How Did Quakers Come to North America?

Why did Quakers come to North America? As Max Carter tells it, it wasn’t to escape religious persecution.

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Filmed and Edited by Jon Watts

Music by Jon Watts

⇒⇒Transcript:

People associate Quakers primarily in the United States with Pennsylvania, and actually it wasn't the first place the Quakers came to in the American colonies.

How Quakers Came to North America

Quakerism began in England—1640s and 50s—as missionaries, those who went forth to share their experience, to lead others into convincement, first came to Virginia.The first known Quaker in the colonies, I believe, was Elizabeth Harris 1656 in Virginia.There were Quakers in the Carolinas by the 1660s.So they were washing ashore in various places, initially as missionaries, carrying the gospel message as Friends.

William Penn and Pennsylvania

But in the 1670s, William Penn was a convinced Friend and was offered a tract of land on what we today call “Pennsylvania” by the King of England, who owed his father, Admiral Penn, a large debt for Admiral Penn’s having loaned a significant sum of money for the prosecution of a war.

Penn refused to accept the land until he sent his agents over to treat with the Native Americans who actually lived there on how they would live together, and Penn actually bought the land from the Native Americans.[In] 1681, 1682, in the treaty of Shackamaxon, painted by Benjamin West and Edward Hicks and those sorts of folks.

But whatever the historical details were, Penn did seek to live peaceably with the Native Americans in what became known as Pennsylvania.Penn didn’t call it Pennsylvania.The king said, “I want to honor your father by calling it ‘Penn’s Woods,’ Penn’s-Sylvania, to honor Admiral Penn,” and so the name stuck.

The Holy Experiment

It became, for William Penn, and opportunity to display what became known as “The Holy Experiment”, which we understand in two different ways.It was an experiment in how to organize our political and religious and social lives around those testimonies of Friends, around the Quaker understanding of restoring original Christianity.So it would be a place where people could practice their religion freely, without the dictates of the crown, where all would be equal in the society, regardless of their class and their religious background, and a place that would not be organized around the military power and might, where anyone who believed in God could run for office and serve in civil society.

But it was also understood to be a place where you would go and you would experience the power of that life.Quakers talked about knowing truth “experimentally”, which meant experientially.So the holy experiment was not just “We’re going to try this and see if it works,” it was actually, “Come here and experience what life living as if the kingdom of God has come on Earth as it is in heaven” is like, and many did.So many Quakers settled in the Delaware valley, in Pennsylvania because of that.

Expanding to Other Colonies

So it wasn’t as a refuge.Folks didn’t flock to the colonies to escape persecution.In fact, if they got to Massachusetts, they were hanged.It was not a capital offense to be a Quaker in England.It was in Massachusetts, and several Quakers were hanged for the crime of “driving while Quaker” in Massachusetts.They came to bear truth, to bear witness—and before long, almost half of the original colonies has Quaker majorities, or Quakers in government.

Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas all had significant Quaker governments, leadership well into the early 1700s.

Then from that center of the Delaware Valley Quaker culture, Friends started spreading out as it got expensive there or crowded there, in the mid 1700s, Quakers went down the Shenendoah Valley into the Carolinas, went north, went west, hit the Appalachian mountains and went south, eventually over the Appalachian mountains and into Ohio, Indiana…
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The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.

[krazeediamond]

I grew up a Quaker in Ohio and my dad was adopted. I did genealogy on my Dad's side and found out that they were the Moon family. Originally guards of the king, they chose to convert to being Quakers. They then sailed over here with William Penn and he gave them some land. So, even my bloodline were Quakers 😊

[sasha]

I was born and raised quaker in NC. For as far back as I can remember my immediate and extended family are quakers. My mothers side is the result of a marriage between a Native American and a Quaker. My fathers side is quaker as far as I can trace.

[SantaFe]

I have heard the story of William Penn a million times being a Pennsylvania resident, but you shared a little more about it than what I remember.

[JonhHarvest]

Amazing and well produced video! Great work, will share and subscribe ^-^

[nicolerafaella]

In my research found Lin Manuel Miranda of Hamilton has Quaker ancestry. Lin descends from his British - Scot line to Pennsylvania Quakers John Smedley, born in 1637 in Ticknall, Derbyshire, England, married to Catherine Hallam, on May 9, 1656, in Risley, Derbyshire settling in Chester, Penn as well as descending from Quaker Daniel Williamson one of Penn earliest settlers. Daniel, left Stretton, Warrington, UK for Pennsylvania in 1683, two years after the town was established by William Penn and his home is an historical landmark in Pennsylvania
Lin Manuel descends as well from Quaker Thomas Kitchen and others

[karlt]

My maternal Quaker ancestors were not only some of the first in the Colonies, but some were acquaintances of William Penn, and of George Fox himself. Such as 8 gg John Chapman. As for New Garden, early members included 6 gg Benjamin Beeson; 6 g-gr uncle William Beeson; Mordecai Mendenhall, husband of 6 gr-grand aunt Charity Beeson; 7 gg John Ruddock; with Benjamin Ruddock a likely ancestor as well.

[JamesHolmez]

My 11x Great Grandfather was William Thorne, one of the signers of The Flushing Remonstrance.

[CG-wnll]

Have you ever heard of New Kent County, Va. being a particular place that Quakers went to around the 1690 to 1700 period?

[arnhay]

I’m a 49yo black male from Lower Merion Pa (Kobe). My great grandfather was a Hatton (Quaker). His great great grandmother was Ann Maris. Ann’s grandfather purchased a 1000 acres of land in Delaware county Pa from William Penn in the late 1600s.
🤔 maybe I will get my 40acres and a mule 😂

[douglasvilledarling]

Very cool. One of my ancestors, Thomas Stanley was a Quaker and donated 800 hundred acres of land in Virginia. Around the same time an ancestor was a Harris. I will need to look into Elizabeth Harris.

[savage.indios]

Wow, thanks for the video and information.

[rev.stephena.cakouros]

Only four Quakers were hanged in Massachusetts and that after they were warned to stay out of the community and to desist from troubling it.

[samspade]

My ancestors were Indentured servants. Came over in 1683 on the Lyon of Liverpool to Philadelphia. You Quakers owe me reparations!! LOL.