The Lanape & Minqua Tribes were the first Americans to settle in the Delaware Valley. In the 1640s, the Swedes established a first European settlement from what is now Philadelphia. A Dutch expedition in New Amsterdam captured New Sweden in 1655 with the help of less than 2,000 Swedes & Finns. This capitulation of New Netherlands occurred in 1664, though. After that, the history of Philadelphia is intertwined with the history of the state of Pennsylvania as a whole. William Penn got his licence for a colony north of Maryland & west of a Delaware River by King Charles Ii on March 4, 1681. When William Penn founded his colony in the 17th century, he envisioned the whole of that experiment for persons of every theological conviction to achieve freedom of thought. For the colony’s capital, Penn selected the peninsula formed by the Schuykill River’s discharge into the Delaware River.

He chose Philadelphia as the inspiration for the town’s name. The city’s name, referred to in the Revelation as “brotherly love,” meant “brotherly love.”