The Quaker Colonies | Page 9

in the
neighborhood, and whatever may have been the case in other colonies,
ships loaded with brick from England would have found it little to their
profit to touch at Philadelphia. An early description says that the brick
houses in Philadelphia were modeled on those of London, and this type
prevailed for nearly two hundred years.
It was probably in June, 1683, that Penn made his famous treaty with
the Indians. No documentary proof of the existence of such a treaty has
reached us. He made, indeed, a number of so-called treaties, which
were really only purchases of land involving oral promises between the
principals to treat each other fairly. Hundreds of such treaties have been
made. The remarkable part about Penn's dealings with the Indians was
that such promises as he made he kept. The other Quakers, too, were as

careful as Penn in their honorable treatment of the red men. Quaker
families of farmers and settlers lived unarmed among them for
generations and, when absent from home, left children in their care.
The Indians, on their part, were known to have helped white families
with food in winter time. Penn, on his first visit to the colony, made a
long journey unarmed among the Indians as far as the Susquehanna,
saw the great herds of elk on that river, lived in Indian wigwams, and
learned much of the language and customs of the natives. There need
never be any trouble with them, he said. They were the easiest people
in the world to get on with if the white men would simply be just.
Penn's fair treatment of the Indians kept Pennsylvania at peace with
them for about seventy years--in fact, from 1682 until the outbreak of
the French and Indian Wars, in 1755. In its critical period of growth,
Pennsylvania was therefore not at all harassed or checked by those
Indian hostilities which were such a serious impediment in other
colonies.
The two years of Penn's first visit were probably the happiest of his life.
Always fond of the country, he built himself a fine seat on the
Delaware near Bristol, and it would have been better for him, and
probably also for the colony, if he had remained there. But he thought
he had duties in England: his family needed him; he must defend his
people from the religious oppression still prevailing; and Lord
Baltimore had gone to England to resist him in the boundary dispute.
One of the more narrow-minded of his faith wrote to Penn from
England that he was enjoying himself too much in his colony and
seeking his own selfish interest. Influenced by all these considerations,
he returned in August, 1684, and it was long before he saw
Pennsylvania again--not, indeed, until October, 1699, and then for only
two years.

Chapter III.
Life In Philadelphia
The rapid increase of population and the growing prosperity in
Pennsylvania during the life of its founder present a striking contrast to
the slower and more troubled growth of the other British colonies in
America. The settlers in Pennsylvania engaged at once in profitable

agriculture. The loam, clay, and limestone soils on the Pennsylvania
tide of the Delaware produced heavy crops of grain, as well as pasture
for cattle and valuable lumber from its forests. The Pennsylvania
settlers were of a class particularly skilled in dealing with the soil. They
apparently encountered none of the difficulties, due probably to
incompetent farming, which beset the settlers of Delaware, whose land
was as good as that of the Pennsylvania colonists.
In a few years the port of Philadelphia was loading abundant cargoes
for England and the great West India trade. After much experimenting
with different places on the river, such as New Castle, Wilmington,
Salem, Burlington, the Quakers had at last found the right location for a
great seat of commerce and trade that could serve as a center for the
export of everything from the region behind it and around it.
Philadelphia thus soon became the basis of a prosperity which no other
townsite on the Delaware had been able to attain. The Quakers of
Philadelphia were the soundest of financiers and men of business, and
in their skillful hands the natural resources of their colony were
developed without setback or accident. At an early date banking
institutions were established in Philadelphia, and the strongest colonial
merchants and mercantile firms had their offices there. It was out of
such a sound business life that were produced in Revolutionary times
such characters as Robert Morris and after the Revolution men like
Stephen Girard.
Pennsylvania in colonial times was ruled from Philadelphia somewhat
as France has always been ruled from Paris. And yet there was a
difference: Pennsylvania had free government. The Germans and the
Scotch-Irish outnumbered the Quakers and could