Editing Charter of Pennsylvania (section)

== 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.<ref name="illick"/>

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.<ref name="soderlund"/>