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47-709: The Delaware Colony , officially known as the three " Lower Counties on the Delaware ", was a semiautonomous region of the proprietary Province of Pennsylvania and a de facto British colony in North America . Although not royally sanctioned , Delaware consisted of the three counties on the west bank of the Delaware River Bay . In the early 17th century, the area was inhabited by Lenape and possibly Assateague Native American Indian tribes. The first European settlers were Swedes , who established

94-458: A lord proprietor , who, holding authority by virtue of a royal charter, usually exercised that authority almost as an independent sovereign. These colonies were distinct from Crown colonies in that they were commercial enterprises established under authority of the crown. Proprietary governors had legal responsibilities over the colony as well as responsibilities to shareholders to ensure the security of their investments. The proprietary system

141-575: A Deputy of the Duke of York from 1664 to 1682, but neither the Duke nor his colonists controlled it. The proprietors of Maryland took action to take advantage of this situation. Between 1669 and 1672, Delaware was an incorporated county under the Province of Maryland . When the Duke of York made use of his charter on behalf of courtier William Penn , through conveyances made by the governor of New York, there

188-760: A sovereign to grant almost regal powers of government to the feudal lords of his border districts to prevent foreign invasion. Those districts or manors were often called palatinates or counties palatine because the lord wielded the power of the king in his palace. His power was regal in kind but inferior in degree to that of the king. That type of arrangement had caused many problems in Norman times for certain English border counties. Those territories were known as counties palatine and lasted at least in part to 1830 for good reason: remoteness, poor communications, governance carried out under difficult circumstances. The monarch and

235-665: A year had passed. Patroon David Pietersz. de Vries arrived shortly thereafter with an additional 50 settlers. Although he concluded a treaty with the Indians, de Vries, his partners in Holland, and the Dutch West India Company decided the location was too dangerous for immediate colonization. They took the additional settlers to New Amsterdam (New York) instead. In March 1638, the Swedish colony of New Sweden

282-538: Is now Gloucester City, New Jersey . Neither the Dutch nor the English showed any early interest in establishing settlement on this land. It was not until 1629 that agents of the Dutch West India Company , Gillis Hossitt and Jacob Jansz , arrived to negotiate with the Native Americans to "purchase" land for a colony. (The Dutch always purchased land from the Native Americans, rather than take it by force, but

329-458: The Americas were initially established under the proprietary system. King Charles II used the proprietary solution to reward allies and focus his own attention on Britain itself. He offered his friends colonial charters which facilitated private investment and colonial self-government. The charters made the proprietor the effective ruler, albeit one ultimately responsible to English Law and

376-533: The British takeover in 1664. Franciscus van den Enden had drawn up charter for a utopian society that included equal education of all classes, joint ownership of property, and a democratically elected government. Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy attempted such a settlement near the site of Zwaanendael, but it was largely destroyed in 1664 by the British. A monument commemorating the colony named De Vries Palisade

423-611: The Delaware Valley was made by the Dutch ship Halve Maen under the command of Henry Hudson in 1609. He was searching for what was believed to be a Northwest Passage to Asia. Hudson sailed into what now is the Delaware Bay . He named it the South River, but this would later change after Samuel Argall came across the mouth of the river in 1610, after being blown off course. Argall later renamed this waterway as

470-632: The Indian Ocean colony of French Madagascar . Caltaux again became their proprietor from 1901 to his death. On 26 June 1960, the islands became a regular French possession, administered by the High Commissioner for Réunion . On 3 January 2005, they were transferred to the administrators of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands . Zwaanendael Colony Zwaanendael or Swaanendael / ˈ z w ɑː n ən d ɛ l /

517-542: The river Delaware , after Thomas West, Lord De La Warr , the second governor of Virginia. Follow-up expeditions by Cornelius May in 1613 and Cornelius Hendrickson in 1614 mapped the shoreline of what would become the colony and state of Delaware for inclusion in the New Netherland colony. Initial Dutch settlement was centered up the Delaware River at Fort Nassau at Big Timber Creek , south of what

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564-631: The Delaware River" ( Lower Counties on Delaware ) or by the names of the three counties . After William Penn was granted the province of Pennsylvania by King Charles II in 1681, he asked for and later received the lands of Delaware from the Duke of York. Penn had a very hard time governing Delaware because the economy and geology resembled those of the Chesapeake Bay colonies more than that of Pennsylvania. The lowland areas were developed for tobacco plantations and dependent on enslaved Africans and African Americans for labor. Penn attempted to merge

611-520: The Duke of York , who went on to become King James II. The three lower counties on the Delaware River were governed as part of the Province of Pennsylvania from 1682 until 1701, when the lower counties petitioned for and were granted an independent colonial legislature; the two colonies shared the same governor until 1776. The English colonists who settled in Delaware were mainly Quakers. In

658-613: The Dutch West India Company competed with the officials and backers of New Sweden. In 1651, New Netherland Governor Peter Stuyvesant had Fort Nassau dismantled and reassembled downriver of Fort Christina as Fort Casimir . This meant that the Dutch effectively encircled the Swedish colony. The Swedes abandoned Fort Beversreede , a short-lived attempt to establish a foothold at the end of the Great Minquas Path (in modern Philadelphia). Three years later,

705-537: The King. Charles II gave the former Dutch colony New Netherlands to his younger brother The Duke of York, who established the Province of New York . He gave an area to William Penn who established the Province of Pennsylvania . The British America colonies before the American Revolution consisted of 20 colonies on the continent's mainland. After the conflict, thirteen of those became states of

752-727: The New Sweden colony attacked and seized Fort Casimir, renaming it Fort Trinity. The struggle finally came to an end in September 1655. With the Second Great Northern War raging in Europe, Stuyvesant assembled an army and naval squadron sufficient to capture the Swedish forts, thus re-establishing control of the colony. The Dutch renamed Fort Casimir/Trinity as New Amstel (later translated to New Castle ). It became their center for fur trading with Native Americans and

799-532: The New World and the humble house form was later spread to the American backcountry by Scotch-Irish immigrants who entered the colony through the port of New Castle. Swedish colonial Governor Johan Björnsson Printz administered the colony of New Sweden from 1643 to 1653. He was succeeded by Johan Classon Risingh , the last governor of New Sweden. The Dutch had never accepted the Swedish colony as legitimate, and

846-615: The United States of America. By the time of the Revolution some had consolidated multiple grants, while others, such as conflicting claims to what became the state of Vermont and the western borders of numerous states, including New York and Virginia, as well as the sovereignty of what became the state of Maine in 1820, remained unresolved well after. In medieval times, it was customary in Continental Europe for

893-482: The coast, with incidental whaling to help defray expenses. A colony of twenty-eight people was planted on Blommaert's Kill (now Lewes creek), a little north of Cape Henlopen, and its governorship was entrusted to Gillis Hosset. This settlement antedated by several years any in Pennsylvania , and the colony at Lewes practically laid the foundation and defined the singularly limited area of the state of Delaware ,

940-507: The colony as a concession. Minuit resented the company and was well aware that the Dutch had little settlement in the Zuyd (Delaware) river valley. New Sweden was a multicultural affair, with Finns, Dutch, Walloons (Belgians), and Germans, in addition to Swedes among the settlers. The first outpost of the Swedish settlement was named Fort Christina (now Wilmington) after Queen Christina of Sweden . The Swedes introduced log cabin construction to

987-462: The colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina in present-day Wilmington, Delaware , in 1638. The Dutch captured the colony in 1655 and annexed it to New Netherland to the north. England subsequently took control of it from the Dutch in 1664. In 1682, William Penn , the Quaker proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania to the north leased the three lower counties on the Delaware River from James,

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1034-533: The colony's administration headquarters. The area's European population grew rapidly. In 1664, after English Colonel Richard Nicolls captured New Amsterdam , Robert Carr was sent to the Delaware River settlements. He took over New Amstel, pillaging it and mistreating its settlers, some of whom he sold into slavery in Virginia. Carr translated the name of the post from Dutch into English and it has been known since as New Castle . Carr and his troops continued down

1081-422: The dog, who was chained fast, and whom they most feared, twenty-five arrows before they could dispatch him. They then proceeded towards the rest of the men, who were at work, and, going amongst them with pretensions of friendship, struck them down. Thus was our young colony destroyed, causing us serious loss. Arriving December 5, 1632, at the charred remains of the settlement, de Vries (who had received reports of

1128-629: The easing of bureaucratic difficulties in managing the colonies and increasing economic or administrative difficulties faced by proprietors. Successive English sovereigns sought to solidify their power and authority throughout the empire, and gradually converted proprietary colonies to Crown colonies , which were administered by officials directly appointed by the Crown. By the 18th century, most former proprietary colonies had been converted into Crown colonies. Proprietary colonies in America were governed by

1175-634: The first half of the 18th century, New Castle and Philadelphia became the primary ports of entry to the new world for a quarter of a million Protestant immigrants from Ulster , referred to as "Scotch-Irish" in America and "Ulster Scots" in Ireland . Delaware had no established religion at this time. The American Revolutionary War began in April 1775, and on June 15, 1776, the Delaware Assembly voted to break all ties with Great Britain, creating

1222-429: The friends of the murdered chief incited their friends, as they are a people like the Indians, who are very revengeful, to set about the work of vengeance. Observing our people out of the house, each one at his work, that there was not more than one inside, who was lying sick, and a large mastiff, who was chained, - had he been loose they would not have dared to approach the house, - and the man who had command standing near

1269-691: The government retained their usual right to separate head and body, figuratively or literally, at any time. (See also the hereditary title marquess .) In 1603, Henry IV , the King of France , granted Pierre Du Gua de Monts the exclusive right to colonize lands in North America at a latitude between 40° and 60° North. The King also gave Dugua a monopoly in the fur trade for those territories and named him Lieutenant General for Acadia and New France . In return, Dugua promised to bring 60 new colonists each year to what would be called Acadie . In 1607,

1316-519: The governments of Pennsylvania and the lower counties of Delaware. Representatives from each area clashed strongly and, in 1701 Penn agreed to allow two assemblies to be elected and conduct their separate affairs. Delawareans would meet in New Castle, and Pennsylvanians would gather in Philadelphia. Delaware, like Philadelphia and more so than Maryland, continued to be a melting pot of sorts. It

1363-424: The house, three of the stoutest Indians, who were to do the deed, bringing a lot of bear-skins with them to exchange, sought to enter the house. The man in charge went in with them to make the barter, which being done, he went to the loft where the stores lay, and in descending the stairs one of the Indians seized an axe and cleft his head so that he fell down dead. They also relieved the sick man of life, and shot into

1410-563: The independent State of Delaware . On July 4, 1776, Delaware joined 12 other British colonies to form the United States of America . From the early Dutch settlement in 1631 to the colony's rule by Pennsylvania in 1682, the land that later became the U.S. state of Delaware changed hands many times. Because of this, Delaware became a heterogeneous society made up of individuals who were diverse in country of origin and religion. The first European exploration of what would become known as

1457-509: The length of the coast of modern Sussex and Kent counties in Delaware. In 1631 the Dutch sent a group of twenty-eight men to build a fort inside Cape Henlopen on Lewes Creek to establish the Zwaanendael Colony . This first colony was intended to take advantage of the large whale population in the bay and to produce whale oil. A cultural misunderstanding with the Native Americans resulted in their killing of these 28 colonists before

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1504-473: The major part of which was included in the purchase. A palisaded fort was built, with the "red lion, rampant," of Holland affixed to its gate, and the country was named Swaanendael or Zwaanendael Colony, while the water was called Godyn's Bay (now Delaware Bay). The existence of the little colony was short, for the Indians came down upon it as the result of a misunderstanding and it was destroyed, with only two boys, Pierre and Hendrick Wiltsee, surviving to tell

1551-557: The monopoly was revoked, and the colony failed, but in 1608, he sponsored Samuel de Champlain to open a colony at Quebec. The Îles Glorieuses ( Glorioso Islands ) were on 2 March 1880 settled and named by the Frenchman Hippolyte Caltaux (b. 1847–d. 1907), who was their proprietor from until 1891. It was only on 23 August 1892 that they were claimed for the French Third Republic , as part of

1598-404: The new colonists to New Amsterdam (New York City). The Zwaanendael claims were then resold to the Dutch West India Company . Later Blommaert assisted with the fitting out of the first Swedish expedition to New Sweden in 1637 and engaged Peter Minuit (by then no longer Governor of New Netherland) to command it. A new experimental settlement on Delaware Bay was begun in 1663, just before

1645-486: The overlap between Maryland and Pennsylvania. By this boundary, Delaware was substantially awarded to Pennsylvania. Eventually, Delaware gained its own independence from Pennsylvania and fended off Maryland. The area now known as Delaware was owned by William Penn, the Quaker owner of Pennsylvania. In contemporary documents from the early Revolutionary period, the area is generally referred to as "The Three Lower Counties on

1692-421: The peoples had differing concepts of property and use. The Native Americans often considered the Dutch "payments" to be gifts in keeping with their Native custom, and expected to share use of the common land.) Hossitt and Jansz secured a treaty granting the Dutch a parcel of land running along the shore eight Dutch miles long and half a Dutch mile deep (roughly 29 by just under 2 US miles). This nearly coincided with

1739-401: The shore, ravaging and burning settlements, including a Mennonite utopian community led by Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy near present-day Lewes, Delaware . This effectively ended the Dutch rule of the colony and, for that matter, ended their claims to any land in colonial North America. The English took over New Netherland, renaming it New York. Delaware was thenceforth claimed by New York under

1786-474: The slaughter before leaving Europe) negotiated a treaty with the Indians and sailed up the Delaware River, attempting to trade for beans and corn. Failing his objective there, de Vries sailed to Virginia, where was successful in obtaining provisions for the new colonists in Zwaanendael, to which he returned. The massacre convinced the Dutch to retrench their settlements and de Vries shortly thereafter removed

1833-403: The tale. The details of the attack were later recounted to De Vries by Nanticoke Indians when he arrived with the second wave of an additional 50 colonists: He then showed us the place where our people had set up a column to which was fastened a piece of tin, whereon the arms of Holland were painted. One of their chiefs took this off, for the purpose of making tobacco-pipes, not knowing that he

1880-409: The transaction was duly attested at Fort Amsterdam. The Dutch West India Company was formed to colonize the tract that included Blommaert, Godyn, Kiliaen van Rensselaer ( Patroon of Rensselaerswyck ), Joannes de Laet (the geographer), David Pietersen de Vries and Mathijs Jansen Van Keulen. A ship of eighteen guns, The Walvis was fitted out to bring over the colonists and subsequently defend

1927-583: Was a brief conflict of interest between the Catholic, Tory, and sometime Jacobite sympathizer Lord Baltimore with his friend the aforesaid Duke. A hard-fought court battle was subsequently relegated to a proprietary dispute between the Calvert and Penn families since both were held in favor by both the King and Prince James. By 1768, the Mason-Dixon line is said to have legally resolved vague outlines in

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1974-448: Was a mostly inefficient system, in that the proprietors were, for the most part, like absentee landlords . Many never even visited the colonies they owned. By the early 18th century, nearly all of the proprietary colonies had either surrendered their charters to the crown to become royal colonies , or else had significant limitations placed on them by the crown. The provinces of Maryland , Carolina and several other colonies in

2021-544: Was a short-lived Dutch colonial settlement in Delaware . It was built in 1631. The name is archaic Dutch for "swan valley." The site of the settlement later became the town of Lewes, Delaware . Two directors of the Amsterdam chamber of the Dutch West India Company , Samuel Blommaert and Samuel Godyn , bargained with the natives for a tract of land reaching from Cape Henlopen to the mouth of Delaware River . This

2068-410: Was doing amiss. Those in command at the house made such an ado about it that the Indians, not knowing how it was, went away and slew the chief who had done it, and brought a token of the dead to the house to those in command, who told them that they wished that they had not done it; that they should have brought him to them, as they wished to have forbidden him not to do the like again. They went away, and

2115-525: Was established as the first permanent European settlement in Delaware. The Kalmar Nyckel anchored at a rocky point on the Minquas Kill. Today this site is called Swedes' Landing ; it is located in Wilmington, Delaware . The expedition was led, and had been instigated by Peter Minuit , the founding governor of New Netherland . He had been dismissed by the Dutch West India Company, which operated

2162-450: Was home to Swedes, Finns, Dutch, and French, in addition to the English, who constituted the dominant culture. 39°44′17″N 75°33′29″W  /  39.738°N 75.558°W  / 39.738; -75.558 Proprietary colony This type of indirect rule eventually fell out of favour in the English colonial empire due to a variety of reasons, including the gradual sociopolitical stabilisation of England's American colonies,

2209-428: Was in 1629, three years before the charter of Maryland , and is the oldest deed for land in Delaware . Its water-front nearly coincides with the coast of Kent and Sussex counties. The purchase was ratified in 1630 by Peter Minuit and his council at Fort Amsterdam . The estate was further extended, on May 5, 1630, by the purchase of a tract twelve miles square (31 km²) on the coast of Cape May opposite, and

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