In the 17th century, Dutch colonialists arrived in the area and began buying animal pelts from the Lenape in exchange for European products.

In 1682, William Penn and Quaker colonists arrived and founded the Pennsylvania Colony in the lower Delaware River.

They began considering selling land once belonging to the Lenape that was acquired in an agreement with the Penn family known as the Walking Purchase.

After 1733, a large number of German colonists arrived into the lower Lehigh Valley area and began building homesteads in the immediate vicinity.

[3] By 1788, most of the remaining Lenape had either voluntarily departed or were driven out Powder Valley and eastern Pennsylvania and began settling in the Northwest Territory in what is the present-day Midwestern United States.