They were also considered a mediator between those tribes who were having disputes and often very hospitable toward European settlers upon their arrival in the 1650s.
But in 1698 the government of Maryland set aside the Chicacoan/Chicone/Chiconi reservation and in 1711 the Broad Creek and Indian River Reservations were established by colonial British authorities. There was also a reservation in New Jersey called the Brotherton Reservation located in Burlington County between the years of 1758-1802. Some of these places were intended to be protectorate locations for Native people, yet in fact became burdensome to the tribal people inhabiting the area. Once the reservations were closed, it left Native populations to fend for themselves in terms of land settlement. Land was already being encroached upon before the reservations were set in place. Then as the Native people were displaced to areas and forced to live in a sedentary manner not typical of their culture, their release from this land left them in the hands of the government which allowed settlement for the colonial population in areas previously lived in by the Lenape and Nanticoke tribes.
A migration of the Nanticoke people from the E. Maryland shore to S.E. Delaware in the 1600s would eventually lead them to unite with the Lenni Lenape people in the New Jersey region. Some Lenape people tried to adapt or assimilate themselves into the general population after the Revolution in order to survive and without having to migrate to other locations. Some lived as farmers and others as tradesmen. It is unfortunate however, that the Lenape people were not considered “persons within the meaning of the law” until 1879, due to a U.S. Federal Court law.