It remains a question of history as to which European first explored what is now Pennsylvania. Dutch
trappers may have come in the early seventeenth century.
Henry Hudson, an Englishman in service of the
Dutch Republic, noted the existence of what is now
Delaware bay in a 1606 voyage - a crucial move in establishing competing English and Dutch claims to the region decades down the line. The Dutch named what is now the
Delaware River (known locally as
Lenapewihittuck) the
Zudyt (South) river, incorporated it into the colony of
New Netherlands as a counterpart to the Nord (now
Hudson) River. The English in 1610 laid their claim, naming the river and
eponymous bay for
Lord De la Warr. As the valley displayed no apparent wealth, Europeans lost interest and made no move to settle it. That changed when the
Beversreede, or
Beaver trade route, connecting the
Susquehanna River, near
Conestoga, to the
Schuylkill River was discovered in the 1620s. In 1623, the Dutch moved up as far as the Schuylkill (Hidden) River and established small trading posts and
a fort adjacent to the river. They negotiated with the
Nanticoke people for rights to the Delaware Bay to some success. Their complexes were soon critically understaffed and abandoned, however. The first attempt at colonization of the Delaware basin was the short-lived
Zwaanendael Colony in modern day
Delaware state.
New Sweden and New Netherlands Samuel Blommaert, a Dutch Speculator, encouraged the incorporation of a Swedish trading company as a bulwark against Roman Catholic influence in the Americas, a key to wealth, and a base for the propagation of
Lutheranism to the "wild nations". He had no doubt heard recent tales of Spanish adventurers returning to Europe from the Americas with ships full of gold. The
Swedish South Company was unveiled in 1626, quickly amassing confidence and large sums from investors—sums large enough that the company could afford to land its first party at what it now
Swedes' Landing. Founded a year later was the
Swedish Africa Company. Sweden's new
great power status allowed her to finance colonial expeditions abroad. The colonists were dismayed to find no gold, but nonetheless collected
beaver pelts,
tobacco and
silkworms. Other industries also included
winemaking and timbery. Agriculture was also established, with wheat and
rye being the chief crop planted on cleared forestland purchased from the natives. In contrast to
New England, New Sweden was an enterprise primarily intended to satisfy its shareholders rather than establish a permanent self-sufficient colony in North America. The scarcity of women and capricious nature of the continent made family life and permanent settlement a practical impossibility. Year by year several colonists returned to Sweden or fled to New England. Convicts were regularly sent by the Swedish crown to fill the gaps created by remigration. The population of New Sweden rarely exceeded 200–400, peaking at 500-600 at its fall, with around half of the population being of Finnish extraction. Dutch governor
Peter Minuit wielded diplomatic skill to negotiate a treaty with 5 Lenape chiefs on April 8, 1638. According to the company, they had won rights to 67 miles of land along the Delaware river adjacent to
Fort Christina and setting west as "far as the setting sun". They settled both banks and scattered across the
bay, establishing a network of forts, churches and commercial centers. The hallmark of Swedish colonization was the unique wooden
logcabin. The first recorded
epidemic in the Delaware Valley is spoken of in 1642 when a "great sickness" spread among the colonists. 15 of the 135 inhabitants of New Sweden are recorded to have died the following year; the native death toll is unknown but is thought to be exceedingly high.
Typhus spread via
body lice and
scurvy from ships docking at the ports. Both reaped the colony's population for several decades. The Lenape intended to dispatch
folk healers to cast the "spirit" away, but the Swedes refused their efforts for religious reasons. Most telling of the extent of the sickness among the natives is that European textbooks frequently noted, and could differentiate with ease, the
Lenape phrases ''n'mechquin
, ("I have a cough") n'daptessi
, ("I sweat") and n'matamalsi ("''I am sick") as essential terms. Relations between the two nations were largely warm, Governor
Johan Printz was on order from Stockholm treat the Lenape cordially. Deliberation and restraint was a practical necessity for New Sweden, possessing fewer then 110 men-at-arms, and only a handful being fit for service. New Sweden eventually grew to pose a threat to Dutch trade dominance in North America, and its weakness became apparent to Dutch. When
war broke out between them in 1654, the Swedes surrendered largely without a fight. The capture of two key positions,
Fort Trinity (later Casmir) and
Fort Christina solidified the fate of New Sweden. It is reported that Hendrick Von Elswick, the Swedish director at Fort Trinity told Dutch officer
Peter Stuyvesant "
Hodie mihi, cras tibi" (Today me, tomorrow you). Dutch rule was rather warm to the established Swedish population, allowing them to retain their customs, officers and legal system. Immigration continued at a steadfast flow under Dutch, and later English, rule. New Sweden left a salient mark on the culture of the
Delaware Valley, even so long after its fall, with Swedish and
Finnish being recorded as the dominant tongue and Lutheranism the common faith. Log houses and churches built during Swedish rule were preserved by the Dutch and some, such as the
Lower Swedish Cabin in modern
Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, stand to this day. In Europe, commercial rivalry had led to the
Second Anglo-Dutch War. Although the
Dutch Republic had won the war, the
Treaty of Breda (1667), forced them to cede their colonies in mainland North America in exchange for the lucrative plantation colony of
Suriname in the South American
Guyanas.
English Pennsylvania On the English victory in the Second Anglo-Dutch war,
Charles II of England granted his brother
James "all the land from the west side of the
connecticutte River to the east Side of
De la Ware bay," and gave him "power and authority of Government". An English fleet was dispatched to lay claim to the Dutch war prize. Governor
Peter Stuyvesant, protested but eventually acquiesced in the face of English naval superiority and a lack of war enthusiasm among his colonists. The English
conquest of New Netherland was complete with the 1664 fall of
Fort Casimir on Delaware bay. From 1672-1674, during the
Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch briefly re-occupied the region, but the 1674
Treaty of Westminster reverted to the
status quo ante bellum. During the occupation, the Dutch established three
County Courts, which went on to become original Counties in later English Pennsylvania and modern Delaware. Initially Charles' grant applied only to the western shore of Delaware Bay, and the Dutch Vice-Director on the eastern Delaware Bay (modern New Jersey) became bellicose, but he too surrendered, and with that, New Netherland was no more. The Duke of York
enfeoffed his land east of the river to Lord
John Berkeley and Sir
George Carteret, respectively, creating
West and
East Jersey for them.
William Penn, son of the
famed naval commander and creditor of the Stuarts, was rewarded with the Delaware's River's left bank. James' £16,000 debts to the Penn's made him a prime contender for the reward. Penn had financed the refitting of the English navy for the
conquest of New Netherland and other theatres of the Dutch war, all whilst Charles was anxious to use treasury funds. Penn the elder died before he could he could be reimbursed.
Penn's son, also called William, was a member of the
mystical Society of Friends. Members of the Protestant sect, called Quakers, endured persecution in England and North America for views considered blasphemous. Quaker theology emphasized the
priesthood of all believers, it explicitly rejected established
hierarchies, and most controversially,
forbade oaths. In
Massachusetts Bay,
Mary Dyer, a Quaker missionary, was hanged for defying a law banning the sect in the
Puritan dominated colony. The younger William was in search of a place his fellow Quakers could establish a "
Holy experiment," a haven for the creed, additionally one that was lucrative. He persistently nagged Charles for months to entertain his scheme until he eventually yielded. Charles granted 45,000 acres of North American soil to settle the generational debt. "We have thought fitt to erect, and We doe hereby erect the aforesaid Countrey and Islands into a Province and
Seigniorie, and doe call itt Pensilvania, and soe from henceforth we will have itt called", the charter said. Penn successfully worked tirelessly to secure the trust of 600 investors, and in just two years, some 4,000 migrants joined him in his new colony–a figure that would later reach 11,450 by the close of the decade. Profit from
land sales earned him over £9000. He invested his revenue to aid immigration, make ethical transactions with the Lenape, purchase slaves and servants, and erect a large country house–similar to the many he held in England and Ireland. As the first governor, he embezzled tax revenue and speculated in goods such as
hosiery and
horse collars. His total spendings in the first two years amounted to £10,000–debt he would later carry to England. In 1684, on the verge of bankruptcy, William returned to England to preserve his title to two counties in dispute with the
Calvert proprietors of
Maryland. This begun
the century-long feud between the two families. By the time Penn arrived at his colony, it contained some 2,000 people, almost entirely Swedes,
Finns and some Dutch and Englishmen. 500 people made home to the lower reaches of the
Schuylkill Valley where
Philadelphia was founded. In Upland, then-to-be
Chester, on December 4-7, 1682, Pennsylvania's first legislature met and passed the first statues of the colony. Later Pennsylvanians did not follow his example. Penn maintained peaceful relations with the Indians mostly due to pragmatism and his pacifism motivated by Quaker beliefs. Relations were also shaped by contemporary Indigenous politics. Colonists moved southwest into
Brandywine Creek, east into
New Jersey, and north to
forks of the Delaware, dispossessing the Lenape and forcing them westward. Meanwhile, the late
Beaver Wars had reshaped native tribal structures: the
Susquehannock,
Shawnee and
Lenape had been conquered by the Iroquois, with a
Covenant Chain bounding them and other indigenous groups together. Suffering from a loss of population from the conflict, they were likely anxious to resist European colonization. The Lenape throughout the decades were moved further west to make room for settlers.
Shamokin and another reservation at Brandywine Creek were created for them by the Provincial government. The latter lasting just 50 years before the entire valley was overran with settlers at the command of Secretary
James Logan. The same fate was met by the Lenape that were moved into the
Wyoming Valley. Groups beyond the
Appalachian Mountains were somewhat better protected against intrusion, but the colonists became increasingly land-hungry and eventually displaced them too. Quakers demonized
Lenape mythology and made laborious efforts to evangelize them, despite their strong belief in
religious freedom. In December 1684, the ship
Isabella docked at Philadelphia and unloaded a cargo of 150 slaves from Africa, beginning the
history of African Americans in Philadelphia. When William Penn returned to England in 1684, the vast majority of his time was spent recruiting settlers for his new colonial project. He travelled through England, Wales, Ireland and Holland, advertising Pennsylvania's geographical and economic advantages and its fair treatment of Quakers and fellow allied
Protestants. In 1685, he estimated the population to have been 8,200. She was governor for 12 years, holding the office until her death in 1726. The death of both Penns and Chief
Tamanend, two pacificists, marked a critical point in colonial-indigenous relations and conflict promptly resumed as relations deteriorated. Penn's efforts in Europe proved successful as colonists–predominately quaker– poured in en-masse from the
old world. Quakers from all corners of Europe risked it all to board leaky vessels headed to the "Holy Experiment". So much so that transporting immigrants became an established business. The first winters in the province, from 1694-1697, were harsh. Harvest shortfalls and
measle outbreaks, compounded by bad weather and
King William's War, ravaged the Province. Those who bore the brunt the hardest were often from poorer black and working class immigrant communities in Philadelphia, as burial records show. Tax rolls show a high degree of wealth inequality, with the top 5% of Philadelphians holding 40-50% of the city's taxable wealth. Immigration continued at a steadfast rate as the 18th century rolled in. The first private school in Philadelphia,
William Penn Charter School, was founded in 1689. New arrivals often assimilated to English culture, adopting English language names, but new colonial identities distinct to that of their mother countries also formed. Through waves of immigration, the colony possessed a
Pennsylvania Dutch (as the Germans are erroneously called) ethnic culture and a broader German identity dissimilar to that of Europe's. The Scottish St. Andrews Society and Irish
Sons of St Patrick were advocacy organizations founded by the immigrants. German-speaking people typically came from
Württemberg, the
Palatinate, and
Switzerland. The vast majority of them were Protestant:
Lutheran or
Reformed (
German Calvinists). Others were
Anabaptists,
Roman Catholics, or members of fringe sects. Pennsylvania Dutch culture helped to distinguish German settlements from English settlements; they had distinct customs, work ethics, housing plans, and farming and cooking methods. The
German Mennonites founded
Germantown in 1683, and the
Amish established the
Northkill Amish Settlement in 1740. Animosity between German and English speakers did exist but eventually dissipated with perceived differences between them shrinking. Germans found similarities that "transcended the politics and localities of the Europe" according to historians Randall M. Miller and William A. Pencak. The
first petition against slavery was launched in 1688 by the Germantown Quaker community. The petition was rejected by the colony's leadership, writing "We having inspected ye matter, above mentioned, and considered of it, we find it so weighty that we think it not expedient for us to meddle with it here."
Walking Purchase 's 1771 portrait of
William Penn's 1682 treaty with the
Lenape William Penn's sons,
Thomas and
John, who governed the colony, accelerated the dispossession of native Americans in Pennsylvania. Unlike William, they were not devout Quakers, but like William, they had poor financial foresight. Taking their father's example, they utilized
land sales and the collection of
quit-rents for a living, and became unnerved by the knowledge that there were squatters from New York and elsewhere settling in the
Lehigh Valley and along the upper reaches of the Delaware River. This curtailed their flow of income through land sales in northern Pennsylvania. To attain his ends, he found–or doctored–a draft treaty which would have granted the colony Lenape lands beginning between the junction of the
Delaware and
Lehigh River in present-day
Easton; "as far west as a man could walk in a day and a half," a common unit of measurement among indigenous tribes in Pennsylvania. Records show that as early as 1735, this had been planned. The Penns reminded–or
gaslit–chiefs Manawkyhickon,
Lapowinsa, Tishcohan, and Nutimas of their end of this treaty that must be upheld. Secretary
James Logan hired the three fastest runners in the colony to run out the purchase on a trail that had been cleared by other members of the colony beforehand. The runners started at modern
Wrightstown and finished near the town of
Jim Thorpe in
Carbon County, in 1737, annexing 750,000 acres to the Penn estate in the process. The runners' pace was so intense that only one runner completed the "walk", covering an astonishing . and
The Academy and College of Philadelphia, the predecessor to the private
University of Pennsylvania, both opened.
Benjamin Franklin founded both of these institutions and Philadelphia's Union Fire Company 15 years earlier, in 1736. In 1751, the Pennsylvania State House ordered a new bell for the bell tower on
Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, which later was renamed the
Liberty Bell. in 1757 As the colony grew, colonists and British military forces came into confrontation with natives in the state's Western half. Britain fought for control of the neighboring
Ohio Country with France during the
French and Indian War. Following the British victory, the territory was formally ceded to them in 1763, and became part of the
British Empire. The Quakers had refused to provide any assistance to
New England's
Indian wars. With the French and Indian War over and
Pontiac's War just beginning, the
Royal Proclamation of 1763 banned colonization beyond the
Appalachian Mountains to prevent settlers settling lands that Indians tribes were using. This proclamation impacted Pennsylvanians and Virginians the most, since they both had been racing towards the lands surrounding
Fort Pitt in modern-day
Pittsburgh.
American Revolution During the
American Revolution and
American Revolutionary War, Philadelphia was the hotbed of the revolution. When tensions broke out between the crown and
Thirteen Colonies, Philadelphia became a centralized location for writing, thought and theory for independence. During the American Revolution and Revolutionary War, both the
First and
Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. In 1775, after the Revolutionary War broke out with the
Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress, meeting inside present-day
Independence Hall, formed the
Continental Army and unanimously selected
George Washington as the new army's commander-in-chief. The following year, in June 1776,
Thomas Jefferson authored the first draft of the
Declaration of Independence from his second floor apartment at present-day 700
Market Street; on July 4, the Declaration was unanimously adopted and issued to King
George III by all 56 delegates to the convention. Between July 1776 and November 1777, the Second Continental Congress debated and authored the
Articles of Confederation at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. On September 26, 1777, during the
British Army's
Philadelphia campaign, Philadelphia fell to the British, who occupied the city through June 1778, forcing Washington and 12,000 Continental Army troops to retreat to
Valley Forge, where as many as 2,000 died from disease or starvation over the harsh winter of 1777–1778. Following independence, the
Constitution of the United States, now the longest-standing written constitution in the world, was debated, authored, and implemented at the
Constitutional Convention, which met inside Independence Hall from May 25 to September 17, 1787, with George Washington presiding as the convention's president. During the American Revolution, Philadelphia was the second-most populous city in the entire
British Empire after
London.
Post-independence Once American independence was secured, Philadelphia continued to serve as the nation's capital from 1790 to until 1800, while the new national capital city in
Washington, D.C. was constructed. Both George Washington, the nation's first
president, and
John Adams, the nation's second president, lived and worked from
President's House in Philadelphia while the
White House was being constructed in Washington, D.C. In November 1800, near the end of his
administration, Adams relocated to the White House through the end of his term in March 1801, becoming the first U.S. president to work and reside there. ==Government==