DELAWARE, FLAG OF

U.S. state flag consisting of a blue field (background) with a buff (light tan) diamond bearing a central coat of arms above the inscription December 7, 1787. During the Revolutionary War (177583) distinctive colours were carried by troops from Delaware, but an official state flag was not adopted until July 24, 1913. The original symbolism of the diamond shape is unknown, but it may have been chosen simply as a distinctive design. The choice of colours is clearly understood: the uniforms of Continental Army troops were blue with buff facings. Precise colour shades have been specified for Delaware's colonial blue and buff, but the latter is often misrepresented as yellow. The date along the bottom of the flag is when Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. The coat of arms, which also appears in the state seal, was approved in 1777. It incorporates symbols appropriate for the late 18th centurya soldier, a farmer, agricultural produce (a sheaf of wheat and an ear of corn), an ox, and a ship. The design is completed by the state motto, Liberty and independence. Whitney Smith History The Indians When the first Europeans arrived, the Delaware (or Lenni Lenape) Indians lived in northern and central Delaware and also along the river shore in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Their language was a version of the Algonquian tongue. Politically decentralized (each village ran its own affairs), they were a peaceful people, supporting themselves by farming, hunting, and fishing. The more warlike Minqua, or Susquehannock, living to the west, frequently attacked the Lenape. Several Algonquian-language tribes, such as the Nanticoke, Assateague, and Choptank, lived in southern Delaware. The colony The Dutch who established the first European settlement in Delaware at Lewes in 1631 were killed by Indians, and it was not until 1638 that a permanent settlement was plantedby Swedes at Fort Christina, now Wilmington; they reputedly erected America's first log cabins in this colony of New Sweden. The Dutch from New Amsterdam (New York) conquered the Swedes in 1655, and the English seized the colony from the Dutch in 1664. Thereafter, except for a brief Dutch reconquest in 1673, Delaware was administered as part of New York until 1682, when the Duke of York ceded it to William Penn, who wanted it so that his colony of Pennsylvania could have access to the ocean. Though Penn tried to unite the Delaware counties with Pennsylvania, both sides resented union. In 1704 he allowed Delaware an assembly of its own. Pennsylvania and Delaware shared an appointed governor until the Revolution. Only in 1776 did the name Delawarederiving from Sir Thomas West, 12th Baron De La Warr, a governor of Virginiabecome official, though it had been applied to the bay in 1610 and gradually thereafter to the adjoining land.