William Penn To The Kings Of The Indians Summary

In his essay, “Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn’s Holy Experiment” Kevin Kenny argues that conflict between Europeans and Native Americans was indeed inevitable. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, attempted a sort of “holy experiment”; a utopian land of equality and peace. Kenny argues that, despite the fact that “…Penn purchased land from Indians fairly and openly,” he did not do so for the Natives’ sakes (29). He had an agenda to sell the land to settlers and pay off prior debts. Still, Pen did want harmony and peace with the neighboring tribes and his legacy endured through hundreds of years (30). Despite William Penn’s efforts in creating a peaceful land with equality for settlers and natives alike, it all came to an end in a massive collapse eighty years later when the Paxton Boys entered the scene. The Paxton Boys were made up of a group of 50 or more “frontier militiamen” who went around to Native American villages, massacring whole tribes and then seizing and claiming the Natives’ lands for themselves (Kenny 29). Because these “Irish ruffians” or “squatters” weren’t really punished for killing entire Native American villages, other colonists started to follow suit and violent seizure of Native American lands became the norm. Kevin Kenny’s argument states that any chance of peace through William Penn’s vision was condemned by “…European colonists’

When William Penn died, everyone stopped respecting the Indians. This can lead to the Indians having a war with the middle colonies because of the uneven respect. Another bad thing is the languages that everyone spoke in Pennsylvania. The settlers didn’t understand each other causing bad things to happen. For instance, a French guy looks at a vase that a Scottish man made. Then the French guy picks up the vase. The Scottish man says,”what are you doing?” Then the French guy doesn't understand the Scottish language. So, he takes it because he might interpret those words as,”Take it for free.”(Or for another

William Penn, an English entrepreneur, had an unforeseen impact on the history of the United States of America. Penn had been already a champion for democracy, religious freedom, and anti-slavery movements. Through his good relations with both the common people of England and the Indians of Pennsylvania, Penn was able to secure an entire state for many years to come. So that people could escape persecution for their religious beliefs, have more freedom, and have a good relationship with the Indians.

When the first colonists landed in the territories of the new world, they encountered a people and a culture that no European before them had ever seen. As the first of the settlers attempted to survive in a truly foreign part of the world, their written accounts would soon become popular with those curious of this “new” world, and those who already lived and survived in this seemingly inhospitable environment, Native American Indian. Through these personal accounts, the Native Indian soon became cemented in the American narrative, playing an important role in much of the literature of the era. As one would expect though, the representation of the Native Americans and their relationship with European Americans varies in the written works of the people of the time, with the defining difference in these works being the motives behind the writing. These differences and similarities can be seen in two similar works from two rather different authors, John Smith, and Mary Rowlandson.

The relationship between the English and the Native Americans in 1600 to 1700 is one of the most fluctuating and the most profound relationships in American history. On the one side of the picture, the harmony between Wampanoag and Puritans even inspires them to celebrate “first Thanksgiving”; while, by contrast, the conflicts between the Pequots and the English urge them to antagonize each other, and even wage a war. In addition, the mystery of why the European settlers, including English, become the dominant power in American world, instead of the indigenous people, or Indians, can be solved from the examination of the relationship. In a variety of ways, the relationship drastically alters how people think about and relate to the aborigines. Politically, the relationship changes to establish the supremacy of the English; the English intends to obtain the land and rules over it. Socially, the relationship changes to present the majority of the English settlers; the dominating population is mostly the English settlers. Economically, the relationship changes to obtain the benefit of the English settlers; they gain profit from the massive resource in America. Therefore, the relationship does, in fact, change to foreshadow the discordance of the two groups of people.

William Penn was born and raised in England, but he is well known for what he did in the Americas. First and foremost, William Penn was a religious nonconformist and writer: he wrote numerous religious books over his lifetime. Second, Penn is responsible for the “holy experiment”: the colony of Pennsylvania. He was a Quaker advocate, and as a proprietor had the opportunity to practice the Quaker Peace testimony.

The admiral had loaned King Charles II sixteen thousand pounds, a sum which the king, who spent all the money he could get, was not likely soon to pay back. In 1680 William Penn asked King Charles to grant him a tract of land in America in payment of this debt. This he found the king quite willing to do. It was an easy way to get out of debt by giving away land that belonged to the Indians. At the same time it would kelp him to get rid of those obstinate Quakers who kept his law officers so busy. So he readily gave Penn the land asked for, and by the 4th of March, 1681, thecharter to the new province was drawn up and ready to be signed. Penn himself wrote much of it, partly copying from the charter by which Maryland was granted to Lord

In “Letter Sent from Philadelphia”, I particularly reveled in the fact that the politicians were only serving for the good of the community for a year’s period and then return home to tend to their personal affairs. William Penn and the twelve justices would be a sight for our country in these desperate times of career politicians. It intrigued me that Germantown had their own separate court system than that of Philadelphia. The local inhabitants of Germantown had no real interaction, except for some trade with the native Americans, because William Penn had paid them a sum of money to resettle outside of the Germantown area.

When the English settlers began their colonization of America, they were unsure on how to approach the indigenous people. They were not prepared for a war initially, nor did they have all of the supplies required to survive. In chapter one of, Lethal Encounters Englishmen and Indians in Colonial Virginia, Albert Cave describes Sir Walter Raleigh’s decisions about the Roanoke colonial and Indian policies. Raleigh instructed the settlers to treat the Natives with ‘kindness and generosity’ (Cave, Lethal Encounters Englishmen and Indians in Colonial Virginia, pg 11). The English settlers recognized the

My first piece of evidence is from a speech made by Little Abraham, a Mohawk sachem, to colonial Pennsylvania officials and Indian Leaders:

“The Indian presence precipitated the formation of an American identity” (Axtell 992). Ostracized by numerous citizens of the United States today, this quote epitomizes Axtell’s beliefs of the Indians contributing to our society. Unfortunately, Native Americans’ roles in history are often categorized as insignificant or trivial, when in actuality the Indians contributed greatly to Colonial America, in ways the ordinary person would have never deliberated. James Axtell discusses these ways, as well as what Colonial America may have looked like without the Indians’ presence. Throughout his article, his thesis stands clear by his persistence of alteration the Native Americans had on our nation. James Axtell’s bias delightfully enhances his thesis, he provides a copious amount of evidence establishing how Native Americans contributed critically to the Colonial culture, and he considers America as exceptional – largely due to the Native Americans.

John A. Morettam author of William Penn and the Quaker Legacy, presents William Penn's life in a very informational and positively biased story through his years. He looks majorily on the side that William Penn's decisions were right and that his childhood and young adulthood, founding of Pennsylvania, and in his later years his selling of Pennsylvania were all done well. William Penn accomplished a lot and was an esteemed gentleman, and the author really portays him as such while describing everything William did, as well as his relationships. And so the novel starts off with William Penn's father's influence on William Penn Jr. in many different ways. In the beginning of the story it was neglect. He was

In a world of startling current events that lead humanity to reflect on the past for answers, countless books are written to inform people of the world’s controversial history. Constantly, bias slithers into the writing of many authors, allowing history- without the painful truths- to be swayed by the winners. Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower follows the journey of the Pilgrims, the winners in this case, as they venture to the New World and leave a destructive trail, leading to war with the Native Americans. As in any story, especially one involving war, there are two sides, and Philbrick makes it clear what side he fights for. Philbrick depicts the Pilgrims in a positive and biased manner through the detailed and glorified portrayal, biased Pilgrim quotations, and the clear contrast he creates between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims, presenting the Native Americans negatively and the Pilgrims as heroes.

Although white European settlers and the native Indians had existed moderately peaceful for around 40 years pressures rose in the mid-seventh century. Conflict arose due to decline in Indian territories, population, and their cultural integrity. These differences ultimately lead to conflicts in which collectively became known as King Philip’s War. What types of complaints did the Indians have against the settlers? How were the Indians expected to survive if the settlers kept taking their land? The primary sources in this collection of source documents touch upon on what each group (Indian or white settlers) did to survive: an excerpt from a narrative written by John Easton, a second hand account written by Thomas Church, a report written to the English leaders by Edward Randolph, a petition written by an Indian named William Nahton, and an excerpt of an account from a book written by Mary Rowlandson. These documents illustrate the main causes that sparked the war between the Native Indians and the white English settlers, narratives written by both sides to find peaceful solutions, and actual accounts of people who survived the conflict. The second hand account written about Benjamin Church’s meeting with the Indian group known as the Sakonnet Indians displays that the Indians knew their only chance of survival was to fight while the report written to English leaders by Randolph suggest that the settlers who viewed the Indians as uncivilized had ultimately forced the Indians

The Indian-White relationship had long been breaking down, due to a developing question between the pioneers and the Indians. One of the reasons of this doubt was that the pilgrims were exploiting the positive attitude of the Indians. The King Phillip's war was a contention between the Native Americans and the pilgrims. This contention was the aftereffect of numerous abuses toward the Indians executed by the homesteader. The King Phillip's war was an advocated war. Numerous elements added to the flare-up of this war, for instance numerous Indians felt that they did great to the pioneers and that the settlers were the first doing incorrectly. Another variable was that Englishmen were exploiting the Indians when arranging land; the pioneers were