Saint Tamanend

Tamanend ("the Affable"; c. 1625 – c. 1701), historically also known as Taminent, Tammany, Saint Tammany or King Tammany, was the Chief of Chiefs and Chief of the Turtle (Pùkuwànku) clan of the Lenni-Lenape nation in the Delaware Valley signing the founding peace treaty with William Penn. Also called a "Patron Saint of America", Tamanend represented peace and amity, and became a popular figure in 18th-century America, especially in Philadelphia. A Tammany society founded in Philadelphia holds an annual Tammany festival. Tammany societies (Tammany Hall being the most well-known and influential) were established across the United States after the American Revolutionary War, and Tammany assumed mythic status as an icon for the peaceful politics of negotiation. Tamanend reputedly took part in a meeting between the leaders of the Lenni-Lenape nation and the leaders of the Pennsylvania colony held under a large elm tree at Shakamaxon in the early 1680s. William Penn and Tamanend continued to sign seven more documents assuring each other, and their peoples, of peaceable understanding after the initial one in 1683. Tamanend is recorded as having said that the Lenni-Lenape and the English colonists would "live in peace as long as the waters run in the rivers and creeks and as long as the stars and moon endure." These words have been memorialized on the statue of Tamanend that still stands in Philadelphia. It is believed that Tamanend died in 1701. Over the next century, many folk legends surrounded Tamanend, and his fame assumed mythical proportions among the people of Philadelphia, who began to call him "King Tammany", "Saint Tammany", and the "Patron Saint of America". The people of Philadelphia organized a Tammany society and an annual Tammany festival. These traditions soon spread across America. Tammany's popular status was partly due to the desire by colonists to express a distinct "American" identity, in place of their former European nationalities.