Book 1, Albion's Seed : Chapter 8, The Delaware Valley Continued Summary and Analysis

The author addresses the issue of wealth and its distribution at the beginning of this next section of the same chapter. He begins by describing the irony of the uneven distribution of wealth throughout the region. While they held spiritual equality as a definitive belief, Quakers distributed land differently in the Delaware Valley than it was separated out elsewhere.

David Hackett Fischer remarks that William Penn—who owned a fine house in Slough, Berkshire, England—was able to achieve more equitable distribution of wealth. However, the effort to do so was significant. He suffered much failure as well on his path to achieving success. If only temporarily, the richest ten percent of the population only controlled 23.8% of the wealth of the region in 1693. In many...