Pennsylvania

Established in 1681

Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 through a royal land grant to William Penn, son of the state's namesake; the southeast portion was once part of the colony of New Sweden. Established as a haven for religious and political tolerance, the Province of Pennsylvania was known for its relatively peaceful relations with native tribes, innovative government system, and religious pluralism. Pennsylvania was one of the thirteen British colonies from which the nation ultimately was formed.

Pennsylvania played a vital and historic role in the American Revolution and the ultimately successful quest for independence from the British Empire. Its largest city, Philadelphia, was the gathering place of the nation's Founding Fathers and home to much of the thinking, activism, and writing that inspired the American Revolution. Philadelphia hosted the First Continental Congress in Carpenters' Hall in 1774, and, beginning the following year, the Second Continental Congress in Independence Hall, which in 1776 unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, a document that historian Joseph Ellis has described as "the most potent and consequential words in American history" and which formally launched the American Revolutionary War.

On December 25 and 26, 1776, Washington secretly led a column of Continental Army troops across the Delaware River from Bucks County, launching a successful surprise attack against Hessian mercenaries at the Battle of Trenton. In 1777 and 1778, the national capital of Philadelphia fell under British control for nine months, and multiple Revolutionary War battles were fought in Pennsylvania. For six months, Washington and 12,000 Continental Army troops encamped at Valley Forge over a harsh winter with limited supplies; roughly 1,700 to 2,000 of them died at Valley Forge from disease and malnutrition.

In Philadelphia, the Second Continental Congress, on June 21, 1778, ratified the Articles of Confederation, which served as the foundation for the ultimate development and ratification of the U.S. Constitution. On December 12, 1787, Pennsylvania became the second state (after Delaware, which had previously been part of Pennsylvania as the three lower counties) to ratify the Constitution. On eight separate occasions prior to the construction of Washington, D.C. as the nation's capital, a Pennsylvania city served as the nation's capital (Philadelphia from 1775 to 1776, 1777, twice in 1778, 1781, and 1790; York in 1777; and Lancaster in 1777).

During the American Civil War, Pennsylvania's 360,000 Union Army volunteers proved influential in strengthening the Union, successfully guarding the national capital of Washington, D.C., which was vulnerable following the fall of Fort Sumter, and later leading daring raids against Confederate army strongholds in the Deep South. The bloodiest battle of the Civil War with over 50,000 casualties, and one of the Union Army's most important victories, was fought on Pennsylvania soil at Gettysburg over three days in July 1863. The Union Army's victory at Gettysburg is considered the turning point in the war, leading to the Union's preservation. Lincoln's 271-word address dedicating Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863 remains one of the best known speeches in American history

History of Pennsylvania

At the time of European settlement, the Native American population was small and widely scattered. The Delaware, or Lenni Lenape, occupied the Delaware valley; the Susquehannock were in the lower Susquehanna River valley; the Erie and various groups of the Iroquois Confederacy—Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Oneida—were in northern Pennsylvania. Tribes of the Ohio River valley lived in the central and western parts of the state.

Swedes were the first European settlers in Pennsylvania. Traveling up the Delaware from a settlement at the present site of Wilmington, Del., Gov. Johan Printz of the colony of New Sweden established his capital on Tinicum Island (New Gothenborg) in 1643. Other Europeans, primarily the Dutch, established trading posts within Pennsylvania as early as 1647. A rivalry between the Dutch and the Swedes led Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Netherland, to seize New Sweden in 1650. Dutch control of the region ended in 1664, when the English seized all of New Netherland in the name of the Duke of York (the future King James II).

The Quaker colony

In March 1681 Charles II of England signed a charter giving any unoccupied regions to William Penn in payment of a debt owed by the king to Penn’s father, Adm. Sir William Penn. The charter, which was officially proclaimed on April 2, 1681, named the territory for Admiral Penn and included also the term sylvania (“woodlands”), at the son’s request.

William Penn intended that the colony provide a home for his fellow Quakers (members of the Society of Friends). While still in England, he drew up the first of his “frames of government” and sent his cousin, William Markham, to establish a claim to the land and also to establish the boundaries of what became the city of Philadelphia. Penn arrived in 1682 and called a General Assembly to discuss the first Frame of Government and to adopt the Great Law, which guaranteed freedom of conscience in the colony. Under Penn’s influence, fair treatment was accorded the Native Americans, who responded with friendship in return. When Penn returned to England in 1684, the new Quaker province had a firmly established government based on the people’s will and religious tolerance.

Colonial growth

The century that followed was a period of great expansion and turmoil for Pennsylvania. Its interior included land that was claimed by the French, and, as time went on, the Indians became increasingly hostile to the expansion of settlements to the west and north. Much of the fighting during the French and Indian War (1754–63) took place in Pennsylvania. There the young George Washington began his journey into the Ohio valley to warn the French to leave; later, it was in Pennsylvania that the English general Edward Braddock suffered defeat at the hands of the French forces and their Native American allies.

For many Pennsylvanians, the period following these conflicts marked growing dissatisfaction with British rule. Limitations on westward expansion, especially as established by proclamation in 1763, were imposed to pacify the Indians, but Pennsylvanians pressed westward over the Allegheny Mountains. Outposts such as Fort Pitt (Fort Duquesne under the French; now Pittsburgh) became settlements vital to the flow of trade from the opening lands to the west.

By the eve of the American Revolution, Pennsylvania had become a centre of military, economic, and political activity. The first (1774) and second (1775–76) Continental Congresses met in Philadelphia; the Declaration of Independence was signed there; and after the war the city became the capital of the short-lived Confederation and of the fledgling U.S. government.

Source:

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