King Charles II of England owed William Penn’s father, a military hero, a small fortune. The king didn’t have the money to pay the family at Admiral Sir William Penn’s death, so he offered them forty-five thousand acres of land in the New World. William Penn (1644-1718) called the area Sylvania, the Latin word for woods. Charles added the prefix Penn to honor the family, hence the name Pennsylvania.
The king’s land grant ignored Native Americans living on the land. The king said, “The indigenous savages had no more right to the land than squirrels and rabbits.” William did not share his dim view. He wrote a letter in 1681 to the Lenape tribe who inhabited Pennsylvania. He explained how the English king had given him a charter to the land yet also recognized that the land rightfully belonged to them. He sought their support in settling there and promised to negotiate a fair land purchase with them. He acknowledged injustices other colonists had perpetrated against them.
I recently read Nathaniel Philbrick’s book Mayflower. It’s not a flattering account of how European settlers treated Native Americans. While there are good news stories like Squanto and the Thanksgiving feast, there is also a pattern of broken treaties and failed promises. Voltaire once remarked the treaty between William Penn and the Indians was “the only treaty sworn to and never broken.”
William knew his Bible intimately. The Genesis account that all people are created in God’s image with inherent dignity and worth left its mark on him. He was a Quaker who followed Jesus in every dimension of life. Consider his prayer for those who grieve the loss of loved ones: