The Decline Of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania
When the treaty of peace was signed in 1763, extinguishing
France's title to Canada and turning over Canada and the Mississippi
Valley to the English, the colonists were prepared to enjoy all the
blessings of peace. But the treaty of peace had been made with
France, not with the red man. A remarkable genius, Pontiac, appeared
among the Indians, one of the few characters, like Tecumseh and
Osceola, who are often cited as proof of latent powers almost equal
to the strongest qualities of the white race. Within a few months he
had united all the tribes of the West in a discipline and control
which, if it had been brought to the assistance of the French six
years earlier, might have conquered the colonies to the Atlantic
seaboard before the British regulars could have come to their
assistance. The tribes swept westward into Pennsylvania, burning,
murdering, and leveling every habitation to the ground with a
thoroughness beyond anything attempted under the French alliance.
The settlers and farmers fled eastward to the towns to live in
cellars, camps, and sheds as best they could.* Fortunately the
colonies retained a large part of the military organization, both
men and officers, of the French War, and were soon able to handle
the situation. Detroit and Niagara were relieved by water; and an
expedition commanded by Colonel Bouquet, who had distinguished
himself under General Forties, saved Fort Pitt.
* For an account of Pontiac's conspiracy, see "The Old Northwest" by
Frederic A. Ogg (in "The Chronicles of America").
At this time the Scotch-Irish frontiersmen suddenly became
prominent. They had been organizing for their own protection and
were meeting with not a little success. They refused to join the
expedition of regular troops marching westward against Pontiac's
warriors, because they wanted to protect their own homes and because
they believed the regulars to be marching to sure destruction. Many
of the regular troops were invalided from the West Indies, and the
Scotch-Irish never expected to see any of them again. They believed
that the salvation of Pennsylvania, or at least of their part of the
province, depended entirely upon themselves. Their increasing
numbers and rugged independence were forming them also into an
organized political party with decided tendencies, as it afterwards
appeared, towards forming a separate state.
The extreme narrowness of the Scotch-Irish, however, misled them.
The only real safety for the province lay in regularly constituted
and strong expeditions, like that of Bouquet, which would drive the
main body of the savages far westward. But the Scotch-Irish could
not see this; and with that intensity of passion which marked all
their actions they turned their energy and vengeance upon the
Quakers and semicivilized Indians in the eastern end of the colony.
Their preachers, who were their principal leaders and organizers,
encouraged them in denouncing Quaker doctrine as a wicked heresy
from which only evil could result. The Quakers had offended God from
the beginning by making treaties of kindness with the heathen
savages instead of exterminating them as the Scripture commanded:
"And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou
shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no
covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." The Scripture had not
been obeyed; the heathen had not been destroyed; on the contrary, a
systematic policy of covenants, treaties, and kindness had been
persisted in for two generations, and as a consequence, the
Ulstermen said, the frontiers were now deluged in blood. They were
particularly resentful against the small settlement of Indians near
Bethlehem, who had been converted to Christianity by the Moravians,
and another little village of half civilized basketmaking Indians at
Conestoga near Lancaster. The Scotch-Irish had worked themselves up
into a strange belief that these small remnants were sending
information, arms, and ammunition to the western tribes; and they
seemed to think that it was more important to exterminate these
little communities than to go with such expeditions as Bouquet's to
the West. They asked the Governor to remove these civilized Indians
and assured him that their removal would secure the safety of the
frontier. When the Governor, not being able to find anything against
the Indians, declined to remove them, the Scotch-Irish determined to
attend to the matter in their own fashion.
Bouquet's victory at Bushy Run, much to the surprise of the
Scotch-Irish, stopped Indian raids of any seriousness until the
following spring. But in the autumn there were a few depredations,
which led the frontiersmen to believe that the whole invasion would
begin again. A party of them, therefore, started to attack the
Moravian Indians near Bethlehem; but before they could accomplish
their object, the Governor brought most of the Indians down to
Philadelphia for protection. Even there they were narrowly saved
from the mob, for the hostility against them was spreading
throughout the province.
Soon afterwards another party of Scotch-Irish, ever since known as
the "Paxton Boys," went at break of day to the village of the
Conestoga Indians and found only six of them at home--three men, two
women, and a boy. These they instantly shot down, mutilated their
bodies, and burned their cabins. As the murderers returned, they
related to a man on the road what they had done, and when he
protested against the cruelty of the deed, they asked, "Don't you
believe in God and the Bible?" The remaining fourteen inhabitants of
the village, who were away selling brooms, were collected by the
sheriff and put in the jail at Lancaster for protection. The Paxtons
heard of it and in a few days stormed the jail, broke down the
doors, and either shot the poor Indians or cut them to pieces with
hatchets.
This was probably the first instance of lynch law in America. It
raised a storm of indignation and controversy; and a pamphlet war
persisted for several years. The whole province was immediately
divided into two parties. On one side were the Quakers, most of the
Germans, and conservatives of every sort, and on the other, inclined
to sympathize with the Scotch-Irish, were the eastern Presbyterians,
some of the Churchmen, and various miscellaneous people whose
vindictiveness towards all Indians had been aroused by the war. The
Quakers and conservatives, who seem to have been the more numerous,
assailed the Scotch-Irish in no measured language as a gang of
ruffians without respect for law or order who, though always crying
for protection, had refused to march with Bouquet to save Fort Pitt
or to furnish him the slightest assistance. Instead of going
westward where the danger was and something might be accomplished,
they had turned eastward among the settlements and murdered a few
poor defenseless people, mostly women and children.
Franklin, who had now returned from England, wrote one of his best
pamphlets against the Paxtons, the valorous, heroic Paxtons, as he
called them, prating of God and the Bible, fifty-seven of whom,
armed with rifles, knives, and hatchets, had actually succeeded in
killing three old men, two women, and a boy. This pamphlet became
known as the "Narrative" from the first word of its title, and it
had an immense circulation. Like everything Franklin wrote, it is
interesting reading to this day.
One of the first effects of this controversy was to drive the
excitable Scotch-Irish into a flame of insurrection not unlike the
Whisky Rebellion, which started among them some years after the
Revolution. They held tumultuous meetings denouncing the Quakers and
the whole proprietary government in Philadelphia, and they organized
an expedition which included some delegates to suggest reforms. For
the most part, however, it was a well equipped little army variously
estimated at from five hundred to fifteen hundred on foot and on
horseback, which marched towards Philadelphia with no uncertain
purpose. They openly declared that they intended to capture the
town, seize the Moravian Indians protected there, and put them to
death. They fully expected to be supported by most of the people and
to have everything their own way. As they passed along the roads,
they amused themselves in their rough fashion by shooting chickens
and pigs, frightening people by thrusting their rifles into windows,
and occasionally throwing some one down and pretending to scalp him.
In the city there was great excitement and alarm. Even the classes
who sympathized with the Scotch-Irish did not altogether relish
having their property burned or destroyed. Great preparations were
made to meet the expedition. British regulars were summoned. Eight
companies of militia and a battery of artillery were hastily formed.
Franklin became a military man once more and superintended the
preparations. On all sides the Quakers were enlisting; they had
become accustomed to war; and this legitimate chance to shoot a
Scotch-Irish Presbyterian was too much for the strongest scruples of
their religion. It was a long time, however, before they heard the
end of this zeal; and in the pamphlet war which followed they were
accused of clamorously rushing to arms and demanding to be led
against the enemy.
It is amusing now to read about it in the old records. But it was
serious enough at the time. When the Scotch-Irish army reached the
Schuylkill River and found the fords leading to the city guarded,
they were not quite so enthusiastic about killing Quakers and
Indians. They went up the river some fifteen miles, crossed by an
unopposed ford, and halted in Germantown ten miles north of
Philadelphia. That was as far as they thought it safe to venture.
Several days passed, during which the city people continued their
preparations and expected every night to be attacked. There were,
indeed, several false alarms. Whenever the alarm was sounded at
night, every one placed candles in his windows to light up the
streets. One night when it rained the soldiers were allowed to
shelter themselves in a Quaker meeting house, which for some hours
bristled with bayonets and swords, an incident of which the
Presbyterian pamphleteers afterwards made much use for satire. On
another day all the cannon were fired to let the enemy know what was
in store for him.
Finally commissioners with the clever, genial Franklin at their
head, went out to Germantown to negotiate, and soon had the whole
mighty difference composed. The Scotch-Irish stated their
grievances. The Moravian Indians ought not to be protected by the
government, and all such Indians should be removed from the colony;
the men who killed the Conestoga Indians should be tried where the
supposed offense was committed and not in Philadelphia; the five
frontier counties had only ten representatives in the Assembly while
the three others had twenty-six--this should be remedied; men
wounded in border war should be cared for at public expense; no
trade should be carried on with hostile Indians until they restored
prisoners; and there should be a bounty on scalps.
While these negotiations were proceeding, some of the Scotch-Irish
amused themselves by practicing with their rifles at the weather
vane, a figure of a cock, on the steeple of the old Lutheran church
in Germantown--an unimportant incident, it is true, but one
revealing the conditions and character of the time as much as graver
matters do. The old weather vane with the bullet marks upon it is
still preserved. About thirty of these same riflemen were invited to
Philadelphia and were allowed to wander about and see the sights of
the town. The rest returned to the frontier. As for their list of
grievances, not one of them was granted except, strange and sad to
relate, the one which asked for a scalp bounty. The Governor, after
the manner of other colonies, it must be admitted, issued the long
desired scalp proclamation, which after offering rewards for
prisoners and scalps, closed by saying, "and for the scalp of a
female Indian fifty pieces of eight." William Penn's Indian policy
had been admired for its justice and humanity by all the
philosophers and statesmen of the world, and now his grandson,
Governor of the province, in the last days of the family's control,
was offering bounties for women's scalps.
Franklin while in England had succeeded in having the proprietary
lands taxed equally with the lands of the colonists. But the
proprietors attempted to construe this provision so that their best
lands were taxed at the rate paid by the people on their worst. This
obvious quibble of course raised such a storm of opposition that the
Quakers, joined by classes which had never before supported them,
and now forming a large majority, determined to appeal to the
Government in England to abolish the proprietorship and put the
colony under the rule of the King. In the proposal to make
Pennsylvania a Crown colony there was no intention of confiscating
the possessions of the proprietors. It was merely the proprietary
political power, their right to appoint the Governor, that was to be
abolished. This right was to be absorbed by the Crown with payment
for its value to the proprietors; but in all other respects the
charter and the rights and liberties of the people were to remain
unimpaired. Just there lay the danger. An act of Parliament would be
required to make the change and, having once started on such a
change, Parliament, or the party in power therein, might decide to
make other changes, and in the end there might remain very little of
the original rights and liberties of the colonists under their
charter. It was by no means a wise move. But intense feeling on the
subject was aroused. Passionate feeling seemed to have been running
very high among the steady Quakers. In this new outburst the Quakers
had the Scotch-Irish on their side, and a part of the Churchmen. The
Germans were divided, but the majority enthusiastic for the change
was very large.
There was a new alignment of parties. The eastern Presbyterians,
usually more or less in sympathy with the Scotch-Irish, broke away
from them on this occasion. These Presbyterians opposed the change
to a royal governor because they believed that it would be followed
by the establishment by law of the Church of England, with bishops
and all the other ancient evils. Although some of the Churchmen
joined the Quaker side, most of them and the most influential of
them were opposed to the change and did good work in opposing it.
They were well content with their position under the proprietors and
saw nothing to be gained under a royal governor. There were also not
a few people who, in the increase of the wealth of the province, had
acquired aristocratic tastes and were attached to the pleasant
social conditions that had grown up round the proprietary governors
and their followers; and there were also those whose salaries,
incomes, or opportunities for wealth were more or less dependent on
the proprietors retaining the executive offices and the appointments
and patronage.
One of the most striking instances of a change of sides was the case
of a Philadelphia Quaker, John Dickinson, a lawyer of large
practice, a man of wealth and position, and of not a little colonial
magnificence when he drove in his coach and four. It was he who
later wrote the famous "Farmer's Letters" during the Revolution. He
was a member of the Assembly and had been in politics for some
years. But on this question of a change to royal government, he left
the Quaker majority and opposed the change with all his influence
and ability. He and his father-in-law, Isaac Norris, Speaker of the
Assembly, became the leaders against the change, and Franklin and
Joseph Galloway, the latter afterwards a prominent loyalist in the
Revolution, were the leading advocates of the change.
The whole subject was thoroughly thrashed out in debates in the
Assembly and in pamphlets of very great ability and of much interest
to students of colonial history and the growth of American ideas of
liberty. It must be remembered that this was the year 1764, on the
eve of the Revolution. British statesmen were planning a system of
more rigorous control of the colonies; and the advisability of a
stamp tax was under consideration. Information of all these possible
changes had reached the colonies. Dickinson foresaw the end and
warned the people. Franklin and the Quaker party thought there was
no danger and that the mother country could be implicitly trusted.
Dickinson warned the people that the British Ministry were starting
special regulations for new colonies and "designing the strictest
reformations in the old." It would be a great relief, he admitted,
to be rid of the pettiness of the proprietors, and it might be
accomplished some time in the future; but not now. The proprietary
system might be bad, but a royal government might be worse and might
wreck all the liberties of the province, religious freedom, the
Assembly's control of its own adjournments, and its power of raising
and disposing of the public money. The ministry of the day in
England were well known not to be favorably inclined towards
Pennsylvania because of the frequently reported willfulness of the
Assembly, on which the recent disturbances had also been blamed. If
the King, Ministry, and Parliament started upon a change, they might
decide to reconstitute the Assembly entirely, abolish its ancient
privileges, and disfranchise both Quakers and Presbyterians.
The arguments of Franklin and Galloway consisted principally of
assertions of the good intentions of the mother country and the
absurdity of any fear on the part of the colonists for their
privileges. But the King in whom they had so much confidence was
George III, and the Parliament which they thought would do no harm
was the same one which a few months afterwards passed the Stamp Act
which brought on the Revolution. Franklin and Galloway also asserted
that the colonies like Massachusetts, the Jerseys, and the
Carolinas, which had been changed to royal governments, had profited
by the change. But that was hardly the prevailing opinion in those
colonies themselves. Royal governors could be as petty and annoying
as the Penns and far more tyrannical. Pennsylvania had always
defeated any attempts at despotism on the part of the Penn family
and had built up a splendid body of liberal laws and legislative
privileges. But governors with the authority and power of the
British Crown behind them could not be so easily resisted as the
deputy governors of the Penns.
The Assembly, however, voted--twenty-seven to three--with Franklin
and Galloway. In the general election of the autumn, the question
was debated anew among the people and, though Franklin and Galloway
were defeated for seats in the Assembly, yet the popular verdict was
strongly in favor of a change, and the majority in the Assembly was
for practical purposes unaltered. They voted to appeal to England
for the change, and appointed Franklin to be their agent before the
Crown and Ministry. He sailed again for England and soon was
involved in the opening scenes of the Revolution. He was made agent
for all the colonies and he spent many delightful years there
pursuing his studies in science, dining with distinguished men,
staying at country seats, and learning all the arts of diplomacy for
which he afterwards became so distinguished.
As for the Assembly's petition for a change to royal government,
Franklin presented it, but never pressed it. He, too, was finally
convinced that the time was inopportune. In fact, the Assembly
itself before long began to have doubts and fears and sent him word
to let the subject drop; and amid much greater events it was soon
entirely forgotten.
Back to: The Quaker Colonies
