Shamokin (village)

Shamokin (/ʃəˈmoʊkᵻn/; Saponi Algonquian “Schahamokink” "place of eels") (Lenape: Shahëmokink ) was a multi-ethnic Native American trading village on the Susquehanna River, located partially within the limits of the modern cities of Sunbury and Shamokin Dam, Pennsylvania. It should not be confused with present-day Shamokin, Pennsylvania, located to the east. Early in the eighteenth century, the village consisted of Iroquois migrants from the north, as well as Shawnee and Lenape settlers moving away from the expanding white settlement of Pennsylvania and Saponi and Tutelo from Virginia.

The date of first human settlement of is not known. However, historian C. A. Weslager indicates that it was probably Shawnee migrants who first settled there. A large population of Delaware Indians was also forcibly resettled there in the early 18th century after they lost rights to their land in the Walking Purchase. Canasatego of the Six Nations, enforcing the Walking Purchase of behalf of George Thomas, Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, ordered the Delaware Indians to go to two places on the Susquehanna River, one of which was Shamokin.

From 1727 to 1756, Shamokin was one of the largest and most influential Indian settlements in Pennsylvania. In 1745, Presbyterian missionary David Brainerd described the city as being located on both the east and west sides of the river, and on an island, as well. Brainerd reported that the city housed 300 Indians, half of which were Delawares and the other Seneca and Tutelo.

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