Why then is the period so broadly overlooked in Schools?
I have perceived a renewed interest in the Seventeenth Century by the public at large as well as my fellow reenactors. You should see the faces on people when I tell them things like William Penn basically had the map of his new colony drawn incorrectly so he could keep the fertile farmland of what is now Chester, Lancaster and York Counties instead of ceding it to the rival territory of Maryland (For which he spent many years back in England hashing out a legal agreement on the proper boundaries) or that he owned slaves or that he fleeced the German settlers out of property close to the rivers in Philadelphia, forcing them to settle in what is now Germantown. On the other hand, Mr. Penn created the only treaty with the Natives that was never broken. That, in itself, is an achievement unmatched by his peers before or since!
