Definition
William Penn, an English Quaker, received the Lenape homeland west of the Delaware River from King Charles II in 1681 to repay a debt the Crown owed his late father. He founded Pennsylvania as a refuge for people of every faith, and under his laws anyone who believed in God could worship freely, though only Christians could hold public office. Pennsylvania drew English, Dutch, German, and Scots-Irish settlers of many faiths, and Penn generally acquired land from Native nations by treaty rather than by force. Penn also owned enslaved people, and when four Quakers in Germantown protested slavery in 1688, their meetings refused to take a stand.
Why it matters on the AP exam
Pennsylvania is a leading case of religious toleration in the British colonies, and questions contrast its openness with the Puritan conformity of Massachusetts and with the narrower toleration of Maryland. Its mix of peoples and faiths, together with fertile land and wheat exports, helps explain the diversity and growth of the middle colonies. Penn's ownership of enslaved people shows the limits of the colony's freedoms, a point that appears in sources such as the 1688 Germantown protest against slavery.
In the sources
“there may be room there, tho not here, for such an holy experiment.”
Connections
- Quakers: the religious group, also called the Society of Friends, that Penn belonged to
- Great Awakening: George Whitefield's revival tour reached Philadelphia in 1739, in a colony open to many faiths
- Benjamin Franklin: he made Penn's city of Philadelphia his home and printed there