Who Emigrated to Colonial Pennsylvania? Quakers, Germans, Scots-Irish & Opportunity Seekers

Pennsylvania's Magnetic Appeal (1681–1776)

William Penn's "Holy Experiment" attracted a uniquely diverse migration:

1. Religious Dissenters (The Core)

• Quakers (Society of Friends): Persecuted in England, NJ, NE; founded Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Montgomery counties.
• Mennonites & Amish: Swiss/South German Anabaptists → Lancaster, Franconia (1710s+); nonresistance, plain dress.
• Moravians: Bethlehem, Nazareth (1740s); communal economy, missions.
• Schwenkfelders, Dunkers (Brethren), Huguenots.
• Jews: Sephardic (NY, Newport) then Ashkenazi; Mikveh Israel (1740s), Rodeph Shalom.

2. Germans (Pennsylvania Dutch) — Largest Non-English Group

• Palatines: 1709–1710 refugee wave (Queen Anne) → Schoharie (NY) then Tulpehocken (PA).
• 1720s–1770s: Chain migration from Rhineland, Württemberg, Alsace.
• Settlement: Lebanon, Lancaster, Berks, Lehigh, Northampton, York counties.
• Culture: Dialect (Deitsch), barns, hex signs, fraktur, Conestoga wagons.

3. Scots-Irish (Ulster-Scots)

• 1717–1775: 200k+ from N. Ireland (Presbyterian, tenant farmers, linen workers).
• Route: Philadelphia → Great Wagon Road → Cumberland Valley → Shenandoah → Carolina backcountry.
• Frontier buffer: Penn encouraged them as "frontier guard" against Native raids.
• Culture: Presbyterian, whiskey, rifle, independent, populist.

4. Economic Migrants

• Artisans, merchants, indentured servants from England, Wales, Ireland.
• Philadelphia: Largest colonial city (40k by 1776); port, printing, trade, professions.
• Iron industry: Cornwall, Hopewell, Reading furnaces — skilled workers.

5. Adventurers & Speculators

• Land speculators (Washington, Franklin, Penn family).
• Surveyors, traders, missionaries (Moravian, Presbyterian).

What They Found

• **No established church** — religious liberty (for monotheists).
• **Representative assembly** (1701 Charter of Privileges).
• **Fair Native relations** (initially) — Walking Purchase (1737) broke trust.
• **Fertile limestone soils** — "best poor man's country."