New Castle, a colonial settlement in Delaware founded by the Dutch in 1651 as Fort Casimir, was established to compete with the Swedish-controlled trade with the Indians along the Delaware River. Three years later, in May of 1654, it was surrendered to the Swedish governor and renamed Fort Trinity, only to be recaptured in 1655 by Peter Stuyvesant to operate under the Dutch West India Company. It was renamed again in 1656, this time New Amstel, by the burgomasters of the city of Amsterdam, and finally renamed New Castle in 1664 after surrender to Sir Robert Carr. It was governed by the Duke of York until 1682, when ownership was transferred to William Penn.
William Penn's colony, a haven for Quakers and other persecuted sects attracted by his policy of religious toleration, had been formed with a proprietary charter received in 1681 from the Crown designating him governor. In 1682, Penn was granted the three lower Delaware counties of Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex, all of which eventually separated from Pennsylvania to become the colony of Delaware in 1773. Under Penn's governorship, New Castle was the seat of the assembly of the Lower Counties, the seat of New Castle County at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1776, and the capital of Delaware until the British invaded in 1777 and moved the capital to Dover.
New Castle was part of the Middle Colonies (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware), the only part of British North America initially settled by non-English Europeans. Society in the Middle Colonies was a mix of Dutch Calvinists, Scandinavian Lutherans, German Baptists, Swiss Pietists, Welsh Quakers, French Huguenots, Scots Presbyterians, and a sizable African slave population. The English were a clear minority. New settlers tended to stay with their own kind, creating a region characterized by a cultural localism that expressed itself in politics, thus creating a burgeoning conflict with the English settlers committed to British imperial objectives and English culture, including the Anglican Church. Local government included an elected assembly representing the people, and assemblymen were expected to advocate for their constituents' cultural, religious, and economic concerns. These concerns frequently were at odds with the governors' imperial objectives. English policy was intent on subordinating the interests of the colonies to those of the mother country and frequently was the cause of disputes between various colonial leaders. In one such incident, in 1696, Francis Nicholson, the governor of Maryland, took offense at Pennsylvania governor William Markham's reluctance to carry out imperial reform and dispatched troops to New Castle to arrest the pirate John Day, whom Markham had hired to defend the Delaware Capes against French privateers. Political success in such an atmosphere involved complex compromises that, although beneficial in the short term, ultimately proved divisive, diluting local power and undermining local leaders largely incapable of sustained stability. The growth of the Atlantic economy after the decline of the fur trade, the increasing importance of the major port cities of Philadelphia and New York, and the spread of Anglican congregations beyond their origin communities forecast the future social configurations and political culture of what would eventually become the United States.
Bibliography
Cooper, Constance J., ed. 350 Years of New Castle, Del.: Chapters in a Town's History. Wilmington, Del.: Cedar Tree, 2001.
Munroe, John A. Colonial Delaware: A History. Millwood, N.Y.: KTO Press, 1978.
Weslager, C. A. The Swedes and Dutch at New Castle. New York: Bart, 1987.
