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The history ofDelaware as a political entity dates back to the early colonization ofNorth America by European settlers. Delaware is made up of three counties established in 1638, before the time ofWilliam Penn. Each county had its own settlement history. The state's early colonists tended to identify more closely with their county than Delaware as a whole. Large parts of southern and western Delaware were thought to have been[clarification needed] inMaryland until 1767. The state has existed in the wide economic and political circle of the nearbyPennsylvanian city ofPhiladelphia.[clarification needed]
Before Delaware was settled byEuropeans, the area was home to theLenni Lenape (also known as the Delaware),Susquehanna,Nanticoke, and otherNative American tribes. After the Swedes, Dutch colonists settled Delaware, with the native people trading with European settlers for around a half-century.[1]
The Delaware watershed was claimed by theEnglish based on the explorations ofJohn Cabot in 1497,Captain John Smith, and others and was given the name of a title held byThomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, the governor ofVirginia from 1610 until 1618. At that time, the area was considered to be part of the Virginia colony.
However, the Dutch thought they also had a claim based on the 1609 explorations ofHenry Hudson, and under the auspices of theDutch West India Company, were the first Europeans to actually occupy the land. They establishedtrading-posts:Fort Wilhelmus in 1624 at "Hooghe Eyland" (High Island), nowBurlington Island, oppositeBurlington, New Jersey;Fort Nassau, nearGloucester City, New Jersey, in 1626; and atZwaanendael, nowLewes, Delaware, in 1631.[2]Peter Minuit was the Dutch Director-General ofNew Netherland during this period and probably spent some time at the Burlington Island post, thereby familiarizing himself with the region.
In any case, Minuit had a disagreement with the directors of the Dutch West India Company, was recalled from New Netherland, and quickly made his services available to his many friends inSweden, then a major power in European politics. They established aSwedish South Company, aimed at settling the territory ofNew Sweden, and, following much negotiation, he led a group under the flag of Sweden to theDelaware River in 1638. They established a trading post atFort Christina, now inWilmington. Minuit claimed possession of the western side of the Delaware River, saying he had found no European settlement there. Unlike the Dutch West India Company, the Swedes intended to actually bring settlers to their outpost and begin a colony.
Minuit drowned in a hurricane on the way home that same year, but the Swedish colony continued to grow gradually. By 1644, Swedish andFinnish settlers were living along both sides of the Delaware River from Fort Christina to theSchuylkill River.New Sweden's best known governor,Johan Björnsson Printz, moved his residence to what is nowTinicum Township, Pennsylvania, where he intended to concentrate the settlements.
While the Dutch settlement atZwaanendael ("swan valley"), or present-dayLewes, was soon destroyed in a war with Native Americans, the Dutch never gave up their claim to the area, and in 1651 built Fort Casimir, nowNew Castle, under the leadership ofPeter Stuyvesant. Three years later, in 1654,Johan Risingh, the Swedish governor, capturedFort Casimir from the Dutch. For the Swedes, this was a catastrophic miscalculation, as the next summer, 1655, an enraged Stuyvesant led another Dutch expedition to the Delaware River, attacked all the Swedish communities and forcibly ended the New Sweden colony, incorporating the whole area back into the New Netherland colony.[3]
It was not long, though, before the Dutch too were forcibly removed by theEnglish, who asserted their earlier claim. In 1664,James, the Duke of York and brother ofKing Charles II, outfitted an expedition that easily ousted the Dutch from both the Delaware andHudson rivers, leaving theDuke of York the proprietary authority in the entire area.
ButCecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, Proprietor ofMaryland, claimed a competing grant to lands on the western shore ofDelaware Bay, including all of the present state of Delaware. In deference to the royal will of Charles II to please his brother, James, Duke of York, Calvert did not press his claim. James, the Duke of York, believed he had won the area in war and was justified in ownership. The area was administered fromNew York as a part of James' New York colony.
William Penn was granted "Pennsylvania", in which the grant specifically excluded New Castle or any of the lands within 12 miles (19 km) of it. Nevertheless, Penn wanted an outlet to the sea from his new province. He persuaded James to lease him the western shore of Delaware Bay. So, in 1682, Penn arrived in New Castle with two documents: a charter for theProvince of Pennsylvania and a lease for what became known as "the Lower Counties on the Delaware".
Penn had inherited James' claims and thus began nearly 100 years of litigation between Penn and Baltimore, and their heirs, in the HighCourt of Chancery in London. The settlement of the legal battles was started by the heirs' agreeing to the survey performed byCharles Mason andJeremiah Dixon between 1763 and 1767. Their work resulted in the famousMason–Dixon line. The final adjudication of the settlement was not completed until the eve of theAmerican Revolution. The settlement was a major reason for the close political alliance between the property owners of the Lower Counties and the Royalist Proprietary government.
In William Penn'sFrame of Government of 1682, he established a combined assembly for his domain by providing for equal membership from each county and requiring legislation to have the assent of both the Lower Counties and theUpper Counties ofChester,Philadelphia andBucks. The assembly meeting place alternated between Philadelphia and New Castle. Once Philadelphia began to grow, its leaders resented having to go to New Castle and gain agreement of the assemblymen from the sparsely populated Lower Counties. In 1704, members of the two regions mutually agreed to meet and pass laws separately from then on. The Lower Counties did continue to share a governor, but the Province of Pennsylvania never merged with the Lower Counties.
The Mason–Dixon line forms the boundary between Delaware and Maryland; this begins at theTranspeninsular Line. The border between Pennsylvania and Delaware is formed by anarc known as theTwelve-Mile Circle laid out in the seventeenth century to clearly delineate the area within the sphere of influence of New Castle. A small dispute lingered until 1921 over an area known as theWedge, where the Mason–Dixon line and the Twelve-Mile Circle left a fragment of land claimed by both Pennsylvania and Delaware.
Delaware was one of theThirteen Colonies which revolted against British rule in theAmerican Revolution. After the Revolution began in 1776, the three Lower Counties became "The Delaware State", and in 1776 that entity adopted its first constitution, declaring itself to be the "Delaware State". Its first governors went by the title of "President".
TheBattle of Cooch's Bridge was the only major military engagement of the Revolution that took place on Delaware soil. The engagement began August 30, 1777, about 2 miles (3 km) south ofCooch's Bridge (located in present-dayNewark). The Americans harried the lead forces of theBritish Army. However, the roughly 700 colonials were greatly outmanned and outgunned.Washington's troops were slowly driven back.
By September 3, the colonials had dropped back to Cooch's Bridge. A handpicked regiment of 100 marksmen under GeneralWilliam Maxwell laid an ambush in the surrounding cover. Over the ensuing battle, several British andHessian charges were repelled, but the Americans soon depleted their ammunition and called a retreat.
The property was taken by the British, and several buildings were burned.General Cornwallis used the Cooch house as his headquarters for the next week as the British regrouped. American casualties numbered around 30.
Shortly afterward,General Howe moved his troops out. On September 11, he defeated the colonials in theBattle of Brandywine and subsequently captured the colonial capital of Philadelphia.
Delaware had a Loyalist insurrection in April 1778 called theClow Rebellion.
In 1783, the independence of the United States and therefore Delaware was confirmed in theTreaty of Paris.
Delaware was the first state to ratify theUnited States Constitution.
Éleuthère Irénée du Pont arrived fromFrance in 1800. In 1804 he established the largestgunpowder factory in the United States on the banks of theBrandywine River just north ofWilmington. HisDuPont firm (now the world's fourth largest chemical company) was the U.S. military's largest supplier of gunpowder by the beginning of theCivil War, and his descendants, thedu Pont family, are now one of the richest and most successful families in the country.
The oldestblackchurch in the country was chartered in Delaware by former slavePeter Spencer in 1813 as the "Union Church of Africans", which is now theA.U.M.P. Church. TheBig August Quarterly which began in 1814 is still celebrated and is the oldest such cultural festival in the country.
The construction of theChesapeake and Delaware Canal between 1802 and 1829 brought significant shipping interests to Delaware, expanding the state's commercial opportunities.
| Census year | New Castle County population | percentage of state population | Kent County population | percentage of state population | Sussex County population | percentage of state population | Delaware total | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1790 | 19,688 | 33% | 18,920 | 32% | 20,488 | 35% | 59,096 | ||||
| 1800 | 25,361 | 39% | 19,554 | 30% | 19,358 | 30% | 64,273 | ||||
| 1810 | 24,429 | 34% | 20,495 | 28% | 27,750 | 38% | 72,674 | ||||
| 1820 | 27,899 | 38% | 20,793 | 29% | 24,057 | 33% | 72,749 | ||||
| 1830 | 29,720 | 39% | 19,913 | 26% | 27,115 | 35% | 76,748 | ||||
| 1840 | 33,120 | 42% | 19,872 | 25% | 25,093 | 32% | 78,085 |
Slavery had been a divisive issue in Delaware for decades before theAmerican Civil War began. Opposition to slavery in Delaware, imported fromQuaker-dominated Pennsylvania, led many slaveowners to free their slaves; half of the state's black population was free by 1810, and more than 90% were free by 1860.[4] This trend also led pro-slavery legislators to restrict free black organizations, and the constabulary in Wilmington was accused of harsh enforcement ofrunaway slave laws, while many Delawareans kidnapped free blacks among the large communities throughout the state and sold them to plantations further south.[4]
During the Civil War, Delaware was aslave state that remained in theUnion. (Delaware voters voted not to secede on January 3, 1861.) Although most Delaware citizens who fought in the Civil War served in regiments on the Union side, some did, in fact, serve in Delaware companies on theConfederate side in the Maryland and Virginia Regiments. Delaware was the one slave state from which the Confederate States of America could not recruit a full regiment.[5]
By 1862,Fort Delaware, a harbor defense facility that was located on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River and had been designed by chief engineer Joseph Gilbert Totten circa 1819, was pressed into service as a prison for Confederate prisoners of war, political prisoners, federal convicts, and privateer officers.[6][7][8] The firstprisoners of war (POWs) were confined in the fort's interior in casemates, empty powder magazines, or one of two small rooms in the sally port. The first general from the Confederate States of America to be housed at the fort wasBrig. Gen. J. Johnston Pettigrew.
Prison conditions were initially "tolerable," according to research conducted by students at theUniversity of Delaware. "In its first year of operation in 1862, the population varied from 3,434 prisoners in July to only 123 later that year due to routine prisoner exchanges between the North and the South." But by the summer of 1863, following multiple military engagements including July'sBattle of Gettysburg, "the fort's population had swollen to over 12,000 due to the influx of prisoners from the battles at Vicksburg and Gettysburg," a change in numbers which soon began to negatively impact the quality of life for POWs.[9]
As realization dawned that more housing would be needed for the increasing number of POWs captured by Union troops, officials at the fort embarked on a construction program in 1862, building barracks for enlisted soldiers which came to be known as the "bull pen."[10] A 600-bed hospital was also built, as were barracks for the Union soldiers who would be brought in to guard the increasing POW ranks.
The first Confederate prisoner to die at Fort Delaware was Captain L. P. Halloway of the27th Virginia Infantry. Captured atWinchester, Virginia on March 23, 1862, he died at the fort on April 9.[11] By the end of the war, the fort had held almost 33,000 prisoners, roughly 2,500 of whom died as the conditions continued to deteriorate. Half of the deaths were reportedly due to an outbreak ofvariola (smallpox) in 1863. Other causes of death included: diarrhea (315), inflammation of the lungs (243),typhoid fever and/ormalaria (215),scurvy (70),pneumonia (61),erysipelas (47), gunshot wounds (7), and drowning (5).[12][13] In addition, 109 Union soldiers and 40 civilians also died at the fort during the war.[14]
Among the political prisoners held at Fort Delaware was the Rev. Issac W. K. Handy, who had commented in December 1863 that the Civil War had tarnished one of the nation's most cherished symbols, the American flag. Arrested for comments made during a dinner, he was jailed without trial and, becausehabeas corpus had been suspended by this time during the war, he was then held at the fort for 15 months.[15]
On February 8, 1865, two months before the end of the Civil War, Delaware voted to reject theThirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and so voted to continue slavery beyond the Civil War. However, the gesture proved futile when other states ratified the amendment, which took effect in December 1865 and thereby ended slavery in Delaware. In a symbolic move, Delaware belatedly ratified the amendment on February 12, 1901 – 35 years after national ratification and 38 years afterLincoln'sEmancipation Proclamation. Delaware also rejected the14th Amendment and15th Amendment during theReconstruction Era.
After the Civil War, Democratic governments continued to dominate the South and imposed explicitlywhite supremacist regimes in the former slave states. The Delaware legislature declared blacks to be second-class citizens in 1866 and restricted their voting rights despite the Fifteenth Amendment, ensuring continued Democratic success in the state throughout most of the nineteenth century. Fearful that the1875 Civil Rights Act passed by Congress might establish social equality, Delaware legislators passedJim Crow laws that mandatedracial segregation in public facilities and effectively codified the state's tradition ofwhite supremacy. The state's educational system was segregated by operation of law.[citation needed] Delaware's segregation was written into the state constitution, which, while providing at Article X, Section 2,[citation needed] that "no distinction shall be made on account of race or color", nonetheless required that "separate schools for white and colored children shall be maintained."[citation needed]
In 1952,Gebhart v. Belton was decided by theDelaware Court of Chancery and affirmed by theDelaware Supreme Court in the same year.Gebhart was one of the five cases combined intoBrown v. Board of Education, the 1954 decision of theUnited States Supreme Court which found racial segregation in United Statespublic schools to be unconstitutional.
The result of theGebhart andBrown litigation was that Delaware became fully integrated, albeit with time and much effort. The white supremacistBryant Bowles raised $6,000 and founded theNational Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP) to oppose the rulings. Bowles briefly attracted nationwide attention for leading a pro-segregationboycott ofMilford High School. A mass meeting inMilford in October 1954 attracted a crowd of 3,000 people.[16][17] Bowles encouraged a boycott to protest the integration of schools after eleven black students were enrolled in the previously racially segregated school.[18][16] Only 456 out of 1562 students attended the next day, and the movement gained traction in the nearby town ofLincoln, where 116 of the 146 pupils in the local elementary school boycotted in solidarity.[16] Mass protests continued in Milford; the school board eventually ceded to the protestors, expelling the black students.[16][18] Several weeks later, Bowles was arrested for "conspiring to violate the state education law by leading a boycott at Milford’s integrated high school". TheAttorney General later took action to revoke the NAAWP'scorporate charter in September 1955.[18][17] However, the ensuing unrest, which includedcross burnings, rallies, and pro-segregation demonstrations, contributed todesegregation in most of Southern Delaware being delayed for another ten years. School segregation in the state would not end until 1967.[19]
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