Penn and other Quakers believed that everyone had to seek God in his or her own way. At the age of 22 William Penn joined the religious society of friends or Quakers. The Quakers believed that their “inner light” came directly from God, they refused to bow or take off their hats to any man, even refused to take up arms. Penn and George Fox were close friends; George fox was a founders of the Quakers these were times of turmoil.
Their principles differed from the state imposed religion. if thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by him. those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants” – William Penn. When Penn traveled to Ireland to help with his father’s property is when he came in contact with the Quakers. In late 1660’s, Penn wrote several books about his new religious beliefs, begging with the sandy foundation shaken, witch questioned several basic protestant doctrines. He was jailed in the tower of London as a result of his publication.
He wrote “no cross, no crown” another avowal of his faith. He was released in 1669. He continued to promote the Quakers teachings of selfdenial and social reform. Penn was educated at chigwel school, Essex where he has his earliest religious experience. Penn’s religious views effectively exiled him from English society. He was sent down from Christ church, oxford for being a Quaker, and was arrested several times. Among the most famous trials following his arrest with William Meade for preaching before the Quakers gathered.
Penn pleaded for the tight to see the copy of the charges laid against him, and the law he had supposedly broken. , but the judge refused to show him even though his right was guaranteed by law. Despite the heavy persecution from the Lord Mayor to convict the men, the jury returned to verdict of “not guilty” Lord mayor not only had Penn sent to jail but also had the whole jury. The members of the jury, fighting their cases from prison, managed to win the right for all English juries to be free from the control of judges.
The persecution of Quakers became so fierce that Penn decided that it would be better to try to found a new, 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. In 1677, Penn’s chance came, as a group of prominent Quakers, among them Penn received the colonial province of west 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 was involved in the project but he 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 with Penn’s father, after whose death, Charles settled by granting Penn a large area west and south of New Jersey on March 4, 1681. Penn called the area Sylvania, which was changed to Pennsylvania in honor of the elder Penn. The king was glad to have a place where religious and political outsiders could have their own place, far away from England.
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 religious, fair trials, elected representatives of the people in power, and a separation of powers, again ideals that would later form the basic of the American constitution. The freedom of religion in Pennsylvania. Penn 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’s.
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, at the time of his death in 1718, he was penniless. From 1682 to 1684 Penn was, himself in the province of Pennsylvania. After the building plans for Philadelphia had been completed, and Penn’s political ideas has been put into a workable form, Penn explored the interior. He befriended the local Indians, 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 tail, with an equal number of people from both groups deciding the matter. His measures in this matter proved successful, even though later colonies did not treat the Indians as fairly as Penn and his first group pf colonies has done, colonists had Indians remained at peace in Pennsylvania much longer then in the other English colonies. Penn began construction of Pennsburg Manor, his intended country estate in Bucks country 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 land under the treaty, an amount considered fair, Voltaire praised this “Great treaty” as “the only treaty between those people that were 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 frieze on the United States Capital.
Penn went to 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 seem unlikely, as he owned and even traded slaves himself, however, he did promote goof treatment for salves, and other Pennsylvania Quakers were among the earliest fighters against slavery. Penn has wished to settle in Philadelphia himself, but financial problems forced him back to England in 1701. His financial adviser, Philip Ford, had cheated him out of thousands of pounds, and he has nearly lost Pennsylvania through Fords 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 state, bit while the deal was still being discussed, he was hit by a stroke in 1712, after which he was unable to speak or take care of himself. Penn died in 1718 at his home in Roscoe, near twofold in Berkshire, and was buried next to his first wife in the cemetery of the Jordan’s Quaker meeting house at Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire in England. His family retained ownership of the colony if Pennsylvania until the American revolution.
On November 28, 1984 Ronald Reagan, upon an act of congress by presidential percolation 5284 declared William Penn and his second wife, Hannah Callow hill, each to be an Honesty Citizen of the United States. There is a widely told. entirely apocryphal, story that at one time George Fox and William Penn met. At this meeting William Penn expressedconcern over wearing a sword and how this was not keeping with Quakers beliefs. George Fox responded, “wear it as long as thou canst. ” Later, according to the story, Penn again met Fox, nut this time without the sword.
