Skip to content

The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment;
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment; PEACEABLE KINGDOM LOST Hardcover - 2009 - 1st Edition

by Kevin Kenny

  • Used
  • Hardcover
  • first

Description

New York: Oxford University Press. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 2009. First Edition. Hardcover. 0195331508 . Hardbound w/ VG DJ ; clean and unmarked and binding tight and square ; As new ; ; 8vo; 294 pages .
Used - Very Good in Very Good dust jacket
NZ$24.81
NZ$9.92 Shipping to USA
Standard delivery: 7 to 14 days
More Shipping Options
Ships from First Edition too Inc. Bookstore (Michigan, United States)
The BIBLIO Guarantee | Ask Seller a Question

About First Edition too Inc. Bookstore Michigan, United States

Specializing in: Great Lakes History, Michigan History, Military History, Modern First Editions
Biblio member since 2005
Seller rating: This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.

Small, seasonal cabin bookshop in business for 30 years. Not all of my inventory is on line so please inquire if you don't find what you want in the online list. Specialty is Michigan and Great Lakes History with a large general stock. Fiction, Military History, Crafts, gardening, natural history and a large stock of ephemeral items.Foreign shipping is by expedited postage only.

Terms of Sale:

I will be happy to refund the cost of the book plus shipping if it is not as described. Books may be returned up to 7 days after having been received and in the same condition as received.Return postage is the responsibility of the buyer.Please email for scans.Foreign postage is expedited only.

Browse books from First Edition too Inc. Bookstore

Details

  • Title The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment; PEACEABLE KINGDOM LOST
  • Author Kevin Kenny
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition number 1st
  • Edition First Edition
  • Condition Used - Very Good in Very Good dust jacket
  • Pages 304
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Oxford University Press, New York
  • Date 2009
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Bibliography, Dust Cover, Illustrated, Index, Maps, Table of Contents
  • Bookseller's Inventory # 5251
  • ISBN 9780195331509 / 0195331508
  • Weight 1.25 lbs (0.57 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.1 in (23.37 x 15.75 x 2.79 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 18th Century
    • Cultural Region: Mid-Atlantic
    • Ethnic Orientation: Native American
    • Geographic Orientation: Pennsylvania
  • Library of Congress subjects Pennsylvania - History - Colonial period,, Paxton Boys
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2008038445
  • Dewey Decimal Code 323.119

From the publisher

William Penn established Pennsylvania in 1682 as a "holy experiment" in which Europeans and Indians could live together in harmony. In this book, historian Kevin Kenny explains how this Peaceable Kingdom--benevolent, Quaker, pacifist--gradually disintegrated in the eighteenth century, with disastrous consequences for Native Americans.

Kenny recounts how rapacious frontier settlers, most of them of Ulster extraction, began to encroach on Indian land as squatters, while William Penn's sons cast off their father's Quaker heritage and turned instead to fraud, intimidation, and eventually violence during the French and Indian War. In 1763, a group of frontier settlers known as the Paxton Boys exterminated the last twenty Conestogas, descendants of Indians who had lived peacefully since the 1690s on land donated by William Penn near Lancaster. Invoking the principle of "right of conquest," the Paxton Boys claimed after the massacres that the Conestogas' land was rightfully theirs. They set out for Philadelphia, threatening to sack the city unless their grievances were met. A delegation led by Benjamin Franklin met them and what followed was a war of words, with Quakers doing battle against Anglican and Presbyterian champions of the Paxton Boys. The killers were never prosecuted and the Pennsylvania frontier descended into anarchy in the late 1760s, with Indians the principal victims. The new order heralded by the Conestoga massacres was consummated during the American Revolution with the destruction of the Iroquois confederacy. At the end of the Revolutionary War, the United States confiscated the lands of Britain's Indian allies, basing its claim on the principle of "right of conquest."

Based on extensive research in eighteenth-century primary sources, this engaging history offers an eye-opening look at how colonists--at first, the backwoods Paxton Boys but later the U.S. government--expropriated Native American lands, ending forever the dream of colonists and Indians living together in peace.

Categories

Media reviews

Citations

  • Choice, 03/01/2010, Page 0
  • Chronicle of Higher Education, 09/04/2009, Page 17
  • Publishers Weekly, 05/11/2009, Page 42

About the author

Kevin Kenny is Professor of History at Boston College where he specializes in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Atlantic migration. He is author of Making Sense of the Molly Maguires and The American Irish: A History, and editor of Ireland and the British Empire.

Hang on… we’re fetching the requested page.