Walking Purchase

Walking Purchase ( German: Run- purchase) is called a contract, which was concluded in 1737 between William Penn's son Thomas and the Lenni Lenape.

William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania and a devout Quaker, was known that he treated the Indians fairly. In contrast to the other colonies, therefore, the relationship between colonists and Indians was trusting in Pennsylvania. 1737 William Penn was already almost 20 years dead and his son Thomas, heritage and land owners, land had to sell to pay off the debts of his family. The land that he wanted to sell, was at the headwaters of the Delaware River, the residential area of ​​the Lenni Lenape. Penn pointed front of an old, but not signed document dating back to 1686 and chief Lappawinsoe convinced that it was a legally binding deed of sale for the mentioned area. The Indians accepted the contract, in the belief that it would be only a minor boundary adjustment. The Penn family was overwritten so much land by charter, as a man can walk around in a half days without defining the route further.

The government officials James Logan had a cunning plan and calling forth hitting the road for the three fastest runners in the colony by loggers. On September 19, 1737 in the morning Edward Marshall, Solomon Jennings and James Yeates began its course and ran without a break throughout the day and the following night. Two of the three runners gave up exhausted, but the third put in one and a half days covering a distance of 113 km.

The ownership of the Penns finally comprised 4860 km ² in what is now northeastern Pennsylvania, which is almost twice the size of the Saarland. The loss of the country cost the Lenni Lenape of their land and the Minisink were expropriated. When the Lenape protested against this obvious fraud and wanted to cancel the contract, they were expelled at the request of the colonists of the Iroquois. Without their own land, they had to move further west to the upper Susquehanna River.