Welcome to Native Languages of the Americas!
You have reached the
Native Americans by State section of our website,
a new educational project designed to provide information about indigenous people in different U.S. states.
Follow the links to the right of our tribal map for more information about the language, culture and history
of each New Jersey tribe, or scroll below the map for New Jersey Indian activities including a wordsearch,
fact sheets for kids about each tribe, and worksheets teaching words from the different Native American languages
of New Jersey. Feel free to print any of these materials out for classroom use!
American Indians in New Jersey
The original inhabitants of the area that is now New Jersey were Lenni Lenape (Delaware) people.
Other Indian tribes who migrated into New Jersey after Europeans arrived include:
The Taino tribe (an indigenous people of the Caribbean, many of whom
immigrated from Puerto Rico as agricultural workers in the 1930's)
There are no federally recognized Indian tribes in New Jersey today.
Most Native Americans were forced to leave New Jersey during the 1700's, when eastern tribes were being displaced by colonial expansion.
These tribes are not extinct, but except for the descendants of New Jersey Native American people
who hid or assimilated into white society, they do not live in
New Jersey anymore. Most tribes that once were native to New Jersey ended up on Indian reservations in Oklahoma.
If you click on the link for each tribe above, you can find more information about them.
Non-recognized New Jersey Indian bands and communities include: