Province of Pennsylvania

New Sweden and New Netherlands

A disgruntled Dutch Speculator encouraged the incorporation of a Swedish trading company as an antidote to Spanish Roman Catholicism in the Americas and to bring wealth and Lutheranism to the "wild nations". The Swedish South Company was unveiled in 1626, quickly amassing large sums from investors and landing its first party at the Delaware. Founded a year later was the Swedish Africa Company. Sweden's new great power status allowed her to finance colonial expeditions abroad.^[13] The colonists were dismayed to find no gold, but nonetheless collected beaver pelts, tobacco and silkworms. Other industries also included winemaking and timbery. Agriculture was also established, wheat and rye being the chief crop planted on the cleared fields of the Lenape.^[14]

In much contrast to New England, New Sweden was an enterprise primarily intended to satisfy its shareholders rather than to establish a permeant self-sufficient colony in North America. The scarcity of women and capricious nature of the Americas made family life and permanent settlement impossible, therefore several colonists returned to Sweden.^[14] Convicts were sent by the Swedish government to fill these gaps.^[15] The population of New Sweden rarely exceeded 200–400 people, peaking at 500-600 at it's fall, around half of the population being Finnish.^[16]

Dutch governor Peter Minuit wielded diplomatic skill to negotiate a treaty with 5 Lenape chiefs on April 8, 1638. According to the Swedes, they had won rights to 67 miles of land along the Delaware banks adjacent to Fort Christina and setting west as "far as the setting sun". They settled both banks and scattered across the bay, establishing a network of forts, churches and commercial centers.^[8]

The first recorded epidemic in the Delaware Valley is spoken of in 1642 when a "great sickness" spread among the colonists. 15 of the 135 inhabitants of New Sweden are recorded to have died the following year; the native death toll is unknown but is thought to be exceedingly high. Typhus spread via body lice and scurvy from ships docking at the colony. Both reaped the colony's population for several decades. The Lenape intended to dispatch folk healers to cast the "spirit" away, but the Swedes refused their efforts for religious reasons.^[17] Most telling of the extent of the sickness among the natives is that European textbooks frequently noted, and could differentiate with ease, the Lenape phrases n'mechquin, ("I have a cough") n'daptessi, ("I sweat") and n'matamalsi ("I am sick") as essential terms.^[18]

Relations between the two nations were largely warm, Governor Johan Printz was on order from Stockholm treat the Lenape cordially.^[14] Deliberation and restraint was a practical necessity for New Sweden, possessing fewer then 110 men-at-arms, only a handful being fit for service. New Sweden's weakness was apparent to the Dutch. When war broke out between them in 1654, the Swedes surrendered their colony largely without a fight.

Dutch rule was rather warm to the established Swedish population, allowing them to retain their customs, officers and legal system. Immigration continued at a steadfast flow under Dutch, and later English, rule. New Sweden left a salient mark on the culture of the Delaware Valley, even so long after its fall, with Swedish and Finnish becoming the dominant tongue and Lutheranism the common faith.^[17]

In Europe, commercial rivalry had led to the second Anglo-Dutch war. Although the Dutch Republic had won, the Treaty of Breda (1667), forced them to ceded its colonies in the Mid-Atlantic region of North America in exchange for the lucrative South American plantation colony of Suriname in the Guyanas.

English Pennsylvania

After Holland's defeat in the Second Anglo-Dutch war, Charles granted his brother "all the land from the west side of the connecticutte River to the east Side of De la Ware bay," and gave him "power and authority of Government". An English fleet was dispatched to lay claim to the war prize. Governor Peter Stuyvesant, protested but eventually acquiesced in the face of English naval superiority and a lack of war enthusiasm among his colonists.^[19]

Initially Charles' grant only applied to the western shore of Delaware Bay, so the Dutch vice-Director on the eastern Delaware Bay (modern New Jersey) was ready for a fight, however he too surrendered, and with that, New Netherland was no more. The Duke of York enfeoffed the land east of the bay to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, respectively, creating West and East Jersey. William Penn, son of the famed naval commander and creditor of the Stuarts, was rewarded with the Delaware west bank. James' £16,000 debts to the Penn's made him a prime contender for the reward. Penn the elder had been in service of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth navy, holding the rank fleet commander, later vice-admiral of England and finally general of the sea. He proved to be an adept commander with his victory over the Spanish at Jamaica and action against Dutch in Texel. He was not too confident in Cromwell, however. On the restoration of Charles, he was elected to parliament and knighted on the ship boarding the King of England. Penn had financed the refitting of the English navy for the conquest of New Netherland whilst Charles was anxious to use treasury funds. Penn the elder died before he could receive the debts.

Penn's son, also called William, was in search of a place his fellow Quakers could establish a "Holy experiment," a quaker haven, and one that was lucrative. He persistently persuaded Charles for months to entertain his scheme until he yielded. Charles granted 45,000 acres of North American soil to settle the generational debt. Penn worked tirelessly to secure the trust of 600 investors, and in just two years, some 4,000 migrants joined him in his new colony - a number that would reach 11,450 by the close of the decade. He invested his own money to aid immigration, make ethical transactions with the Lenape, buy slaves and servants, and erect a large country house, similar to the many he held in England and Ireland. As governor, he embezzled tax money and speculated in goods like hosiery and horse collars. His total spendings in the first two years amounted to £10,000 - debt he would later carry to England.^[20] In 1684 he returned to England to preserve his title to two counties in disputed by the Calvert proprietors of Maryland. This begun the century-long feud between the two families. Penn was a member of the Quaker society, a mystical Christian society that emphasized Friendship and disdained rituals.

By the time Penn arrived to his colony, it contained some 2,000 people, almost entirely, Swedes, Finns and some Dutch and Englishmen. 500 people made home to the lower reaches of the Schuylkill Valley, where Philadelphia was soon to be. In Upland, then-to-be Chester, on December 4-7, 1682, Pennsylvania's first legislature met and passed the first statues of the colony. In 1682, the Treaty of Shackamaxon was signed by William Penn and leaders of the Lenape. The treaty established relations "as long as the waters [ran] in the rivers and creeks and as long as the stars and moon [endured]." Penn's other early treaties with the natives have been largely lost to time, but he is nonetheless noted to have been ethical and fair in his dealings. Later Pennsylvanians did not follow his example. Voltaire, who called the 1682 treaty "... the only treaty never sworn to and never broken."^[21] Penn maintained peaceful with the Indians mostly due to pragmaticism and pacificism motivated by his Quaker beliefs. Relations were also shaped by contemporary Indigenous politics. Colonists moved southwest into Brandywine Creek, east into New Jersey, or north to forks of the Delaware, dispossessing the Lenape and forcing them westward. The late Beaver Wars had reshaped native tribal structures, the Susquehannock, Shawnee and Lenape had been conquered by the Iroquois, with a Covenant Chain bounding them and other indigenous groups together. Suffering from a loss of population from the conflict, they were likely anxious to resist European colonization.^[20]

The Lenape throughout the decades were moved westward to make room for settlers. A reservation at the Brandywine River was created for them by the government, lasting just fifty years before the entire valley was overran with settlers at the command of Provincial Secretary James Logan. Groups beyond the Appalachian Mountains were somewhat better protected against intrusion, but the colonists became increasingly land-hungry. Quakers demonized Lenape mythology, even though Quakers were strong proponents of religious freedom.^[22] In December 1684, the ship Isabella docked at Philadelphia and unloaded a cargo of 150 slaves from Africa.

When William Penn returned to England in 1684, the vast majority of his time was spent recruiting settlers for his colonial project. He travelled through England, Wales, Ireland and Holland advertising Pennsylvania's geographical and economic advantages, it's fair treatment of Quakers and allied fellow Protestants. For the next 15 years he remained in Europe, until his eventual return in 1699, to a politically polarized society. He didn't stay long, returning to England in 1701 with mounting debts and the looming threat of imprisonment. He spent 9 months in prison and attempted to sell the colony 11 year later in 1712–the same year he nearly came near to death after suffering a stroke. His estates, including Pennsylvania, passed onto his wife formally when he eventually passed in 1718. Hannah Callowhill Penn inherited not only his severe debts, but also the burdensome responsibilities of colonial stewardship when she became governor–the only female to ever hold the role.^[23] She was governor for 12 years before dying in 1726. The death of both Penns and Chief Tamanend, two pacificists and peace advocates, marked a critical point in colonial-indigenous relations and conflict promptly resumed.

Penn's efforts in Europe proved successful as colonists - predominately quaker poured in en-masse from the old world. Quakers from all corners of Europe risked it all to board leaky vessels departing to Penn's wood. So much so that transporting immigrants became an established business. New arrivals often assimilated to English culture, adopting Anglo names. New colonial identities distinct to that of their mother countries formed; through waves of immigration, the colony possessed a Pennsylvania Dutch (as the Germans are erroneously called) ethnic culture and a German identity dissimilar to that of Europe's. The Pennsylvania Dutch, Scottish St. Andrews Society and the Irish sons of St Patrick formed. German-speaking people from Württemberg, the Palatinate, and Switzerland came. The vast majority were Protestant: Lutheran or Reformed (German Calvinists), others were Anabaptists, Roman Catholics, or members of other fringe sects. Animosity between German and English speakers dissipated with perceived differences between them shrinking. Germans found similarities that "transcended the politics and localities of the Europe". Pennsylvania Dutch culture helped to distinguish German settlements from English settlements.^[24] The first petition against slavery was launched 1688 by the Germantown Quaker community. The petition was rejected by the colony's leadership, writing, "We having inspected ye matter, above mentioned, and considered of it, we find it so weighty that we think it not expedient for us to meddle with it here."

American Revolution

During the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War, Philadelphia, which served as both the first capital of the Province of Pennsylvania and the colonial era capital of the Thirteen Colonies, emerged as a major port, commercial city, and a "the best poor man's country" as one local put it. With over 20,000 inhabitants, her population had surpassed Boston and NYC, each of which had a half century head-start. Small towns and individual farms dotted the Pennsylvania hinterland and were tied to the city's newspaper. Described shortly before the revolution as "one of the most considerable of England's colonies" because "none had thrived more, nor is more rich and prosperous," small towns, individual farms dotted the Pennsylvanian hinterland and were tied to the city's newspapers. The largest producer of Iron ore outside of Great Britain at that time was Pennsylvania.^[4]

When tensions broke out between the crown and Thirteen Colonies, Philadelphia became a centralized location for writing, thought and theory for independence.

During the American Revolution and Revolutionary War, both the First and Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. In 1775, after the Revolutionary War broke out with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress, meeting inside present-day Independence Hall, formed the Continental Army and unanimously selected George Washington as the new army's commander-in-chief.

The following year, in June 1776, Thomas Jefferson authored the first draft of the Declaration of Independence from his second floor apartment at present-day 700 Market Street; on July 4, the Declaration was unanimously adopted and issued to King George III by all 56 delegates to the convention.

Between July 1776 and November 1777, the Second Continental Congress debated and authored the Articles of Confederation at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

On September 26, 1777, during the British Army's Philadelphia campaign, Philadelphia fell to the British, who occupied the city through June 1778, forcing Washington and 12,000 Continental Army troops to retreat to Valley Forge, where as many as 2,000 died from disease or starvation over the harsh winter of 1777–1778.

Following independence, the Constitution of the United States, now the longest-standing written constitution in the world, was debated, authored, and implemented at the Constitutional Convention, which met inside Independence Hall from May 25 to September 17, 1787, with George Washington presiding as the convention's president.

During the American Revolution, Philadelphia was the second-most populous city in the entire British Empire after London.

Post-independence

Once American independence was secured, Philadelphia continued to serve as the nation's capital from 1790 to until 1800, while the new national capital city in Washington, D.C. was constructed.^[26] Both George Washington, the nation's first president, and John Adams, the nation's second president, lived and worked from President's House in Philadelphia while the White House was being constructed in Washington, D.C. In November 1800, near the end of his administration, Adams relocated to the White House through the end of his term in March 1801, becoming the first U.S. president to work and reside there.

Legal Code

Religion had a firm grip over government. Quakers fused the English legal traditions with the ideals of their "Holy Experiment". According to Penn himself government was a "venerable ordinance of God." he believed that "such Laws as shall best preserve true Christian and Civil Liberty." The Charter of Privileges mandated that office holders profess their faith in Jesus Christ, "the Son of God and Savior of the World."^[30]

The Colony's legal code was revised several times in 1682, 1683, 1693, 1700,1705 and finally 1718.^[28] Quakers further revised the legal code largely eliminating the death penalty, a deviation from the European model of justice. The justice system was flawed and laws were selectively enforced on a racial basis. A white man could not be convicted of attempted rape, but black men who were convicted faced castration. The testimony of a black person carried little weight, making justice for the rape of free and enslaved black women a rarity.^[31][32] Besides incarceration and workhousing, alternative punishments such as branding, disfigurement and beating were utilized for justice. "it were an happy Day if men could bound and qualifie their Resentments with Charity to the Offender: For then our Anger would be without Sin and better convict and edifie the Guilty which along make it lawful" William Penn wrote.^[33] Although Pennsylvania's charter mandates that laws be modeled on England's, the Province's code frequently divagated from the English custom, namely in areas like marriage law. In 1718 the British Privy Council repudiated most of the colony's radical laws perceived as contrary to that of her mother country.^[34] The law evolved toward the British model in the century before the revolution.

The religious underpinning in the first Great Laws are blatant. Pennsylvanians are expressly forbidden to perform "Common Toyle" on the "first day of the Week called the Lord's day." to "take the Lord's name in vain" or bear "false witness" was an offence, as was wasting time in "worldly amusements" such as card games, bullbaiting and "riotous sports." The "days of the Week and Months of the Year" were to be known as they were in scripture, and alcohol sale to the natives was outlawed as the "Indians are not able to Govern themselves in their use of it..."^[35]

All Persons who profess to believe in Jesus Christ, the Saviour, shall be capable to serve this Government in any Capacity, he solemnly promising Allegiance to the King and Fidelity to the Proprietary and Governor, and taking the Attests as now established.

Pennsylvania's law on marriage gave parents more control over their children and, in contrast to England, forbade girls and boys running away to get married. Because the parents of many residents lived overseas this was a trick to enforce. An Act to Prevent Clandestine, Loose and unseemly proceedings in this Province ... regarding Marriage, changed the law so that the parents would be consulted "if possible". The law was amended twice, first in 1700 and lastly in 1729 which provided that parents living in the province be given one months notice and provide a certificate. This law remained stood unchanged till the mid 19th century.^[35] Divorce was permitted on the grounds of bestiality, bigamy and adultery. Sharp racial distinctions were made to protect the slave system as an independent family life would have hindered the ability of a slave master to sell husbands, wives and children. Enslaved people had no right to marriage, and after 1725, interracial marriage was banned.^[36]

Lower counties

The lower counties on Delaware, a separate colony within the province, included the three counties of present-day Delaware: New Castle, Sussex, and Kent County.

New lands and counties

Several decades into the 18th century, additional treaties with Native Americans were concluded. The colony's proprietors made treaties in 1718, 1732, 1737, 1749, 1754, and 1754, pushing the boundaries of the colony, which were still within the original royal grant, north and west.^[39] By the time the French and Indian War began in 1754, the Assembly had established additional counties, including Lancaster (1729), York (1749), Cumberland (1750), Berks (1752), and Northampton (1752).^[39]

After the French and Indian War concluded, an additional treaty was made in 1768, which codified the limits of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which provided a temporary boundary that could be extended further west in an orderly manner by the royal government but not by private individuals, such as the proprietors. This agreement altered the original royal land grant to Penn.

The next acquisitions by Pennsylvania took place after Pennsylvania became part of the United States, following its ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

The Pennsylvania General Assembly established three additional counties prior to the American Revolutionary War: Bedford (1771), Northumberland (1772), and Westmoreland (1773).^[39]

Limits on further settlement

As the colony grew, colonists and British military forces came into confrontation with natives in the state's Western half. Britain fought for control of the neighboring Ohio Country with France during the French and Indian War. Following the British victory, the territory was formally ceded to them in 1763, and became part of the British Empire.

With the French and Indian War over and Pontiac's War just beginning, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 banned colonization beyond the Appalachian Mountains to prevent settlers settling lands that Indians tribes were using. This proclamation impacted Pennsylvanians and Virginians the most, since they both had been racing towards the lands surrounding Fort Pitt in modern-day Pittsburgh.