(WHTM) - American Indians have been in North America since around the 1600s and Pennsylvania was home to six tribes.
Pennsylvania was home to six tribes, the Erie, Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee), Shawnee and Ohio Valley, Munsee Delaware (or just Munsee), Susquehannock, and the Lenape Delaware, or Unami Delaware.
According to Millersville University, the Erie tribe covered parts of Erie, Crawford, and Warren counties.
The Shawnee tribe covered parts of Crawford, Mercer, Lawrence, Beaver, Washington, Greene, Fayette, Westmoreland, Allegheny, Butler, Venango, Warren, McKean, Forest, Clarion, Armstrong, Indiana, Somerset, Bedford, Fulton, Franklin, Adams, Cumberland, Perry, Juniata, Mifflin, Blair, Huntingdon, Snyder, Union, Northumberland, Montour, Columbia, Schuylkill, Luzerne, Wyoming, Bradford, Sullivan, Lycoming, Tioga, Potter, Elk, Cameron, Clinton, Clearfield, Cambria, and Centre counties.
The Susquehannock tribe covered parts of Adams, York, Lancaster, Lebanon, Dauphin, Cumberland, Perry, Juniata, Snyder, Northumberland, Schuylkill, and Columbia counties.
The Lenape tribe covered parts of Lancaster, Lebanon, Schuylkill, Chester, Delaware, Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Northampton, Berks, Lehigh, Monroe, Carbon, and Luzerne counties.
The Munsee Delaware tribe covered parts of Susquehanna, Wayne, Wyoming, Lackawanna, Pike, Monroe, Carbon, and Luzerne counties.
The Iroquois tribe covered parts of Warren, McKean, Cameron, Potter, Tioga, Lycoming, Sullivan, Wyoming, and Bradford counties.
Out of the six tribes, three of them spoke Iroquoian and the other three spoke Algonquian. The three that spoke Iroquoian were the Erie, Iroquois, and Susquehannock tribes. The three tribes that spoke Algonquian were the Shawnee, Munsee, and Lenape Delaware.
According to the National Park Service (NPS), there were around 5,000 to 7,000 Susquehannock Indians in the early 1600s. NPS also states that the Lenape Delaware and the Susquehannock tribes were the original inhabitants, and the other tribes came to Pennsylvania due to the Europeans arriving in North America.
But what happened to the six tribes that lived in Pennsylvania back in the 1600s?
Millersville University states the status of the Erie tribe is they went extinct, the Susquehannock went extinct, and the Iroquois are in parts of New York and Canada with numbers in the thousands.
The Shawnee is in Oklahoma with around 14,000 people, the Munsee are in parts of Ontario, Canada, and Wisconsin with around 3,500 people, and the Lenape Delaware are in parts of Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, New Jersey, and Canada with around 16,000 people.
According to the last U.S. Census, 20,798 Native Americans are living in Pennsylvania.