DELAWARE RIVER CONTROL 1630

HISTORY OF DELAWARE RIVER

THR STRUGGLE FOR THE DELAWARE RIVER

The Swedish, Dutch and English struggle for control of Delaware

River goes back to the 1630's, then became more urgent in late 1650

and early 1660. European settlements on it's shores were a cultural

crossroads

The late 1620's the Dutch West Indies Company, set up forts, along

the South River, later the Delawarer, to carry on a fur trade. .More

permanent settlements failed until 1631 when the West Indies Company

opened the New Netherland's to private investors. Swanendael, at the

Delaware Capes, was established by Samuel Godjin to export whale

oil, furs, tobacco and grain.

This was a grate step, however, no one ever asked nor told the

Sickoneysincks of the Lenap tribe of ten thousand Indians which had a control over Coastal Delaware and southern New Jersey lands and

traded skins to the Dutch for finished cloth and metal wares as early as

1615. As this trade picked up Susquehannocks aka Minquas, became

greedy , challenging the Lenapes for the fur trade.

It became apparent to the natives that the settlers were headed towards

a plantation agricultural permanent settlement, not trading station.

It had become known by the Indians that the plantation settlers of the

Chesapeake region were a threat to their hunting lands. Sickonysincks

attacked Swanendeal killing all thirty two settlers.

This attack made it sure that European settlers would only succeed ' if '

the Lenape said they could and were compatible with their interest..

Abstract 2018: Biography of a Map In Motion, Augustine Herrman's Chesapeake, by

Christian J. Koot