The Propriety of Pennsylvania by William Penn
The Propriety of Pennsylvania
Reprinted in In Their Own Words: The Colonizers
Published in 1998
"Our people are mostly settled upon the upper rivers, which are pleasant and sweet, and generally bounded with good land."
After the English colonized the mid-Atlantic coast and New England, they expanded westward with the founding of Pennsylvania. In 1681 King Charles II (1630–1685) gave a tract (large amount) of land, which he called "Pennsylvania" (Penn's Woods), to William Penn (1644–1718) to repay a debt he owed to Penn's father. Charles granted the land under a proprietary contract that gave Penn the right to establish and govern a colony with almost complete independence from England. Penn, a member of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, a religious sect that was greatly feared in England, decided to use the colony as a refuge for this religious group.
The Society of Friends had been started in the early 1650s by George Fox (1624–1691), an English cobbler (shoemaker) and shepherd. Fox believed he possessed the Inner Light, or Truth, which enabled him to communicate directly with God. He was convinced that everyone possessed an Inner Light. Fox and his followers became evangelicals (those who emphasize salvation by faith, the authority of the scripture, and the importance of preaching), calling on other Protestants to renounce the Church of England.
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