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"Penn's Treaty with the Indians"
by Benjamin West. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Philadelphia area was
the location of the Lenape (Delaware) Indian village Shackamaxon.
Europeans arrived in the Delaware Valley in the early 1600s, with the first
settlements founded by the Dutch, British and Swedish. After Sweden's first
expedition to North America embarked in late 1637, the Swedes took control of
land on the west side of the Delaware River from just below the Schuylkill
River: today's Philadelphia, southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. In
1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their military defeat of the
English province of Maryland. But 11 years later, the Dutch sent an army to the
Delaware River, nominally taking control of the colony, though Swedish and
Finnish settlers continued to have their own militia, religion, court, and
lands. The English conquered the New Netherlands colony in October 1663–1664,
but the situation did not really change until 1682, when the area was included
in William Penn's charter for Pennsylvania.
In 1681, in partial repayment of a debt, Charles II of England granted William
Penn a charter for what would become the Pennsylvania colony. Despite the royal
charter, Penn bought the land from the local Lenape to be on good terms with the
Native Americans and ensure peace for his colony. According to legend Penn made
a treaty of friendship with Lenape chief Tammany under an elm tree at
Shackamaxon, in what is now the city's Fish town section. As a Quaker, Penn had
experienced religious persecution and wanted his colony to be a place where
anyone could worship freely despite their religion, and this extreme tolerance
which led to significantly healthier relationships with the local Native tribes
than most other colonies had, also encouraged the rapid growth of Philadelphia
into America's most important city. Penn named the city Philadelphia, which is
Greek for brotherly love (Philos, "love" or "friendship", and Adolph's,
"brother"). Penn planned a city on the Delaware River to serve as a port and
place for government. Hoping that Philadelphia would become more like an English
rural town instead of a city, Penn laid out roads on a grid plan to keep houses
and businesses spread far apart, allowing them to be surrounded by gardens and
orchards. The city's inhabitants didn't follow Penn's plans and crowded by the
Delaware River and subdivided and resold their lots. Before Penn left
Philadelphia for the last time, he issued the Charter of 1701 establishing
Philadelphia as a city. The city soon established itself as an important trading
center, poor at first, but with tolerable living conditions by the 1750s.
Benjamin Franklin, a leading citizen of the time, helped improve city services
and founded new ones, such as one of the American Colonies first hospitals.
Philadelphia's importance and central location in the colonies made it a natural
center for America's revolutionaries. The city hosted the First Continental
Congress before the war; the Second Continental Congress, which signed the
United States Declaration of Independence, during the war; and the
Constitutional Convention after the war. Several battles were fought in and near
Philadelphia as well. After the war, Philadelphia served as the new United
States' capital in the 1790s. In 1793, the largest yellow fever epidemic in U.S.
history killed as many as 5,000 people in Philadelphia, roughly 10% of the
population.
Benjamin Franklin
8th and Market Street, showing the Strawbridge and Clothier department store,
1910s.The state government left Philadelphia in 1799 and the federal government
left soon after in 1800, but the city remained the young nation's largest and a
financial and cultural center. New York City soon surpassed Philadelphia in
population, but construction of roads, canals, and railroads helped turn
Philadelphia into the United States' first major industrial city. Throughout the
19th century, Philadelphia had a variety of industries and businesses, the
largest being textiles. Major corporations in the 19th and early 20th centuries
included the Baldwin Locomotive Works, William Cramp and Sons Ship and Engine
Building Company, and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Industry, along with the U.S.
Centennial, was celebrated in 1876 with the Centennial Exposition, the first
official World's Fair in the United States. Immigrants, mostly German and Irish,
settled in Philadelphia and the surrounding districts. The rise in population of
the surrounding districts helped lead to the Act of Consolidation of 1854 which
extended the city of Philadelphia to include all of Philadelphia County. In the
later half of the century immigrants from Russia, Eastern Europe and Italy and
African Americans from the southern U.S. settled in the city.
By the 20th century, Philadelphia had become known as "corrupt and contented,"
with a complacent population and entrenched Republican political machine. The
first major reform came in 1917 when outrage over the election-year murder of a
police officer led to the shrinking of the Philadelphia City Council from two
houses to just one. In the 1920s, the public flouting of Prohibition laws, mob
violence, and police involvement in illegal activities led to the appointment of
Brigadier General Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marine Corps as director of public
safety, but political pressure prevented any long-term success in fighting crime
and corruption.
The population peaked at more than two million residents in 1950, then began to
decline. Revitalization and gentrification of neighborhoods began in the 1960s
and continues into the 21st century, with much of the development in the Center
City and University City areas of the city. After many of the old manufacturers
and businesses had left Philadelphia or shut down, the city started attracting
service businesses and began to more aggressively market itself as a tourist
destination. Glass-and-granite skyscrapers were built in Center City. Historic
areas such as Independence National Historical Park located in Old City and
Society Hill were resuscitated during the reformist mayoral era of the 1950s
through the 1980s and are now among the most desirable living areas of Center
City. This has slowed the city's 40-year population decline after losing nearly
one-quarter of its population
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