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Native American history

A Little Valley’s Prosperity and Hopes of Preservation: Swedish Incorporation of English Imperialism in the Delaware Valley and the Decline of Lenape Power Before William Penn (1669-1682)  

By Cole mellinger

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Cole Mellinger is a graduate student attending Millersville University. He graduated from Millersville University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and is pursuing a Master of Arts degree in History. Cole is currently researching 17th Century Colonial America for his graduate thesis. In his thesis, Cole explains how different peoples who occupied the Delaware Valley in the decade before William Penn’s arrival in 1682, and their interactions with each other, transformed the political, economic, social, and geographic landscapes. Cole was inspired to research this topic after discovering that European settlers lived and occupied the Delaware Valley before William Penn’s arrival. Cole’s future goals are to receive a PhD in History and to become a professor of Early Modern America, specializing in settler-indigenous relations as well as settler and Indigenous relations with the colonial officials that dictated economic and land policies in North America. 

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