Delaware Colony

Lower Counties on the Delaware
1664–1776
Flag
Delaware in 1757
Status	Colony of England (1664–1707) Colony of Great Britain (1707–1776)
Capital	New Castle
Common languages	English, Dutch, Munsee, Unami
Government	Semiautonomous proprietary colony
Proprietor
• 1664-1682	Territory contested
• 1682-1718	William Penn (first)
• 1775-1776	John Penn (last)
Legislature	General Assembly
History
• Established	1664
• Independence	1776
Currency	Delaware pound
Preceded by Succeeded by New Netherland State of Delaware
Today part of	United States

The Delaware Colony, officially known as the three "Lower Counties on the Delaware", was a semiautonomous region of the proprietary Province of Pennsylvania and a de facto British colony in North America.^[1] Although not royally sanctioned, Delaware consisted of the three counties on the west bank of the Delaware River Bay.

In the early 17th century, the area was inhabited by Lenape and possibly Assateague Native American Indian tribes. The first European settlers were Swedes, who established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina in present-day Wilmington, Delaware, in 1638. The Dutch captured the colony in 1655 and annexed it to New Netherland to the north. Great Britain subsequently took control of it from the Dutch in 1664. In 1682, William Penn, the Quaker proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania to the north leased the three lower counties on the Delaware River from James, the Duke of York, who went on to become King James II.

The three lower counties on the Delaware River were governed as part of the Province of Pennsylvania from 1682 until 1701, when the lower counties petitioned for and were granted an independent colonial legislature; the two colonies shared the same governor until 1776. The English colonists who settled in Delaware were mainly Quakers. In the first half of the 18th century, New Castle and Philadelphia became the primary ports of entry to the new world for a quarter of a million Protestant immigrants from Northern Ireland, referred to as "Scotch-Irish" in America and "Ulster Scots" in Northern Ireland. Delaware had no established religion at this time.

The American Revolutionary War began in April 1775, and on June 15, 1776, the Delaware Assembly voted to break all ties with Great Britain, creating the independent State of Delaware.^[1] On July 4, 1776, Delaware joined 12 other British colonies to form the United States of America.