For free passage
to the English colonies, people became indentured servants,
agreeing to serve the master of the ship or his assigns with a
certain kind of labor for a term of a few years according to a
written contract made before departure. Also, various statutes
made transportation to any part of America to the use of any
person who will pay for his transportation, for a term of years,
usually seven, a new possible penalty for offenses. In 1636,
Harvard College was founded in New England to advance literature,
arts, and sciences, as well as to train ministers.
In 1682, Quaker William Penn, son of an Admiral, founded the
colony of Pennsylvania for Quakers in a "Holy Experiment" in
political and religious freedom. The king had granted proprietary
rights to this land to him to discharge a Crown debt to his
father. When Penn refused to take off his hat before King Charles
and asked why Charles took off his own, Charles, unruffled,
replied that "It's the custom of this place that only one man
should remain uncovered at a time". The Pennsylvania Charter of
1701 went beyond Magna Carta and England's law in guaranteeing
right to counsel and giving a right to defendants to summon
witnesses in all criminal cases. It gave Penn absolute authority
and he established liberty of conscience (freedom of religion) and
freedom from arbitrary arrest. In 1751, some Quakers founded a
small hospital in Pennsylvania as an asylum for the insane, where
they would be treated humanely.
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