William Penn
In 1681, King Charles II handed over a large piece of his North American land holdings along the North Atlantic Ocean coast to Penn to pay the debts the king had owed to Penn's father, the admiral and politician Sir William Penn. This land included the present-day states of Pennsylvania and Delaware. Penn immediately set sail and took his first step on American soil, sailing up the Delaware Bay and Delaware River, (past earlier Swedish and Dutch riverfront colonies) in New Castle (now in Delaware) in 1682. On this occasion, the colonists pledged allegiance to Penn as their new proprietor, and the first Pennsylvania General Assembly was held. Afterward, Penn journeyed further north up the Delaware River and founded Philadelphia, on the west bank. However, Penn's Quaker government was not viewed favorably by the previous Dutch, Swedish colonists, and also earlier English settlers in what is now Delaware, but claimed for half a century by the neighboring Province of Maryland's proprietor family, the Calverts and Lord Baltimore. These earlier colonists had no historical allegiance to a "Pennsylvania", so they almost immediately began petitioning for their own representative assembly. Twenty-three years later in 1704, they achieved their goal when the three southernmost counties of provincial Pennsylvania along the western coast of the Delaware, were permitted to split off and become the new semi-autonomous colony of Lower Delaware. As the most prominent, prosperous and influential settlement in the new colony, New Castle, the original Swedish colony town became the capital.
1681-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1681
DATE
Q122553
King Charles II
PER
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North America
LOC
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North Atlantic Ocean
LOC
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Sir William Penn
PER
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William Penn
PER
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Delaware
LOC
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Delaware Bay
LOC
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Delaware River
LOC
Q34
Swedish
LOC
Q102911
Dutch
ORG
Q755393
New Castle (now in Delaware)
LOC
1682-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1682
DATE
Q3407580
proprietor
Concept
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Pennsylvania General Assembly
LOC
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Dutch
LOC
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Swedish
LOC
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English
Concept
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Province of Maryland
LOC
Q678692
Lord Baltimore
PER
1704-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1704
DATE
Q2571194
colony of Lower Delaware
LOC
Q143762
Delaware River
LOC
Q738808
Delaware Bay
LOC
Q755393
New Castle (now in Delaware)
LOC
Q143762
Delaware River
LOC