Pennsylvania: Quaker Colony

Freedom of worship was the theme for the creation of yet another non-Puritan colony. The Society of Friends—commonly called Quakers—was founded in 17th-century England by a visionary leader named George Fox. His belief was in the immediacy of Christ’s teaching; that is, divine guidance was not “mediated” by Scripture, ceremony, ritual, or clergy, but came ultimately to each individual from an “inward light.” Accordingly, worship meetings were held in silence, unless some members of the meeting were “moved” or “inspired” to speak. No minister officiated.

By its nature, Quakerism is subversive of authority imposed from the outside, and although a prime tenet of Quakerism is nonviolence and supreme tolerance of all points of view, the religion was quickly perceived as a threat to the dominant order. Quakers were officially and unofficially persecuted. Some immigrated to America, settling in the Middle Atlantic region as well as North Carolina. An early enclave was established in Rhode Island.

The Quakers did have some powerful adherents, one of whom was William Penn, the brilliant young son of a prominent British admiral. On March 14, 1681, Penn obtained from King Charles II a charter granting him proprietorship of the area now encompassed by Pennsylvania. In 1682, Delaware was added to the charter. The region was occupied by some 15,000 Delaware, Shawnee, and Susquehanna Indians, as well as tribes associated with the Iroquois League. During the 17th century, it was claimed by Dutch, Swedish, and English interests. Penn landed at the site of present-day New Castle, Delaware, and performed “livery of seisin,” legally taking possession of his grant by pulling up a tuft of grassy turf in his hand. In 1682, he founded Philadelphia, a name Penn formed from two Greek words signifying “brotherly love.” The name expressed the intent of what Penn planned as a “holy experiment” of living in harmony.

Under Penn, “The Great Law of Pennsylvania” extended male suffrage to those who professed a belief in God and met modest property requirements; imprisonment for debt—one of the great scourges of life in England-was all but eliminated; and the death penalty, liberally applied in the Mother Country, was restricted to cases of treason and murder. In a combination of the best tradition of English common law and a dramatic foreshadow of the United States Bill of Rights, the Great Law specified that no person could be deprived of life, liberty, or “estate” (property) except by due, fair, and impartial trial before a jury of 12.

Georgia: Utopia and Prison

Founded on firm—though diverse—religious principles, Plymouth, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were all expressions of hope, variations on a theme of desire for a better life. The origin of Georgia was even more frankly utopian.

In 1732, James Edward Oglethorpe, whose character combined military discipline (he was a general) with a passion for philanthropy, organized a group of 19 wealthy and progressive individuals into a corporation that secured a royal charter to colonize Georgia as the southernmost of Britain’s North American colonies. Oglethorpe’s bold plan was to create a colony as a haven for various Protestant dissenters, but, even more importantly, for the vast and ever-growing class of insolvent debtors who languished in British prisons and also for persons convicted of certain criminal offenses. Oglethorpe reasoned that the colony would give the debtors a fresh start and would reform and rehabilitate the criminals.

Selflessly, Oglethorpe and the other philanthropists agreed to act as trustees of the colony without taking profits for a period of 21 years. To promote a utopian way of life, Oglethorpe prohibited the sale of rum and outlawed slavery in the colony. He also set regulations limiting the size of individual land holdings in an effort to create equality. The first colonists who arrived with Oglethorpe in 1733 were placed on 55-acre farms, which they were forbidden to sell or transfer. But this arrangement, key to the project, was quickly abandoned. To begin with, few of the original 100 colonists were debtors or sufferers of religious persecution or even criminals ripe for rehabilitation. They were speculators looking for opportunity. They soon found ways of circumventing the 55-acre limit to land holding, and once large plantations were established, slavery followed. Georgia was now no different from England’s other southern colonies.

The Slaves of Virginia

The introduction of slaves into Georgia was the hardest blow to Oglethorpe’s dream, and he returned to England, disgusted with the entire enterprise. Like most other even modestly enlightened individuals, Oglethorpe regarded slavery as evil. Yet it persisted—even in a would-be utopia—and would persist until it tore a nation apart. just as Georgia was a latecomer into the British colonial fold, so it had adopted slavery late in the scheme of things. In 1619, just 12 years after Jamestown got its shaky start, Dutch traders imported African slaves at the behest of the Virginia tobacco farmers. The first 20 or so were landed at Jamestown and were not racially discriminated against, but were classed with white indentured servants brought from England under work contracts. Indeed, many years passed before African slaves were brought to the colonies in large numbers. At first, they were purchased primarily to replace indentured servants who had either escaped or had served out the term of their indentures.

As the plantations of the southern colonies, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, expanded, demand for slavery grew, as did commerce in slaves. The so-called “triangle trade” developed: Ships leaving England with trade goods landed on the African west coast, traded the merchandise for African slaves, transported this “cargo” via the “Middle Passage.” to the West Indies or the mainland English colonies, where the slaves were exchanged for the very agricultural products—sugar, tobacco, and rice—slave labor produced. The final leg of the triangle was back to England, laden with New World produce. Nor were the northern colonies untouched by the “peculiar institution” of slavery. Although a later generation of New Englanders would pride themselves on being fierce abolitionists, fighters for the freedom of the slaves, their forefathers had profited from the trade. New England ports became a regular stop for vessels about to return to Old England. The sugar and molasses acquired at southern ports was often unloaded here in order to manufacture rum, an important New England export.

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