Delaware Colony
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Delaware Colony was a British colony in North America. The area had first been colonized as Zwaanendael by the Dutch in 1631, then as New Sweden by Sweden in 1638, only to be retaken by the Dutch as the colony of New Netherland in 1655. English control began in 1664. Possession of the "three counties" of Delaware was disputed between the colonies of New York and Maryland. They were eventually appended to William Penn's grant in 1682. Delaware Colony was separated from the Province of Pennsylvania in 1704; however, it did not have its own governor.
Delaware was one of the Middle Colonies. It was composed of New Castle County, Kent County, and Sussex County, the same three counties that today make up the United States' second-smallest state.
The area now known as "Delaware" had no official name before 1776; it was administered by the proprietors of Pennsylvania as part of their jurisdiction, even though it had a separate local assembly and courts. In contemporary documents from the early Revolutionary period, the area is generally referred to as "The Three Lower Counties on [the] Delaware [River]" (Lower Counties on Delaware) or by the names of the three counties. (The term "Lower Counties" refers to the fact that New Castle, Kent, and Sussex were lower, or further downstream, on the Delaware River than the counties constituting Pennsylvania proper.)
During the American Revolution, the colony declared independence and became the U.S. state of Delaware. It was named after the Delaware River, which in turn was named for Thomas West, Lord Delaware, the second governor of Virginia. The state was the first to ratify the United States Constitution on December 7, 1787. In 1792, Delaware wrote its first constitution.