The Free Society of Traders was a company of merchants, landowners, and personal associates of William Penn who were granted special concessions in order to direct the economy of what was at the time a young colony.
[1] It was originally a joint-stock company launched in London in 1681 by Nicholas More, James Claypoole, and Philip Ford, after Penn received his Royal charter from Charles II that March.
Some of the concessions made to these men in order to attract financial support, Penn offered early (100) investors a bonus of 5,000 acres each, plus exclusive rights to property in the capital city.
Penn also fashioned a rudimentary form of own government from the Traders' members.
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