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The beginnings of

The beginnings of Philadelphia The Treaty of Penn with the Indians. This poster represents the signing of a peace treaty between the natives and William Penn, in Shackmaxon. Before the arrival of the English, nearly 20,000 Native American Lenape, belonging to the Algonquin nation, inhabited the Delaware Valley and Shackmaxon settlement. The Delaware Valley exploration began in the early seventeenth century. The first settlers claimed all along the river and tried to expand its influence by creating an agricultural settlement and fur trade to avoid the French and British traders. The first Swedish expion to North America embarked from the port of Gothenburg in 1637. It was organized and planned by Clas Fleming, a Swedish Admiral from Finland. Part of this colony, called New Sweden, included territories on the west coast of the Delaware River to just below the Schuylkill River, in other words, New Jersey, the current Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.The New Sweden, founded in 1638, was annexed to New Netherland in 1655. Finally, the region went to British rule in 1674. In 1681, King Charles II of England granted a permission letter to William Penn in exchange for the cancellation of a debt the government owed to his father. In this paper, the Pennsylvania colony was officially founded. William Penn (1644-1718) was an English Quaker: he belonged to a dissident religious group suffering persecution in England, which rejected the hierarchy and proclaimed equality, tolerance and nonviolence. Thus, Pennsylvania quickly became a haven for all who were oppressed by confessing this faith. William Penn sailed from England to America in 1682 and founded the city of Philadelphia. He ensured that this would serve as a port city and political center.Although Charles II and had given him the land, William Penn bought the land to its rightful owners also Amerindians to establish peaceful relations with them. Apparently, he signed a treaty of friendship with Lenape chief Tamanend in Shackmaxon in 1682. Elfreth’s Alley, Philadelphia desde1713 inhabited street was designed as a flat checkerboard, the oldest in the United States, with wide streets and five parks. But above all, Willliam Penn wanted to make this city a city of God, guaranteeing freedom of worship. The city’s name in Greek ( “brotherly love”), reflected this ambition. By the time William Penn returned to England in 1699 after an absence of fifteen, he found a much larger city that was located just behind Boston for its population.Many European immigrants, English, Dutch, French Protestants, had indeed arrived, attracted by the prosperity of the city and its religious tolerance. A first group of Germans settled in 1683 in the current neighborhood of Germantown. Willliam Penn gave a letter to the city on October 25, 1701 in order to create local institutions: a city hall, council and an assembly. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Philadelphia had become the most populous city of the Thirteen Colonies (14,000 inhabitants in 1780) beating Boston. He likewise disputed the position of Dublin’s second city of the British Empire.