4. The Northern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 1601

New Jersey and Pennsylvania

The creation of New York led indirectly to the founding of two other middle colonies, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 1664, the Duke of York subdivided his grant and gave the portion between the Hudson and Delaware rivers to two of his friends. The proprietors of this new colony, New Jersey, quarreled and called in a prominent English Quaker, William Penn, to arbitrate their dispute. Penn eventually worked out a settlement that continued New Jersey’s proprietary government. In the process, Penn became intensely interested in what he termed a “holy experiment” of establishing a genuinely Quaker colony in America.

Quaker Couple This seventeenth-century picture of a Quaker couple illustrates their plain clothing and modest habits. The woman and man do not appear poor; their clothing fits them and is well made, but the colors in their clothing are somber and muted, unlike the richly ornamented and brightly colored clothes worn by prosperous non-Quakers.

Private Collection/The Stapleton Collection/Bridgeman Images.

Unlike most Quakers, William Penn came from an eminent family. His father had served both Cromwell and Charles II and had been knighted. Born in 1644, the younger Penn trained for a military career, but the ideas of dissenters from the reestablished Church of England appealed to him, and he became a devout Quaker. By 1680 Penn had published fifty books and spoken at countless public meetings, but he had failed to win public toleration for Quakers in England.

The Quakers’ concept of an open, generous God who made his love equally available to all people continually brought them into conflict with the English government. Quaker leaders were ordinary men and women, not specially trained preachers. Quakers allowed women to assume positions of religious leadership. “In souls there is no sex,” they said. Since all people were equal in the spiritual realm, Quakers considered social hierarchy false and evil. They called everyone “friend” and shook hands instead of curtsying or removing their hats—even when meeting the king. These customs enraged many non-Quakers and provoked innumerable beatings and worse. Penn was jailed four times for such offenses, once for nine months.

Despite his many run-ins with the government, Penn remained on good terms with Charles II. Partly to rid England of the troublesome Quakers, in 1681 Charles made Penn the proprietor of a new colony of some 45,000 square miles called Pennsylvania.