Delaware: a Bicentennial History

l)EPARTM?}iT.'T., Lirf;'_ 1 I1 E·,·;-c;~•TT(;:J CENTEF DE~ Jil~ 1.·:~:,:r~~1 f~l c... ::: ~: ·~:: L:l~ :~ c E:3LH1CTION DOVER DELAW.ARE --'·· ·- - -'- 1990]. THE STATES AND THE NATION SERIES of which this volume is a part, is designed to assist the American people in a serious look at the ideals they have espoused and the experiences they have undergone in the history of the nation. The content of every volume represents the scholarship, experience, and opinions of its author. The costs of writing and editing were met mainly by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency. The project was administered by the American Association for State and Local History, a nonprofit learned society, working with an Editorial Board of distin guished editors, authors, and historians, whose names are listed below. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD James Morton Smith, General Editor Director, State Historical Society of Wisconsin William T. Alderson, Director Joan Paterson Kerr American Association for Consulting Editor State and Local History American Heritage Roscoe C. Born Richard M. Ketchum Vice-Editor Editor and Author The National Observer Dorset, Vermont Vernon Carstensen A. Russell Mortensen Professor of History Assistant Director University of Washington National Park Service Michael Kammen, Professor of Lawrence W. Towner American History and Culture Director and Librarian Cornell University The Newberry Library Louis L. Tucker Richmond D. Williams President (1972-1974) President (1974-1976) American Association for American Association for State and Local History State and Local History MANAGING EDITOR Gerald George American Association for State and Local History Delaware A Bicentennial History Carol E. Hoffecker W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. New York American Association for State and Local History Nashville Author and publishers make grateful ac knowledgment to the fo llowing for permission to quote from archival materials and previously published works: Elizabeth Godwin Goggin, for permission to quote from "The History of Poor-Relief Administration in Delaware," by Elizabeth Godwin Goggin, master's thesis prepared for the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration in 1938. The University of Delaware and Helen B. Stewart, for permissionto quote from "The Negro in Delaware to 1829," by Helen B. Stewart, master's thesis prepared for the University of Delaware in 1940. The University of Delaware and John Gary Dean, for permission to quote from "The Free Negro in Delaware," by John Gary Dean, master's thesis prepared for the Univer sity of Delaware in 1970. The University of Delaware, College of Marine Studies, for permission to quote from "Economic and Social Aspects of Delaware's Coastal Zone," by Joel M. Goodwin, from vol. 8 of the Delaware Bay Report Series (10 vols.), edited by Dennis F. Polis and produced (mimeographed) by the College of Marine Studies, University of Delaware. Marion B. Reed, for permission to quote from "Readings in Delaware History: Economic Development," edited by H. Clay Reed and produced (mimeographed) in 1939 by the Department of History and Political Science, University of Delaware. The Historical Society of Delaware, for permission to quote from Thomas Rodney's "Essay on Negroes," from the Rodney Collection. Jessica I. Terry , for permission to quote from the papers of Charles L. Terry in "Messages of the Governors," Morris Library, University of Delaware. Copyright © 1977 American Association for State and Local History All rights reserved Published and distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10036 Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Hoffecker, Carol E Delaware: a Bicentennial history. (The Stales and the Nation series) Bibliography: p. Includes index. I. Delaware-History. I. Series. Fi64.H62 975.1 76-53844 ISBN 0-393-{)5620-1 Printed in the United States of America I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 To the memory of my grandpa rents Marie F. and Elmer Zebley and Florence C. and Charles W. Hoffecker, all native Delawareans Contents Invitation to the Reader IX Preface xiii Part I The Land by the Water 1 Part II A Diverse People 67 Part Ill The First State 135 Suggestions for Further Reading 211 Index 215 Illustrations A Photographer's Essay by Bruce Roberts Following Page 112 Original Maps by Harold Faye Delaware: Contemporary Map Keyed to Text Facing Page ix Delaware: Points of Historical Interest Facing Page 152 IN 1807, former President John Adams argued that a complete history of the American Revolution could not be written until the history of change in each state was known, because the prin ciples of the Revolution were as various as the states that went through it. Two hundred years after the Declaration of Indepen dence, the American nation has spread over a continent and beyond. The states have grown in number from thirteen to fifty . And democratic principles have been interpreted differently in every one of them. We therefore invite you to consider that the history of your state may have more to do with the bicentennial review of the American Revolution than does the story of Bunker Hill or Valley Forge . The Revolution has continued as Americans ex tended liberty and democracy over a vast territory. John Adams was right: the states are part of that story, and the story is in complete without an account of their diversity. The Declaration of Independence stressed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; accordingly, it shattered the notion of holding new territories in the subordinate status of colonies. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 set forth a procedure for new states to enter the Union on an equal footing with the old. The Federal Constitution shortly confirmed this novel means of building a nation out of equal states. The step-by-step process through which territories have achieved self-government and na tional representation is among the most important of the Found ing Fathers' legacies. The method of state-making reconciled the ancient conflict between liberty and empire, re sulting in what Thomas Jefferson called an empire for liberty. The system has worked and re mains unaltered, despite enormous changes that have taken place in the nation. The country's extent and variety now sur pass anything the patriots of '76 could likely have imagined. The United States has changed from an agrarian republic into a highly industrial and urban democracy, from a fledgling nation into a major world power. As Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked in 1920, the creators of the nation could not have seen com pletely how it and its constitution and its states would develop. Any meaningful review in the bicentennial era must consider what the country has become, as well as what it was. The new nation of equal states took as its motto E Pluribus Unum-"out of many, one." But just as many peoples have become Americans without complete loss of ethnic and cultural identities, so have the states retained differences of character. Some have been superficial, expressed in stereotyped images big, boastful Texas, "sophisticated" New York, "hillbilly" Arkansas . Other differences have been more real, sometimes in structively, sometimes amusingly; democracy has embraced Huey Long's Louisiana, bilingual New Mexico, unicameral Ne braska, and a Texas tl•1t once taxed fortunetellers and spawned politicians called "Woodpecker Republicans" and "Skunk Democrats ." Some diffe rences have been profound, as when South Carolina secessionists led other states out of the Union in opposition to abolitionists in Massachusetts and Ohio. The re sult was a bitter Civil War. The Revolution's first shots may have sounded in Lexington and Concord; but fights over what democracy should mean and who should have independence have erupted from Pennsyl vania's Gettysburg to the "Bleeding Kansas" of John Brown, from the Alamo in Texas to the Indian battles at Montana's Little Bighorn . Utah Mormons have known the strain of isola tion; Hawaiians at Pearl Harbor, the terror of attack; Georgians during Sherman's march, the sadness of defeat and devastation . Each state's experience differs instructively; each adds under standing to the whole. The purpose of this series of books is to make that kind of un derstanding accessible, in a way that will last in value far beyond the bicentennial fireworks. The series offers a volume on every state, plus the District of Columbia-fifty-one, in all . Each book contains, besides the text, a view of the state through eyes other than the author's-a "photographer's essay," in which a skilled photographer presents his own personal percep tions of the state's contemporary flavor. We have asked authors not for comprehensive chronicles, nor for research monographs or new data for scholars. Bibliogra phies and footnotes are minimal . We have asked each author for a summing up-interpretive, sensitive, thoughtful, individual, even personal-of what seems significant about his or her state's history. What distinguishes it? What has mattered about it, to its own people and to the rest of the nation? What has it come to now? To interpret the states in all their variety, we have sought a variety of backgrounds in authors themselves and have en couraged variety in the approaches they take. They have in common only these things: historical knowledge, writing skill, and strong personal feelings about a particular state. Each has wide latitude for the use of the short space. And if each suc ceeds, it will be by offering you, in your capacity as a citizen of a state and of a nation, stimulating insights to test against your own. James Morton Smith General Editor Preface rc:OMAS Jefferson described Delaware, the first state to ratify the Constitution, as a diamond because, although small, it had great value.

Load more