White settlement began when the Dutch West India Company acquired the area in 1639. That same year, Jonas Bronck, for whom the borough is named, established a farm here. The next settlers were led by Anne Hutchinson, religious dissenter exiled by the Boston Puritans, and John Throckmorton, an outcast of the Anabaptists. Manorial estates were established by wealthy New York merchants, such as Oloff Stevenszen Van Cortlandt and Frederick Philipse, who in 1693 built the first toll bridge across the Harlem River to Manhattan. In 1776, during the American Revolution, the Bronx was the site of the Battle of Pell's Point, in which American troops delayed a British force under General William Howe, enabling George Washington and his army to withdraw to White Plains.
The Bronx was part of Westchester County until the western part was annexed by New York City in 1874 (the remainder was annexed in 1895). It remained an area of farms and small villages until the 1890s, when elevated subway and trolley lines were extended into the area and it began its rapid growth as a suburban community. In the 1840s, German and Irish railroad workers arrived; they were displaced by other immigrants: Italians, Poles, Jews, and Greeks. The Bronx was incorporated as a borough in 1898, and by 1920 its population was more than 700,000. Its ethnic makeup changed after World War II (1939-1945), when many middle-income white families moved out of the borough and black and Puerto Rican populations increased. The borough remains one of the most densely populated and ethnically diverse areas in the nation. According to the 1990 census, blacks represent 37.3 percent of the borough's population, people of Asian background 2.9 percent, Native Americans 0.05 percent, and people of Hispanic background 43.5 percent. Population 1,169,115 (1980); 1,203,789 (1990); 1,203,789 (1990).Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Bronx borough Information info
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