Submitted by Leona Baker, Historical Society of Salisbury Township

A Native American chief shaped 200 years of American history and was celebrated as the patron saint of the new nation. Tamanend, a 17th-century Lenni Lenape chief, was a friend and ally of English Quaker William Penn, who settled the region we know as Pennsylvania (Penn's Woods) in 1682. 

First honored as a patron saint by Washington's troops, Tamanend, also referred to as Tammany, soon became patron saint of the whole American army.

"Tammany ... played a prominent role in the establishment of peaceful relations among the Native American tribes and the English settlers who established Pennsylvania," reported http://www.DelawareTribe.org, the official website of the Delaware tribe of Native Americans.

According to author Leon Nelson Nichols, John Adams wrote to future first lady Abigail about Tammany, saying, "The people here have sainted him and keep his day."

After inspiring American patriots in the 18th century, Tammany shaped American politics in the 19th century and was celebrated in American popular culture well into the 20th century, most notably on the uniforms of professional sports teams. "During the Revolutionary War... stories of a patriotic and wise Indian chief ... circulated through the Colonies, (taking) a strong hold upon the minds of the soldiers," Nichols wrote. 

The first original American opera, "Tammany: The Indian Chief," was performed at John Street Theatre in Manhattan in 1794. Tammany appears in James Fenimore Cooper's classic 1826 American novel, "The Last of the Mohicans." A statue of Tammany keeps watch over the campus of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

A Tammany statue also enjoys a place of prestige across from Philadelphia City Hall. The edifice itself is topped by the image of Tamanend's English "brother" Penn. Tammany also serves as a silent sentinel to the heroes of Gettysburg. New York's 42nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment - the Tammany Regiment - fought heroically on the infamous Pennsylvania battlefield. The image of Tammany stands atop a monument to these men who helped defeat slavery. Tammany became a model of aspiration after the American Revolution. Patriotic Tammany societies proliferated around the nation. 

The Tammany Society's constitution used in 1790 reads: "It shall connect in the indissoluble bonds of Patriots Friendship, American Brethren of known attachment to the Political Rights of Human Nature and the Liberties of this Country." Yes, Tammany, like Columbia in an earlier United States, was viewed as a personification of the ideal of human liberty.

James Gaffney brought Chief Tammany to American professional sports. In 1912, he purchased the National League's Boston Rustlers, renaming the team the Boston Braves to honor Tammany. He added the Lenni Lenape's image to the team's uniforms. Babe Ruth played for the Boston Braves in 1935 and last played wearing the face of the patron saint of America on his sleeve. Tammany later adorned Braves uniforms as the franchise moved to Milwaukee and then Atlanta. 

"The American ideals of human right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' spring chiefly from original American sources and were developed on American soil for untold centuries before Europeans arrived on this continent," historian and biographer of early Americans Joseph White Norwood wrote in his 1938 book "The Tammany Legend." "These ideals are therefore so distinctively native to the soil that they should be known as the first Americans knew them, by a name that completely symbolizes them. This name is Tamanend."

Information gathered for this article was gleaned from an essay by Kerry J. Byrne written in June 2023 and http://www.hiddencityphila.org.