Delaware
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1629-1631–Samuel Blommaert and Samuel Godwyn send a crew to the Delaware Bay area to buy land. The agents purchased, from the Indians, a tract "32 miles long, two miles deep extending from Old Cape Henlopen northward to the mouth of a river." The patent for this land was registered and confirmed on June 1, 1630.

Blommaert and Godwyn appoint David Pietersen De Vries to lead colonization and development of their land. In December 1630, his ship De Walvis (The Whale), under the command of Peter Heyes of Edam, sets sail from Texel, Holland, with immigrants, food, cattle and whaling implements (de Vries was told that whales abound in the bay). At the time Dutch were interested in making money in the new world, the partners planned to open a whale and seal fishery as well as a settlement and plantation for the cultivation of tobacco and grains.

In 1631–11 years after the English landed at Plymouth Rock, the first settlers arrived in Delaware. Under the leadership of Heyes, they established their settlement, Zwaanendael (valley of swans) near the present town of Lewes.

1632–Captain de Vries visits the colony only to find that the settlers had been killed and their building burned by the Indians. Today, the settlement is commemorated by the Zwaanendael Museum in Lewes.

Tags:  samuel blommaert samuel godwyn david pietersen de vries colonization delaware development