Columbus and Other Heroes of American DiscoveryD'Anvers, N.
History
Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery
D'Anvers, N.
America -- Discovery and exploration; North America -- Discovery and exploration
Soon after the arrival of the emigrants from Europe, Oglethorpe
succeeded in bringing about a congress between the so-called Creek
Indians and the English, near the site of the modern Savannah, at
which meeting peace was solemnly made between the dark warriors and
their pale-faced guests. This treaty between the Creek Indians and the
whites was succeeded by one with the Cherokees dwelling on the north
of the new settlements, and as a policy of a similar kind was pursued
with regard to religious refugees from other English settlements,
Georgia shortly became a kind of harbor of refuge for all who were
suffering in mind, body or estate. Its progress in worldly prosperity,
though slow, was sure; and, when the treaty of 1763 concluded a war
of triumph for the English, it had extended its limits far away to the
South, the West, and the North-west, in spite of many a bloody contest,
now with the Spanish, and now with the various Indian tribes in the
West.
Illustration: WILLIAM PENN.
We have now accounted for the first appearance of the white man in
all the districts of North America bordering on the Atlantic seaboard,
and are free to turn our steps inland, joining, as our first hero in
this new field, the great Quaker, William Penn. He was the founder
of the “Keystone State,” which forms the connecting link between the
first French settlements on the Great Lakes and those of the Dutch and
English in the United States.
It was in 1681, after a stormy career in England, that Penn first
turned his attention to the New World, and obtained from the English
Crown, in lieu of a large sum of money due to him from it, a grant
of an extensive tract of land, encroaching alike on the boundaries of
New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. It was included between the 40th
and 43d degrees of north latitude, and was bounded on the east by the
Delaware, already connected with so many thrilling memories.
Determined, with that rigid sense of honesty which characterized his
sect, to appropriate nothing unfairly, Penn, before he started himself,
sent out agents to purchase from the Indians the land upon which he
proposed settling; and all things being thus prepared for his advent,
he set sail from England, arriving at Newcastle, on the Delaware, in
October, 1682. Here he was most enthusiastically received, his fame
as a sufferer for righteousness’ sake, and as an eager philanthropist,
having preceded him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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