English writer, religious thinker, and prominent Quaker William Penn, better known as the founder of the Pennsylvania Province (now the U.S. state) during the colonial era has his statue in the Welcome Park, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Trigger warning: This article mentions slavery. Readers’ discretion is advised.
Recently, a draft proposal was submitted to initiate a “rehabilitation” of the park, including the removal of William Penn’s statue. However, on Monday evening (January 8, 2024), the proposal was retracted by the National Park Service because it was released “prematurely.”
The National Park Service never explained why they intended to remove the statue in the first place and why the restoration couldn’t work around it.
In the wake of this development, the focus has fallen on William Penn and his slavery practices. As per BillyPenn, the Pennsylvania founder roughly had 12 slaves in his estate. Now, whether the current plan to remove his statue had something to do with that remains unknown.
Here’s everything you need to know about William Penn, the slave owner
William Penn kept at least a dozen people enslaved in his Pennsbury Manor estate, now located in the suburbs of Philadelphia. According to BillyPenn’s reports, the slaves arrived in one of the first ships and were either Africans or Caribbeans – all of them Black.
In this regard, here’s what Douglas Miller, the Director of Pennsbury Manor, which is now a museum told the media source in 2020.
“He certainly owned enslaved people. Some were given freedom, and some were not. Frustratingly, he doesn’t say why… Most Founding Fathers, you’ll find, because they of wealth and privilege, they did own enslaved people. It’s healthy and right to bring that to the forefront.”
BillyPenn continues to report how William Penn was among the seven percent of people in Philadelphia who owned slaves between 1682 and 1705, and most of them landed in the city on a huge cargo ship called Isabella in 1684. Not only that but records suggest Penn found African slaves “more dependable” than normal bonded labourers and had a few of them at his residence in Morrisville.
While records at the Pennsbury Manor Museum are limited, they suggest that William Penn was both a cruel and kind slave owner. On one hand, he left acres of his estate to one of his slaves, on the other hand, despite allowing slave marriages, he allegedly sold many slave wives overseas and did not allow the couple to reunite. Records also reveal that William Penn freed some of his slaves while holding others captive.
A 1990s grant helped unearth the records of Penn’s slavery practices which revealed how the second floor of his manor, above the kitchen, were slave quarters. Names of certain slaves of Penn also came to the forefront including Sam, Parthenia, Sue, Yaff, Jack, Chevalier, Susannah, Virgil, and Peter among others.
It is noteworthy that Penn had slaves until his death, but Pennsylvania abolished slavery in the 1780s, almost a century before the rest of the USA.
Exploring the latest William Penn statue controversy
The National Park Service (NPS) which oversees the conservation and rehabilitation of nationally and state-recognized parks across the USA submitted a plan to restore the Welcome Park in Philadelphia, which has a statue of William Penn, last Friday.
However, earlier this week, the service withdrew the proposal saying the draft was preliminary and “was released prematurely and had not been subject to a complete internal agency review.” The news release also added how “no changes” to the existing Penn statue will be made anytime soon.
The NPS did not provide an explanation for their initial desire to remove the statue or for their decision to change their minds. It's interesting to note that the original plan called for remodeling the park and adding to and narrating Philadelphia's Native American heritage in addition to destroying the statue.
However, locals took to social media to criticize the move triggering backlash for the Biden administration. A website was even developed by the Independence National Historical Park where the public was asked to submit their vote in favor or against the statue removal within two weeks, as per Fox News.
Besides the mass outrage, Republicans united to call out Joe Biden and his government saying they wanted to cancel William Penn. For instance, Pennsylvania House member Bryan Cutler said the move was a “sad example of the left in this country scraping the bottom of the barrel of wokeism to advance an extreme ideology and a nonsensical view of history.”
Meanwhile, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania told Fox News that his team was in communication with the White House to “correct this decision,” and took credit for the reversal.
Notably, while the statue won’t be removed, the NPS still plans to rehabilitate the Welcome Park ahead of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, as per their official statement on Monday.
For those uninitiated, the park is named after the ship ‘Welcome’ on which Penn arrived in Philadelphia for the first time in 1682 and was established more than three centuries later in 1982, to celebrate the 300th year since the founding of Pennsylvania by William Penn. It is located on Penn’s former home site, the Slate Roof House.
Now, with William Penn’s slavery practices coming to the forefront, it remains to be seen whether his statue will be removed anytime soon.
