The proprietary colony's charter remained in the Penn family until they were later ousted following the American Revolution and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was established as one of the original thirteen states.

[1] Philadelphia, the capital of the Province of Pennsylvania, emerged as a major port and commercial city and central location for the thinking, writings, and planning that ultimately inspired the American Revolution.

Penn was appointed governor and a 72-member Provincial Council and larger General Assembly were responsible for governing the province.

Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, Quaker, founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, and an advocate of democracy and religious freedom known for fostering peaceful and positive relations with the Lenape Indian tribe through a number of treaties.

The Lenape Indian tribe held much of the land near present-day Philadelphia, and they expected payment in exchange for a quitclaim to vacate the territory.

[5] Penn and his representatives (Proprietors) negotiated a series of treaties with the Delaware and other tribes that had an interest in the land in his royal grant.

[6] By the time the French and Indian War began in 1754, the Assembly had established the additional counties of Lancaster (1729), York (1749), Cumberland (1750), Berks (1752) and Northampton (1752).

[6] William Penn and his fellow Quakers heavily imprinted their religious beliefs and values on the early Pennsylvanian government.

It also encouraged the rapid growth of Philadelphia into America's most important city and of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country hinterlands, where German (or "Deutsch") religions and political refugees prospered on the fertile soil and spirit of cultural creativeness.

[10] This netted the Penns 1,200,000 acres (4,900 km2) of land in what is now northeastern Pennsylvania, an area roughly equivalent to the size of the state of Rhode Island in the purchase.

The area of the purchase covers all or part of what are now Pike, Monroe, Carbon, Schuylkill, Northampton, Lehigh, and Bucks counties.

[14] As the colony grew, colonists and British military forces came into confrontation with natives in the state's Western half.

This proclamation impacted Pennsylvanians and Virginians the most, since they both had been racing towards the lands surrounding Fort Pitt in modern-day Pittsburgh.