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New Jersey is something of a puzzle, especially as a matter of early colonial history. The future Garden State rates barely a mention in most surveys of American history until it becomes a primary battleground of the American Revolution. That happens, however, not because of anything in New Jersey that was particularly worth defending in and of itself, but because of its location between the two most important cities in English North America in 1776, New York and Philadelphia. But even that is puzzling. One look at the map tells us that New Jersey is fundamentally a big fat peninsula between the two most commercially important rivers of mid-17th century North America – the lower Hudson and the Delaware. It certainly seems strategic. It is therefore a little surprising that it was not settled in any meaningful way until after most of lower New England, Long Island, New York, Maryland, and Virginia. With few exceptions, the Dutch settled on the east bank of the Hudson, and the Swedes on the west bank of the Delaware. New Jersey did not come in for meaningful European settlement until after the Duke of York took over New Netherland, and even then took ages to really get off the ground. Why was that?
This episode answers that question!
Selected references for this episode
John E. Pomfret, Province of East New Jersey, 1609-1702: The Rebellious Proprietary
