In the aftermath it was reported by a Swede that the Leriape had become "subject and tributary" to the Susquehannock's (as of 1645).¹³ Some Dutchmen, in 1651, affirmed that Lenape sachems acknowledged themselves to hold office "by descent and appointment" of both the Lenape and the Susquehannocks.¹⁴  These phrases have been accepted too readily to mean that the Susquehannock's exerted control and mastery over the Lenape, after the model of European conquest. Under such an interpretation, however, the subsequently recorded data of SusquehannockLenape relationships become nonsensical. Assuming that the Lenape for a greater or lesser period of time acknowledged themselves tributary to the Susquehannock's, and knowing that the same issue of tributary significance occurs repeatedly in the history of Indian peoples, we need to analyze the situation to see how it was understood by the people involved in it.

To Europeans, a status of tributary subjection implies loss of sovereignty and perhaps also the loss of ownership or use of territory. It implies arbitrary management of the subjects in the interest of the ruling people or government. These conditions did not occur in the Susquehannock-Lenape relationship. Though the Lenape had been driven by war out of their villages on the west side of the Delaware River, they returned to these abandoned sites after the fighting was over, and they continued their hunting rights without molestation in the lands drained by the Delaware. No Susquehannock attempted to dispose of any Delaware valley lands. On the other hand, the Lenape did sell portions of these lands to the Dutch, extending the sale "to the bounds and limits" of the Susquehannock's country, while unprotesting Susquehannock's witnessed the transaction.¹⁵

Dutch and Swedish purchasers from the Lenape took careful deeds on which they based their own claims to possession. This is the more notable because European settlers were extremely sensitive on the subject of land titles. The charters issued by distant kings conflicted, and their territorial boundaries overlapped. In case of rival claims, sword right prevailed over charter right, as Swedish Governor Johan Printz declared in 1644 when he demanded soldiers from Sweden to "break the necks" of the Lenape. As he saw it, "when we have not only bought this river but also won it with the sword then no one, whether he be Hollander or Englishman, could pretend in any manner to this place either now or in coming times." ¹⁶   Printz was in close alliance with the Susquehannock's; certainly, if they had reduced the Lenape to subjection in any European sense, Printz would have gone to the Susquehannock's for orderly neighbors and secure land titles.

Since the Susquehannock's did not disturb the Lenape in their ownership and use of the Delaware valley, so much of the European conception of subject and tributary status is inapplicable. What about sovereignty? Some sort of Susquehannock intervention in Lenape government is implied by the fact that Susquehannock's had helped at one time to appoint Lenape sachems. Perhaps they may have concerned themselves to veto the accession to Lenape chieftainship of outright foes. But, in a society where chiefs wielded authority by moral suasion and force of example, it is doubtful whether the Susquehannock's even attempted to exercise close supervision over their tributaries. The same observer who gave us the phrase "subject and tributary" also recorded "Discourses which took place at a Council held by the [Lenape] Indians in 1645," in which the crucial issue was whether to make an exterminating war upon the Swedish settlements on the Delaware. The council decided for peace. Obviously the Swede who recorded it could not have been an eyewitness, and the dialogue seems much edited; but it clearly aims at realism, and it says nothing of the presence or consideration of any Susquehannock while the Lenape debated war upon the Susquehannock's trading partners. This surely was a strange kind of subjection.¹⁷

The 1645 council was not an isolated event. Again, in 1655, the Swedes were menaced by a Lenape war, and this time the threat was made explicitly against the interests of the Susquehannock's. Governor Johann Rising reported that the Susquehannock's called themselves the Swedes' "protectors," but that the Lenape threatened to destroy the trade between the Susquehannock's and the Swedes. It is indisputable that Rising had small faith in the protection of the Susquehannock's; like his predecessor, he demanded soldiers from Sweden to drive off the unruly Lenape. It seems clear that the Susquehannock's were in no position to give simple commands to their subjects and tributaries, if indeed the Lenape still acknowledged themselves as such.¹⁸

The point of this argument is that political relations between Indian peoples were specific to the conditions of their cultures. In one respect only were the relations between Indians absolutely and unambiguously like those of European states there was constant change. Curiously this one true constant has sometimes been flatly denied by historians and is only recently coming to be recognized as fundamental. Because of its denial, the Lenape of some histories have been kept in a presumed bondage to the Susquehannock's until a transfer of the tributary relationship was presumed to be made later from the Susquehannock's to the Iroquois. By such means an Iroquois "empire" could be theorized into being. Bondage, transfer, and empire were alike imaginary.

What, then, were the true relationships between the Susquehannock's and the Lenape? Unhappily it is easier to say what they were not than what they were. We know that the two peoples were at war in 1634. We know that they had established peaceful tribute relations by 1645. We know that they continued to live in their respective territories in the Susquehanna and Delaware valleys, and that they respected each other's tenure rights. We know that they maintained separate councils and negotiated diplomatically with each other and with third parties. We know that the Lenape could not get access to the Susquehannock's' hunting grounds where beaver were to be had after the depletion of the beaver in the Delaware valley. Perhaps this last fact is the single most important clue; perhaps the most important function of Lenape tribute wampum, apart from the intrinsic value of the wampum itself, was simply to certify and renew a promise to stay clear of the Susquehannock's hunting and trade, while permitting the Susquehannock's access to European markets in Lenape territory. In the circumstances, this seems like a reasonable guess.¹⁹