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History and Evolution:
By William E. Steinman:
Part 128, Colonies Six:
September 5, 2005:
Delaware is another of the original 13 colonies. Before the Europeans came the area was occupied by Delaware Indians. Delaware is the English name for the Lenni Lenape Indians. they wee later driven out of the area by the Iroquois Indians. Meanwhile Delaware became part of the territory that ended up in the hands of William Penn.
Before that, the Dutch had established a colony at Lewes but they had bad luck with the local Indians and were killed off. Following that debacle a group of Swedes established a colony at Fort Christina in 1638. They hung on for about 17 years before the Dutch came out of New Amsterdam and took over in 1655. Fort Christina is now called Wilmington. Then came the English who took and held the territory except for a brief setback in 1672 when the Dutch tried a replay. It did not work. The British promptly drove them out again.
With the British in charge the area was run by the Duke of York until 1682 when he gave it to William Penn. This little piece of real estate gave Penn's Pennsylvania access to the Atlantic ocean. The residents did not like being part of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvanians did not like it either. So Penn did the reasonable thing and allowed Delaware its own assembly in 1704. Still both territories remained under the same governor until the civil war.
Georgia is the last of our 13 original colonies. The area was first explored by Hernando de Soto around 1540. Soto was a Spanish adventurer explorer who had already established a reputation in the conquest of the Incas. Ever in search of gold, in 1539 he first landed in Florida with 600 men. From there he proceeded into Geogia where he found a solidly established Indian culture of predominately Creek and Cherokee Indians. These people were outstanding farmers with large well established villages which were dominated by pyramid type temples.
The arrival of Soto sounded the death knell for this culture. Most of those who were not murdered and enslaved finally succumbed to the European diseases for which they had no immunity. These were predominantly measles, smallpox and whooping cough. Can you blame them for rewarding us with syphilis. After ensuring the destruction of the Indian culture Soto went on to explore much of North America and is credited with the discovery of the Mississippi River in1541. He finally got his comeuppance in Louisiana where he died of fever in 1542.
Spain occupied the Georgia region in 1565 and maintained a strong presence until they were gradually forced out by the settlers from South Carolina. In 1732 the English philanthropist, James Edward Oglethorpe with some other trustees secured a grant from King George II for the territory. Being no fool Oglethorpe named the place Georgia. Why not? He then established the colony in 1732 as a refuge for debtors and released prisoners. It was not all easy. In 1742 a bunch of Spaniards attack Fort Frederica and Oglethorpe had to whip their butts, which he did. Fort Frederica was on the island of St. Simons where the Spaniards wanted to establish a presence.
The first Georgia settlement was at Savannah in 1733 with Oglethorpe in charge. This went well for a while, but we must remember these people were already losers in Britain. They tried to build a culture, but even with Oglethorpe in charge they were ill equipped to make it work. The trustees finally gave up and surrendered their power to the British government.
This ends our brief look at the colonies. This was for sure not a comprehensive survey. The goal was to get an idea of what was coming down in the colonies while Great Britain was threshing around with its kings and parliament. In fact, these colonies were in large part established by people who were trying to escape the turmoil in England including the religious persecution.
The really stupid part is, with the exception of William Penn and the Quakers, they brought all of their religious baggage with them. Instead of being persecuted, they became the persecutors. In a very real way they were just as evil as the people who drove them to America. Once here they attempted to enforce their version of religious bigotry on the new world. This was particularly true of the New England Puritans. We can cite the events in 1692 at Salem, Massachusetts as an extreme example. It seems William Penn was the only one who had enough sense to create an environment for true freedom in religious practice. This concept seems to have carried over and managed to become part of our constitution, albeit as an afterthought in the Bill of Rights.
Amendment I spells it out as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom
of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably
to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Even with this guarantee we must be ever vigilant. We have fundamentalist zealots continuously attempting to force their religious bigotry onto our kids in the public school systems. Until we become an enlightened species, this will be a never ending battle.
This is not our final look at the colonies. We will get back
to them after we finish with England and its crazy kings. Perhaps
the craziest from our standpoint was King George III whose insensitivity
precipitated the American Revolution.
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