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William Penn

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For other uses, see William Penn (disambiguation).
William Penn

William Penn (October 14, 1644 – July 30, 1718) was founder and "Absolute Proprietor" of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future U.S. state of Pennsylvania. He was known as an early champion of democracy and religious freedom and famous for his treaty with the Lenape Indians.

William Penn is one of the founding fathers of the United States and the only one among them to have single-handedly created a democratic constitution and ruled a huge territory a century before 1776.[1] Well ahead of his time, Penn wrote and urged for a Union of all the English colonies in what was to become the United States of America. The democratic principles that he set forth in the Pennsylvania Frame(s) of Government served as an inspiration for the United States Constitution. As a pacifist Quaker, Penn considered the problems of war and peace deeply, and included a plan for a United States of Europe, "European Dyet, Parliament or Estates," in his voluminous writings.

Religious beliefs

Although born 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. Quakers obey the "inner light", which they believed to be directly from God, refuse to take up arms, and historically refused to bow or take off their hats to any man. Penn was a close friend of George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, and in 1696 was married in an earlier building on the site of Quakers Friars in Bristol.[2] These were times of turmoil, just after Oliver Cromwell's death, and the Quakers were suspected as heretics because of their principles which differed from the state-imposed religion and because of their refusal to swears oaths of loyalty to Cromwell or the King. Quakers obeyed the command of Jesus not to swear, reported in the Gospel of Matthew, 5:34.

Penn's views were extremely distressing to his father, 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 II. In 1668, Penn was imprisoned for writing a tract (The Sandy Foundation Shaken) which attacked the doctrine of the trinity.

Penn traveled frequently with George Fox, through Europe and England, in their ministry. He also wrote a comprehensive, detailed explanation of Quakerism along with a testimony to the character of George Fox, in his introduction to the autobiographical Journal of George Fox.[3]

Persecutions

Penn was educated at Chigwell School where he had his earliest religious experience. Thereafter, young Penn's religious views effectively exiled him from English society—he was sent down (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 see a copy of the charges laid against him and the laws he had supposedly broken, but the judge, the Lord Mayor of London, refused—even though this right was guaranteed by the law.

Despite heavy pressure from the Lord Mayor to convict the men, the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty". The Lord Mayor then told the jury, "If that be your verdict, your verdict be damned." and not only had Penn sent to jail again (on a charge of contempt of court), 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 be free from the control of judges and to judge not just the facts of the case, but the law itself.[4] This case was one of the more important trials that shaped the future concept of American freedom (see jury nullification) and was a victory for the use of the writ of habeas corpus as a means of freeing those unlawfully detained. The persecution of Quakers became so fierce that Penn decided that it would be better to establish a new, free, Quaker settlement in North America. Some Quakers had already moved to North America, but the New England Puritans, especially, were as negative towards Quakers as the people back home, and some of them had been banished to the Caribbean.

The founding of Pennsylvania

First Draft of the Frame of Government, Pennsylvania's first constitution written by Penn (c. 1681)

In 1677, a group of prominent Quakers that included Penn received the colonial province of West New Jersey (half of the current state of New Jersey). That same year, two 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 project but himself remained in England, drafted a charter of liberties for the settlement. He guaranteed free and fair trial by jury, freedom of religion, freedom from unjust imprisonment and free elections.

King Charles II of England had a large loan from Penn's father, after whose death, King Charles settled by granting Penn a large area west and south of New Jersey on March 4, 1681. Penn called the area Sylvania (Latin for woods), which Charles changed to Pennsylvania in honor 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's representatives) could have their own place, far away from England. One of the first counties of Pennsylvania was called Bucks County, named after Buckinghamshire (Bucks) in England, the Penn family seat and original home of many of the first settlers.

Although Penn's authority over the colony was officially subject only to that of the king, through his Frame of Government he implemented a democratic system with full freedom of religion, fair trials, elected representatives of the people in power, and a separation of powers— ideas that would later form the basis of the American constitution. The freedom of religion in Pennsylvania (complete freedom of religion for everybody who believed in God) brought not only English, Welsh, German and Dutch Quakers to the colony, but also Huguenots (French Protestants), Mennonites, Amish, Lutherans from Catholic German states, and Jews. His ideas were later studied by Benjamin Franklin as well as the pamphleteer of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine, whose father was a Quaker. Among Penn's legacies is the unwillingness to force a Quaker majority upon Pennsylvania; he may have wished it but his officials (including in the first Provincial Assembly) were representative of the Dutch, German, Finnish and Swede settlers as much as of the members of the Society of Friends (Quakers).

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, as a result, settlers flocked to Pennsylvania. Despite Pennsylvania's rapid growth and diversity, the colony never turned a profit for Penn or his family. In fact, Penn would later be imprisoned in England for debt and, at the time of his death in 1718, he was penniless.

Wampum belt given to William Penn at the "Great Treaty" in 1682

From 1682 to 1684 Penn lived in the Province of Pennsylvania. After the building plans for Philadelphia ("Brotherly Love") 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 Lenni Lenape, which Europeans referred to as the 'Delaware' tribe), and ensured that they were paid fairly for their lands. Penn even learned several different Indian dialects in order to communicate in negotiations without interpreters. Penn introduced laws saying 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 matter. His measures in this matter proved successful: even though later colonists did not treat the Indians as fairly as Penn and his first 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 Manor, his intended country estate in Bucks County on the right bank of the Delaware River, in 1683.

Penn's Treaty with the Indians, from US Capitol Rotunda.

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 land under the treaty, an amount considered fair. Voltaire praised this "Great 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 Great Treaty as a myth that sprung up around Penn. However, the story has had enduring power. The event has taken iconic status and is commemorated in a frieze on the United States Capitol (see image at right).

Penn visited America once more, in 1699. In those years, he put forward a plan to make a federation of all English colonies in America. There have been claims that he also fought slavery, but that seems unlikely, as he owned and even traded slaves himself. However, he did promote good treatment for slaves, and other Pennsylvania Quakers were among the earliest fighters against slavery.

Penn had wished to settle in Philadelphia himself, but 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 nearly lost Pennsylvania through Ford's machinations. The next decade of Penn's life was mainly filled with various court cases against Ford. He tried to sell Pennsylvania back to the English Crown, but, while the deal was still being discussed, Penn suffered a stroke, in 1712, after which he was unable to speak or take care of himself.

Penn died, in 1718, at his home in Ruscombe, near Twyford in Berkshire, and was buried next to his first wife in the cemetery of the Jordans Quaker meeting house near Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire in England.

His family retained ownership of the colony of Pennsylvania until the American Revolution.

Family

He first married Gulielma Maria Springett (1644-1694), daughter of William S. Springet and Lady Mary Proude Penington. They had three sons and four daughters.

His second marriage was to Hannah Margaret Callowhill (1671-1727), daughter of Thomas Callowhill and Anna (Hannah) Hollister. William Penn married Hannah when she was 24 and he was 52. They had eight children in twelve years. The first died in infancy. The other children were:

  • John Penn (1699-1746), never married.
  • Thomas Penn (1702-1775), married Lady Juliana Fermore, fourth daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Pomfret.
  • Margaret Penn (b. 1704)
  • Richard Penn (1706-1771)
  • Dennis Penn (b. 1707, d. before 1727)
  • Hannah Penn (b. 1708)

Penn's family line still resides in England, America and Australia.

Posthumous honors

Bronze statue of William Penn atop Philadelphia City Hall

On November 28, 1984 Ronald Reagan, upon an Act of Congress by Presidential Proclamation 5284 declared William Penn and his second wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn, each to be an Honorary Citizen of the United States.[5]

There is a widely told, probably apocryphal, story that one time when Fox and Penn met, Penn expressed concern over wearing a sword (a standard part of dress for people of Penn's station), and how this was not in keeping with Quaker beliefs. George Fox responded, "Wear it as long as thou canst." Later, according to the story, Penn again met Fox, but this time without the sword; Penn said, "I have taken thy advice; I wore it as long as I could."[citation needed]

There is a statue of William Penn atop the City Hall building of Philadelphia, sculpted by Alexander Milne Calder. At one time, there was a gentlemen's agreement that no building should be higher than Penn's statue. One Liberty Place was the first of several buildings in the late 1980s to be built higher than Penn. The statue is referenced by the so-called Curse of Billy Penn. A lesser-known statue of Penn is located at Penn Treaty Park, on the site where Penn entered into his treaty with the Lenape. In 1893, Hajoca Corporation, the nation’s largest privately held wholesale distributor of plumbing, heating and industrial supplies, adopted the statue as its trademark symbol.

A common misconception is that the smiling Quaker shown on boxes of Quaker Oats is William Penn. The Quaker Oats Company has stated that this is not true.

Notes

  1. ^ Moretta, John (2007). William Penn and the Quaker Legacy. New York: Pearson Longman. ISBN 0321163193. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help); Text "author" ignored (help)
  2. ^ Brace, Keith (1996). Portrait of Bristol. London: Robert Hale. ISBN 0709154356. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ Journal of George Fox (retrieved September 25, 2007)
  4. ^ Lehman, Godfrey (1996). The Ordeal of Edward Bushell. Lexicon. ISBN 9781879563049. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  5. ^ Proclamation of Honorary US Citizenship for William and Hannah Penn by President Ronald Reagan (1984)
Wikiquote has quotations related to William Penn.

Penn's works online

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