ShmoopTube

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[Coop and Dino singing]

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Recognize this guy? Of course you do.

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He's on that package of gross mush your dad keeps trying to feed you for breakfast. [Dad and son having breakfast]

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Seriously, would it have killed him to swap in Lucky the Leprechaun every once in a while?

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Anyway, Quaker Oats gets its name from a group of people known as the Quakers. [Quakers singing and dancing]

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The Quakers came to the English colonies in the late 1600s after the English government

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started demanding that they worship the Church of England. [King Henry and priest stood outside a church]

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And if your mom has ever demanded that you clean your room, and you'd rather do anything

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else, then you kind of know how The Quakers felt.

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So The Quakers arrived in the New World and established their own communities in what

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are now New Jersey and Pennsylvania. [New Jersey and Pennsylvania on a map]

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In fact, Pennsylvania is actually named after William Penn, who was a Quaker leader.

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Kinda looks like the Quaker Oats guy….except… a little more constipated….[William Penn image]

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Anyway, William Penn signed peace treaties with nearby Native tribes, created a system of government

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for his colony, and made sure that everyone there was free to worship however they pleased.

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In other words, Penn was a pretty cool dude, especially compared to the stunts a lot of [Colony soldiers on a ship]

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the other colonists were pulling at the time.

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That’s why he's honored in a statue atop

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the clock tower of Philadelphia City Hall. [William Penn statue on a clock tower]

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We hope Penn didn’t have a fear of heights. Meanwhile, the Dutch were busy buying the

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part of New York City named Manhattan for 24 dollars. [Dutch man handing Native American 25 dollars]

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Okay, that isn't entirely true. It is true that a Dutch official by the name of Peter

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Minuit gave the Native Americans products worth about that much in exchange

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for the land, but the idea of “owning land” wasn't something that Native Americans really

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understood back then. [Man wearing a hat and gown]

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You can’t really buy something when the people you’re buying it from have no concept

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of a “purchase.”

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They thought that Minuit was just was giving them gifts so that they would share Manhattan.

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It all seemed very pleasant and nice. Until Minuit built a giant fort on the land

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to keep out the Native Americans. [Minuit and native american beside a fort]

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Well, more specifically, he wanted to keep out the not-so-friendly Native Americans.

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The fort actually helped protect cooperative European and Native American traders alike.

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So Minuit was pretty cool.

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But not as cool as William Penn. Once the Dutch had Manhattan, they began bringing [Ship approaches Manhattan]

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African slaves over to what they had since named New Amsterdam.

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That’s before the English took it from them and renamed it what we know it as today, New York.

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So the question remains, what did our two colonies, Pennsylvania and New York, have in common?

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Well, they were both successful because they had good relations with local Native Americans, [Civillians and native americans discussing in a street]

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they were well run, and they were in good locations for trading, starting businesses,

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and growing crops.

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We hope they traded plenty of oatmeal. Hopefully for some Lucky Charms. [Man trades oatmeal for lucky charms]

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Seriously, we're still bitter… not even one Cocoa Puff…

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