Religious Freedom In Pennsylvania Colony

Brief History of William Penn

Penn Portrait

Atwater-Kent Museum

Portrait of Young William Penn in Armor, date and artist unknown.

William Penn (Oct 14, 1644–July 30, 1718) founded the Province of Pennsylvania, the British North American colony that became the U.S. land of Pennsylvania. The democratic principles that he set along served as an inspiration for the United States Constitution. Alee of his time, Penn also published a plan for a United States of Europe, "European Dyet, Parliament or Estates."

Religious beliefs

Although built-in into a distinguished Anglican family and the son of Admiral Sir William Penn, Penn joined the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers at the age of 22. The Quakers obeyed their "inner light", which they believed to come up directly from God, refused to bow or take off their hats to any man, and refused to accept up arms. Penn was a close friend of George Play tricks, the founder of the Quakers. These were times of turmoil, only after Cromwell'south decease, and the Quakers were suspect, because of their principles which differed from the state imposed religion and because of their refusal to swear an oath of loyalty to Cromwell or the Male monarch (Quakers obeyed the command of Christ to not swear, Matthew 5:34).

Penn'due south religious views were extremely deplorable to his male parent, Admiral Sir William Penn, who had through naval service earned an estate in Ireland and hoped that Penn's charisma and intelligence would be able to win him favor at the court of Charles 2. In 1668 he was imprisoned for writing a tract (The Sandy Foundation Shaken) which attacked the doctrine of the trinity.

"If thou wouldst dominion well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must exist ruled by him....Those who will non be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." –William Penn

Penn was a frequent companion of George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, travelling in Europe and England with him in their ministry building. He as well wrote a comprehensive, detailed explanation of Quakerism along with a testimony to the character of George Fox, in his Introductionto the autobiographical Journal of George Fox.

Persecutions

Penn was educated at Chigwell School, Essex where he had his earliest religious experience. Thereafter, young Penn'southward religious views effectively exiled him from English society — he was sent downward (expelled) from Christ Church, Oxford for being a Quaker, and was arrested several times. Among the most famous of these was the trial following his arrest with William Meade for preaching before a Quaker gathering. Penn pleaded for his right to run into a copy of the charges laid against him and the laws he had supposedly broken, merely the guess, the Lord Mayor of London, refused — fifty-fifty though this right was guaranteed past the police. Despite heavy pressure from the Lord Mayor to convict the men, the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty". The Lord Mayor then not only had Penn sent to jail again (on a charge of contempt of courtroom), but also the full jury. The members of the jury, fighting their case from prison, managed to win the right for all English juries to exist free from the control of judges. (See jury nullification.)The persecution of Quakers became so fierce that Penn decided that it would be ameliorate to try to constitute a new, free, Quaker settlement in North America. Some Quakers had already moved to N America, but the New England Puritans, specially, were as negative towards Quakers as the people back home, and some of them had been banished to the Caribbean area.

The founding of Pennsylvania

In 1677, Penn'southward chance came, as a group of prominent Quakers, among them Penn, received the colonial province of West New Jersey (half of the current state of New Jersey). That same twelvemonth, 2 hundred settlers from the towns of Chorleywood and Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire and other towns in nearby Buckinghamshire arrived, and founded the town of Burlington. Penn, who was involved in the projection but himself remained in England, drafted a lease of liberties for the settlement. He guaranteed free and off-white trial by jury, freedom of religion, freedom from unjust imprisonment and complimentary elections.

King Charles II of England had a large loan with Penn's father, after whose decease, King Charles settled by granting Penn a large area west and south of New Jersey on March iv, 1681. Penn called the area Sylvania (Latin for forest), which Charles changed to Pennsylvania in honour of the elder Penn. Perhaps the king was glad to have a place where religious and political outsiders (like the Quakers, or the Whigs, who wanted more influence for the people'southward representatives) could have their ain identify, far away from England. 1 of the commencement counties of Pennsylvania was called Bucks County, named after Buckinghamshire (Bucks) in England, where the Penn's family seat was, and from whence many of the first settlers came.

Although Penn'due south authority over the colony was officially discipline only to that of the king, through his Frame of Government he implemented a autonomous organisation with full liberty of religion, fair trials, elected representatives of the people in power, and a separation of powers — over again ideas that would after form the basis of the American constitution. The freedom of religion in Pennsylvania (complete liberty of faith for everybody who believed in God) brought not only English, Welsh, German and Dutch Quakers to the colony, just as well Huguenots (French Protestants), Mennonites, Amish, and Lutherans from Catholic German states.

Penn had hoped that Pennsylvania would be a profitable venture for himself and his family. Penn marketed the colony throughout Europe in various languages and, equally a effect, settlers flocked to Pennsylvania. Despite Pennsylvania'south rapid growth and diversity, the colony never turned a turn a profit for Penn or his family unit. In fact, Penn would afterward exist imprisoned in England for debt and, at the time of his death in 1718, he was penniless.

Wampum belt

Atwater-Kent Museum

Wampum belt, legend dated 1682. Lenape Tribe; mollusk and whelk beat beads, leather.

From 1682 to 1684 Penn was, himself, in the Province of Pennsylvania. After the building plans for Philadelphia ("Brotherly Honey") had been completed, and Penn's political ideas had been put into a workable form, Penn explored the interior. He befriended the local Indians (primarily of the Leni Lenape (aka Delaware) tribe) , and ensured that they were paid fairly for their lands. Penn even learned several different Indian dialects in guild to communicate in negiotiations without interpreters. Penn introduced laws maxim that if a European did an Indian wrong, there would be a fair trial, with an equal number of people from both groups deciding the affair. His measures in this thing proved successful: even though later colonists did not care for the Indians as fairly every bit Penn and his starting time group of colonists had done, colonists and Indians remained at peace in Pennsylvania much longer than in the other English colonies.

Penn began construction of Pennsbury Estate, his intended state manor in Bucks County on the right bank of the Delaware River, in 1683.

Penn also made a treaty with the Indians at Shackamaxon (near Kensington in Philadelphia) under an elm tree. Penn chose to acquire lands for his colony through business rather than conquest. He paid the Indians 1200 pounds for their country under the treaty, an corporeality considered fair. Voltaire praised this "Groovy Treaty" as "the only treaty between those people [Indians and Europeans] that was not ratified by an oath, and that was never infringed." Many regard the Not bad Treaty as a myth that sprung up around Penn. Nonetheless, the story has had enduring power. The event has taken iconic condition and is commemorated in a frieze on the United states of america Capitol.

Penn visited America in one case more, in 1699. In those years he put forrard a plan to make a federation of all English language colonies in America. At that place take been claims that he as well fought slavery, but that seems unlikely, as he owned and even traded slaves himself. However, he did promote good handling for slaves, and other Pennsylvania Quakers were among the earliest fighters against slavery.

Penn had wished to settle in Philadelphia himself, simply financial problems forced him back to England in 1701. His financial advisor, Philip Ford, had cheated him out of thousands of pounds, and he had nigh lost Pennsylvania through Ford'southward machinations. The adjacent decade of Penn's life was mainly filled with various court cases against Ford. He tried to sell Pennsylvania back to the country, but while the deal was nevertheless existence discussed, he was hit by a stroke in 1712, later on which he was unable to speak or accept care of himself.

Penn died in 1718 at his dwelling in Ruscombe, virtually Twyford in Berkshire, and was buried next to his starting time wife in the cemetery of the Jordans Quaker meeting firm at Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire in England. His family retained buying of the colony of Pennsylvania until the American Revolution.

Odds and Ends

Arm chair

Atwater-Kent Museum

Open up Arm Chair with caned seat and back, c. 1695-1715.

On November 28, 1984 Ronald Reagan, upon an Act of Congress by Presidential Annunciation 5284 declared William Penn and his second wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn, each to be an Honorary Citizen of the United States.

In that location is a widely told, entirely apocryphal, story of an en encounter between Penn and George Play a joke on, in which Penn expressed business over wearing a sword (a standard part of dress for people of his station), and how this was non in keeping with Quaker behavior. Fox responded, "Wear it as long as thou canst." Later, according to the story, Penn again met Play a trick on, only this time without the sword. Penn and so said, "I have taken thy advice; I wore it every bit long as I could." Though this story is entirely unfounded, it serves as an instructive parable about Penn'due south Quaker behavior.

At that place is a statue of William Penn atop the Urban center Hall building of Philadelphia, built by Alexander Milne Calder. At one time, there was a gentlemen'southward agreement that no edifice should be higher than Penn'south statue. Ane Liberty Place was amidst the first of several buildings in the late 1980s to be built higher than Penn.

In that location is a common misconception that the smile Quaker found on boxes of Quaker Oats is William Penn. The Quaker Oats Company has stated that this is not truthful.