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William Penn

Penn depicted in an 18th century illustration

William Penn ( – ) was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonial era. An advocate of democracy and religious freedom, Penn was known for his amicable relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Native Americans who had resided in present-day Pennsylvania prior to European settlements in the state. Penn also owned at least twelve enslaved people at his Pennbury estate.

In 1681, King Charles II granted an area of land corresponding to the present-day U.S. states of Pennsylvania and Delaware to Penn to offset debts he owed Penn's father, the admiral and politician Sir William Penn. The following year, Penn left England and sailed up Delaware Bay and the Delaware River, where he founded Philadelphia on the river's western bank. Penn's Quaker government was not viewed favourably by the Dutch, Swedish and English settlers in what is now Delaware, and the land was also claimed by the Calverts, proprietors of the neighboring Province of Maryland. In 1704, the three southernmost counties of provincial Pennsylvania were granted permission to form a new, semi-autonomous Delaware Colony.

As one of the earlier supporters of colonial unification, Penn wrote and urged for a union of all the English colonies in what later became the United States. The democratic principles that he included in the West Jersey Concessions and set forth in the Pennsylvania Frame of Government inspired delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia when they came to frame the U.S. Constitution.

A man of deep religious conviction, Penn authored numerous works, exhorting believers to adhere to the spirit of Primitive Christianity. Penn was imprisoned several times in the Tower of London due to his faith, and his book ''No Cross, No Crown'', published in 1669, which he authored from jail, has become a classic of Christian theological literature. Provided by Wikipedia

William Penn

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