William Penn

[HondurasKeiser]

Well, I would suggest that what William Penn really did was more like eminent domain. The government coming in and telling you they were going to take your land for some other purpose but that they would negotiate a "fair" settlement for your property.

The King of England granted William Penn title to all of Pennsylvania in exchange for debts the king owed to Penn's father.

William Penn then negotiated with the various tribes already on the land to vacate and move further west to make room for William Penn to carve out landholdings to then sell to European settlers.

This seems undisputable...not even the Popular Quaker Front would argue this.

The fact that he did this in a more fair and humane manner than colonial governments further south is to his credit. He generally didn't drive Indians off their land at gunpoint or through massacres as was the more common method.

This seems to ignore the early history of other contemporaneous colonies like Plymouth. The Pilgrims and the Puritans didn't use massacre or gunpoint either. The land they settled initially had already been depopulated from an inter-Native war and survivors from local tribes welcomed the newcomers as potential allies. Violence occurred of course later down the line, at the founding though it was really quite amicable. Jamestown seems to be one of strife and violence almost from the get go.

But it also wasn't a negotiation between equals. He was claiming the land for white settlement. It was simply a question of methods.

This is simply your opinion and is belied by both facts and a little bit of logic. The Lenapi could have refused and fought. What would Penn have done then? Do you really think he and his merry band of radical pacifists would have used violence to make their way? The Lenapi were weak relative to the Iroquois but they still numbered 5000 compared to the 300 or so that came across on that first ship; and that was just the Lenapi. You assume and elide quite a bit when you suggest that the relationship was one of the strong (English) condescending to the weak (Natives).

One year before his trip across the Atlantic Ocean, Penn had written a letter to the “Kings of the Indians,” explaining that he was coming to settle in their land. He regretted the “unkindness and injustice” that Indians had experienced from other Europeans and promised that Pennsylvania would be different. Because God commanded his people to love others, his colony would treat the Indians with honesty, fairness, and peace.

Having arrived, Penn worked on bringing his plans to fruition. The Quakers refused to take any land unless the Indians agreed to it. During the first couple of years, Penn purchased land from the Lenape and Susquehannock leaders, including large areas along the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. As he stood side by side with the Indian leaders and signed the purchase contracts, he may have felt a measure of pride that his land was being honestly bought rather than stolen from the Indians. However, he did not realize that these peaceful transactions were being aided by forces beyond his control. Since Europeans had arrived in the New World, disease and war had reduced the Lenni Lenapes to a mere five thousand people. Their alliance with the English thus provided much-needed protection from their rivals, the Iroquois League, the most powerful Indian alliance in the region, and contributed to their willingness to sell their land.

By the standards of his time he was a pretty good guy. By 21st century standards, not so much. Imagine the outcry if some current government said: "We are going to take Ohio and dedicate it to settlement by foreign immigrants." All you Ohioans are going to have to pack your bags and go. We will negotiate fair settlement for your lands but you have to leave and move to Missouri or Washington or someplace further west. That part is non-negotiable.

Really was Penn willing to use violence to achieve his ends?
This was not an emptying out of Eastern Pa to make space for "White People". The Lenapi continued to live on their land, they simply and willingly sold parts of it to the incoming Quakers.

For people who profess devotion to the rightness and justice of the mass migration of peoples, to also claim that this doesn't pass the smell test by 21st Century standards, is absurd. Penn, the immigrant showed up on the border, without being invited and then got to work befriending his neighbors and legally buying his land that he hoped to inhabit. The only difference from his actions and those of the current illegal immigrants is that he had the courtesy to send correspondence and establish friendly relations a year before his arrival.

[HondurasKeiser]

Nellie Bowles again:

A statue is saved! It’s not 2020 anymore, kids. The National Park Service, whose head is appointed by Biden, planned to remove a statue of William Penn that stands in Pennsylvania’s Welcome Park. The plan was to replace it instead with various things honoring Native American history and, no doubt, decrying the establishment of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I once went to Chicago in the winter, and, well, this Californian supports your efforts to give back the whole Midwest. And I’m also not opposed to taking down statues, but if the Biden admin plan is to make all public squares into shame corners, it’s just a little depressing, no? It demoralizes the people if every park is called White Supremacy Remembrance Field. It alarms the children when the playgrounds are renamed You Should Go Back to Ireland. Why don’t we compromise, and you get one Death to WASP Progeny slide.

Anyway, the times have a-changed. A lot of people said that their state is, in fact, named Pennsylvania, after William Penn, and they don’t want it to be called State01 or whatever the end game is here. And the nice, moderate, liberal governor Josh Shapiro heard this and went in for the glory: “My team has been in contact with the Biden Administration throughout the day to correct this decision. I’m pleased Welcome Park will remain the rightful home of this William Penn statue—right here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Penn founded.” TGIF salutes Governor Josh Shapiro!

[temporal1]

2022 / Dr Alveda King wrt statues:

Larry Elder / America is not a racist country | Larry Elder LIVE at University of Michigan / -55min


He speaks during the first half, then takes Q+A. ^^^

From the former page:

.. i suggest “may not,” because, in keeping with the spirit of your overall post, any change should be discussed and agreed by all parties. to my knowledge, no such attempt was ever made. it’s been wholesale aggression without intent of mutual understanding/agreement, actually war-like, and proudly so. further, altho some suggest transfer of statues to museums, predictably, the next step is to abolish such museums or spaces in museums. (not a way to “make friends and influence people,” so to speak.)

Dr Alveda King has a level-headed response with helpful suggestions regarding statues:

”Alveda King tells protesters:
'If you find yourself going into a rage over a statue, step back’ “

https://www.foxnews.com/media/alveda-ki ... tatue-rage

This link should work. ^^ June 2020 report.

[Ernie]

This seems to ignore the early history of other contemporaneous colonies like Plymouth. The Pilgrims and the Puritans didn't use massacre or gunpoint either. The land they settled initially had already been depopulated from an inter-Native war and survivors from local tribes welcomed the newcomers as potential allies. Violence occurred of course later down the line, at the founding though it was really quite amicable. Jamestown seems to be one of strife and violence almost from the get go.

Later as in two years later?
https://massachusetttribe.org/the-massa ... essagusset

[barnhart]

A distinguishing factor between puritan new England and quaker Pennsylvania is the theology. The Quakers saw the new world as a refuge where diverse people could peacefully coexist. The Puritans saw it as a hard restart where euro civilization would be carried out properly without the compromise and stain of the old world. Thus the "city on a hill" ideology.

Of course both were impossible dreams and in the end looked a lot the same. But if I were indigenous at the time, I would have preferred Penn over the Puritans

[HondurasKeiser]

This seems to ignore the early history of other contemporaneous colonies like Plymouth. The Pilgrims and the Puritans didn't use massacre or gunpoint either. The land they settled initially had already been depopulated from an inter-Native war and survivors from local tribes welcomed the newcomers as potential allies. Violence occurred of course later down the line, at the founding though it was really quite amicable. Jamestown seems to be one of strife and violence almost from the get go.

Later as in two years later?
https://massachusetttribe.org/the-massa ... essagusset

But of course even that example isn’t quite so binary as “white people = bad, colonizers/Natives = good, victims”. The link you posted describes intrigue and violence and threats of violence on all sides as well as natives vs. English and Natives.

[Ken]

A distinguishing factor between puritan new England and quaker Pennsylvania is the theology. The Quakers saw the new world as a refuge where diverse people could peacefully coexist. The Puritans saw it as a hard restart where euro civilization would be carried out properly without the compromise and stain of the old world. Thus the "city on a hill" ideology.

Of course both were impossible dreams and in the end looked a lot the same. But if I were indigenous at the time, I would have preferred Penn over the Puritans

That is the thing.

The world is not a series of binary choices. And for indigenous groups like the Lenape in the late 1600s and early 1700s they were most definitely NOT making a choice between William Penn or being left alone. That was not the choice facing them then. And it isn't the sort of choice facing any indigenous group anywhere on the planet.

The world that indigenous groups such as the Lenape faced in eastern Pennsylvania during was one in which they were surrounded by hostile forces on all sides, some of them hostile indigenous forces including the Iroquois with whom the Lenape were in longstanding conflict. And some of them were hostile foreign invaders such as colonists, colonial governments to the north and south, land speculators, and various militaries and quasi-military militias who all had various conflicting objectives, some overt and some covert. The Lenape were also in a severely weakened position due to the smallpox epidemics that had wiped out 90% or more of their population in the decades prior to encountering William Penn.

Did they correctly identify William Penn as the best choice for an alliance given all the other choices facing them at that time? Yes they did. And they were certainly correct in that assessment in the context of that time and place. All the other choices were worse. However none of that negates the fact that William Penn's ultimate objective was the subdivision and settlement of Pennsylvania by white settlers. An objective that was ultimate realized by his sons.

In many ways, Penn was as much a missionary as a colonizer. If one can separate those two things. And his vision for PA was one in which the native groups and settlers lived together peacefully but according to European standards and laws. In other words, he didn't want to massacre Indians or drive them out. He wanted to turn them into good Quakers with whom they could live together in peace according to European laws and customs.

This was a very progressive view for its time. It became the mainstream view in the US by the latter half of the 19th century, 200 years after William Penn with the system of reservations, boarding schools, and attempts to erase the Indian-ness of native groups and assimilate them rather than simply eradicate them. In fact, it wasn't really until the mid-20th Century that Penn's views really started to fall out of favor. And even today they still hold sway in many respects.

[RZehr]

If I remember correctly, it is racist to have ethnically homogeneous churches.
Now, am I hearing right that is problematic, racist, and colonizing to have different races - European and Native in this case - live on the same land together in peace?

[Ken]

If I remember correctly, it is racist to have ethnically homogeneous churches.
Now, am I hearing right that is problematic, racist, and colonizing to have different races - European and Native in this case - live on the same land together in peace?

It would be colonizing to move onto someone else’s land and then expect them to adhere to all of YOUR standards of law, custom, religion, dress, land tenure, etc.

I’m not sure why this is even remotely controversial. It was called the COLONY of Pennsylvania for Pete’s sake. What do you think that means? The land wasn’t empty when they got there.

[RZehr]

If I remember correctly, it is racist to have ethnically homogeneous churches.
Now, am I hearing right that is problematic, racist, and colonizing to have different races - European and Native in this case - live on the same land together in peace?

It would be colonizing to move onto someone else’s land and then expect them to adhere to all of YOUR standards of law, custom, religion, dress, land tenure, etc.

I’m not sure why this is even remotely controversial. It was called the COLONY of Pennsylvania for Pete’s sake. What do you think that means? The land wasn’t empty when they got there.

You’re missing my bigger point, aren’t you.

And, should say “for Penn’s sake” don’tcha think? Or Bill’s?
Sure it was colonizing.