Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades : $b Required by the syllabus for elementary schools of New York State Education DepartmentTurpin, Edna Henry Lee
History
Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades : $b Required by the syllabus for elementary schools of New York State Education Department
Turpin, Edna Henry Lee
United States -- Biography
The grant was made in 1680; two years later, in order to have an outlet
to the sea, Penn secured a grant of the land which afterwards formed
the state of Delaware. The very year that this second grant was made,
many Quakers sailed to make their home in the new land. In the fall
and winter of 1682, twenty-three ships came, bringing settlers to the
Quaker colony. The next year Penn could say, “I have led the greatest
colony into America that ever any man did upon a private credit,
and the most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it are to be
found among us.” In three years there were more than seven thousand
settlers,--English, French, Dutch, Swedes, men of different races and
various creeds.
Penn made it from the first a “free colony for all mankind,” assuring
the people “You shall be governed by laws of your own making. I
shall not usurp the right of any or oppress his person.” He put the
government in the hands of a governor and of a council and general
assembly chosen by freemen. Laws were passed forbidding drunkenness,
dueling, stage plays, and card playing. Death, which was then in
England the penalty for theft and many other offences, in Pennsylvania
was inflicted only as punishment for wilful murder, according to the
law of God, as the Quakers understood it.
Penn founded his colony on principles of peace and fairness to the
Indians. Under a great elm-tree at Shakamaxon, afterwards Kensington,
he made with the natives, a treaty of peace and friendship “never
sworn to and never broken;” the red man was granted equal rights with
the white, and they were to be friends “while the creeks and rivers
run and while the sun, moon, and stars endure.” The Indians with whom
the Pennsylvania colonists were brought in contact were the mild
and peace-loving Delawares. Fortunately for the Quakers, the fierce
Susquehannocks, beaten by the Five Nations, had six years before gone
southward.
Penn laid out the site of a town at the confluence of the Delaware and
Schuylkill Rivers. He named it Philadelphia, the city of brotherly
love. It was laid out with broad fair streets for he wished it to be a
“fair and green country town.”
Two years later, Penn sailed back to England to decide a dispute about
the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. It was fifteen
years before he revisited his colony. He endeavored to see it governed
well, but from a distance this was difficult. There were men hard to
control. “For the love of God, me, and the poor country, be not so
governmentish, so uneasy, and open in your dissatisfaction,” he wrote.
When Penn returned in 1699 it was with the plan of spending his
remaining days in his colony. But two years later he learned that there
was a plan afoot to turn his province into a crown territory and he
sailed back to England to protect his rights. One matter after another
came up to detain him and he remained in England till his death in
July, 1718.
James Edward Oglethorpe
The Founder of Georgia
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account