flicting claims, and Penn and others had become interested in a new colony, so in 1702 they surrendered all their rights to the Crown. East and West Jersey were consolidated in the royal province of New Jersey. William When George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, visited America in 1672, he found Quaker communities in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. He had some idea of founding a Quaker colony, but did not carry it out. This work was reserved for William Penn, one of the most famous characters in American history. His father, Sir William Penn, was an admiral in the British navy and an intimate friend of Charles II and the Duke of York. While a student at Oxford the young William Penn became interested in the teachings of the Quakers, and when he openly joined the Society of Friends, his father drove him from his home. He soon became the most prominent Quaker in England, and his courageous defense of his position finally excited the admiration of his father, who paid his fines and became fully reconciled. On his deathbed the admiral commended his son to the special care of the Duke of York. The Pennsylvania charter, 1681 Penn's connection with New Jersey has already been described. In this enterprise he was hampered by conflicting claims and diverse interests and could not carry out his own ideas. He decided therefore to found a new colony where Quakers could enjoy complete religious freedom and where he could put into operation some of his political theories. He also wished to restore his fortunes, and he had a claim of £16,000 against the king on account of loans advanced by his father which he saw little chance of collecting. In consideration of this debt he received from the king a large grant of land west of the Delaware and north of Maryland. The charter was issued March 14, 1681, and created a proprietary province somewhat like Maryland, named by the king Pennsylvania in honor of the founder's father. The intention seems clearly to have been to convey to Penn a tract of land extending from the fortieth to the forty-third parallels of latitude and from the Delaware on the east five degrees of longitude westward. But ignorance as to the location of the fortieth parallel threw the question of the southern boundary into confusion. What Penn wanted most was an outlet on Delaware Bay. The settlements west of the Delaware had never been specifically granted to the Duke of York, but since the English conquest he had exercised jurisdiction over them. When the Pennsylvania charter was drawn the duke had it so worded as to reserve New Castle and the land to the north and west within a radius of twelve miles. The following year, however, he ceded New Castle and the territory along Delaware Bay as far as Cape Henlopen to Penn. This territory had all been included within the Maryland grant so that there now arose a dispute between Penn and Lord Baltimore as to both the Pennsylvania and Delaware boundaries which lasted for a century. The present boundaries were finally agreed on in 1760, and the line was run and marked in 1767 by two distinguished English engineers, Mason and Dixon. 1682 In October, 1682, Penn arrived in America with about one hundred colonists. There were already a number of Dutch, Swedish, and English settlers in the province. Philadelphia He landed at New Castle, which was formally founded, transferred to him by the duke's agent, and then proceeded up the river to Upland, an old Swedish settlement, which he renamed Chester. Selecting a point for a "great town" near the confluence of the Schuylkill, he carefully laid off the streets at right angles and named it Philadelphia, the city of "brotherly love." As a result of Penn's wise and statesmanlike policy his colony prospered from the first and grew very rapidly. Quakers from England and Wales and members of other persecuted sects came over in large numbers. Penn had visited Germany in company with Fox in 1677, and his colony soon attracted the attention of the Mennonites and Pietists, whose doctrines were not unlike those of the Quakers. A party of Germans arrived at Philadelphia in 1683 under the leadership of Francis Daniel Pastorius and founded Germantown. This was the beginning of the German immigration to Pennsylvania, which, however, did not attain large proportions until the next century. Philadelphia had a more rapid growth than any other city in colonial times. Four years after it was first laid off it had a population of 8000 and was the third city in America. The Pennsylvania charter contained three novel features: the laws, which were to be made with the consent of the Imperial freemen, were to be submitted to the Privy control Council for approval; obedience to the navigation and other acts of Parliament was expressly stipulated; and the proprietor was required to appoint an agent to reside in England. The "Frame of Govern ment," 1682 In 1682 Penn issued a document known as a Frame of Government, establishing a provincial council of seventytwo persons chosen by the freemen and a General Assembly of two hundred representatives. Accompanying the Frame was a code of "Laws agreed upon in England" to be enacted by the Assembly with such alterations or amendments as might be deemed necessary. These laws gave the fullest guarantees of personal liberty then known in America and established religious freedom for all who believed in "one Almighty and Eternal God," but restricted to believers in Jesus Christ the right to hold office and to vote. Penn returned to England in 1701, where he found his property much involved, and he had to spend some time in prison. His mind became unbalanced and continued so until his death in 1718. Pennsylvania and Delaware were held as proprietary provinces by his children and grandchildren until the Revolution. About the middle of the century there grew up a little settlement of Virginians, in part political and religious refugees, on the northern shores of Albemarle First settleSound along the Chowan River. This settle- ment in the Carolinas ment was destined to be the nucleus of the colony of North Carolina. A little later some New England traders attempted a settlement at the mouth of Cape Fear River, but soon abandoned it. The 1663 In 1663 the region between the thirty-first and thirtysixth parallels of latitude was granted to eight proprietors: the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, Lord Craven, Lord John Berkeley, Lord Ashley, Carolina Sir George Carteret, Sir William Berkeley, and charter, Sir John Colleton. This vast grant was erected into a palatinate very much like that of Maryland, both modeled after the bishopric of Durham. The main difference between Maryland and Carolina was that the former was granted to one proprietor and the latter to a group of eight. This change was unfortunate, for some of the original proprietors sold out their interests to other parties who introduced discord and confusion into the management of the province. In 1665 the proprietors received from the king a second. charter, extending their northern boundary to thirty-six thirty so as to include the Albemarle settlement. "The Funda In the autumn of 1665 Sir John Yeamans brought a party of colonists from Barbadoes to the Cape Fear River and started what was known as the Clarendon settlement, but after two years the little colony dispersed. Some of the proprietors appear to mental have lost interest in the enterprise, but not so with Lord Ashley. In 1669 his secretary, John Locke, afterwards famous as a philosopher, drew up tions," 1669 Constitu at his suggestion "The Fundamental Constitutions," elaborating an organic law, semifeudal in character, which was about as ill adapted to conditions in the American wilderness as anything that the mind of man could conceive. Founding of 1680 From the first the proprietors seem to have relied on getting settlers from the Bermudas and Barbadoes, where dissatisfaction prevailed, so in 1670 arrangements were made for Yeamans to lead another expedition. After the wreckage of two of his vessels he abandoned the enterprise, handing over the command to William Sayle, a Bermudian planter, who succeeded in founding a settlement on the south side of the Ashley River. Later some of the settlers moved across to the tongue of land between the Ashley and Cooper rivers and here in 1680 the town of Charleston was founded. The same year a party of Huguenots arrived and a little later some Scotch. The growth of Charleston was very rapid. In 1685 the population was estimated at 2500, and Charleston was soon the most important town south of Philadelphia. There was a marked difference from the first between the northern and southern settlements and very little Contrast communication between them, so that they gradually became known as North and South Carolina. The northern colony was composed of scattered agricultural communities. It was the first frontier in American history and developed that type of backwoods life which later characterized our western frontier. The southern colony was more compact, most of the settlements being on the coast in the neighborhood of Charleston. Charleston was always in direct and frequent communication with the West Indies, the Bahamas, the Bermudas, and England, and its citizens were thus subject to the refining influences of the outside world. |