The Delawares, as has been indicated, had their densest population upon the upper Muskingum and Tuscarawas, and they really were in possession of what is now the eastern half of the State from the Ohio to Lake Erie. This tribe, which claimed to be the elder branch of the Lenni-Lenape, has, by tradition and in history and fiction, been accorded a high rank among the savages of North America. Schoolcraft, Loskiel, Albert Gallatin, Drake, Zeisberger, Heckewelder, and many other writers have borne testimony to the superiority of the Delawares, and James Fennimore Cooper, in his attractive romances, has added lustre to the fame of the tribe. According to the tradition preserved by them, the Delawares, many centuries before they knew the white man lived in the western part of the continent, separated themselves from the rest of the Lenni-Lenape and migrated slowly eastward. Reaching the Allegheny River they, with the Iroquois, waged war successfully against a race of giants, the Allegewi, and still continuing their migration settled on the Delaware River, and spread their population eventually to the Hudson, the Susquehanna, and the Potomac. Here they lived, menaced and often attacked by the Iroquois, and finally, as some writers claim, they were subjugated by the Iroquois through stratagem. The Atlantic coast became settled by Europeans, and the Delawares also being embittered against the Iroquois, whom they accused of treachery, turned westward and concentrated upon the Allegheny. Disturbed here again by the white settlers, a portion of the tribe obtained permission from the Wyandots (whom they called their uncles, thus confessing their superiority and reputation of greater antiquity) to occupy the lands along the Muskingum. The forerunners of the nation entered this region, in all probability, as early as 1745, and in less than a score of years their entire population had become resident in this country. They became here a more flourishing and powerful tribe than they had ever been before. Their warriors numbered not less than six hundred in 1764. The Delawares were divided into three tribes—the Unamis, Unalachtgo, and the Minsi, also called the Monseys or Muncies. The English equivalents of these appellations are the Turtle, the Turkey, and the Wolf. The tribe bearing the latter name exhibited a spirit that was quite in keeping with it, but the Delawares as a rule were less warlike than other nations, and they more readily accepted Christianity.