Using primary sources, this unit explores the founding of the 12th and most successful of the English colonies in North America, Pennsylvania. Established by the Quaker civil libertarian William Penn, Pennsylvania was intended to demonstrate that a society founded on mutual respect, tolerance, and individual responsibility could flourish. The first 50 years of this province demonstrate that European-Indian relations need not have been based on violence and the destruction of native cultures. In a crucial departure from the past, religious tolerance also was legally guaranteed. Penn understood that separate religious groups might share common interests. The government of Pennsylvania explicitly derived its authority from the people it was intended to govern. The unit embodies five objectives: (1) to study historical documents in order to experience history as a dynamic discipline that studies, interprets, and debates the meaning of human artifacts and through those, humanity's collective past; (2) to examine the effect that the Quakers' respect for life and abhorrence of violence had on establishing relations with Indians based on trust and honesty; (3) to study two of the founding principles of Pennsylvania, namely religious toleration, and faith in the people's capacity to govern, and to consider the extent to which those values remain valid in today's world; (4) to speculate on how treating women as the spiritual equals of men, rather than their inferiors, affected women and altered Quaker society; and (5) to appreciate the ethnic diversity of Pennsylvania and to experiment with the methods historians use to investigate people from the past. (Author/DK)