Delaware people

“ Once the Delawares owned a great deal of land, but that is nearly all gone now, and the people seem to have no power to do anything. When God looks down from Heaven, he sees but very few Delaware people, and the reason for this is that they cannot follow the Meeting House ceremonies now. When I was a little boy, I heard my people say that this thing would happen just as it is happening now. You see, the young people raised during the last thirty years do not believe in the old ways. ”

“ Delaware wants no undesirable citizen. This State offers nothing but the whip and the workhouse for the gunmen, white slavers, panders, highwaymen and common thieves which people the underworld of some of our larger cities and who seem to get a certain amount of applause for their more daring performances from the same type of people who demand that I shall set aside a fundamental law of my State and defy the decrees of our High Court. ”

“ Only a few English, however, had come to Delaware to live. The people of Wilmington (once Christinaham, or Christina Harbor) and of New Castle, were principally Dutch and Swedes. They were simple farmer people, raising crops and cattle and chickens, and they were very willing to keep the laws that the English at New York made for them. The Indians were still [52] troublesome at times, but the settlers had their block-houses or forts to retreat to and were generally able to protect themselves. ”

“ Delaware has not had the best of opportunities. You must remember that it is next to New Jersey, which is quite an obstacle in the path of progress. It is just beyond Maryland, which is another obstacle. I heard the other day that God originally made oysters with legs, and afterward took them off, knowing that the people of Delaware would starve to death before they would run to catch anything. Judge Comegys is the last judge who will make such a charge in the United States. He has immortalized himself as the last mile-stone on that road. He is the last of his race. No more can be born. ”

“ The Counties on the Delaware were very fertile, and very little labor was needed to make the land yield all that was required. The people had a great deal of leisure time for visiting and pleasure. They were always gathering together at one house or another, the younger people to dance or frolic, and the older men to amuse themselves with wrestling, running races, jumping, throwing the disc and other rustic and manly exercises. ”

“ I am to drive the missionary to-day. He goes to the Delaware line once more."
"Ha! The Delawares!" sneered old Fire-Flower. "I like not those
Delawares. They worship idols. It is not good to dance around idols."
"Not good," again echoed Fish-Carrier.
"Still the Delawares are not really bad people," said Wampum. "I don't like their hideous idol, and some day I hope to see it cut down," he added earnestly.
"Then it will be a brave man who will do it," asserted Fire-Flower. "The Delawares are a fierce tribe. Their eyes are too black. They cannot be trusted. ”

“ For my part, Delaware, all my thoughts haven't been on the game, when outlyin' in the hunts and scoutin's of our youth. Many's the hour I've passed, pleasantly enough too, in what is tarmed conterplation by my people. On such occasions the mind is actyve, though the body seems lazy and listless. An open spot on a mountain side, where a wide look can be had at the heavens and the 'arth, is a most judicious place for a man to get a just idee of the power of the Manitou, and of his own littleness. ”

“ The colony of Delaware as defined by this patent was the one that declared its independence in 1776 and that succeeded in 1783 to any fragment of ownership abiding in the Crown. In resuming the title to uncultivated lands, its people had no thought of modifying the ancient boundaries, of relinquishing a foot of soil above the waters or below. The later history of the controversy between the states makes this abundantly clear, if it could otherwise be doubtful. What concerns us now is more than a question of meum and tuum between one man and another. ”

“ The Delawares are our enemies. The words of our enemies are bad. If we do as you tell us you will go back and kill our brothers. No, Delaware, the Shawnees are not so foolish. Now I will tell you what our people propose to do. You must go back and bring Big Dog and Striking Bear to the river. Then you must make the call of Gokhos, the owl. Then we will send some warriors and your brother out there to meet you. Then we will let our brother walk away with you. Then Big Dog and Striking Bear will come to the camp. It is the only way to save yourself. ”

“ I know a great many splendid people in Delaware, and since I have known more of their surroundings, my admiration for them has increased. They are, on the whole, a very good people in that State. I heard a story the other day: An old fellow in Delaware has been for the last twenty or thirty years gathering peaches there in their season—a kind of peach tramp. ”

“ This was Lord Baltimore. In 1632, the King had given him a grant not only of Maryland, but of what is now Delaware, as well. The grant was given on the word of Lord Baltimore, that no Christian people had ever settled on the peninsula. But, as we know, about one year before that DeVries had landed at Zwannendael, had bought the land there and had started his little settlement. Probably Lord Baltimore knew nothing of this. Whether he knew or not, the King was very angry when he found what a mistake had been made, and that the Dutch had made a settlement in Delaware years before. ”

“ So ended the terrible battle of Camden. After it was over, many of the Americans hid themselves in the swamps and woods for a time. The few Delaware soldiers who were left joined the Virginia regiment. They fought with them through the rest of the war, and when peace was declared Virginia offered to each of them one hundred acres of ground if they would settle there. However, they preferred to return to their own state and people. ”

“ But the New York Assembly attempted to exercise control over East Jersey and to levy duties on its exports. The two provinces were soon on the eve of a little war. For twelve or fifteen years East Jersey was in disorder, with seditious meetings, mob rule, judges and sheriffs attacked while performing their duty, the proprietors claiming quitrents from the people, the people resisting, and the British Privy Council threatening a suit to take the province from the proprietors and make a Crown colony of it. The period is known in the history of this colony as "The Revolution." ”

“ Today much of the country's scrapple is made in Delaware, but the main agribusiness is the "chicken factories" where poultry is processed and packaged for supermarkets — some people will tell you lower Delaware is God's country, but many will tell you it's Frank Purdue's. ”

“ The proprietors were on the whole not altogether disliked. In the American Revolution, when the people could have confiscated everything in Pennsylvania belonging to the proprietary family, they not only left them in possession of a large part of their land, but paid them handsomely for the part that was taken.
After Penn had secured his charter in 1681, he obtained from the Duke of York the land now included in the State of Delaware. He advertised for colonists, and began selling land at 100 pounds for five thousand acres and annually thereafter a shilling quitrent for every hundred acres. ”

“ The Duke of York, to whom Delaware was given, introduced trial by jury, settled private titles, and left undisturbed the religion and local customs of the people. But the political rule of the Duke was absolute as became a Stuart. He arbitrarily taxed exports and imports. Executive, judicial, and legislative powers were all vested in his deputy governor at New York or in creatures appointed and controlled by him. It was the sort of government the Duke hoped to impose upon all Great Britain when he should come to the throne, and he was trying his 'prentice hand in the colonies. ”

“ They are of simple well-proportioned architecture, of a distinctive type, less luxuriant, massive, and exuberant than those across the river in Pennsylvania, although both evidently derived from the Christopher Wren school. The old Jersey homes seem to reflect with great exactness the simple feeling of the people and to be one expression of the spirit of Jersey democracy.
There were no important seats of commerce in this province. Exports of wheat, provisions, and lumber went to Philadelphia or New York, which were near and convenient. ”

“ The people of Delaware have, indeed, very little land that is not tillable. The problems of poverty, crowding, great cities, and excessive wealth in few hands are practically unknown among them. The foreign commerce of Wilmington began in 1740 with the building of a brig named after the town, and was continued successfully for a hundred years. At Wilmington there has always been a strong manufacturing interest, beginning with the famous colonial flour mills at the falls of the Brandywine, and the breadstuffs industry at Newport on the Christina. ”

“ They then bought from the Indians all the land from Cape Henlopen to the Falls of the Delaware at Trenton, calling it New Sweden and the Delaware New Swedeland Stream. The people of Delaware have always regarded New Sweden as the beginning of their State, and Peter Minuit, the leader of this Swedish expedition, always stands first on the published lists of their governors.
On their arrival in the river in the spring of 1638, the Swedes found no evidences of permanent Dutch colonization. Neither Fort Oplandt nor Fort Nassau was then occupied. ”

“ Five years would ruin too many people by foreclosures. Moreover, the Governor was attempting to dictate the way in which the people should raise a money supply. He and the King had a right to ask for aid in war; but it was the right of the colony to use its own methods of furnishing this assistance. The Governor also refused to let the Assembly see the instructions from the proprietors under which he was acting. ”

“ They could not even get on well with the Germans in Pennsylvania; and when the Germans crowded into their frontier settlements, quarrels became so frequent that the proprietors asked the Ulstermen to move farther west, a suggestion which they were usually quite willing to accept. At the close of the colonial period in Pennsylvania the Quakers, the Church of England people, and the miscellaneous denominations occupied Philadelphia and the region round it in a half circle from the Delaware River. ”

“ This method of transporting colonists proved a profitable trade for the shipping people, and was soon regularly organized like the modern assisted immigration. Agents, called "newlanders" and "soul-sellers," traveled through Germany working up the transatlantic traffic by various devices, some of them not altogether creditable. Pennsylvania proved to be the most attractive region for these immigrants. Some of those who were taken to other colonies finally worked their way to Pennsylvania. Practically none went to New England, and very few, if any, to Virginia. ”

“ There are 12 high schools. There is an agricultural college for colored students at Dover. The State has no normal schools, but teachers' institutes are held in each county. The only institution for higher instruction is Delaware College at Newark, which is open to both sexes.
Government. The present Constitution was adopted in 1897. To be amended, it requires a two-thirds vote of each House at two consecutive Legislatures. A constitutional convention may be called if demanded by a two-thirds vote of each House, approved by a vote of the people. ”

“ Persons unacquainted with the fact will find it difficult to believe that one state of the great American Republic still holds to the practice of lashing men and women, white and black. Delaware—one of the smallest states of the Union, the citizens of which are proverbially generous and hospitable, a state which has produced a Bayard—is, to her shame we regret to say, the culprit which sins against the spirit of civilization in this nineteenth century, one hundred years after the fathers of the Republic declared equal rights for all men. ”

“ According to promise, I now write you a little about Delaware. Persons in your vicinity look upon the 'Little Diamond State' as a mere bog, or marsh, and mud and water they suppose are its chief productions; but, in my opinion, it is one of the finest little states in the Union. Although small, in proportion to the size it produces more grain and fruit than any other state in the country, and they are unexcelled as regards quality and flavor. Crime is kept in awe by that best of institutions, the whipping post and pillory! ”

“ It is endurable, the having of such a blot as Delaware in our history, when it has once been the home of such a man. I remember well the just pride with which he told me, that after that sale, pro-slavery as Wilmington was, he could have a discount at the bank as readily as any man in the city. Though the laws robbed him, his fellow-citizens could not but respect and trust him, love and honor him.
"The city has never had, we believe, a man die in it worthy of a statue. ”

“ The winter of 1860-1 will be remembered by middle-aged people of to-day as one of great excitement. South Carolina promptly seceded after the result of the Presidential election was known. Other Southern States proposed to follow. In some of them the Union sentiment was so strong that it had to be suppressed by force. Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri, all Slave States, failed to pass ordinances of secession; but they were all represented in the so-called congress of the so-called Confederate States. ”