Quakers

Examples of Quakers in the following topics:

• Quaker Liberty

  • The Quaker colony of Pennsylvania emphasized freedom of religion through its Charter of Privileges.
  • The early Pennsylvania government was heavily influenced by the values of William Penn and the Quakers .
  • The Quakers had previously treated Indians with respect, bought land from them voluntarily, and had even representation of Indians and Whites on juries.This led to significantly better relations with the local Native tribes (mainly the Lenape and Susquehanna) than most other colonies had.
  • The Quakers also refused to provide any assistance to New England's Indian wars.
  • George Fox was the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers

• Pennsylvania and Delaware

  • William Penn founded the Pennsylvania Colony in 1681 and brought over Quaker dissidents from England, Wales, the Netherlands, and France.
  • The Quakers also refused to provide any assistance to New England's Indian wars.
  • They gained the name Quakers because they were said to quake when the inner light moved them.
  • Quakers rejected the idea of worldly rank, believing instead in a new and radical form of social equality.
  • Despite Quaker opposition to slavery, by 1730 colonists had brought about 4,000 slaves into Pennsylvania.

• The Holy Experiment

  • The Holy Experiment was the Quakers' attempt to establish a community for themselves in Pennsylvania.
  • The "Holy Experiment" was an attempt by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) to establish a community in Pennsylvania.
  • William Penn was a well-educated landlord of valuable Irish estates and an evangelist for Quakerism .
  • Penn sought to create a liberal frame of government and attract all sorts of people, including many Quakers.
  • William Penn and his fellow Quakers imprinted their religious values on the early Pennsylvanian government.

• Puritanism

  • The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were the most active of the New England persecutors of Quakers, and the persecuting spirit was shared by the Plymouth Colony and the colonies along the Connecticut River .
  • Unlike the Puritans, the Quakers had more liberal views on gender equality and rejected the beliefs of Calvinism.
  • Quakers were brutally expelled from Massachusetts, but they were welcomed in Rhode Island .

• The Old South

  • The first American movement to abolish slavery came in April 1688 when German and Dutch Quakers of Mennonite descent in Germantown, Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia) wrote a two-page condemnation of the practice and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church, the Society of Friends.
  • Though the Quaker establishment took no immediate action, the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery was an unusually early, clear, and forceful argument against slavery and eventually led to the banning of slavery in the Society of Friends (1776) and in the state of Pennsylvania (1780).
  • After 1776, Quaker and Moravian advocates helped persuade numerous slaveholders in the Upper South to free their slaves.

• A Diverse Population

  • Meanwhile, William Penn, who founded the colony of Pennsylvania in 1682, attracted many British Quakers with his policies of religious liberty and freehold ownership.
  • The Pennsylvanian colonial center was dominated by the Quakers for decades after their initial immigration, from about 1680 to 1725.
  • The main commercial center of Philadelphia was run mostly by prosperous Quakers, supplemented by many small farming and trading communities with strong German contingents located in the Delaware River Valley.
  • Politically, they were generally inactive until 1740, when they joined a Quaker-led coalition that took control of the legislature.
  • William Penn advocated religious tolerance in the New World and strengthened the Quaker movement in North America.

• New Jersey

  • After one of the proprietors sold part of the area to the Quakers, New Jersey was divided into East Jersey and West Jersey, two distinct provinces of the proprietary colony.
  • Much of West Jersey was settled by Quakers who established congregations and founded towns throughout the region, including the eponymous Quakertown in 1744.
  • English Quakers and Anglicans owned large landholdings.

• Social Classes in the Colonies

  • Unlike Europe, where aristocratic families and the established church were in control, the American political culture was open to economic, social, religious, ethnic, and geographical interests, with merchants, landlords, petty farmers, artisans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Germans, Scotch Irish, Yankees, Yorkers, and many other identifiable groups taking part.

• German Migration

  • Politically, they were generally inactive until 1740, when they joined a Quaker-led coalition that took control of the legislature, which later supported the American Revolution.

• Troubled Neighbors

  • Charles II granted William Penn the territory now known as Pennsylvania, and Penn in turn granted refuge to Quakers, a group of Protestants who opposed the Church of England, in his new colony.
  • The original charter of Pennsylvania also encompassed present-day Delaware, but the people of Delaware, who were mostly non-Quakers, separated from Pennsylvania in 1704.