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| '''William Penn''' (], ] – ], ]) was founder and "Absolute Proprietor" of the ], the ] ]n ] and the future ] of ]. He was known as an early champion of democracy and religious freedom and famous for his treaty with the ] 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.<ref name="Moretta">{{cite book |last=Moretta |first=John |author |title=William Penn and the Quaker Legacy |year=2007 |publisher=Pearson Longman |location=New York |isbn=0321163193 }}</ref> Well ahead of his time, Penn wrote and urged for a Union of all the ] in what was to become the ]. The democratic principles that he set forth in the Pennsylvania ] served as an inspiration for the ]. As a ] ], Penn considered the problems of war and peace deeply, and included a plan for a ], "European Dyet, Parliament or Estates," in his voluminous writings. | |||
| <!--Before moving to America, Penn owned ironworks in the Kent village of ].--> | |||
| == Religious beliefs== | |||
| Although born into a distinguished ] family and the son of ], Penn joined the ], or Quakers, at the age of 22. Quakers obey the "]", which they believed to be directly from ], refuse to take up arms, and historically refused to bow or take off their hats to any man. Penn was a close friend of ], the founder of the Quakers, and in 1696 was married in an earlier building on the site of ] in ].<ref name="Brace">{{cite book |last=Brace |first=Keith |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Portrait of Bristol |year=1996 |publisher=Robert Hale |location=London |isbn=0709154356 }}</ref> These were times of turmoil, just after ]'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 ], 5:34. | |||
| Penn's views were extremely distressing to his father, ], who had through naval service earned an estate in ] and hoped that Penn's charisma and intelligence would be able to win him favor at the court of ]. 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.''<ref> (retrieved September 25, 2007)</ref> | |||
| ==Persecutions== | |||
| Penn was educated at ] where he had his earliest ]. Thereafter, young Penn's religious views effectively exiled him from English society—he was sent down (expelled) from ] 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 ], 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.<ref name="Lehman">{{cite book |last=Lehman |first=Godfrey |authorlink=|coauthors=|title=The Ordeal of Edward Bushell |year=1996 |publisher=Lexicon |isbn=9781879563049}}</ref> This case was one of the more important trials that shaped the future concept of American freedom (''see ]'') 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 ] ]s, especially, were as negative towards Quakers as the people back home, and some of them had been banished to the ]. | |||
| ==The founding of Pennsylvania== | |||
| {{Unreferenced|date=May 2007}} | |||
| ] | |||
| In 1677, a group of prominent Quakers that included Penn received the colonial province of West New Jersey (half of the current state of ]). That same year, two hundred settlers from the towns of ] and ] in ] and other towns in nearby ] arrived, and founded the town of ]. Penn, who was involved in the project but himself remained in ], drafted a charter of liberties for the settlement. He guaranteed free and fair ], ], 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 ], ]. 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 ], 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 ] he implemented a democratic system with full freedom of religion, fair trials, elected representatives of the people in power, and a ]— 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 ] (French ]s), Mennonites, Amish, ]s from Catholic German states, and ]. His ideas were later studied by ] as well as the pamphleteer of the ], ], 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. | |||
| ] | |||
| From 1682 to 1684 Penn lived in the Province of Pennsylvania. After the building plans for ] ("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 ], 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 ] in Pennsylvania much longer than in the other English colonies. | |||
| Penn began construction of ], his intended country estate in ] on the right bank of the ], 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. ] praised this "Great Treaty" as "the only treaty between those people 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 ] (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 ], 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 ], in 1712, after which he was unable to speak or take care of himself. | |||
| Penn died, in 1718, at his home in ], near ] in ], and was buried next to his first wife in the cemetery of the ] Quaker meeting house near ] in Buckinghamshire in England. | |||
| His family retained ownership of the colony of Pennsylvania until the ]. | |||
| ==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 ] (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: | |||
| * ] (1699-1746), never married. | |||
| * ] (1702-1775), married Lady Juliana Fermore, fourth daughter of Thomas, first ]. | |||
| * 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== | |||
| ]On ], ] ], upon an ] by Presidential Proclamation 5284 declared William Penn and his second wife, ], each to be an ].<ref> by President Ronald Reagan (1984)</ref> | |||
| 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."{{Fact|date=February 2007}} | |||
| There is a ] of William Penn atop the ] building of Philadelphia, sculpted by ]. At one time, there was a ] that no building should be higher than Penn's statue. ] was the first of several buildings in the late 1980s to be built higher than Penn. The statue is referenced by the so-called ]. A lesser-known statue of Penn is located at ], 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 ] is William Penn. The ] has stated that this is not true. | |||
| ==Notes== | |||
| {{Reflist}} | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| {{wikiquote}} | |||
| ''' | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * by M. L. Weems, 1829. Full-text free to read and search version of Tim Unterreiner biography from 1829 original published in Philadelphia. | |||
| * by Tuomi J. Forrest, at the University of Virginia | |||
| *'''' by Jim Powell | |||
| * by Bill Samuel | |||
| * | |||
| *, ''History of Delaware, 1609-1888'' (1888) by Tim Unterreiner | |||
| * | |||
| * Penn in the Tower | |||
| * - many links on Quaker subjects | |||
| * (copied with permission) | |||
| * Prof. Murray N. Rothbard, excerpt from ''Conceived in Liberty'', Vol. 1 (Auburn, Alabama: The ], 1999) | |||
| * | |||
| ===Penn's works online=== | |||
| *'''' (1681) | |||
| *'''' (1682) | |||
| *'''' (1682) | |||
| * (1682) | |||
| * contains several documents by Penn and his wife. | |||
| *'''' (1692) | |||
| * (1696) | |||
| * (1701) | |||
| * (1694) | |||
| * (1693) | |||
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