Settlers did, in fact, find wealth and opportunity there, but as their population mounted and the elected assemblies of the colony became more active, the inequalities in the distribution of this wealth and opportunity became noticeable. The origin of much of the disagreement over these inequalities lay in what the colonists viewed as unfair taxes. The Penn family, which governed mainly from England but maintained estates in Pennsylvania, had pulled strings to exempt themselves from the responsibility for paying colonial taxes. Unwilling to ignore this perceived injustice, the local assemblies fought over this tax exemption for years. In 1757 Franklin finally achieved a royal ruling in favor of the local assemblies.
Puritan virtue and Quaker individualism. The two cities in which Franklin spent the first half of his life were centers of religion. His birthplace was Boston, Massachusetts, a city founded by Puritans (also known as Congregationalists) in search of a place to practice their "pure" lifestyle of simplicity and religious strictness. His parents were devout Puritans, and Franklin's father was known to quote passages from the Bible about such subjects as the virtue of hard work.
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