was there in Billings, Mon­tana, in 1911, that Vio­let Smith nee Viola Creech was appointed by the group to seek the assis­tance of an attor­ney to estab­lish her groups Indian rights and their enti­tle­ment to the land allot­ment promised by the Treaty of 1866. An exchange of cor­re­spon­dence between Mrs. Vio­let Smith nee Viola Creech’s attor­ney and var­i­ous offi­cials of the Office of the Com­mis­sion on Indian Affairs are attached as Exhibits “U”, “V”, “W”, “X”, “Y”, “Z”, “1”, “2”, and “3” of this peti­tion. These attempts did not bear fruit.

After sev­eral fru­gal years in the Billings, Mon­tana area, this small band of Delaware Indi­ans emi­grated to Wyoming seek­ing bet­ter liv­ing con­di­tions and employ­ment. Some of the elders hoped to estab­lish the group with the Indian pop­u­la­tion already resid­ing on the Wind River reser­va­tion. Find­ing this impos­si­ble, they set­tled in Basin, Wyoming. The great Flu epi­demic of 1918 swept through the band killing sev­eral mem­bers leav­ing the rest sickly and unable to work in the harsh con­di­tions of the Wyoming cli­mate. In the early 1920’s, the band migrated to the state of Idaho where they have remained to this day. The band suf­fered many hard­ships brought about pri­mar­ily from the tran­si­tion from reser­va­tion life to exis­tence in the sur­round­ing white com­mu­nity. The main occu­pa­tion of the mem­bers con­sisted of agri­cul­tural field work, fruit har­vest­ing and the like; the mem­bers, being une­d­u­cated Indi­ans, had dif­fi­culty com­pet­ing in the white man’s world.

Grad­u­ally, after a long period of years of this kind of exis­tence, the group was able to raise its stan­dard of liv­ing t the level of an aver­age poor white fam­ily. How­ever, through­out this period, the group main­tained cohe­sion and intra-tribal con­tact. The young men of the group would leave the area in Idaho in search of work to help sup­port them­selves and those remain­ing in the cen­tral area. Idaho remains the core res­i­den­tial area of the Delawares of Idaho, Inc., and the mem­ber­ship is located pri­mar­ily in three south­west­ern Idaho coun­ties. These coun­ties are Ada County, Payette County and Gem County, com­monly know as the “Trea­sure Val­ley” in the State of Idaho.

III

DESCRIPTION OF PAST GROUP

The Lenape, or Delawares proper, were com­posed of three prin­ci­pal tribes;  they were called Mun­see, Unami, and Unalachtigo. Each of these had its own ter­ri­tory and dialect, with more or less sep­a­rate iden­tity. Each of these three tribes were com­prised of a great many minor divi­sions. In the Unalachtigo tribe there existed twelve sub­di­vi­sions. They com­prised the Turkey clan. The his­toric vil­lages of the Unalachtigo sec­tion of the tribe were Buck­stown, Custaloga’s town, Kilibuck’s town and Coshoctan.

A clan con­sisted of no more than two to three hun­dred peo­ple and a new clan was formed under new lead­er­ship when a old clan became too large to man­age. In this way the uprooted mem­bers of the Turkey clan took upon them­selves the name Ante­lope Eaters as was the cus­tom when they moved to the State of Wyoming and was forced to sub­sist mainly upon the wild ante­lope. Con­tin­u­ing into the Trea­sure Val­ley where the sur­viv­ing mem­bers of the band found a per­ma­nent home in Idaho.

The Unami sec­tion of the Delaware tribe was accepted by the Chero­kee nation and received allot­ments of land in the Verdigree’s Val­ley under the Treaty of 1866.

The Mun­see sec­tion of the Delaware tribe estab­lished them­selves on a reser­va­tion in Canada.

IV

DESCRIPTION OF CURRENT GROUP

The Delawares of Idaho, Inc. num­ber approx­i­mately 209 men, women and chil­dren who are all direct lin­eal descen­dants of the com­mon group of ances­tors iden­ti­fied in the pre­ced­ing sec­tion, all of whom were listed on the John G. Pratt’s Reg­istry of Orig­i­nal Delawares in 1867.

Tribal head­quar­ters is located in Boise, Ada County, State of Idaho. As men­tioned above, the major­ity of the Delawares of Idaho reside in the south west­ern coun­ties of Idaho: Ada County, Payette County and Gem County.

The Delawares of Idaho also include among their mem­bers a num­ber of peo­ple, pri­mar­ily young per­sons, who live out­side the cen­tral area described above. Many of these per­sons have not yet estab­lished per­ma­nent homes and have moved in and out of the cen­tral area because of work­ing con­di­tions. It is antic­i­pated that many of them will at some time in the future return to set­tle in south­west­ern Idaho with the major­ity of the group. Notwith­stand­ing the move­ment of some of the group in and out of the cen­tral area, there con­tin­ues to be close ties and con­tact among all the members.

Monthly newslet­ters and cor­re­spon­dence are sent to the mem­bers of the group.

The present leader of the group is A. A. Creech, who is the eldest liv­ing male. This is in keep­ing with the his­tor­i­cal tra­di­tion of the Delawares of Idaho. The group has a gov­ern­ing coun­cil which is duly elected by the mem­ber­ship. The Delawares of Idaho, Inc. are a non-profit cor­po­ra­tion duly qual­i­fied in the State of Idaho.

V

RESPONSE FOR PETITION

All of the present day mem­bers of the Delawares of Idaho, Inc. are in fact Delaware by blood, and can trace their ances­try in an unbro­ken line to mem­bers of the Delaware nation listed on John G. Pratt’s Reg­istry of Orig­i­nal Delaware Indi­ans in 1867. From the Reg­istry of 1867 gen­er­a­tion by gen­er­a­tion to the present day the Delawares and their ances­tors men­tioned in this peti­tion have not sold, given away, or traded off their right as Delaware Indi­ans. The peti­tion­ers base their claim on being the direct lin­eal blood­line dece­dents of the Delaware nation. Note (Halvert vs. United States, 283 U.S. 753). The rule being that chil­dren belong to the tribe of their par­ents. The ances­tors of the Delawares of Idaho Inc. were clearly mem­bers of the Delaware tribe of Indi­ans. The prog­en­i­tors of the peti­tion­ing group have been repeat­edly iden­ti­fied in fed­eral records as being mem­bers of the Delaware Tribe of Indi­ans. The most promi­nent inclu­sion is the 1867 John G. Pratt’s Reg­istry of Delaware Indi­ans referred to above in this peti­tion. (See Exhibits “G” and “H”.) The orig­i­nals of the Pratt Reg­istry may be found in the National Archives in Record Group No. 75.

Fur­ther, Rebecca Lucas and William and Lucinda Mar­shall have been iden­ti­fied as Delaware Indi­ana on receipts pre­pared by the United States in order to record the pay­ment of var­i­ous allot­ments. (See Exhibits “I”, “J”, “K”, “L”, “M”, and “M”).

Finally, a let­ter to The Hon­or­able Teno Ron­calio, Chair­man of the Sub­com­mit­tee on Indian Affairs and Pub­lic Lands dated May 24, 1978 from the Bureau of Indian Affairs is attached as BIA sub­stan­ti­a­tion of the fact that the Delawares of Idaho are descended from the Delawares who lived in Kansas and were moved to Okla­homa, in the 19th Cen­tury. (Exhibit “6”.)

Attached to the peti­tion as Exhibit “7” is a state­ment from Dr. Patri­cia K. Ourada, an Indian his­to­rian who is a pro­fes­sor of his­tory at Boise State Uni­ver­sity in Boise, Idaho.

As stated else­where in this Peti­tion, the peti­tion­ing’ group lives pri­mar­ily in three south­west­ern Idaho coun­ties, Ada, Payette, and Gem. Its mem­bers meet and con­duct tribal busi­ness on a reg­u­lar basis. The Arti­cles of Incor­po­ra­tion and the Bylaws of the tribal cor­po­ra­tion are included as Exhibits “8” and “9”. Copies of the monthly newslet­ter put out by the group on a reg­u­lar basis are also attached as Exhibit “10”.

Fur­ther, the group has an annual meet­ing held in July of each year. Min­utes of the last annual meet­ing held in July of 1981 in McCall, Idaho are included as Exhibit “11”.

The oral his­tory tran­scrip­tion attached as Exhibit “5” is help­ful in iden­ti­fy­ing the group’s his­tory as an entity in Idaho, as well as the ear­lier loca­tions it set­tled in.

Although the peti­tion­ing group have been some­what loose knit over the years since its unwanted depar­ture from Okla­homa tribal life, nonethe­less, as stated in the His­tor­i­cal Overview, Sec­tion II above, the mem­bers of the group have rec­og­nized over the gen­er­a­tions a gen­eral cen­tral author­ity for solv­ing group prob­lems and mak­ing group deci­sions. The Tribal Chair­man has always been the old­est liv­ing male and that is cur­rently reflected in the Arti­cles of Incor­po­ra­tion of the Delawares of Idaho, Inc.

Again, the oral his­tory inter­views pro­vide some inter­est­ing insights into the group decision-making process con­cern­ing work for the mem­bers, moves from one area to another and the like. These moves, involv­ing a large num­ber of peo­ple must have been in the nature of group deci­sions. In all fair­ness, how­ever, it should be remem­bered that this group is not a clas­sic “reser­va­tion” tribe. Uprooted many years ago from the main body of the Delawares this rov­ing band has been exist­ing in the white man’s world and has been forced to live in a con­text which is reflec­tive of that white soci­ety to the unob­ser­vant per­son in order for the band to sur­vive. In view of this his­toric prob­lem it is indeed remark­able that they have man­aged to main­tain and pre­serve their group iden­tity and tra­di­tions so well.

As referred to above, Exhibit “8” and “9” are true copies of the Arti­cles of Incor­po­ra­tion and Bylaws of the Delawares of Idaho, Inc. The pro­vi­sions of these doc­u­ments are self-explanatory.

Enclosed here­with as Exhibits are the cur­rent rolls of the Delawares of Idaho Inc. (see office copy)

The mem­ber­ship of the Delawares of Idaho, Inc. is com­posed entirely of lin­eal blood­line Delawares who are not now mem­bers of any other North Amer­i­can Tribe.

The Peti­tioner, Delawares of Idaho, Inc., is not nor are its mem­bers, the sub­ject of con­gres­sional leg­is­la­tion which has expressly ter­mi­nated or for­bid­den the fed­eral rela­tion­ship. In point of fact, the peti­tioner has filed a peti­tion for fed­eral recog­ni­tion to the Fed­eral Acknowl­edg­ment Board of the United States Gov­ern­ment approx­i­mately three years ago. It will be years before a rul­ing can be made due to the num­ber of peti­tions filed by other tribes.

VI

CONCLUSION

In con­clu­sion, Peti­tioner urges the State of Idaho to acknowl­edge their exis­tende as a North Amer­i­can Indian Tribe. The evi­dence sub­mit­ted with this Peti­tion estab­lishes clearly that the Peti­tion­ers are legit­i­mate Delaware Indi­ans. Who have estab­lished a dis­tinct and sep­a­rate iden­tity from the Delawares who remained in Okla­homa. For rea­sons which are unknown at this time, the Peti­tion­ers’ ances­tors were never given the proper recog­ni­tion as Delaware Indi­ans which they deserved, On August 1, 1980, the Pres­i­dent of the United States signed into law a bill which passed the United States Sen­ate and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives which rec­og­nized the mem­bers of the group known as th Delawares of Idaho, Inc. as legit­i­mate decen­dents of the Delaware Tribe, enti­tled to share in the Delaware Judg­ment Funds being dis­trib­uted in the future. After years of hard­ship we believe State Recog­ni­tion should be granted to the Delawares of Idaho, Inc. so that its mem­bers can receive the recog­ni­tion which is nay so long over­due.
Respect­fully Submitted,

A. A. CREECH, CHAIRMAN
(sig­na­ture A. A. CREECH)

DELAWARES OF IDAHO, INC.
3677 N. Maple Grove Rd.
Boise, Idaho 83704
(208) 377 — 0397

Foot­note: The last legit­i­mate coun­cil of the once great Delaware Nation voted to rec­og­nize as mem­bers all its rov­ing bands and the treaty of 1866 between the U. S. Gov­ern­ment and the Chero­kee Nation and the Delaware Nation did not state at any time that any Delaware Indian who was not accepted by the chero­kee Nation or who did not choose to become white cit­i­zens would cease to be Delaware Indi­ans who were clearly mem­bers of the Delaware Tribe.