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Unit Ten – The Quakers Settle New Jersey and Pennsylvania

The colony already contained several settlements of Dutch and Swedes. In 1674 New Jersey was divided into East Jersey and West Jersey.

This was a time of religious persecution and unrest and many people emigrated to the colonies in order to get a chance to be religious in their own way.  The proprietors of the New Jersey colonies promised to all who came, this freedom of religion.

The people of Scotland, who were Presbyterians, suffered horribly from persecutions after the restoration of Charles II, and East Jersey received many Scotch emigrants, driven out of their own country by the cruelty of the government. Some people from New England also moved into East Jersey.

The religious sect most severely persecuted in England after the restoration of the king was the Society of Friends, whose members are sometimes called Quakers. Some of these came to East Jersey while West Jersey was bought by high ranking Quakers, and a great many members of that society flocked to this province where they established a popular form of government.
Just across the Delaware River from West Jersey was a territory that was only occupied by a few Swedes who had come over long before to the old colony of New Sweden. Among those who had to do with the management of the West Jersey colony was a famous Quaker minister named William Penn.

His father had been a great sea commander and William Penn had a claim against the King of England for a considerable sum of money due to his father. The king was in debt, and found it hard to pay what he owed.

William Penn therefore persuaded Charles II to settle the debt by granting him a territory on the west side of the Delaware River.  This territory was from then on called Pennsylvania, which means something like Penn's Forest. The name was given in honor of Penn's father, the admiral.


What is now the State of Delaware was also put under Penn's government by the Duke of York.  This transition of power was accomplished through a great ceremony and so when Penn got to New Castle in Delaware, the government was transferred to him in the following way:

The key to the fort at New Castle was delivered to him. With this he locked himself into the fort and then let himself out in sign that the government was his. To show that the land with the trees on it belonged to him, a piece of sod with a twig in it was given to him. Then a bowl filled with water from the river was given to him, that he might be lord of the rivers as well as of the land.

Penn sent his first emigrants to Pennsylvania in 1681. They landed in Philadelphia, which was nothing but a forest at this time, and the people had to dig holes in the river banks to live in through the winter. Nearly thirty vessels came to the new colony during the first year.

Although Pennsylvania was the last colony settled except Georgia, it soon became one of the most populous and one of the richest. Before the Revolution, Philadelphia had become the largest town in the thirteen colonies, primarily because William Penn founded in his colony with a form of free government.

All different kinds of people came to Pennsylvania; the English, Welsh, Irish, and Germans. People were also attracted by the care that Penn took to maintain friendly relations with the Indians and to satisfy them for their lands. Another thing which drew people both to Pennsylvania and New Jersey was the fact that the land was not taken up in large bodies, as it was in New York and Virginia. And so in Pennsylvania and New Jersey the poor man could get a farm of his own.

East and West Jersey were also growing at this time and eventually the land was so divided up into little farms and families that the governors of both East and West Jersey became too numerous to manage their governments well and so many quarrels and uprisings arose which they were not able to suppress.

In 1702 the government of both provinces was transferred to Queen Anne, and East and West Jersey were united into the one province of New Jersey.

Pennsylvania remained in the hands of the Penn family, who appointed its governors till the American Revolution.

Unit 10 – The Quakers
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08-19-2010  355.61 KB 70