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A state of the eastern United States on the Atlantic Ocean. It was admitted as the first of the original Thirteen Colonies in 1787. Settled by the Dutch in 1631 and by Swedes in 1638, the region passed to England in 1664. It was part of William Penn's Pennsylvania grant from 1682 until 1776. Dover is the capital and Wilmington the largest city. Population: 865,000.
For more information on Delaware, visit Britannica.com.
Nestled along North America's mid-Atlantic seaboard, Delaware is the second smallest state in the United States, with a land area of 1,954 square miles and a population of 783,600 according to the U.S. census of 2000. Belying its modest size, however, is the significant role that the state has played in the history of the United States. On 7 December 1787, Delaware became the first of the thirteen original states to ratify the U.S. Constitution, hence earning its nickname, "The First State." Since then, Delaware periodically has been in the national spotlight, and has played an important role in the nation's political, social, and economic development.
Delaware's earliest recorded history stretches back to 1609, when English explorer Henry Hudson discovered what became known as the Delaware River on his journey to find passage to China. In the following year, the river and its adjacent bay were named after Lord de la Warr, the then-governor of Virginia, by English sailor Samuel
Argall, who encountered the waterways when seeking shelter from a storm. Although English cartographers affixed the name Delaware to the river and bay, the land itself remained unsettled by Europeans for another two decades.
In the spring of 1631, a small Dutch settlement called Swanendael was established near what is known today as Lewes Creek, in the southern part of the state, marking the first time in which a European power staked a claim to the territory. The settlement itself utterly failed, as another Dutch expedition discovered in 1632 when it found Swanendael abandoned and its inhabitants missing or dead. It was not until March 1638 that a permanent settlement was successfully established farther north, near modern-day Wilmington, by Swedish colonists arriving on two ships, the Kalmar Nyckel and the Vogel Grip. The twenty-five men who remained behind called their settlement Fort Christina, in honor of the Swedish Queen Christina, and by 1643 Johan Printz was installed as the governor of New Sweden.
While the population of New Sweden never exceeded 1,000 inhabitants, it was a successful colony of farmers occupying sturdy wooden cabins. Despite its tranquility, however, New Sweden was threatened by Dutch interests claiming the territory due to the early settlement of Swanendael. On 15 September 1655, the poorly fortified colony was conquered by the Dutch and formally incorporated as a southern extension of New Netherland. Dutch rule itself proved to be relatively short-lived, however; in October 1664 the English conquered all of New Netherland, renaming the territory New York.
The English governed Delaware as part of New York until 1682, when William Penn was given a proprietary grant to the territory, which was divided into the three counties of New Castle, Kent, and Sussex. Since the land was not part of Penn's original Pennsylvania grant, the Delaware holdings were regularly referred to as the Lower Counties on the Delaware. Unlike the other English colonies, therefore, Delaware did not have a proper name until it was finally given independence from the Penn family on the eve of the Revolution in 1776.
Given its newfound status as an independent state, Delaware participated in the Continental Congress debates over independence from Great Britain. Delaware's three delegates to the Congress meeting in Philadelphia were Thomas McKean, George Read, and Caesar Rodney. At the Congress, each state was given one vote, although the delegates were polled individually. The poll taken on 1 July 1776 revealed a division among the Delaware delegates, with McKean voting for independence and Read voting against it. Rodney, who was absent from the 1 July vote, quickly rode to Philadelphia to cast the deciding vote for the Delaware delegation the next day, in favor of independence.
Throughout the colonial era, Delaware's economy was primarily agricultural. The Swedish, Dutch, English, Scots-Irish, and Welsh settlers who came to inhabit the land grew wheat, corn, fruits, and vegetables for personal consumption and sale in larger markets such as Philadelphia. Beginning as early as 1639, African slaves were also imported for labor, particularly into the southern counties of Kent and Sussex. By the end of the eighteenth century, Delaware's economy and social structure came to be increasingly divided, with the northern county, New Castle, focusing on activities such as shipbuilding, tanning, and flour milling, and Kent and Sussex counties remaining overwhelmingly agricultural. By 1790, the dual nature of Delaware's development could be seen in two different statistics: its flour mills near Wilmington were the largest in the nation, while at the same time African American slaves toiling in the fields composed nearly 25 percent of the state's population.
Once established as the first state in the new country, Delaware's social and economic patterns continued to develop along similar lines. Flour millers such as Joseph Tatnall and his son-in-law, Thomas Lea, were among the state's most prominent citizens, but wealthy slaveholders also wielded considerable power and influence. Along with the rest of the country, however, Delaware was transformed by advances in technology and transportation in the early decades of the nineteenth century. In 1802, for example, E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (hereafter referred to as DuPont) was founded along the banks of the Brandywine River outside of Wilmington as a manufacturer of gunpowder. Although the du Pont name was a new one to Delaware, the firm and the family behind it grew to be among the world's best known. The demand for powder in the United States was brisk, as explosives were used to clear forests and blast mines, and within a relatively short span of time the names of du Pont and Delaware were closely linked.
That Delaware had both manufacturing interests and slaveholding planters reflected the nation as a whole. Thus, when the Civil War erupted in 1861, Delaware was a microcosm of the North-South political divide. The urban and industrial northern part of the state overwhelmingly supported the Union cause, whereas the state's southern agriculturists often sympathized with the Confederacy. Delaware's top political figures appeared to reflect both sides of the conflict as well. Governor William Burton, U.S. Senators James Bayard and William Saulsbury, and U.S. Representative William Whitely all were on record as supporting the institution of slavery, yet none favored secession for Delaware. Likewise, when the matter of secession came to a vote at the state legislature, the lower house unanimously rejected the proposal, and the Senate did so as well by a vote of 5 to 3. Thus, Delaware became one of only four slave-holding states to remain in the Union during the Civil War.
Although military battles were not waged in Delaware, as a border state it did play an important role during the war. Fort Delaware, located offshore on Pea Patch Island, served as a prison for Confederate soldiers and officers, housing up to 12,500 men in squalid conditions. The state's industries also were important to the Union's war effort, with DuPont supplying one-third to one-half of all Union powder, and smaller firms supplying textiles, leather goods, rail cars, and ships.
In light of Delaware's small size and its loyalty to the Union, the Lincoln administration viewed the state as a potentially important test case in regard to emancipation. In the autumn of 1861, Lincoln proposed that Delaware slaveholders emancipate their slaves in exchange for U.S. government compensation. With some 1,800 slaves in the state at the time, it was estimated that the cost to the U.S. government would be approximately $900,000. When Delaware lawmakers rejected the proposal, the plan was dropped and Lincoln abandoned compensated emancipation, reasoning that if the plan was unacceptable to Delaware slaveholders, it would be even more vigorously opposed by other states. In part, therefore, Lincoln considered the Delaware case when he issued the more sweeping Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863.
In the years following the Civil War, Delawareans cast aside disagreements that had arisen during the conflict and looked ahead to the remaining years of the nineteenth-century with well-founded optimism. Since slavery was already a dying institution in Delaware before the war, former slaveholders adjusted to Emancipation with greater ease than their counterparts farther south. As for the state's manufacturing sector, the closing decades of the century marked a time of growth and consolidation. Although some traditional enterprises such as milling declined due to competition farther west, in general manufacturing expanded and provided employment for the state's growing population. Delaware was not known for any single industry, but instead was characterized by diverse firms involved in leather production, fiber and paper manufacturing, machine building, iron manufacturing, and shipbuilding.
Delaware's economy increasingly turned toward manufacturing and business throughout the nineteenth century, but the small size of the state and of its population meant that the state's economy was likewise smaller than that of other northeastern states. In 1897, however, the Delaware legislature enacted a new General Corporation Law that ultimately made the state a leading force in the American economy. With its flexible corporation statute, its attractive tax provisions, and its Court of Chancery, a tribunal dating back to the colonial era to hear business disputes, the incorporation law was specifically designed to attract companies to incorporate in Delaware, regardless of whether or not they actually operated within the state. In time, thousands of companies incorporated in Delaware.
As Delaware's profile in the national economy rose in the early years of the twentieth century, so did the fortune of its largest firm, DuPont. Despite having been broken up in 1912 due to antitrust violations, DuPont still possessed a government-sanctioned monopoly on military-grade smokeless powder. Not surprisingly, the firm profited handsomely from powder sales during World War I, supplying some 40 percent of all powder used by the United States and its allies. With the resulting capital it now had available, DuPont and the du Pont family members at its helm broadened the activities of the firm by the war's end. Increasingly the company turned toward the manufacture of chemicals and synthetic fibers, and soon Delaware housed numerous research, administrative, and production facilities of the corporate giant that made rayon, nylon, Dacron, Lucite, and cellophane household names. As DuPont rose to become the world's largest chemical company, its power and influence within the state became unrivaled.
As the twentieth century progressed, DuPont and the thousands of Delawareans it employed symbolized the modern face of the state. Still, Delaware retained elements of its agricultural past, particularly in its southern counties of Kent and Sussex. Poultry production, especially of broiler chickens, grew at a phenomenal rate in the 1920s and 1930s, such that by 1942 Delaware farms raised approximately 25 percent of all broilers in the United States. The dramatic growth in broiler production made Sussex one of the wealthiest agricultural counties in the nation by the onset of World War II.
By the middle of the twentieth century, Delaware continued to be characterized by a dual economy—urban and industrial in the north, rural and agricultural in the south—much as it had been 100 years earlier. There was a continuity in the state's social structure as well. Just as Delaware had been one of only four slave states to remain in the Union during the Civil War, race relations in the mid-twentieth century were a mixture of both southern and northern patterns. Whereas schools, restaurants, and theaters were segregated, for example, other types of public accommodations such as libraries, buses, and trains were not. Even before the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision outlawed segregation in public schools, however, Delaware had begun the process of desegregation.
In 1950 Chancellor Collins J. Seitz of the Delaware Court of Chancery ordered that the University of Delaware admit African American students, a watershed event in the state's history that ultimately influenced the federal courts as well. Slowly, private institutions throughout Delaware abandoned segregation policies, including the YWCA in 1951, the Catholic school system in 1952, and the state's leading luxury hotel, the Hotel DuPont, in 1953. When the Brown v. Board decision was handed down in 1954, the state's attorney general, H. Albert Young, complied with federal law and oversaw the desegregation of public schools throughout the state.
Meanwhile, the state was undergoing a noticeable demographic transformation. Although the state's population growth exceeded national averages in the post–World War II era, the population of its largest city, Wilmington, was steadily declining. In 1940, Wilmington's population was 112,504; by 1999 that figure had dropped to 71,491 as increasing numbers of people sought life in the suburbs. In addition, Delaware's traditionally rural counties in the south also experienced population growth due to an increase in non-agricultural employment, as well as a willingness of commuters to travel greater distances to jobs. With suburban sprawl taking the place of urban concentration, Delaware became part of the larger megalopolis that extends from New York City to Washington, D.C., in the mid-Atlantic region.
At the close of the twentieth century, Delaware became best known as a center for American corporate business. More than 308,000 companies were incorporated in the state, including 60 percent of the Fortune 500 and 50 percent of the companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Although the vast majority of these firms did not have operations within Delaware, they nevertheless had an important impact on the state's economy through tax receipts and ancillary activities such as legal and financial services. Moreover, due to the Financial Center Development Act of 1981, the state had become a leading center for banking and credit card operations, with Delaware-based banks issuing some 43 percent of all credit cards in the United States by 1997, and providing employment to over 32,000 Delawareans.
Since its first European settlement in 1631, Delaware has transformed significantly. In a state once populated by a handful of Dutch and Swedish settlers, Delaware's population increasingly became more diverse by ethnicity and race, trends that are projected to continue. As the twenty-first century unfolds, new challenges and opportunities await the First State. Like other states in the region, manufacturing and industrial production are being replaced by service sector employment, particularly in fields of banking and corporate services. Despite its small size, Delaware has played an important role in the history of the United States; given its importance to American corporate business and the national economy, it will re-main significant in the years to come.
Bibliography
Delaware. Home page at http://www.delaware.gov.
Hoffecker, Carol E. Corporate Capital: Wilmington in the Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983.
Munroe, John A. History Of Delaware. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2001.
Williams, William H. Slavery and Freedom in Delaware, 1639– 1865. Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 1996.
Wolters, Raymond. The Burden of Brown: Thirty Years of School Desegregation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984.
—Jonathan S. Russ
Facts and Figures
Area, 2,057 sq mi (5,328 sq km). Pop. (2000) 783,600, a 17.6% increase since the 1990 census. Capital, Dover. Largest city, Wilmington. Statehood, Dec. 7, 1787 (1st of the original 13 states to ratify the Constitution). Highest pt., 442 ft (135 m), New Castle co.; lowest pt., sea level. Nickname, First State. Motto, Liberty and Independence. State bird, blue hen chicken. State flower, peach blossom. State tree, American holly. Abbr., Del.; DE
Geography
Together with Eastern Shore Maryland and Virginia, Delaware occupies the Delmarva peninsula. It lies on the northeast of the peninsula, facing the Delaware River, which broadens into Delaware Bay; the bay in turn joins the Atlantic Ocean at Cape Henlopen. Delaware is sometimes called the Diamond State, a reference to its small size but relative wealth. With the Delaware River and Bay along its entire eastern edge, no place in the narrow state is far from water.
Many small rivers flow across the state, some flowing E to the Delaware, others W across Maryland to the Chesapeake. In the north the Christina and Brandywine flow into the Delaware; in the south the Nanticoke flows SW to Chesapeake Bay. The land is low-lying, from sand dunes in the south to rolling hills on the Pennsylvania border in the north; the average elevation is c.60 ft (18 m), and the highest point, NW of Wilmington on the Pennsylvania border, is only 440 ft (134 m). The capital is
Economy
Because of Delaware's lenient laws regulating business taxation and practice, some of the nation's largest corporations, especially banking and financial services companies, have major offices in N Delaware. Since the 1990s the finance and insurance sectors have become increasingly important for employment and income and now dominant the state's economy, although manufacturing and agriculture are still significant. The manufacturing, credit card, banking, and insurance industries are largely concentrated in the north, while farming is carried on mainly below the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
Chief agricultural products are broiler chickens, soybeans, corn, and dairy products. Potatoes and other vegetables are also grown. Delaware's small fishing industry harvests mainly clams, menhaden, oysters, and scup. Industries around Wilmington include the large chemicals and materials company that was founded by the Du Pont family in the 19th cent., and the biomedical, apparel, processed foods, rubber and plastic products, and transportation equipment industries contribute significantly to the economy. Also economically important are Dover Air Force Base, the largest military facility in the state; tourism, mainly to the state's Atlantic beaches; and gambling.
Government, Politics, and Higher Education
Under the provisions of the 1897 constitution, the governor is elected to a four-year term. The state legislature, called the general assembly, is made up of a senate of 21 members and a house of representatives with 41 members. Delaware is represented in the U.S. Congress by two senators and one representative and has three electoral votes. Pierre S. Du Pont (1977–85) and Michael Castle (1985–93), both Republicans, were succeeded as governor by Democrats Thomas R. Carper (1993–2001) and Ruth Ann Minner (2001–), the state's first woman governor.
The main institutions of higher education are the Univ. of Delaware, at Newark; Delaware State Univ., at Dover; and a division of Widener Univ., at Wilmington.
History
Native Inhabitants and European Claims
Long before Europeans explored the Delaware area, it was inhabited by several Native American groups of the Delaware—notably the Nanticoke in the south and the Minqua in the north. In 1609, Henry Hudson, in the service of the Dutch East India Company, sailed into Delaware Bay. A year later the British captain Sir Samuel Argall, bound for the colony of Virginia, also sailed into the bay. Argall named one of the capes Cape La Warre after the governor of Virginia, Thomas West, Baron De la Warr.
From the time of its discovery, the region was contested by the Dutch and English. The first settlement was established by Dutch patroons, or proprietors, in partnership with the Dutch navigator David Pietersen de Vries; it was called Swanendael and was established (1631) on the site of the town of Lewes. However, within a year it was destroyed by a Native American attack. This attack notwithstanding, the Native Americans were generally friendly and willing to trade with the newcomers.
The Dutch West India Company, organized in 1623, was more interested in trade on the South River, as the Delaware was called at that time, than in settlement (the North River was the Hudson, in the Dutch colony of New Netherland). Several Dutchmen, interested in settling the area, put their services at the disposal of Sweden and colonized the area for that country. The best known of these was Peter Minuit, who had been governor of New Amsterdam (later New York). In 1637–38 Minuit directed the colonizing expedition for the Swedes that organized New Sweden. Fort Christina was founded in 1638 on the site of Wilmington and was named in honor of the queen of Sweden. The colony grew with the arrival of Swedish, Finnish, and Dutch settlers.
English colonists from Connecticut tried to establish trading posts in the Delaware River region and failed, but Dutch interests in the area were not disposed of as easily. Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Netherland, sailed to the Delaware region in 1651 and established Fort Casimir on the Delaware shore at the site of present-day New Castle. The Swedes captured the fort by surprise in 1654, but their triumph was brief; Stuyvesant returned with an expedition in 1655 and conquered all New Sweden. The Dutch West India Company sold part of New Sweden to the Dutch city of Amsterdam in 1656 and the rest in 1663.
In 1664 the English seized the Dutch holdings on the Delaware. The Dutch recaptured the colony in 1673 and although they held Delaware only briefly, they set up three district courts that marked the beginning of Delaware's division into three counties. The colony was returned to England in 1674 and remained in its hands until the American Revolution.
The Three Lower Counties
The English Duke of York (later James II) annexed the region to New York, land granted him earlier by Charles II. In 1682 the duke transferred the claim to William Penn, who wanted to secure a navigable water route from his new colony of Pennsylvania to the ocean. The three counties of Delaware thus became the Three Lower Counties (or Territories, as Penn called them) of Pennsylvania. The individual counties were called New Castle, Kent (formerly St. Jones), and Sussex (formerly Hoornkill, also known as Whorekill, and Deale). The English proprietors of Maryland contested Penn's claim to Delaware, and the boundary dispute was not fully settled until 1750.
The inhabitants of the Delaware counties were at first unwilling to be joined to the “radical” Quaker colony of Pennsylvania or to have their affairs settled in Philadelphia. They finally accepted the Penn charter of 1701 after provisions were added giving the Three Lower Counties the right to a separate assembly, which first met in 1704. Delaware maintained quasi-autonomy until the American Revolution. The two colonies maintained strong ties, however, and two of Delaware's leading statesmen during the Revolution—Thomas McKean and John Dickinson—were also prominent in Pennsylvania affairs.
Revolution and Statehood
Although there were many Loyalists in Delaware just prior to the American Revolution, Delaware supported independence, with two of its three delegates to the Continental Congress—Caesar Rodney and Thomas McKean—voting for independence. George Read, the third Delaware delegate, voted against independence, fearing that Loyalist sentiment was too strong in the colonies. However, Read subsequently signed the Declaration of Independence.
In 1776 the colony of Delaware became a state, with a president as its chief executive. Regiments from the state rendered valiant service to the patriot cause, especially the Delaware 1st Regiment, which was nicknamed the Blue Hen's Chickens—originally because they carried with them gamecocks bred by a famous hen of Kent and later because they themselves showed the fighting quality of gamecocks. Delaware was a leader in the movement for revision of the form of government under the Articles of Confederation and in 1787 became the first state to ratify the new Constitution of the United States. The state constitution of 1776 was superseded by a new constitution in 1792, which provided that the chief executive be a governor rather than a president.
The late 18th cent. also marked the beginning of industry in Delaware with the establishment of gristmills on the Brandywine and Christina rivers. Wilmington became a center for the manufacture of cloth, paper, and flour—products that helped to build the industrial economy of N Delaware that flourished in the 19th cent. Shortly thereafter, in 1802, Eleuthère Irénée Du Pont established a gunpowder mill on the Brandywine River.
Pro- and Anti-Slavery Factionalism
Prior to the Civil War, Delaware was a slave state, but in the early 19th cent. the number of slaves in the state declined, while the number of free blacks increased. Many citizens of Delaware favored manumission of slaves and belonged to the American Colonization Society, but there were few who sympathized with the growing abolitionist movement and there was strong sentiment for separation of whites and blacks. In the Civil War, Delaware remained loyal to the Union, but pro-Southern feeling increased rather than diminished during the course of the war. Delaware refused to accept an emancipation proposal made by Lincoln in 1861 and did not ratify the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution until 1901. Delaware Democrats subsequently became divided, and the Republican Party emerged in 1905 to assume a leading political role for some years.
Maintaining a Rural–Urban Balance
A new state constitution in 1897 reflected the political strength as well as conservatism of Delaware's farmers through provisions that kept the political strength of Wilmington at a minimum and that of rural areas at a maximum. Many European immigrants came to the state in the late 19th and early 20th cent., settling in the Wilmington area. Southern Delaware's population continued to be made up largely of African Americans and persons of English origin.
Delaware's industries flourished during the 19th cent. as transportation facilities improved. Industry continued to expand in the 20th cent., especially during World Wars I and II. The chemical industry built up by the Du Pont family was broken up by a federal antitrust suit in 1912, but was nonetheless large enough to buy control of General Motors corporation in the 1920s and hold it for many years.
Racial tensions appeared in the state in the 1950s and 60s as Delaware's schools were racially integrated, and after the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, rioting erupted in Wilmington. In the 1980s, Governor Pierre S. Du Pont fought to liberalize the state's usury laws and won. As a result, many large New York banks set up subsidiaries in Delaware (especially the Wilmington area), and thousands of jobs were created.
Bibliography
The standard history of the early period is Benjamin Ferris, A History of the Original Settlements on the Delaware (1846). See also Federal Writers' Project, Delaware: A Guide to the First State (1938, rev. ed. 1955, repr. 1973); J. A. Munroe, History of Delaware (2d ed. 1984); W. H. Williams, The First State: An Illustrated History of Delaware (1985).
State in the eastern United States bordered by Pennsylvania to the north, Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and Maryland to the west and south. Its capital is Dover, and its largest city is Wilmington.
Local Time: Jul 19, 3:08 AM
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| State of Delaware | |||||||||||
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| Capital | Dover | ||||||||||
| Largest city | Wilmington | ||||||||||
| Area | Ranked 49th | ||||||||||
| - Total | 2,490 sq mi (6,452 km²) |
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| - Width | 30 miles (48 km) | ||||||||||
| - Length | 96 miles (154 km) | ||||||||||
| - % water | 21.5 | ||||||||||
| - Latitude | 38° 27′ N to 39° 50′ N | ||||||||||
| - Longitude | 75° 3′ W to 75° 47′ W | ||||||||||
| Population | Ranked 45th | ||||||||||
| - Total (2000) | 783,600 | ||||||||||
| - Density | 401.11/sq mi 154.87/km² (7th) |
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| - Median income | $50,152 (12th) | ||||||||||
| Elevation | |||||||||||
| - Highest point | near Ebright Azimuth[1] 447.85[1] ft (136.5 m) |
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| - Mean | 59 ft (18 m) | ||||||||||
| - Lowest point | Atlantic Ocean[2] 0 ft (0 m) |
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| Admission to Union | December 7, 1787 (1st) | ||||||||||
| Governor | Ruth Ann Minner (D) | ||||||||||
| U.S. Senators | Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D) Thomas R. Carper (D) |
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| Congressional Delegation | List | ||||||||||
| Time zone | Eastern: UTC-5/-4 | ||||||||||
| Abbreviations | DE Del. OfficialLang = English US-DE | ||||||||||
| Web site | delaware.gov | ||||||||||
Delaware (IPA: /ˈdɛ.ləˌwɛɹ/) is a state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern regions of the United States.[3] The state is named after Delaware Bay and River, which were named for Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr (1577–1618).[4] Population estimates by the Census Bureau for 2005 place the population of Delaware at 843,524. Despite being the 45th most populous state, it is the seventh most densely populated state, with a population density of 320 more people per square mile than the national average, ranking ahead of states such as Florida, California, and Texas.[5]
"The First State"
"The Diamond State"
"Blue Hen State"
"Small Wonder"
Delaware is 96 miles long and ranges from 9 to 35 miles across, totaling 1,954 square miles and making it the second-smallest state in the United States after Rhode Island.
Delaware is bounded to the north by Pennsylvania, to the east by the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean and to the west and south by Maryland. Small portions of Delaware are also situated on the far, or eastern, side of the Delaware River Estuary, and these small parcels share land boundaries with New Jersey.
The state of Delaware, together with the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland and two counties of Virginia, form the Delmarva Peninsula, a geographical unit stretching far down the Mid-Atlantic Coast.
The definition of the northern boundary of the state is highly unusual. Most of the boundary between Delaware and Pennsylvania is defined by an arc extending 12 miles (19 km) from the cupola of the courthouse in New Castle, and is referred to as the Twelve-Mile Circle. This is the only true-arc political boundary in the United States. This border extends all of the way to the low-tide mark on the New Jersey shore, which continues down the shoreline until it again reaches the twelve-mile arc in the south; then the boundary continues in a more conventional way in the middle of the main channel (thalweg) of the Delaware River Estuary. A portion of this arc extends into Maryland to the west, and the remaining western border is a tangent to this arc that runs a bit to the east. The Wedge of land between the arc and the Maryland border was claimed by both Delaware and Pennsylvania until 1921, when Delaware's claim was confirmed.
Delaware is subdivided into three counties: from north to south, New Castle, Kent County and Sussex.See also: List of counties in Delaware
Delaware is on a level plain; the highest elevation, located at Ebright Azimuth, near Concord High School, Wilmington, does not even rise 450 feet above sea level. The northern part is associated with the Appalachian Piedmont and is full of hills with rolling surfaces. South of Newark and Wilmington, the state follows the Atlantic Coastal Plain with flat, sandy, and, in some parts, swampy ground. A ridge about 75 to 80 feet in altitude extends along the western boundary of the state and is the drainage divide between the two major water bodies of the Delaware River and several streams falling into Chesapeake Bay in the west.
Since almost all of Delaware is a part of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, the climate is moderated by the effects of the ocean.The state is somewhat of a transitional zone between a humid subtropical climate and a continental climate. Despite its small size (roughly 100 miles from its northernmost to southernmost points), there is significant variation in mean temperature and amount of snowfall between Sussex County and New Castle County. The southern portion of the State has a somewhat milder climate and a longer growing season than the northern portion of the State. Furthermore, the transitional climate of Delaware supports a surprising variety of vegetation. At Trap Pond State Park in Sussex County, bald cypress grow—this is thought to be one of the northernmost stands of these trees. The vegetation in New Castle County, on the other hand, is more typical of that of the northeastern United States. All parts of Delaware have relatively hot, humid summers. While Sussex and Kent Counties are considered to fall in the humid subtropical climate zone, there is some debate about whether northern New Castle County falls in the humid subtropical climate zone or warm continental climate.
Before Delaware was settled by European colonists, the area was home to the Eastern Algonquian tribes known as the Unami Lenape or Delaware throughout the Delaware valley, and the Nanticoke along the rivers leading into the Chesapeake Bay. 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 left the region and moved over the Alleghany Mountains by the mid-18th century.
The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle in present-day Delaware by establishing a trading post at Zwaanendael, near the site of Lewes in 1631. Within a year all the settlers were killed in a dispute with Native Americans. In 1638 a Swedish trading post and colony was established at Fort Christina (now in Wilmington) by the Dutchman Peter Minuit at the head of a group of Swedes, Finns and Dutch. Thirteen years later the Dutch, reinvigorated by the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant, established a new fort in 1651 at present-day New Castle, and in 1655 they took over the entire Swedish colony, incorporating it into the Dutch New Netherland.
Only nine years later, in 1664, the Dutch were themselves forcibly removed by a British expedition under the direction of James, the Duke of York. Fighting off a prior claim by Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, 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 Pennsylvania province and leased what then came to be known as the "Lower Counties on the Delaware" 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 that 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.
Like the other middle colonies, the Lower Counties on the Delaware initially showed little enthusiasm for a break with 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. Nevertheless, there was strong objection to the seemingly arbitrary measures of Parliament, and it was well understood that the territory's very existence as a separate entity depended upon its keeping step with its powerful neighbors, especially Pennsylvania.
So it was that New Castle lawyer Thomas McKean denounced the Stamp Act in the strongest terms, and Kent County native John Dickinson, became the "Penman of the Revolution." Anticipating the Declaration of Independence, Patriot leaders Thomas McKean and Caesar Rodney convinced the Colonial Assembly to declare itself separated from British and Pennsylvania rule on June 15, 1776, but the person best representing Delaware's majority, 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. Once the Declaration was adopted, however, Read signed the document.
Initially led by John Haslet, Delaware provided one of the premier regiments in the Continental Army, known as the "Delaware Blues" and nicknamed the "Blue Hen Chickens." In August 1777, 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 fought on September 3, 1777, at Cooch's Bridge in New Castle County. It is believed to be the first time that the Stars and Stripes was flown in battle.
Following the Battle of Brandywine, Wilmington was occupied by the British, and
Following the American Revolution, statesmen from Delaware were among the leading proponents of a strong central United States government with equal representation for each state. Once the Connecticut Compromise was reached—creating a U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives—the leaders in Delaware were able to easily secure ratification of the U.S. Constitution on December 7, 1787, making Delaware the first state to do so.
Many colonial settlers came from Maryland and Virginia which had been experiencing a population boom. The economies of these
colonies were largely based on tobacco and were increasingly dependent on slave labor. At the end of the colonial period, slavery
in Delaware began a precipitous decline. Shifts in the agriculture economy, the efforts of local Methodists and
The oldest black church in the country was chartered in Delaware by former slave Peter Spencer in 1813 as the "Union Church of Africans," which is now the A.U.M.P. Church. The Big August Quarterly began in 1814 and is the oldest such cultural festival in the country.
During the American Civil War, Delaware was a slave state that remained in the Union (Delaware voted not to secede on January 3, 1861). Delaware had been the first state to embrace the Union by ratifying the constitution and would be the last to leave it, according to Delaware's governor at the time. 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 Maryland and Virginia Regiments. Delaware is notable for being the only slave state not to assemble Confederate regiments or militia groups on its own.
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| Demographics of Delaware (csv) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| By race | White | Black | AIAN | Asian | NHPI |
| AIAN is American Indian or Alaskan Native - NHPI is Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander | |||||
| 2000 (total population) | 77.65% | 20.28% | 0.79% | 2.43% | 0.09% |
| 2000 (Hispanic only) | 4.10% | 0.59% | 0.12% | 0.04% | 0.02% |
| 2005 (total population) | 76.01% | 21.51% | 0.79% | 3.01% | 0.09% |
| 2005 (Hispanic only) | 5.39% | 0.58% | 0.14% | 0.04% | 0.02% |
| Growth 2000-2005 (total population) | 5.37% | 14.20% | 7.91% | 33.58% | 12.73% |
| Growth 2000-2005 (non-Hispanic only) | 3.36% | 14.46% | 4.94% | 34.00% | 15.17% |
| Growth 2000-2005 (Hispanic only) | 41.33% | 5.47% | 24.81% | 8.81% | 2.86% |
The five largest ancestries in Delaware are: African American (19.2%), Irish (16.6%), German (14.3%), English (12.1%), Italian (9.3%). Delaware has the highest proportion of African American residents of any state north of Maryland, and had the largest population of free blacks (17%) prior to the Civil War.
The center of population of Delaware is located in New Castle County, in the town of Townsend.[7]
As of 2000, 90.5% of Delaware residents age 5 and older speak only English at home; 4.7% speak Spanish. French is the third most spoken language at 0.7%, followed by Chinese at 0.5% and German at 0.5%.
In 2006, legislation was proposed in Delaware that would designate English as the official language.[8][9]
The religious affiliations of the people of Delaware are:
(source: American Religious Identification Survey, City University of New York)
Delaware is home to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware. The A.U.M.P. Church, the oldest African-American denomination in the nation, was founded in Wilmington and still has a very substantial presence in the state. Delaware also hosts an Islamic mosque in the Ogletown area, as well as a Hindu temple in Hockessin.
Delaware is home to approximately 20,000 Jews, who are served by the Jewish Community Center in Brandywine (outside of Wilmington) and by a number of educational, social and cultural agencies supported by the Jewish Federation of Delaware. Synagogues include Congregation Beth Emeth (Reform) in Wilmington, Congregation Beth El (Reconstructionist) in Newark, and Congregation Beth Shalom (Conservative) in Wilmington, Congregation Beth Sholom (Conservative) in Dover, and Adas Kodesh Shel Emeth (Traditional) in Wilmington. There is also a Lubavitcher community center and synagogue in Brandywine.
The gross state product of Delaware in 2003 was $49 billion. The per capita personal income was $34,199, ranking 9th in the nation. In 2005, the average weekly wage was $937, ranking 7th in the nation.[10]
Delaware's agricultural output consists of poultry, nursery stock, soybeans, dairy products and corn. Its industrial outputs include chemical products, processed foods, paper products, and rubber and plastic products. Delaware's economy generally outperforms the national economy of the United States.
The state's largest employers are:
Dover Air Force Base, located in the state capital of Dover, is one of the largest Air Force bases in the country and is a major employer in Delaware. In addition to its other responsibilities, the base serves as the entry point and mortuary for American military persons (and some U.S. government civilians) who die overseas.
Delaware has 6 different income tax brackets, ranging from 2.2% to 5.95%. The state does
not assess
Delaware does not assess a state-level tax on real or personal property. Real estate is subject to county property taxes, school district property taxes, vocational school district taxes, and, if located within an incorporated area, municipal property taxes.
Title 4, chapter 7 of the Delaware Code stipulates that alcoholic liquor only be sold in specifically licensed establishments, and only between 9:00 AM and 1:00 AM.[12]
The transportation system in Delaware is under the governance and supervision of the Delaware Department of Transportation, also known as "DelDOT".[13][14] DelDOT manages programs such as a Delaware Adopt-a-Highway program, major road route snow removal, traffic control infrastructure (signs and signals), toll road management, Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles, the Delaware Transit Corporation (branded as "DART First State", the state government public transportation organization), among others. Almost ninety percent of the state's public roadway miles are under the direct maintenance of DelDOT which far exceeds the United States national average of twenty percent for state department of transportation maintenance responsibility; the remaining public road miles are under the supervision of individual municipalities.
One major branch of the U.S. Interstate Highway System, Interstate 95, crosses Delaware southwest-to-northeast across New Castle County. In addition to I-95, there are six U.S. highways that serve Delaware: U.S. Route 9, U.S. Route 13, U.S. Route 40, U.S. Route 113, U.S. Route 202, and U.S. Route 301. There are also several state highways that cross the state of Delaware; a few of them include Delaware Route 1, Delaware Route 9, and Delaware Route 404. U.S. 13 and DE Rt. 1 are primary north-south highways connecting Wilmington and Pennsylvania with Maryland, with DE 1 serving as the main route between Wilmington and the Delaware beaches. DE Rt. 9 is a north-south highway connecting Dover and Wilmington via a scenic route along the Delaware Bay. U.S. 40, is a primary east-west route, connecting Maryland with New Jersey. DE Rt. 404 is another primary east-west highway connecting the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland with the Delaware beaches. The state also operates two toll highways, the Delaware Turnpike, which is Interstate 95 between Maryland and New Castle and the Korean War Veterans Memorial Highway, which is DE Rt. 1 between Dover and Interstate 95 between Wilmington and Newark.
A bicycle route, Delaware Bicycle Route 1, spans the north-south length of the state from the Maryland border in Fenwick Island to the Pennsylvania border north of Montchanin. It is the first of several signed bike routes planned in Delaware.[15]
Delaware has around 1,450 bridges, of which ninety-five percent are under the supervision of DelDOT. About thirty percent of all Delaware bridges were built prior to 1950 and about sixty percent of the number are included in the National Bridge Inventory. Some bridges not under DelDOT supervision includes the four bridges on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which is under the bi-state Delaware River and Bay Authority.
The public transportation system, DART First State, was named "Most Outstanding Public Transportation System" in 2003 by the American Public Transportation Association. Coverage of the system is broad within northern New Castle County with close association to major highways in Kent and Sussex Counties. The system includes bus, subsidized passenger rail operated by Philadelphia transit agency SEPTA, subsidized taxi and paratransit modes, the latter consisting of a state-wide door-to-door bus service for the elderly and disabled. Passenger rail service on SEPTA's R2 Regional Rail line is limited to a single southwest-to-northeast line on the Northeast Corridor in New Castle County serving Claymont, Wilmington, Churchmans Crossing, and Newark.
There are three ferries that operate in the state of Delaware:
