Ramapough Mountain Indians

Commission on Native American Affairs

Because of increased issues related to Native Americans, the state of New Jersey created the Commission on Native American Affairs by P.L.1134, c. 295, and it was signed into law on December 22, 1995, by Governor Christine Todd Whitman.^[20]

Withdrawal and reinstatement of recognition (2012 – 2019)

Chris Christie withdrew recognition of the tribe in 2012. They were re-recognized by Phil Murphy in 2019.^[21][22][23]

In 2012 during the governorship of Chris Christie, Christie said the state of New Jersey had no recognized tribes in a filing to the federal government. The Ramapough said they required state recognition to obtain healthcare, education, and career training grants, as well as the right to sell their crafts as Native American-made. They also said that Christie had permitted state bureaucrats to deny their status when communicating with agencies at state and federal levels.^[21][23][22]

Their recognition was restored during the governorship of Phil Murphy, after recognition was restored to the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape. When affirming their recognition, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said the tribes had agreed that state recognition did not grand them the right to open casinos.^[21][22][23]

Final Determination against Federal Acknowledgment of the Ramapough Mountain Indians, Inc.

The Final Determination against Federal Acknowledgment of the Ramapough Mountain Indians, Inc. was issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in December 1995. It concluded that the Ramapough Mountain Indians had failed to meet three of seven criteria for recognition; namely, that it did not provide adequate proof of descent from a historical tribe, nor of genealogical, social, and political continuity since 1950. The latter two issues were of concern since 1950, when the Office of Federal Acknowledgment felt that the tribe had not demonstrated a distinct Indian culture different from its neighbors.^[28][31][5] They concluded:

In conclusion, the origins and parentage of the earliest genealogically proven ancestors of the petitioner are not known. The petitioner has not demonstrated that their earliest documented ancestors were members of a historical North American Indian tribe, nor has the petitioner documented that their earliest proven progenitors descended from any known historical tribe of North American Indians. Without documentation, the BIA cannot make an assumption, on the basis of late 19th-century and early 20th-century ascriptions, that these unknown RMI ancestors were members of a historical North American Indian tribe. The petitioner has not presented acceptable evidence that the RMI descend from a historical Indian tribe, or from tribes that amalgamated and functioned as a single unit, either as individuals or as a group.^[28]

This Final Determination survived an internal BIA appeal in 1997, and a federal court appeal in 2001.^[30]

D.C. Court of Appeals judgement

The Ramapough Mountain Indians appealed the BIA's decision. In November 2001, the Ramapough presented their case to the D.C. Court of Appeals. The Court upheld the judgement, stating that they could not conclude the Secretary had made an arbitrary judgement or error on the Ramapough by requiring documentation, as the regulations require documentation of tribal descent.^[33]

After rejection

John "Bud" Shapard was the former chief of the Bureau of Research at the BIA from 1978 to 1987, when the regulations were written. Asked to examine the Ramapough's case after the BIA declined their petition, in 1999 he said, "It's pretty clear they've got an Indian community as strong as some that have been recognized. There's no question about that."^[39]

Alexa Koenig and Jonathan Stein wrote an article published in 2007 in which they reviewed the process of federal and state recognition, and factors affecting both. They wrote that the political environment slowed recognition of tribes due to fears of casino establishments, and that this was sometimes financed by competing Native American casinos. They said this prevented non-casino benefits, such as federal grants and immunities from being conferred to tribes.^[40] They also wrote that states had initiated their own processes of recognition of tribes and were building new relationships with them.^[41]

Scholar Jeroen Dewulf writes that research pointing to the Ramapough descending from free Black people in New Netherland led to difficulties in their recognition process.^[42]

Discussion and analysis

Cohen wrote in 1974 that, as the federal censuses of 1790–1830 were missing for this area, it prevented "establishing positively the exact relationship between many of these colored families in the mountains, and the earlier colored families of the Hackensack River Valley".^[50] He says that the documentation is clear in one case, when John Van Donk migrated from Orange County in 1800 to Pompton Township in 1830, near the Ringwood iron mines.^[8]

The Office of Federal Acknowledgment acknowledges an established Afro-Dutch history of the Ramapough Van Dunk family.^[8] They write that in the early 1800s the ancestors of the Ramapo were well-documented living in the Ramapo river valley among settlers, as well as to the east in Bergen County, in addition to residing in Rockland County towns. They record the families in the valley moving into the mountains by 1850. In addition, they observed the other families migrating into the valley, then the mountains only after 1850.^[47]

Edward J. Lenik, a self-taught private archaeologist,^[53] disagrees with Cohen's findings about African-European ancestry.^[52]

He says, "While the Ramapough's origins are controversial, most historians and anthropologists agree that they (Ramapough) are the descendants from local Munsee-speaking Lenape (Delaware) Indians who fled to the mountains in the late seventeenth century to escape Dutch and English settlers. It is a well known fact that displacement of Indian tribes followed European Incursions in the region which resulted in the forced movement and resettlement of Indian peoples."^[52]

Cohen said one or more marriages with Native Americans were possible, but argued there was no evidence of such, as they were not recorded in church records. He labelled them as being initially Afro-Dutch, attending Dutch Reformed church, having Dutch surnames, and speaking a Black variety of Jersey Dutch. In the Ramapo Mountains, Cohen writes they shifted to an Appalachian identity.^[54][51][5]

Pejorative labels

People labelled "Jackson White" in the early 20th century. On the left is a mixed-race man, and on the right is a white family. Cohen writes that the exonym applied to the Ramapo Mountain people, but also unrelated white families living near Ladentown.^[56][57][58]

The Ramapo Mountain people were often referred to historically as the Jackson Whites, a term that they regard as being derogatory.^[59][60] In 1880, The Bergen Democrat was the first newspaper to print the term Jackson Whites. A 1911 article noted it was used as a title of contempt.^[61] The etymology of the name is uncertain with sources stating the name was either from the Jackson White heirloom potato^[62] or a distortion of Jacks and Whites, referring to their multiracial ancestry.^[63] Another historical pejorative was "Buckos", which is of unknown origins.^[64] Not all families labelled as "Jackson Whites" were Ramapo Mountain people.^[56][57]

Early anthropological reports

During the twentieth century, anthropologists classified historically isolated and endogamous mixed-race groups as racial isolates or "mixed bloods".^[65] In 1936, newspaper editor John C. Storms published the booklet "The Origin of the Jackson-Whites of the Ramapo Mountains", where he espoused various theories of origin of the group. The New Jersey historian David S. Cohen said these theories were oral traditions which had emerged between 1870-1920. The earliest reference he found dated to 1872.^[59]

Partly because of the people's multiracial ancestry, some assumed they were descendants of runaway or freed slaves ("Jacks" in slang) and Caucasians.^{[66]: 263-264} Over time, the latter were believed to have included Dutch slaves and Hessian soldiers.^[9] The people supposedly fled to frontier areas of the mountains after the end of the Revolutionary War. Thousands of escaped slaves had gone to British-occupied New York City on the promise of freedom, and some left the city for more isolated areas to escape capture after the war. There is no documentation of slaves, freed or runaway, nor of Hessian soldiers' marrying into the tribe.^[63][67] The group rejects these legends as pejorative.^[63][9][61]

Cohen wrote that legends of origin given for the "Jackson Whites" were untrue, and his statements were then repeated by local news outlets. He said locals were happy with his refutations.^[68]

Identification as Ramapo Mountain People

Quick facts The Mountain People, Total population ...

Ramapo Mountain People

The Mountain People[69]
Log cabin of a member of the DeGroat family.
Total population
1913 (est.)	2,611[70]
1950 (census)	1,280[71]
1974 (est.)	1,500[72]
Regions with significant populations
New Jersey,  New York[73]
Languages
English, formerly Jersey Dutch[74]
Religion
Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal[75], and Dutch Reformed (ancestrally)[8][d]
Related ethnic groups
Melungeons, Lumbee, Wesorts, Redbones, Delaware Moors, Brass Ankles[77]
Not all Ramapo Mountain people are members of the Ramapough Mountain Indians.[55]

Close

David Cohen used the term Ramapo Mountain People for the mixed-race group previously described as "Jackson Whites", but not for the unrelated white families.^[69][56][57] He writes that some of the group's ancestors were multiracial, free Afro-Dutch pioneers who had migrated from lower Manhattan to the frontier and become landowners in the Tappan Patent during the seventeenth century.^[50][64][8]

Scholars Fuchs, Dewulf, and Cohen said that their migration to the Ramapo Mountains was due to laws in New Jersey restricting free Black people. This included the right to move across county lines without a pass. Cohen wrote that since the New York-New Jersey Border divided the Tappan Patent, the free Black people living there faced specific difficulties.^[42][64][51]

Culture

Kraft wrote that a report on the Ramapo by linguist John Dyneley Prince demonstrated they spoke a Black variant of Jersey Dutch.^[78] Cohen said this variant was called "nexer dauts", and was not a pidgin or creole language like the Dutch creoles of the Caribbean, citing runaway slave ads describing slaves speaking fluent Dutch.^[79][42]

Prince's report recorded a charm to cure rheumatism from the Ramapo William De Freece in Jersey Dutch. It spoke of seven trees standing on something unknown.^[e] Prince expressed the charm was grammatically incorrect. Cohen writes that the charm is a riddle, such that the trees represent stars, which is why they were not standing on anything. He says this could represent a Bakongo Cosmogram, and that historian Robert Farris Thompson had found a version of one with seven stars in Brazil.^[80][f]

The Ramapo Mountain People maintained an Appalachian cultural identity.^[81] Ethnomusicologist Charles H. Kaufman recorded them to perform fiddle music. Some songs they played were "The Fisher’s Hornpipe", "The Irish Washerwoman", and "Buck and Wing".^[82] They also practiced buck-and-wing dancing.^[83] In the 1960s, they enjoyed country and western music.^[81]

21st century analysis

Kraft wrote, as did Cohen, that the ancestors of the Ramapough Mountain Indians have the same surnames as 1670s free African-Americans from the Hackensack valley, but that there is a genealogical gap from 1790–1830 which prevented exact individual family lines from being constructed.^[8] Historian Andrea Mosterman says Cohen's book on the Ramapo is some of the earlier work on African-Americans in New Netherland, which she says was previously neglected.^[87]

Cohen writes that the documentation is clear in one case, when John Van Donk migrated from Orange County in 1800 to Pompton Township in 1830, near the Ringwood iron mines.^[8] Kraft wrote that Cohen was able to document the emigration of one Ramapough ancestor from the Hackensack valley, and that the Hackensack landowners were selling their lands at the same time as people with the same names began settling in the Ramapo Mountains. Researcher Paul Heinegg writes that one of the fourteen free African-American families studied by writer Henry B. Hoff has descendants in the Ramapo Mountain people.^[8]

Catalano and Planche, legal counsel for the Ramapough Mountain Indians, said that Cohen lacked genealogical credentials, and claimed the BIA found his genealogical work lacking.^[88][89] The historian Evan T. Pritchard wrote that the Ramapough, who he calls the "Mountaineer Munsee", did not disappear from the Ramapo Mountains like the Haverstraw. He says that whites refer to them as Dutch, Black, Tuscarora^[g], Roma, and Hessian in origin, but they are instead of local origin. He lists Hillburn, Johnsontown, Furmanville, Sherwoodville, Bulsontown, Willowgrove, Sandyfields, Hillburn, Stagg Hill, Ringwood, and Ladentown as Ramapough Lenape settlements.^[91]

Scholar Renate Bartl says the Ramapough Mountain Indians are an example of a multi-ethnic group claiming Native American identity, with a created ethnohistory, rather than a multi-ethnic Native American nation.^[92] She says their tribal identity was adopted after checking historical sources and maps to see which tribes lived in their area.^[93]

Scholar Jeroen Dewulf writes that Cohen was able to prove the Ramapough Mountain people originated from the free Black community in New Netherland. He said this was met with hostility as they did not live in the same progressive environment as Cohen, where the stereotyping of Black people was less prominent. He says another reason for their reaction was his conclusion that no Native ancestry was in the group, as this undermined attempts by some residents at obtaining recognition as a tribe.^[42]

Statements by tribes

The federally recognized Delaware Nation regards the Ramapough Mountain Indians as a fraudulent organization, as they have stated that they "do not acknowledge or work with any non-federally recognized groups that claim Lenape identity or nationhood, which includes “state recognized” groups as we do not agree with state recognition."^[94] In a 2023 report, the Delaware Nation referred to the Ramapough Mountain Indians as a CPAIN (Corporation Posing as an Indigenous Nation).^[95]

The federally recognized Delaware Tribe of Indians has issued a resolution which "denounces fabricated Delaware groups and commits to exposing and assisting state and federal authorities in eradicating any group which attempts or claims to operate as a government of the Delaware people". The resolution refers to Lenape heritage groups and state-recognized tribes in Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania as CPAINs.^[96]

Toxic dumping by the Ford Motor Company (Mann v. Ford)

Members of the community have participated in litigation (Mann v. Ford) against the Ford Motor Company regarding poisoning from a former toxic waste landfill. Portions of this site were used during the 1970s as sites for affordable housing where many Ramapough people lived.^[100]

During the 1980s, the Environmental Protection Agency designated the Ringwood Mines landfill site as a Superfund site for cleanup. Ford had operated an automobile assembly plant in Mahwah, and its contractors dumped industrial paints and other hazardous wastes in a landfill owned by the company in an area where many Ramapough Mountain Indians live. The EPA identified further remediation three more times as additional sludge sites were found. Following further investigation, the EPA returned the community to the Superfund list, the only site to be so treated.

During late winter 2006, some 600 Ramapough Lenape Indians filed a mass tort suit (Mann v. Ford) against the "Ford Motor Company and its contractors, as well as the borough of Ringwood, for the dumping of toxic waste."^[9] They were represented by Vicki Gilliam of The Cochran Group, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s law firm.^[101] The suit was filed about the time of publication of Toxic Legacy, a five-part investigative series by The Record, which had found lead and antimony levels in excess of 100 times the safety limit near some Ramapough residences.^[9]

The paint sludge has been linked to contamination of food and water sources with lead and benzene. The contamination has been linked to nosebleeds, leukemia, and other ailments among the community.^[102] EPA confirmed the area was still contaminated with industrial and hazardous waste after four cleanups and placed the site back on the Superfund priority list.^[103] From 2006 to 2011, the EPA has directed the removal of an additional 47,000 tonnes (104,000,000 lb) of contaminated earth and sludge from the site, more than five times what was cleaned up in the first efforts. ^[9][104]

The HBO documentary Mann v. Ford (2011) examines the lawsuit.^[105] During the 2008–2010 automotive industry crisis, at a time when it appeared that Ford might be in danger of going bankrupt, the Ramapough feared that the company might not be around much longer. Ford used this to their advantage in settlement negotiations. The tribe accepted a settlement in September 2009 of $11 million from Ford and its contractors, plus $1.5 million from the town of Ringwood, for an average payout of $8,000 per Ramapough resident after attorney fees. ^[106]

Pipeline protests and opposition

As of 2017, the tribe is fighting against the Pilgrim Pipeline.^[107] Pilgrim Pipelines Holdings, LLC, plans to run a dual pipeline through the tribe's land that would carry refined products like gasoline, diesel, kerosene, aviation fuel, and home heating oil north and Bakken formation crude oil south between Albany, New York, and the Bayway Refinery on the Chemical Coast in Linden, New Jersey.^[108]

The line would also pass through the Ramapo Mountains and Ramapo Pass. In solidarity with Standing Rock, tribal members founded the Split Rock Sweetwater protest encampment in Mahwah, New Jersey, in 2016 near the New York border to protest the Pilgrim Pipeline.^[109][110]

Barring of Anthony Jay Van Dunk

While he was chief in 2017, Dwaine Perry said former chief Jay Van Dunk had been banished from the tribe after a vote. Perry had previously been voted in as chief instead of Van Dunk. Perry criticized Van Dunk's handling of the tribe's finances, referring to him as a "confidence man".^{[111][15][112]}

After millionaire Jean-Louis Bourgeois expressed his intent to donate the 6 Weehawken Street building to Van Dunk for a prayer center, Perry requested it be given to the tribe instead as an embassy. He received no response. Van Dunk referred to his being barred from the tribe as a political vendetta by Perry. Bourgeois said he considered Anthony to be the chief.^{[15][111][112]}

Ousting of Dwaine Perry

In 2025, former chief Dwaine Perry said he was ousted by rival members in an illegal takeover. He was arrested on July 22, 2025 at the Ramapough tribal headquarters under charge of criminal trespass. He claimed this occurred due to rival members falsely informing police he was not allowed on tribal property.^[2][4][15]

Perry filed a lawsuit against rival members. His attorney Lydia Cotz stated the suit was for defamation, and that she believed he would be reinstated. The suit alleged members, some possibly unenrolled, were permitted to vote him out as chief and voted in Vincent Mann, which occurred while he was not present. The suit sought to reinstate Perry and others to their previous positions, award damages to Perry, and prevent tribal members from controlling the official nonprofit.^[2][4][15]

The case was dismissed in 2026. A lawyer for the tribe says the court decided the dispute should be solved through the tribal process itself, not courts. Cotz says her firm is appealing the judgement, and that the defamation case is not dismissed, and still in the discovery phase.^[15]