Which colony had quakers and mennonites

Penn's vision was more inclusive than any of these colonies and it was inextricably tied to his desire to create a society where people of differing faiths would not only enjoy the freedom to worship as they wished but to participate actively in a government that guaranteed that right.

Let men be good and the government cannot be bad. If government becomes ill, good men will cure it. Pennsylvania's first constitution organized the government into three parts: the governor, who was Penn acting as the proprietor of the colony, or a deputy in his absence; a seventy-two member Provincial Council; and a General Assembly with two hundred members.

While the proprietor held his office by heredity, the council and the assembly were elected by the freemen of the colony. Freedom of elections was expressly ensured and the right to vote was extended to virtually all free inhabitants, regardless of whether or not they were landholders. Penn's understanding of religious freedom cannot be confused with the modern definition of the term, which ensures civil liberties to all, regardless of faith.

There were exceptions in Penn's colony. Although the Frame of Government guaranteed the freedom to worship, voting and office holding were restricted to most Christians, those who professed a belief in Jesus Christ as "the Son of God and the Savior of the World. Settling in Philadelphia, Jews held their religious services in private homes until they established the Mikveh Israel congregation in By that time there were Jews living in Reading, Lancaster, and Easton as well.

Penn also denied Catholics the right to vote or hold political office, believing they would defer to the dictates of the pope in Rome, a foreign power. Nevertheless, Catholics were attracted to Pennsylvania, especially after when Maryland established Anglicanism as the official religion and punished priests and lay members for conducting worship services. Relocating to Philadelphia, Catholics worshipped in private homes until when St.

Joseph's Church was established near Fourth and Walnut Streets. Restrictive measures against Catholics and Jews continued after when Penn issued a new constitution, the Charter of Privileges, even though it included a provision for the liberty of conscience to all who believed in God. Native Americans also presented a dilemma for Penn. Since the principle of brotherly love was at the heart of his holy experiment, he was determined to treat the Indians as friends.

He speculated that the Lenni Lenape, the Delaware Indian tribe which inhabited the land, were "of the Jewish race," or "of the stock of the Ten Tribes" of Israel and as such were children of God and entitled to love and respect. Penn expressed these intentions to the Indians in a letter before sailing to his new province.

He also made an official policy of his government to purchase the land from the Indians, thereby extinguishing native title before any land was patented to white settlers. Knowing that many of his predecessors had warred with the Indians, Penn promised them fair treatment, an opportunity for a redress of their grievances and, above all, peace. To this end, he established a list of conditions for both the colonists and Quaker officials for their conduct in dealing with the Indians.

Among these concessions were sharing the land, trading goods of the same quality sold in the marketplace, and trial by jury. Although the latter provision was not practical because the Indians did not understand it, the concept did indicate Penn's sincerity in dealing with them.

Penn's idealism had its limits, however. While he believed the Indians were the spiritual equals of white men, Penn did not consider them of the same intellect.

He was especially put off by their worship, which consisted of animal sacrifice and dancing around a fire while singing and shouting, customs he considered "savage. Like Jews and Catholics, Indians did not enjoy religious freedom in the present-day sense of the term. For all his idealism, Penn was a product of his time, conditioned by the political and social conventions of the seventeenth century.

Nevertheless, his constitution did guarantee "religious toleration" for all inhabitants and, in this sense, was remarkably advanced for the period.

It represented the first application of rights and values that were adopted by the framers of the United States Constitution a century later. While English Quakers were the earliest settlers to take advantage of this liberal government, many other British immigrants also came to Pennsylvania seeking refuge from the religious persecution of Europe.

By , Welsh Friends, who had purchased a square-mile manor from Penn, established several Quaker meetings of their own in southeastern Pennsylvania. In addition, some two hundred Anglicans worshipped at Christ Church in Philadelphia, and at least three Baptist congregations and one Presbyterian church existed in the colony. In Maryland and Viriginia Mennonites and Quakers enjoyed exemption from military duty. Colonial law permitted affirmation by anyone with scruples about taking an oath.

Religious freedom in the Colonies meant that Mennonites could enter any profession, testify in court, inherit property, buy and sell land, vote or hold office without any restriction. When the First Continental Congress met in September and imposed a boycott on British goods through a non-importation agreement, they also required committees in every county and every township to enforce this regulation.

Several Mennonites voluntarily served on these committees, more than a dozen on the Lancaster County Committee alone. Like their Quaker neighbors, Mennonites participated in the general feeling that Parliament should alter its policy towards the American Colonies, but they drew back from any step in the direction of violence or disloyalty to the Crown Mennonites looked to the leadership of the Quakers who had long played a major role in the affairs of Pennsylvania.

The Quaker leaders provided a German edition of a statement emphasizing the peace testimony and counseling patience and non-violence, which the Mennonites circulated Late in January a Provincial Congress met in Philadelphia.

Since the Pennsylvania Assembly had done nothing about passing a militia law, the Congress was under some pressure to create a militia. The peace churches saw such an action, in the words of Berks County leader Christopher Schultz, "at this time of professing and petitioning for peace… would be a very foremost step towards War, before the other Colonies. They imposed this obligation primarily as a political move. The entire population would be in arms against Parliament and any man who failed to sign the Association, for whatever reason, would declare himself an enemy to American liberty They received rough treatment here and there.

Church leaders proposed to the committees an alternative — a voluntary assessment for the poor, especially refugees from British-held Boston. This alternative was well-rooted in Mennonite tradition. During the French-and-Indian War Mennonites had provided relief for refugees from Indian raids and ransomed other settlers taken prisoner by the Indians.

Mennonites and Quakers independently proposed something of the same sort. A company of Associators forced the Lancaster Committee to resign and other companies all over Pennsylvania petitioned the Assembly to take harsher measures with Non-Associators. Benjamin Hershey, a Lancaster Mennonite wrote the text Many more petitions reached the Assembly from Associators who wanted the penalties increased. This was the beginning of a series of additional taxes imposed on religious pacifists because they failed to perform some patriotic duty.

Here was the crux of their problem. They had heretofore paid all their taxes and obeyed all the laws to the letter and, having demonstrated their loyalty in this way, they appealed for exemption from the one duty that they could not undertake. The Revolutionary authorities had now made this duty the sole test of loaylty and no payment of taxes, as penalty or otherwise, nor observance of the civil law could remove the suspicion of disloyalty that clung to all pacifists They joined a majority of Pennsylvania voters who returned members of the Assembly favorable to compromise between Britain and the Colonies in the May elections.

The vote did not fairly represent opinion in the province since election rules and the apportionment of seats favored conservative eastern counties over the newer western counties. After the election, radicals manoeuvered to call for a constitutional convention to establish a government they thought would be more responsive to the popular will and more committed to the cause of American independence.

Mennonites everywhere took this stand When the first elections under the new government were held in November, Mennonites again went to the polls. One Patriot lamented that "a very great Number of the German Menonists" voted in Lacaster County and he feared the results : "I am ready to pronounce our Convention are Blown up" The newly-elected Assembly proceeded to enact a militia law embodying these features. Military service was a common obligation and every able-bodied man would be enrolled in a militia company.

Anyone scrupulous of bearing arms could serve by substitute, hiring another man to take his place, if his company should be drafted into actual service. Otherwise he would be carried on the muster roll and be fined for missing drills.

Since the peace chruches objected as much to hiring a substitute as to serving in person, the militia authorities had the right to seize property of whatever value they believed necessary to pay a substitute. Virginia levied the cost of the substitute on the Mennonite or Quaker community as a whole. Occasional militia excesses, arresting and parading pacifists through the streets, reminded them that their conscientious objection was merely tolerated at best.

The special tax on Non-Associators remained in force and other taxes and militia fines mounted up. They also contributed wagons and teams, cattle, horses, grain, and whatever the army needed, sometimes willingly and sometimes by distraint Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia and nearly every other state passed a Test Act that year in an effort to smoke out covert Loyalists.

The Pennsylvania legislators provided a loyalty oath that could be offered to suspicious characters and heavy penalties for any who refused to take it.

How did they attempt to persuade civil officials for official tolerance of their views? Crisis Rebellion War Independence Constitution. Loyalists I: Civil War 2. Loyalists II: Traitor! Loyalists IV: Backcountry 5. The Pacifists 6. The Enslaved 7. Common Sense? Pacifists' appeals for tolerance in the first years of the Revolution, PDF.

Discussion Questions What is the religious basis for pacifists' opposition to war, bearing arms, and, for some groups, taking oaths? In the Revolution, how did peace churches explain their refusal to contribute to the war effort? What actions did they offer as alternatives that would not violate their beliefs? It was in Philadelphia that the Declaration of Independence was crafted. Articles filtered by People. Articles filtered by Topic. Articles filtered by Place.

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