Visit Delaware
Delaware is the second-smallest state in the country, but the Lenape called this land home for at least 10,000 years before a single European ship touched the Christina River. Two state-recognized tribal nations still live here, and their culture is present at every turn if you know where to look.
The Lenni Lenape, the Original People, were the first to greet Henry Hudson’s crew in 1609, and within a century they had lost most of their homeland to colonial land fraud and forced treaties. Colonial pressure pushed the Lenape west across Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, and finally into Oklahoma over 150 years, while the Nanticoke survived in a small Sussex County community by staying quiet and staying put.
Today Delaware’s two state-recognized tribes, the Nanticoke Indian Tribe in Millsboro and the Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware in Cheswold, maintain museums, cultural centers, and living communities you can actually visit. The Nanticoke Indian Museum is the state’s only tribally-operated Native American museum and holds artifacts going back 8,000 years.
This page covers four sections: museums and cultural centers, historic landmarks, tribal nations, and annual events worth planning your trip around. Give it more than a weekend.
Museums
Nanticoke Indian Museum, Millsboro
Delaware’s only tribally-operated Native American museum sits on John J. Williams Highway in Millsboro and holds 8,000 years of history in two rooms. You’ll see thousands of arrowheads, hand-thrown pottery, axe hammers, a recreated village scene, traditional clothing, and a wooden dugout canoe the Nanticoke once paddled through the inland bays.
Hours run Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 4pm from spring through fall, with reduced winter hours Thursday through Saturday from 10am to 3pm. Admission is $5 for adults and free for children under five; the gift shop sells authentic handcrafted jewelry and other items made by tribal members, and group tours can be arranged by appointment at (302) 945-7022.
Lenape Indian Tribe Cultural Center, Dover
The Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware operates their tribal center at 4164 N. DuPont Highway in Dover, the community hub for a people who’ve been in Kent County for centuries under the historical name Delaware Moors. It’s not a formal museum, but it’s the living center of a nation that state government didn’t officially recognize until 2016.
Call ahead at (302) 730-4601 to connect with tribal staff before visiting, since public programming hours vary. The tribe’s 11 recovered acres outside Dover, ancestral land restored through a 2021 conservation easement, represent a hard-won return that the Lenape describe as coming home.
Indian Mission United Methodist Church, Millsboro
Built in 1881 and still active, the Indian Mission United Methodist Church is the spiritual anchor of the Nanticoke community in Millsboro. Federal assimilation policies in the 19th century pushed Christianity into tribal communities across the country, and this congregation absorbed that pressure without surrendering its Nanticoke identity.
The church sits alongside the Nanticoke Indian Museum and the Nanticoke Indian Center as part of the tribe’s compound on John J. Williams Highway. It’s a working congregation, so visit respectfully and check with the tribal office before attending any service.
Landmarks
Fort Christina, Wilmington
When Swedish colonists landed at Fort Christina in 1638, they stepped onto Lenape land without asking and without paying. The site along the Christina River in Wilmington is now a state park, and the landscape still carries the memory of a people whose systematic dispossession started right here.
The National Park Service recognizes Fort Christina as the entry point of European colonization in the Delaware Valley. Go there knowing that the discovery story on the monument is the colonizers’ version, and the Lenape version starts ten thousand years earlier.
Cheswold, Kent County
The small town of Cheswold in central Kent County is the ancestral homeland of the Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware, a community that survived the 20th century labeled as the Delaware Moors, caught between white and Black in a rigidly segregated state. Their children attended separate Indian schools until mid-1960s desegregation closed those schools not as liberation but as erasure.
A state historical marker honors the Lenape Indian Tribe near Cheswold, and the tribe still maintains their Cheswold mailing address alongside their Dover tribal center. Drive through slowly and understand that surviving a hostile century is its own form of resistance.
Nanticoke Ancestral Lands, Millsboro
In 2021 the Nanticoke Indian Tribe recovered 30 acres of ancestral land in Sussex County through a conservation easement funded by Delaware’s Open Space Program and the Mt. Cuba Center, a Delaware-based nonprofit. The property was originally listed above one million dollars; the tribe received it for a $325,000 state investment, a fraction of its value, on land that was taken for nothing.
The Nanticoke plan to use the land for hiking, lacrosse, and their annual powwow, rooting living culture back into the soil it came from. This land story isn’t background context for a visit, it is the whole point.
Delaware Bay Coastline, Sussex County
The Lenape fished, hunted, and built villages along the Delaware Bay for thousands of years before European contact, and the bay’s western shore through Sussex County still carries their presence in place names throughout the region. Lewes sits where Lenape camps once lined the waterway, and the barrier islands offshore were seasonal hunting and gathering grounds.
No single monument marks this history, which is itself telling. Visit Delaware Seashore State Park and the Indian River Bay area knowing the ground beneath you holds Indigenous memory that predates the park signs by ten millennia.
Tribal Nations
Delaware has no federally recognized tribes and no reservation land in the formal legal sense. That matters because it means both of the state’s Native nations operate without the full sovereign protections, federal funding streams, and treaty rights that federal recognition provides.
Both the Nanticoke Indian Tribe and the Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware hold state recognition from the Delaware government, but state recognition is not a substitute for federal recognition. Both tribes have limited land bases and tight budgets as a direct result.
Nanticoke Indian Tribe, Millsboro
The Nanticoke are the more publicly visible of Delaware’s two tribal nations, based in Millsboro in southern Sussex County and operating a museum, community center, and church on John J. Williams Highway under Tribal Chief Avery Johnson. The community survived 19th-century assimilation pressure, 20th-century racial categorization as neither white nor Black, and federal non-recognition, all at once.
The tribe’s 2021 land recovery and ongoing capital campaign to expand their community center reflect a people building for the next generation. Their annual powwow draws more than 10,000 visitors every September, making Millsboro a genuine Indigenous cultural destination.
Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware, Cheswold and Dover
The Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware represents the First People of the First State, with roots in central Kent County and a tribal center in Dover led by Principal Chief Dennis J. Coker since 1996. Chief Coker steered the tribe through state recognition in 2016 and into the 2021 land recovery.
The 11 recovered acres in Dover were contaminated when the tribe received them, a former police shooting range requiring $238,000 in state-funded soil remediation before the land could be used. The tribe’s vision for the site includes a native plant edible forest garden, one of the quieter but more powerful sovereignty statements in Delaware.
Events
Annual Nanticoke Indian Powwow, Milton (September)
The Nanticoke Indian Powwow is Delaware’s largest Indigenous gathering and one of the most accessible powwows on the Eastern Seaboard, drawing more than 10,000 visitors over two days each September at Hudson Fields in Milton. Tribes journey from across the Eastern Seaboard and Canada to participate, and the grand entry and opening prayer each morning are genuinely worth witnessing.
Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for ages 11 through 17, and free for children under ten; the event runs 10am to 7pm both days. The Round Dance invites everyone regardless of Native heritage to join in, but follow the emcee’s instructions and don’t photograph ceremonial dances without explicit permission.
Nanticoke Toe Dance and Drum Circles, Milton (September)
The Nanticoke Toe Dance is a tradition specific to Nanticoke culture and not something you’ll find at most powwows elsewhere in the region. Drum circles run throughout both days of the annual powwow, anchoring the energy of a gathering that connects dozens of Native nations in one place.
These performances are cultural expressions, not entertainment. Stay quiet during songs, don’t record without asking performers directly, and if you’re uncertain about etiquette, find a tribal volunteer and ask before you act.
Native American Heritage Month Programs, Statewide (November)
Delaware’s Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs partners with tribal communities each November to offer Native American-themed programming at state museums and historic sites. Programs have included lectures on Lenape history, artifact demonstrations, and Indigenous language preservation discussions.
Check history.delaware.gov for the current year’s schedule, since programming varies annually and many events are free. These are educational programs rather than ceremonial gatherings and are well-suited to first-time visitors who want grounding before visiting the tribal communities directly.
Native American Day at Nanticoke Indian Museum, Millsboro (November)
Each November, the Nanticoke Indian Museum offers free admission alongside featured speakers, museum tours, and traditional dance performances to mark Native American Heritage Month. It’s one of the easiest entry points into Nanticoke culture for visitors who are just getting started.
Confirm dates and programming by calling (302) 945-7022 or visiting nanticokeindians.org ahead of your trip. Events rotate year to year, so a quick call saves you a wasted drive.
Lenape Community Events, Dover and Cheswold (Year-round)
The Lenape Indian Tribe hosts cultural programming through their tribal center in Dover tied to land recovery, sovereignty work, and community celebrations. Follow their Facebook page or contact the tribal office at (302) 730-4601 to find current events and open programs.
Some events welcome outside visitors who contact the tribe in advance; others are community-only. A phone call first is not a formality but a show of respect before you show up.
Delaware rewards more than one trip when you’re tracing Indigenous history. The Nanticoke lands in the south and the Lenape community in the center are two hours apart by car, and each carries its own deep centuries of survival.
Route yourself north to south, starting at the Lenape tribal center in Cheswold and Dover, then continuing into Sussex County to Millsboro and Milton. The drive from the Lenape center to the Nanticoke museum is roughly an hour on Route 13, a flat straight shot through farmland that was once entirely Lenape and Nanticoke territory.
When you’re on the ground, buy directly from tribal artists at the Nanticoke gift shop instead of picking up generic items at roadside tourist shops. Follow each nation’s guidance on photography during cultural events, and when you’re uncertain, put the camera down and just be present.
The Lenape and the Nanticoke are not historical artifacts. They’re your neighbors in the First State, and their cultures are alive and building forward. Engage with that truth.