United States History Student Edition

This painting by Edward Hicks, from the 1840s, depicts a Pennsylvania farm where he had lived in 1787. Rich farmland was one of the main draws that lured immigrants from throughout Europe to the Middle Colonies. The person plowing the field may represent a member of Pennsylvania’s sizable free African American population.

then the English took over the area. Penn allowed these southern counties to form their own legislature. The counties then functioned, or worked, as a separate colony known as Delaware. However, Delaware remained under the authority of Pennsylvania’s governor. 7 CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING Describing Describe the origins of the people of Pennsylvania. LESSON ACTIVITIES 1. Explanatory Writing Write a paragraph describing and evaluating Penn’s approach toward Native Americans in Pennsylvania. 2. Analyzing Main Ideas Make a list of the features of the colonies you have read about and seen in the images in this lesson. Mark those features that appeal to you with a star. Then work with a partner. Share your lists with each other, and decide on a joint answer to this question: If you were a settler moving to America in the late 1600s, where would you choose to live? Together, write a description of the location and construction of your ideal colonial home. Use evidence from the lesson in your description.

If you give them anything to eat or drink, [that is] well, for they will not ask; and, be it little or much, if it be with kindness, they are well pleased, else they go away sullen, but say nothing. . . XIX. But in liberality they excel; nothing is too good for their friend. Give them a fine gun, coat, or other thing, it may pass twenty hands before it sticks; light of heart, strong affections, but soon spent, the most merry creatures that live, [they] feast and dance perpetually ; they never have much, nor want much. Wealth circulates like the blood, all parts partake; and though none shall want what another has, yet [they are] exact observers of property. . . . ” — from Letter to the Free Society of Traders, 1683 Penn’s advertising worked. In 1683, more than 3,000 English, Welsh, Irish, Dutch, and German settlers had arrived. By 1700, Pennsylvania’s population reached 21,000. In 1701, in the Charter of Privileges, Penn granted colonists the right to elect representatives to the legislature. Philadelphia quickly became America’s most prosperous city and its most popular port. People from Sweden had settled land in southern Pennsylvania before the Dutch, and

perpetually continually and always

authority the right to command obedience

Francis G. Mayer/Corbis Historical/Getty Images

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