Resources
- History of PennsylvaniaAt the time of European settlement, the Native American population was small and widely scattered. The Delaware, or Lenni Lenape, occupied the Delaware valley; the Susquehannock were in the lower Susquehanna River valley; the Erie and various groups of the Iroquois Confederacy—Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Oneida—were in northern Pennsylvania. Tribes of the Ohio River valley lived in the central and western parts of the state.
- 1681-1776: The Quaker ProvincePenn was born in London on October 24, 1644, the son of Admiral Sir William Penn. Despite high social position and an excellent education, he shocked his upper-class associates by his conversion to the beliefs of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, then a persecuted sect. He used his inherited wealth and rank to benefit and protect his fellow believers. Despite the unpopularity of his religion, he was socially acceptable in the king's court because he was trusted by the Duke of York, later King James II. The origins of the Society of Friends lie in the intense religious ferment of seventeenth century England. George Fox, the son of a Leicestershire weaver, is credited with founding it in 1647, though there was no definite organization before 1668. The Society's rejections of rituals and oaths, its opposition to war, and its simplicity of speech and dress soon attracted attention, usually hostile.
- William Penn and the Founding of PennsylvaniaAs he disembarked from his ship onto the western shore of the Delaware River in 1682, William Penn surveyed the green country in front of him. The thirty-eight-year-old Englishman could not help contrasting this strange, expansive land with memories of the cramped prison cell he had occupied twenty years earlier back in England.
William Penn's Holy Experiment of Philadelphia
He was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London eight months for being a Quaker, but later King Charles II gave him land in America as repayment of a debt owed to his father.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iHeSHGeblQ
Perspectives
Friends and Strangers
Friends and Strangers offers a provocative new look at the transfer of English culture to North America. Setting Pennsylvania in the context of the broader Atlantic phenomenon of creolization, Smolenski's account of the Quaker colony's origins reveals the vital role this process played in creating early American society.
Frontier Country
Synthesizing the tensions between high and low politics and eastern and western regions in Pennsylvania before the Revolution, Patrick Spero recasts the importance of frontiers, as eighteenth-century Pennsylvanians would have understood them, to the development of colonial America and the origins of American Independence.
The Contagious City
The Contagious City details how early Americans struggled to preserve their collective health against both the strange new perils of the colonial environment and the familiar dangers of the traditional city, through a period of profound transformation.
The Quaker Colonies
A historical chronicle of the founding of Delaware and other early colonies by the Religious Society of Friends, otherwise known as the Quaker movement.
William Penn
On March 4, 1681, King Charles II granted William Penn a charter for a new American colony. Pennsylvania was to be, in its founder's words, a bold "Holy Experiment" in religious freedom and toleration, a haven for those fleeing persecution in an increasingly intolerant England and acrossEurope. An activist, political theorist, and the proprietor of his own colony, Penn would become a household name in the New World, despite spending just four years on American soil.Though Penn is an iconic figure in both American and British history, controversy swirled around him during his lifetime. In his early twenties, Penn became a Quaker - an act of religious as well as political rebellion that put an end to his father's dream that young William would one day join theEnglish elite. Yet Penn went on to a prominent public career as a Quaker spokesman, political agitator, and royal courtier. At the height of his influence, Penn was one of the best-known Dissenters in England and walked the halls of power as a close ally of King James II. At his lowest point, hefound himself jailed on suspicion of treason, and later served time in debtor's prison.Despite his importance, William Penn has remained an elusive character - many people know his name, but few know much more than that. Andrew R. Murphy offers the first major biography of Penn in more than forty years, and the first to make full use of Penn's private papers. The result is a complexportrait of a man whose legacy we are still grappling with today. At a time when religious freedom is hotly debated in the United States and around the world, William Penn's Holy Experiment serves as both a beacon and a challenge.