The Contest For The Delaware Valley

Download or read book The Contest for the Delaware Valley written by Mark L. Thompson and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2013-06-03 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first major examination of the diverse European efforts to colonize the Delaware Valley, Mark L. Thompson offers a bold new interpretation of ethnic and national identities in colonial America. For most of the seventeenth century, the lower Delaware Valley remained a marginal area under no state's complete control. English, Dutch, and Swedish colonizers all staked claims to the territory, but none could exclude their rivals for long -- in part because Native Americans in the region encouraged the competition. Officials and settlers alike struggled to determine which European nation would possess the territory and what liberties settlers would keep after their own colonies had surrendered. The resulting struggle for power resonated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. While the rivalry promoted patriots who trumpeted loyalties to their sovereigns and nations, it also rewarded cosmopolitans who struck deals across imperial, colonial, and ethnic boundaries. Just as often it produced men -- such as Henry Hudson, Willem Usselincx, Peter Minuit, and William Penn -- who did both. Ultimately, The Contest for the Delaware Valley shows how colonists, officials, and Native Americans acted and reacted in inventive, surprising ways. Thompson demonstrates that even as colonial spokesmen debated claims and asserted fixed national identities, their allegiances -- along with the settlers' -- often shifted and changed. Yet colonial competition imposed limits on this fluidity, forcing officials and settlers to choose a side. Offering their allegiances in return for security and freedom, colonial subjects turned loyalty into liberty. Their stories reveal what it meant to belong to a nation in the early modern Atlantic world.

Download or read book The Contest for the Delaware Valley written by Mark L. Thompson and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2013-06-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first major examination of the diverse European efforts to colonize the Delaware Valley, Mark L. Thompson offers a bold new interpretation of ethnic and national identities in colonial America. For most of the seventeenth century, the lower Delaware Valley remained a marginal area under no state's complete control. English, Dutch, and Swedish colonizers all staked claims to the territory, but none could exclude their rivals for long -- in part because Native Americans in the region encouraged the competition. Officials and settlers alike struggled to determine which European nation would possess the territory and what liberties settlers would keep after their own colonies had surrendered. The resulting struggle for power resonated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. While the rivalry promoted patriots who trumpeted loyalties to their sovereigns and nations, it also rewarded cosmopolitans who struck deals across imperial, colonial, and ethnic boundaries. Just as often it produced men -- such as Henry Hudson, Willem Usselincx, Peter Minuit, and William Penn -- who did both. Ultimately, The Contest for the Delaware Valley shows how colonists, officials, and Native Americans acted and reacted in inventive, surprising ways. Thompson demonstrates that even as colonial spokesmen debated claims and asserted fixed national identities, their allegiances -- along with the settlers' -- often shifted and changed. Yet colonial competition imposed limits on this fluidity, forcing officials and settlers to choose a side. Offering their allegiances in return for security and freedom, colonial subjects turned loyalty into liberty. Their stories reveal what it meant to belong to a nation in the early modern Atlantic world.

Download or read book Lenape Country written by Jean R. Soderlund and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1631, when the Dutch tried to develop plantation agriculture in the Delaware Valley, the Lenape Indians destroyed the colony of Swanendael and killed its residents. The Natives and Dutch quickly negotiated peace, avoiding an extended war through diplomacy and trade. The Lenapes preserved their political sovereignty for the next fifty years as Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, and English colonists settled the Delaware Valley. The European outposts did not approach the size and strength of those in Virginia, New England, and New Netherland. Even after thousands of Quakers arrived in West New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the late 1670s and '80s, the region successfully avoided war for another seventy-five years. Lenape Country is a sweeping narrative history of the multiethnic society of the Delaware Valley in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. After Swanendael, the Natives, Swedes, and Finns avoided war by focusing on trade and forging strategic alliances in such events as the Dutch conquest, the Mercurius affair, the Long Swede conspiracy, and English attempts to seize land. Drawing on a wide range of sources, author Jean R. Soderlund demonstrates that the hallmarks of Delaware Valley society—commitment to personal freedom, religious liberty, peaceful resolution of conflict, and opposition to hierarchical government—began in the Delaware Valley not with Quaker ideals or the leadership of William Penn but with the Lenape Indians, whose culture played a key role in shaping Delaware Valley society. The first comprehensive account of the Lenape Indians and their encounters with European settlers before Pennsylvania's founding, Lenape Country places Native culture at the center of this part of North America.

Download or read book Gardens of Philadelphia & the Delaware Valley written by William M. Klein and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once mostly rolling hills and valleys covered with hardwood forest in the seventeenth century, contemporary Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley now claim the largest concentration of many of the finest public and private gardens in the world. William M. Klein explores the broader attitudes and behaviors toward nature that have influenced this developmentt - of colonial farms and gardens created for survival to the art of suburban gardens to nature conservatories and public parks. Discover how in 300 years we have moved from fencing nature out to fencing nature in. Out of the past, examine the worm fence at Colonial Pennsylvania Plantations, overgrown by weeds as it would have been during Colonial times, zigzagging across the fields tenuously holding back the great forest that presses down. Into the present, consider the chain link fence at the John Heinz Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum that bounds a threatened wetland habitat from the intrusion of highways and reverberates to the sounds of traffic from I-95 and the Philadelphia International Airport. Klein's eloquent and knowledgeable narrative include detailed portraits of forty-four individual gardens, all lustrously illustrated by noted garden photographer Derek Fell. While considering a particular garden's historical and social influences, Klein discusses the philosophy behind each garden, its planner's goals and even personality, and the garden's interaction with surrounding architecture. This complete guide also includes each location's address, phone number, hours of operation, events, and featured plants, flowers, and trees. Yet this book goes far beyond the usual guides in this search for answers to the perennial questions of how and why each generation struggles to define its place in nature. As we approach the twenty-first century, the garden has become the metaphor for how we must begin to view all nature today - tended space where we collect, name, nurture, and share our love of plants. Author note: Formerly Director of the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. William M. Klein, Jr. is Executive Director of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Lawai, Hawaii. In 1993 he was presented with the American Horticultural Society's Professional Award, and has been a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 1989. He has published many important writings on nature, botany, and landscape, including his previous book, The Vascular Flora of Pennsylvania: Annotated Checklist and Atlas. Derek Fell is a widely published garden photographer and the author of more than 50 garden books and garden calendars.

Download or read book Swedes of the Delaware Valley written by Margaret Murray Thorell Ph.D. and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2011-03-07 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first Swedish settlers in America embarked from Gothenburg, Sweden, and sailed into Delaware Bay, arriving at what is now Wilmington. The fearless Swedish and Finnish settlers left their mark in the Delaware Valley and on many sites in the area, particularly its churches and famous log cabins. The photographs in Images of America: Swedes of the Delaware Valley depict the depth of Swedish American influence on the area, from early log cabins to John Morton, signer of the Declaration of Independence, to IKEA and the American Swedish Historical Museum. The museum, located in the heart of the Delaware Valley, is dedicated to preserving and promoting Swedish American culture, heritage, and traditions.

Download or read book The Contest for the Delaware Valley written by Former Professor of Law and Senior Pro-Vice Chancellor Mark Thompson and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first major examination of the diverse European efforts to colonize the Delaware Valley, Mark L. Thompson offers a bold new interpretation of ethnic and national identities in colonial America. For most of the seventeenth century, the lower Delaware Valley remained a marginal area under no state s complete control. English, Dutch, and Swedish colonizers all staked claims to the territory, but none could exclude their rivals for long in part because Native Americans in the region encouraged the competition. Officials and settlers alike struggled to determine which European nation would possess the territory and what liberties settlers would keep after their own colonies had surrendered. The resulting struggle for power resonated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. While the rivalry promoted patriots who trumpeted loyalties to their sovereigns and nations, it also rewarded cosmopolitans who struck deals across imperial, colonial, and ethnic boundaries. Just as often it produced men such as Henry Hudson, Willem Usselincx, Peter Minuit, and William Penn who did both. Ultimately, The Contest for the Delaware Valley shows how colonists, officials, and Native Americans acted and reacted in inventive, surprising ways. Thompson demonstrates that even as colonial spokesmen debated claims and asserted fixed national identities, their allegiances along with the settlers often shifted and changed. Yet colonial competition imposed limits on this fluidity, forcing officials and settlers to choose a side. Offering their allegiances in return for security and freedom, colonial subjects turned loyalty into liberty.

Download or read book Devastation on the Delaware written by Mary A. Shafer and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Narrative nonfiction account of the record-setting Delaware River flood of August 18-20, 1955, reads like a thriller. This devastation was caused by rain from hurricanes Connie and Diane, hitting within five days of each other. The flood killed nearly 100 people in PA, NJ & NY, with the highest flood crest recorded on river to date. This is an extremely readable narrative woven from interviews with 100+ survivors & eyewitnesses. With 105 historic photos bringing these events to chilling life, this is the first comprehensive account of a tragic event that changed life in the Delaware Valley forever.