Religious Freedom in the Land of William Penn
In 1681, King Charles II handed over a large piece of his American land holdings to William Penn to satisfy a debt the king owed to Penn's father. The King granted to Penn an extraordinarily generous charter which made Penn the world's largest private (non-royal) landowner, with over 45,000 square miles and sovereign ruler of the territory with all rights and privileges, except the power to declare war. William Penn called his territory "Sylvania", Latin for "forests" or "woods", which King Charles changed to "Pennsylvania" in honor of the elder Penn.
William Penn labored to create a "Framework of Government" Pennsylvania's first constitution, setting forth the democratic principles that served as an inspiration for the United States Constitution. As a pacifist Quaker, Penn had suffered himself from religious persecution. He knew first hand the problems of religious intolerance and the problems of war and peace. He developed a forward-looking project for a United States of Europe through the creation of a European Assembly made of deputies that could discuss and adjudicate controversies peacefully. Penn's design was to create a political utopia guaranteeing free and fair trial by jury, freedom of religion, freedom from unjust imprisonment and free elections.
Penn had hoped that Pennsylvania would be a profitable venture for himself and his family. But he proclaimed that he would not exploit either the natives or the immigrants. His commercial challenge was to get people of oppressed religious groups to leave Europe and make the dangerous journey to the New World. To attract settlers in large numbers, he wrote a glowing prospectus, considered honest and well-researched for the time, promising religious freedom as well as material advantage, which he marketed throughout Europe in various languages. Eventually he attracted many persecuted minorities including Lutherans, Mennonites, Amish, Catholics, Huguenots and Jews from France, Germany, England, Holland, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, and Wales. |
|