In the early 17th century, the area was inhabited by Lenape and possibly Assateague Native American Indian tribes.

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.

[citation needed] The first European exploration of what would become known as the Delaware Valley was made by the Dutch ship Halve Maen under the command of Henry Hudson in 1609.

Argall later renamed this waterway as the river Delaware, after Thomas West, Lord De La Warr, the second governor of Virginia.

Initial Dutch settlement was centered up the Delaware River at Fort Nassau at Big Timber Creek, south of what is now Gloucester City, New Jersey.

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.

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.

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.

The Swedes introduced log cabin construction to 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.

The Swedes abandoned Fort Beversreede, a short-lived attempt to establish a foothold at the end of the Great Minquas Path (in modern Philadelphia).

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.

In 1664, after English Colonel Richard Nicolls captured New Amsterdam, Robert Carr was sent to the Delaware River settlements.

[6] Carr and his troops continued down the shore, ravaging and burning settlements, including a Mennonite utopian community led by Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy near present-day Lewes, Delaware.

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.

[10] 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.

[5][11] 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.