History of Delaware
The history of Delaware as a political entity dates back to the early colonization of North America by European settlers.
After the Swedes, Dutch colonists settled Delaware, with the native people trading with European settlers for around a half-century.
[2] Peter Minuit was the Dutch Director-General of New 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 in Sweden, then a major power in European politics.
Unlike the Dutch West India Company, the Swedes intended to actually bring settlers to their outpost and begin a colony.
New Sweden's best known governor, Johan Björnsson Printz, moved his residence to what is now Tinicum Township, Pennsylvania, where he intended to concentrate the settlements.
So, in 1682, Penn arrived in New Castle with two documents: a charter for the Province of Pennsylvania and a lease for what became known as "the Lower Counties on the Delaware".
The settlement of the legal battles was started by the heirs' agreeing to the survey performed by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon between 1763 and 1767.
The settlement was a major reason for the close political alliance between the property owners of the Lower Counties and the Royalist Proprietary government.
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.
The border between Pennsylvania and Delaware is formed by an arc known as the Twelve-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 the Wedge, where the Mason–Dixon line and the Twelve-Mile Circle left a fragment of land claimed by both Pennsylvania and Delaware.
Éleuthère Irénée du Pont arrived in America from France in 1800 and founded the young United States' largest gunpowder factory on the banks of the Brandywine River just north of Wilmington in 1804.
[6][7][8] The first prisoners 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.
[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.
Other causes of death included: diarrhea (315), inflammation of the lungs (243), typhoid fever and/or malaria (215), scurvy (70), pneumonia (61), erysipelas (47), gunshot wounds (7), and drowning (5).
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, because habeas corpus had been suspended by this time during the war, he was then held at the fort for 15 months.
After the Civil War, Democratic governments continued to dominate the South and imposed explicitly white 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.
[18][16] Only 456 out of 1562 students attended the next day, and the movement gained traction in the nearby town of Lincoln, 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".
[18][17] However, the ensuing unrest, which included cross burnings, rallies, and pro-segregation demonstrations, contributed to desegregation in most of Southern Delaware being delayed for another ten years.
