Charter of Pennsylvania

The Charter of Pennsylvania was a royal land grant issued by King Charles II of England on March 4, 1681, conveying to William Penn proprietary ownership of approximately 45,000 square miles of territory in North America. The charter created the Province of Pennsylvania, named by the king in honor of Penn's father, Admiral Sir William Penn, who had died in 1670 with the crown owing him approximately £16,000. The younger Penn had petitioned for land rather than monetary repayment, hoping to establish a refuge for persecuted Quakers and other religious dissenters. The charter made Penn one of the largest individual landowners in the world and granted him extraordinary powers to govern his colony, establish laws, and distribute land—powers he used to create what he called his "Holy Experiment" in religious tolerance and democratic governance.

Background and Negotiations

The charter was the culmination of several years of negotiation between William Penn and the English crown. Penn's father, Admiral Sir William Penn, had been a distinguished naval commander who served both Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth and the restored Stuart monarchy. His services to Charles II during the Restoration—including participating in the naval expedition that captured Jamaica from Spain—had earned him royal favor and substantial financial claims against the crown. When the admiral died in 1670, these debts remained unpaid, providing his Quaker son with a unique opportunity to secure land in America.

William Penn first petitioned for an American land grant in June 1680, proposing to settle "a tract of land in America north of Maryland, bounded on the east by Delaware River, on the west by distance from the said river as Maryland is from the bay, northward as far as plantable." The petition wound through various royal councils and committees, with objections raised by Lord Baltimore (who claimed some of the territory for Maryland) and by the Duke of York (who held adjacent lands that would become New Jersey and Delaware). Penn addressed these concerns through negotiations and boundary adjustments, though disputes over the Pennsylvania-Maryland border would continue for decades after the charter's issuance—ultimately resolved only by the Mason-Dixon Line survey of 1763-1767.

Terms of the Charter

The charter granted Penn proprietary ownership of Pennsylvania, making him the territory's sole landlord with the right to sell or lease land to settlers. This proprietary model differed from royal colonies (governed directly by the crown) and corporate colonies (administered by joint-stock companies). As proprietor, Penn held nearly absolute authority over his territory, limited only by the requirement that colonial laws not contradict English law, that the crown receive a share of any gold or silver discovered, and that the colonists retain their rights as English subjects. The charter explicitly required Penn to maintain an agent in London and to submit colonial laws to the Privy Council for review.

The territory described in the charter was enormous—bounded by the Delaware River on the east, extending westward for five degrees of longitude (approximately 265 miles), and stretching from the 40th parallel on the south to the 43rd parallel on the north. However, the actual boundaries proved ambiguous, leading to conflicts with neighboring colonies that took decades to resolve. The southern boundary overlapped with Lord Baltimore's claims to Maryland, creating the Pennsylvania-Maryland border dispute. The northern boundary conflicted with New York's claims, though this proved less contentious. The charter's geographic vagueness was typical of 17th-century colonial grants, whose drafters had limited knowledge of American geography.

Religious and Political Significance

For Penn, the charter's greatest significance lay not in its economic provisions but in the opportunity it created to establish a society based on Quaker principles. The Religious Society of Friends faced severe persecution in England, where members were fined, imprisoned, and sometimes killed for their beliefs. Penn had experienced this persecution personally, spending time in the Tower of London and other prisons for his religious activities. The charter gave him the chance to create what he called a "Holy Experiment"—a colony where Quakers and other persecuted groups could practice their faith freely and participate in self-governance.

Penn immediately began drafting a Frame of Government for Pennsylvania that would translate Quaker ideals into political institutions. The Frame, completed in 1682, established a representative assembly, guaranteed religious freedom, and protected individual rights—innovations that distinguished Pennsylvania from most other colonies. Penn's promotional literature, published throughout Europe, emphasized these freedoms, attracting settlers from England, Wales, Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands. The result was one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse colonies in British North America, a characteristic that continues to define Philadelphia and Pennsylvania today.

Impact on Colonial Development

The charter's issuance in 1681 set in motion the rapid development of Pennsylvania. Penn wasted no time in organizing his colony, appointing commissioners to begin land distribution even before his own arrival. His cousin William Markham arrived in Pennsylvania in 1681 to prepare for the founder's coming, establishing initial relations with the Lenape and the existing Swedish and Finnish settlers along the Delaware River. Settlers began arriving in 1682, and Philadelphia was laid out in that year according to Penn's careful instructions. Within a few years, Pennsylvania had attracted thousands of settlers, growing faster than any previous English colony.

The proprietary model established by the charter shaped Pennsylvania's development in distinctive ways. Unlike royal colonies, where governors served at the pleasure of the crown, Pennsylvania's proprietors (Penn and his descendants) appointed governors and retained ultimate authority over land distribution. Unlike corporate colonies, which were administered for the benefit of shareholders, Pennsylvania was the personal property of a single family. This arrangement gave Penn and his heirs strong incentives to attract settlers and develop the colony, but it also created tensions when the proprietors' interests conflicted with those of colonists. These tensions increased over time, eventually contributing to Pennsylvania's support for American independence.

Later History

The charter remained the legal foundation of Pennsylvania's existence until the American Revolution. William Penn died in 1718, and the proprietorship passed to his sons John and Thomas Penn, who administered the colony with less idealism than their father. The Penn family continued to own Pennsylvania—and to profit from land sales—until the Revolution, when the new state government abolished proprietary ownership. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania paid the Penn heirs £130,000 in compensation, ending the arrangement that had begun with Charles II's grant nearly a century earlier.

The original charter document has survived and is preserved in the collections of the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg. Written on vellum in formal legal script, the charter bears the Great Seal of England and the signature of Charles II. It stands as one of the most important founding documents in American history, the legal instrument that created Pennsylvania and made possible the development of Philadelphia. The principles of religious freedom and representative government that Penn sought to implement through the charter influenced the broader development of American political thought, contributing to the revolutionary ideals that would be articulated in Philadelphia a century later.

See Also

• William Penn
• Philadelphia's Grid Plan
• Quaker Philadelphia
• Lenape People