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...e of Pennsylvania in repayment of a debt owed to Penn's father. The Quakers were regarded as undesirable both in England and in the already-established American colonies. In Pennsylvania they found a home. Penn gave them a popular government, with the right to elect an assembly to make the colony's laws. Soon after his arrival in 1682, Penn started dealings with the Delaware Indians. Several treaties of friendship were made. The most famous was signed on June 23, 1683, on the banks of the Delaware River. It stated that the colonists and the Indians would live in love as long as the sun gave light. After the Revolution of 1688, Penn was suspected of helping the dethroned king, James II, and was arrested for treason. In 1692 he was deprived of his colony. Two years later the charges against him were dismissed, and he regained Pennsylvania. In 1699 he returned to Pennsylvania. Twenty thousand people lived in the province, and many of them knew nothing of Penn except that he owned their colony and held rights that they wanted. In 1701 he signed the Charter of Privileges, which remained in force until 1776. His last years were troubled with Lord Baltimore, the proprietor of Maryland. He died on July 30, 1718. Bacon, Nathaniel (1647-1676) Virginia planter and leader of Bacon's Rebellion. When a dispute with Berkeley, who was his cousin by marriage, arose over the Indian policy, Bacon, a proponent of unlimited territorial expansion, organized an expedition against the Indians (1676). Governor Berkley ( his cousin), fearing a large-scale war, denounced Bacon's activities as rebellion. In turn, Bacon directed his forces against Berkeley and for a time controlled practically all of Virginia. In the process he torched Jamestown, Virginia and was murdered by indians. At the height of his power, Bacon died, and the rebellion collapsed. Mather, Cotton (1662-1728) American Congregational minister and author, supporter of the old order of the ruling clergy, who became the most celebrated of all New England Puritans. He combined a mystical strain (he believed in the existence of witchcraft) with a modern scientific interest (he supported smallpox inoculation). He devoted his life to praying, preaching, writing, and publishing and still followed his main purpose in life of doing good. His book, Bonifacius, or Essays to Do Good, instructs others in humanitarian acts, some ideas being far ahead of his time: the schoolmaster to reward instead of punish his students, the physician to study the state of mind of his patient as a probable cause of illness. He established societies for community projects. Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758) Edwards was born on Oct. 5, 1703, in East Windsor, Conn., the only son among 11 children. He was graduated from Yale College in 1720 and remained there for two more years studying theology. After a short time as a pastor in New York, Edwards returned to Yale as a tutor before accepting a position as an associate pastor in Northampton, Mass., with his mother's father, Solomon Stoddard. After Stoddard's death in 1729, Edwards stayed on there until 1750. From 1751 until 1757 he served a congregation at Stockbridge, Mass., and then moved on to become president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). HHis sermons and writings were a major element in the last years of the religious revival known as the Great Awakening, which lasted from about 1720 into the 1740s. These paved the way for the more far-reaching revival of the early 19th century.He had just taken up his duties there when he caught smallpox and died on March 22, 1758. Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790) Next to George Washington possibly the most famous 18th-century American, by 1757, established the Poor Richard of his almanacs as an oracle on how to get ahead in the world, and become widely known in European scientific circles for his reports of electrical experiments and theories. He was then chief spokesman for the British colonies in their debates with the king's ministers about self-government and would have a hand in the writing of the Declaration of Independence , the securing of financial and military aid from France during the American Revolution , the negotiation of the treaty by which Great Britain recognized its former 13 colonies as a sovereign nation, and the framing of the Constitution, which for more than two centuries has been the fundamental law of the United States of America. He invented a stove , still being manufactured, to give more warmth than open fireplaces; the lightning rod and bifocal eyeglasses also were his ideas. He helped establish institutions people now take for granted: a fire company, a library, an insurance company, an academy, and a hospital. In some cases these foundations were the first of their kind in North America. La Salle, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur (Lord) de (1643-1687) French explorer in North America, who led an expedition down the Illinois and Mississippi rivers and claimed the entire region watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries for Louis XIV of France, naming the region Louisiana. Years later, in a luckless expedition seeking the mouth of the Mississippi, he was murdered by his men. La Salle was educated at a Jesuit college. He first studied for the priesthood, but at the age of 22 he found himself more attracted to adventure and exploration and in 1666 set out for Canada to seek his fortune. With a grant of land at the western end of Montréal, La Salle acquired at one stroke the status of a landlord and the opportunities of a frontiersman. When he returned to Canada in 1678, La Salle was accompanied by an Italian soldier of fortune, Henri de Tonty , who became his most loyal friend and ally. La Salle and Tonty succeeded in canoeing down the Mississippi and reached the Gulf of Mexico. There, on April 9, 1682, the explorer proclaimed the whole Mississippi Basin for France and named it Louisiana . La Salle was hampered by faults of character and lacked the qualities of leadership. He possessed vision, tenacity, and courage. His claim of Louisiana for France, though but a vain boast at the time, pointed the way to the French colonial empire that was eventually built by others. Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635) French explorer, acknowledged founder of the city of Quebec , and consolidator of the French colonies in the New World. He discovered the lake that bears his name in 1609 and made other explorations of what are now northern New York, the Ottawa River, and the eastern Great Lakes. Heading an expedition that left France in 1608, Champlain undertook his most ambitious project the founding of Quebec. On earlier expeditions he had been a subordinate, but this time he was the leader of 32 colonists. Champlain and eight others survived the first winter at Quebec and greeted more colonists in June. Allied by an earlier French treaty with the northern Indian tribes , he joined them in defeating Iroquois marauders in a skirmish on Lake Champlain. Before he died in 1635, his colony extended along both shores of the St. Lawrence River. Samuel Adams (1722-1803) Born Sept. 27 1722 , Boston. Politician of the American Revolution, leader of the Massachusetts “radicals,” who was a delegate to the Continental Congress (1774–81) and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was later lieutenant governor (1789–93) and governor (1794–97) of Massachusetts. A second cousin of John Adams, second president of the United States. As a member of the Continental Congress, in which he served until 1781, Adams was less conspicuous than he was in town meetings and the Massachusetts legislature, for the congress contained a number of men as able as he. He and John Adams were among the first to call for a ...