Delaware Nation loses land swindle case

PHILADELPHIA – An Indian tribe that says it was swindled out of land by the son of Pennsylvania founder William Penn cannot have any of it back, a federal judge ruled.

The Delaware Nation had sued to reclaim 315 acres of Pennsylvania land it lost in the so-called Walking Purchase, a 1737 deal between Thomas Penn and the chiefs of the Lenni Lenape tribe.

According to history, Penn asked for as much Indian land as the colonists could cover in a day-and-a-half’s walk. The chiefs agreed, thinking any such concession would be small. Penn then hired the fastest runners he could find and the tribe lost 1,200 square miles.

The descendants of the tribe, now federally recognized and based in Oklahoma, wanted to build casinos on the land, now occupied by businesses and homes.

But U.S. District Judge James McGirr Kelly ruled Wednesday that William Penn had been granted vast powers by the English crown to seize Indian lands any way he saw fit, and those powers had been passed down to his son. “However vile (the) plaintiff chooses to depict the events of the Walking Purchase,” Kelly wrote, “Thomas Penn’s justness cannot be questioned and the outcome in this matter cannot change.”

“What the court is saying here is that even if they essentially screwed the Indians up and down, there is no remedy. And we believe that is contrary to 50 years of Supreme Court law,” said Steven Cozen, an attorney for the tribe.