Editing Delaware (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of Delaware}}
{{more citations needed|section|date=December 2018}}

===Native Americans===
Before Delaware was settled by European colonists, the present-day state was home to the Eastern [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]] tribes known as the Unami [[Lenape]], or Delaware, who lived mostly along the coast, and the [[Nanticoke people|Nanticoke]] who occupied much of the southern [[Delmarva Peninsula]]. John Smith also shows two Iroquoian tribes, the Kuskarawock and [[Tockwogh]], living north of the Nanticoke—they may have held small portions of land in the western part of the state before migrating across the Chesapeake Bay.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/maps/captain-smith-virginia-map.jpg |title=Archived copy |access-date=October 24, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150320024903/http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/maps/captain-smith-virginia-map.jpg |archive-date=March 20, 2015 |url-status=live }}</ref> The Kuskarawocks were most likely the [[Tuscarora people|Tuscarora]].

The Unami Lenape in the [[Delaware Valley]] were closely related to [[Munsee]] Lenape tribes along the [[Hudson River]]. They had a settled hunting and agricultural society, and they rapidly became middlemen in an increasingly frantic fur trade with their ancient enemy, the Minqua or [[Susquehannock]]. With the loss of their lands on the [[Delaware River]] and the destruction of the Minqua by the [[Iroquois]] of the Five Nations in the 1670s, the remnants of the Lenape who wished to remain identified as such left the region and moved over the [[Allegheny Mountains]] by the mid-18th century. Generally, those who did not relocate out of the state of Delaware were baptized, became Christian and were grouped together with other persons of color in official records and in the minds of their non-Native American neighbors.{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}}

===Colonial Delaware===
{{Main|New Netherland|New Sweden|Delaware Colony}}
The [[Dutch people|Dutch]] were the first Europeans to settle in present-day Delaware in the middle region by establishing a trading post at [[Zwaanendael, Delaware|Zwaanendael]], near the site of [[Lewes, Delaware|Lewes]] in 1631.<ref>{{cite book|author=Myers, Albert Cook|title=Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630–1707, Volume 13|publisher=C. Scribner's Sons|year=1912|page=8}}</ref> Within a year, all the settlers were killed in a dispute with [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American tribes]] living in the area. In 1638, [[New Sweden]], a [[Swedish people|Swedish]] trading post and colony, was established at [[Fort Christina]] (now in [[Wilmington, Delaware|Wilmington]]) by [[Peter Minuit]] at the head of a group of Swedes, [[Finnish people|Finns]] and Dutch. The colony of New Sweden lasted 17 years. In 1651, the Dutch, reinvigorated by the leadership of [[Peter Stuyvesant]], established a fort at present-day [[New Castle, Delaware|New Castle]] and, in 1655, they conquered the New Sweden colony, annexing it into the Dutch [[New Netherland]].<ref name=hod>{{cite book|title=History of Delaware|first =John A |last = Munroe|edition = 5th, illustrated|publisher= University of Delaware Press|year=2006|isbn=978-0-87413-947-1|page=45|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=vs7NcOKnlNUC&q=%22Lower+counties%22+%22on+the+delaware%22&pg=PA46 | chapter = 3. The Lower Counties on The Delaware}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |editor1-last = Scheltema |editor1-first = Gajus |editor2-last = Westerhuijs |editor2-first = Heleen |title = Exploring Historic Dutch New York |publisher = Museum of the City of New York/Dover |place = New York |year = 2011 |isbn = 978-0-486-48637-6}}</ref> Only nine years later, in 1664, the Dutch were conquered by a fleet of English ships by Sir Robert Carr under the direction of [[James II of England|James, the Duke of York]]. Fighting off a prior claim by [[Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore]], [[Province of Maryland|Proprietor of Maryland]], the Duke passed his somewhat dubious ownership on to [[William Penn]] in 1682. Penn strongly desired access to the sea for his [[Province of Pennsylvania|Pennsylvania province]] and leased what then came to be known as the "Lower Counties on the Delaware"<ref name = hod /> from the Duke.

Penn established representative government and briefly combined his two possessions under one General Assembly in 1682. However, by 1704 the province of Pennsylvania had grown so large their representatives wanted to make decisions without the assent of the Lower Counties, and the two groups of representatives began meeting on their own, one at [[Philadelphia]], and the other at New Castle. Penn and his heirs remained proprietors of both and always appointed the same person Governor for their province of Pennsylvania and their territory of the Lower Counties. The fact that Delaware and Pennsylvania shared the same governor was not unique; from 1703 to 1738, New York and New Jersey shared a governor.<ref>{{Citation |last = Lurie |first = Mappen M |title = Encyclopedia of New Jersey |publisher = Rutgers University Press |year = 2004 |isbn = 978-0-8135-3325-4 |page = 327}}</ref> Massachusetts and New Hampshire also shared a governor for some time.<ref>{{Citation |last = Mayo |first = LS |title = John Wentworth, Governor of New Hampshire: 1767–1775 |publisher = Harvard University Press |year = 1921 |page = 5}}</ref>

Dependent in early years on indentured labor, Delaware imported more slaves as the number of English immigrants decreased with better economic conditions in England. The colony became a slave society and cultivated tobacco as a cash crop, although English immigrants continued to arrive.

===American Revolution===
{{Main|American Revolutionary War|Lee Resolution|United States Declaration of Independence|Philadelphia campaign|Articles of Confederation#Ratification|Treaty of Paris (1783)|Constitutional Convention (United States)|Admission to the Union|List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union}}
[[File:Recto Delaware 2 shillings 6 pence 1777 urn-3 HBS.Baker.AC 1085935.jpeg|alt=A two-shilling, six-pence banknote issued by Delaware in 1777 with the inscription: "Two Shillings & Six-pence. This Indented Bill shall pass current for Two Shillings and Six-pence, within the Delaware State according to an Act of Genera Assembly of the said State, made in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-six. Dated the First Day of May, 1777."; Within border cuts: "Half a Crown"|thumb|A two-shilling, six-pence banknote issued by Delaware in 1777]]
Like the other middle colonies, the Lower Counties on the Delaware initially showed little enthusiasm for a break with [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Britain]]. The citizenry had a good relationship with the Proprietary government, and generally were allowed more independence of action in their Colonial Assembly than in other colonies. Merchants at the port of Wilmington had trading ties with the British.

New Castle lawyer [[Thomas McKean]] denounced the [[Stamp Act 1765|Stamp Act]] in the strongest terms, and Kent County native [[John Dickinson (delegate)|John Dickinson]] became the "Penman of the Revolution". Anticipating the Declaration of Independence, [[Patriot (American Revolution)|Patriot]] leaders Thomas McKean and [[Caesar Rodney]] convinced the Colonial Assembly to declare itself separated from British and Pennsylvania rule on June 15, 1776. The person best representing Delaware's majority, [[George Read (signer)|George Read]], could not bring himself to vote for a Declaration of Independence. Only the dramatic overnight ride of Caesar Rodney gave the delegation the votes needed to cast Delaware's vote for independence.

Initially led by [[John Haslet]], Delaware provided one of the premier regiments in the [[Continental Army]], known as the "Delaware Blues" and nicknamed the "[[Delaware Blue Hen|Blue Hen's Chicks]]". In August 1777 [[William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe|General Sir William Howe]] led a British army through Delaware on his way to a victory at the [[Battle of Brandywine]] and capture of the city of Philadelphia. The only real engagement on Delaware soil was the [[Battle of Cooch's Bridge]], fought on September 3, 1777, at [[Cooch's Bridge]] in New Castle County, although there was a [[Clow Rebellion|minor Loyalist rebellion]] in 1778.

Following the Battle of Brandywine, Wilmington was occupied by the British, and [[List of governors of Delaware|State President]] [[John McKinly]] was taken prisoner. The British remained in control of the Delaware River for much of the rest of the war, disrupting commerce and providing encouragement to an active [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalist]] portion of the population, particularly in Sussex County. Because the British promised slaves of rebels freedom for fighting with them, escaped slaves flocked north to join their lines.<ref>{{Citation | first = Simon | last = Schama | author-link = Simon Schama | title = Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution | place = New York | publisher = Harper Collins | year = 2006| title-link = Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution }}</ref>

Following the [[American Revolution]], statesmen from Delaware were among the leading proponents of a strong central United States with equal representation for each state.

===Slavery and race===
{{Main|History of slavery in Delaware}}
Many colonial settlers came to Delaware from [[Maryland]] and [[Virginia]], where the population had been increasing rapidly. The economies of these colonies were chiefly based on labor-intensive tobacco and increasingly dependent on African [[Slavery in the United States|slaves]] because of a decline in working class immigrants from England. Most of the English colonists had arrived as [[Indentured servitude|indentured servants]] (contracted for a fixed period to pay for their passage), and in the early years the line between servant and slave was fluid.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

Most of the free African-American families in Delaware before the Revolution had migrated from Maryland to find more affordable land. They were descendants chiefly of relationships or marriages between white servant women and enslaved, servant or free African or African-American men.<ref>{{citation |last=Heinegg |first=Paul |title=Free African Americans in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware |url=http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/ |url-status=dead |access-date=February 15, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100807191511/http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/ |archive-date=August 7, 2010}}</ref> Under slavery law, children took the social status of their mothers, so children born to white women were free, regardless of their paternity, just as children born to enslaved women were born into slavery. As the flow of indentured laborers to the colony decreased with improving economic conditions in England, more slaves were imported for labor and the caste lines hardened.

By the end of the colonial period, the number of enslaved people in Delaware began to decline. Shifts in the agriculture economy from tobacco to mixed farming resulted in less need for slaves' labor. In addition local [[Methodist]]s and [[Quaker]]s encouraged slaveholders to free their slaves following the American Revolution, and many did so in a surge of individual manumissions for idealistic reasons. By 1810, three-quarters of all blacks in Delaware were free. When John Dickinson freed his slaves in 1777, he was Delaware's largest slave owner with 37 slaves. By 1860, the largest slaveholder owned 16 slaves.{{sfn|Kolchin|1994|pp=78, 81–82}}

Although attempts to abolish slavery failed by narrow margins in the legislature, in practical terms the state had mostly ended the practice. By the [[United States Census, 1860|1860 census]] on the verge of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], 91.7% of the black population were free;{{sfn|Kolchin|1994|pp=81–82}} 1,798 were slaves, as compared to 19,829 "free colored persons".<ref>{{citation |title=Historical Census Browser |url=http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/start.php?year=V1860 |contribution=1860 Federal Census |publisher=University of Virginia Library |access-date=November 30, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141011024040/http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/start.php?year=V1860 |archive-date=October 11, 2014 }}</ref>

An independent black denomination was chartered in 1813 by freed slave [[Peter Spencer (religious leader)|Peter Spencer]] as the "[[Spencer Churches|Union Church of Africans]]". This followed the 1793 establishment in Philadelphia of the [[African Methodist Episcopal Church]] by [[Richard Allen (bishop)|Richard Allen]], which had ties to the Methodist Episcopal Church until 1816. Spencer built a church in Wilmington for the new denomination.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.udel.edu/BlackHistory/antebellum.html|first=Peter T.|last=Dalleo|title=The Growth of Delaware's Antebellum Free African Community|publisher=University of Delaware|date=June 27, 1997|access-date=June 21, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110905050734/http://www.udel.edu/BlackHistory/antebellum.html|archive-date=September 5, 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> This was renamed as the [[African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church and Connection]], more commonly known as the [[A.U.M.P. Church]]. In 1814, Spencer called for the first annual gathering, known as the [[Big August Quarterly]], which continues to draw members of this denomination and their descendants together in a religious and cultural festival.<ref>{{Cite web|title=August Quarterly Festival Celebration
|url=http://www.augustquarterly.org/|access-date=February 2, 2021|website=www.augustquarterly.org}}</ref>

Delaware voted against [[secession]] on January 3, 1861, and so remained in the Union. While most Delaware citizens who fought in the war served in the regiments of the state, some served in companies on the Confederate side in [[List of Maryland Confederate Civil War units|Maryland]] and [[List of Virginia Civil War units|Virginia]] Regiments. Delaware is notable for being the only slave state from which no Confederate regiments or militia groups were assembled.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}} Delaware essentially freed the few slaves who were still in bondage shortly after the Civil War{{explain|date=June 2020}} but rejected the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|13th]], [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|14th]], and [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|15th]] Amendments to the Constitution; the 13th Amendment was rejected on February 8, 1865, the 14th Amendment was rejected on February 8, 1867, and the 15th Amendment was rejected on March 18, 1869. Delaware officially ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments on February 12, 1901, decades after they had already come into force.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bill Detail - Delaware General Assembly |url=https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail/48275#:~:text=Since%20the%2014th%20Amendment%20to,,%20color,%20or%20national%20origin. |access-date=2024-06-29 |website=legis.delaware.gov}}</ref>

===Reconstruction and industrialization===
During the [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction Era]] that followed the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], Democratic [[Redeemers|Redeemer]] governments led by the South's [[Bourbon Democrats|Bourbon aristocracy]] continued to dominate the region and imposed explicitly [[white supremacist]] regimes in the former slave states. The Delaware legislature declared Black people to be second-class citizens in 1866, and restricted their voting rights despite the 15th Amendment, ensuring continued Democratic success in the state throughout most of the 19th century.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |first1=John |title=History of Delaware |date=2001 |publisher=University of Delaware Press |location=Newark, DE |pages=146–150 |edition=4th}}</ref> Fearful that the [[1875 Civil Rights Act]] passed by Congress might establish racial equality, Delaware legislators passed [[Jim Crow laws]] that mandated [[racial segregation|segregation]] in public facilities. The state's educational system was segregated by operation of law.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Brown v. Board of Education |url=https://archives.delaware.gov/delaware-historical-markers/brown-v-board-education/ |access-date=2024-06-29 |website=Delaware Public Archives - State of Delaware |language=en-US}}</ref> Delaware's segregation was written into the state constitution, which, while providing at Article X, Section 2, 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."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Chapter - Delaware General Assembly |url=https://legis.delaware.gov/SessionLaws/Chapter?id=21337 |access-date=2024-06-29 |website=legis.delaware.gov}}</ref>

Beginning in the late 19th century, the Wilmington area grew into a manufacturing center. Investment in manufacturing in the city grew from $5.5&nbsp;million in 1860 to $44&nbsp;million in 1900.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |date=2001 |title=History of Delaware |page=156}}</ref> The most notable manufacturer in the state was the chemical company [[DuPont]], which to this day is heavily credited with making the state what it is today in many ways.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Editorial |date=2020-06-23 |title=The Dupont Legacy |url=https://delawarebusinesstimes.com/supplements/innovation/the-dupont-legacy/ |access-date=2022-10-14 |website=Delaware Business Times |language=en-US}}</ref> Because of Wilmington's growth, local politicians from the city and New Castle County pressured the state government to adopt a new constitution providing the north with more representation. However, the subsequent 1897 constitution did not proportionally represent the north and continued to give the southern counties disproportionate influence.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |title=History of Delaware |date=2001 |pages=165–169}}</ref>

As manufacturing expanded, businesses became major players in state affairs and funders of politicians through families such as the Du Ponts. Republican [[J. Edward Addicks|John Addicks]] attempted to buy a US Senate seat multiple times in a rivalry with the Du Ponts until the passage of the [[Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|17th Amendment]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |date=2001 |title=History of Delaware |pages=173–180}}</ref> The allegiance of industries with the Republican party allowed them to gain control of the state's governorship throughout most of the 20th century. The GOP ensured black people could vote because of their general support for Republicans and thus undid restrictions on Black suffrage.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |title=History of Delaware |date=2001 |pages=180–181}}</ref>

Delaware benefited greatly from World War I because of the state's large gunpowder industry. DuPont, the most dominant business in the state by WWI, produced an estimated 40% of all gunpowder used by the Allies during the war. It produced nylon in the state after the war and began investments into [[General Motors]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |date=2001 |title=History of Delaware |pages=185–189}}</ref> Additionally, the company invested heavily in the expansion of public schools in the state and colleges such as the [[University of Delaware]] in the 1910s and 1920s. This included primary and secondary schools for Black people and women.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |date=2001 |title=History of Delaware |pages=190–205}}</ref> Delaware suffered less during the [[Great Depression]] than other states, but the depression spurred further migration from the rural south to urban areas.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |date=2001 |title=History of Delaware |pages=216–217}}</ref>

===World War II to present===
Like in World War I, the state enjoyed a big stimulus to its gunpowder and shipyard industries in World War II. New job opportunities during and after the war in the Wilmington area coaxed Black people from the southern counties to move to the city. The proportion of blacks constituting the city's population rose from 15% in 1950 to over 50% by 1980.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |date=2001 |title=History of Delaware |pages=219–223}}</ref> The surge of Black migrants to the north sparked [[white flight]], in which middle class whites moved from the city to suburban areas, leading to ''de facto'' segregation of Northern Delaware's society. In the 1940s and 1950s, Delaware attempted to integrate its schools, although the last segregated school in the state did not close until 1970.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://segregationinamerica.eji.org/report/beyond-brown.html | title=Beyond Brown: Opposition Intensifies}}</ref> The [[University of Delaware]] admitted its first black student in 1948, and local courts ruled that primary schools had to be integrated. Delaware's integration efforts partially inspired the US Supreme Court's decision in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'', which found racial segregation in United States [[State school|public schools]] to be unconstitutional.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |date=2001 |title=History of Delaware |pages=225–227}}</ref> The result of the ''Brown'' ruling was that Delaware became fully integrated, albeit with time and much effort.

In October 1954, the city of [[Milford, Delaware|Milford]] became the scene of one of the country's first pro-segregation [[boycotts]] after eleven Black students were enrolled in the previously all-white [[Milford High School (Delaware)|Milford High School]]. Mass protests continued in Milford; the school board eventually ceded to the protestors, expelling the Black students.<ref>{{Cite news|date=16 October 1954|title=White Supremacy Leader Arrested|work=Indianapolis Recorder|url=https://newspapers.library.in.gov/?a=d&d=INR19541016-01.1.1&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{cite magazine|date=11 October 1954|title=Education: Racial Flare-Up|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,936456,00.html}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Webb|first=Clive|title=Rabble Rousers: the American Far Right in the Civil Rights Era|publisher=University of Georgia Press|year=2010|location=Athens}}</ref> The ensuing unrest, which included [[cross burning]]s, rallies, and pro-segregation demonstrations, contributed to [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregation]] in most of Southern Delaware being delayed for another ten years. [[Sussex County, Delaware|Sussex County]] did not start closing or integrating its segregated schools until 1965, 11 years after the ''Brown'' ruling.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/delaware/2015/02/05/historic-black-school-remains-fond-memory/22914463/ | title=Historic black school remains a fond memory}}</ref> Throughout the state, integration only encouraged more white flight, and poor economic conditions for the black population led to some violence during the 1960s. Riots broke out in Wilmington in 1967 and again in [[Wilmington riot of 1968|1968 in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr]], after which the National Guard occupied the city for nine months to prevent further violence.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |date=2001 |title=History of Delaware |pages=228–230}}</ref>

Since WWII, the state has been generally economically prosperous and enjoyed relatively high per capita income because of its location between major cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |date=2001 |title=History of Delaware |page=230}}</ref> Its population grew rapidly, particularly in the suburbs in the north where New Castle county became an extension of the [[Delaware Valley|Philadelphia metropolitan area]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |date=2001 |title=History of Delaware |pages=242}}</ref> Americans, including migrants from Puerto Rico, and immigrants from Latin America flocked to the state. By 1990, only 50% of Delaware's population consisted of natives to the state.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Munroe |date=2001 |title=History of Delaware |pages=259}}</ref>