The Fair Play Men were illegal settlers (squatters) who established their own system of self-rule from 1773 to 1785 in the West Branch Susquehanna River valley of Pennsylvania in what is now the United States. Because they settled in territory claimed by Native Americans, they had no recourse to the Pennsylvania colonial government. Accordingly they established what was known as the Fair Play System, with three elected commissioners who ruled on land claims and other issues for the group. In a remarkable coincidence, the Fair Play Men made their own Declaration of Independence from Britain on July 4, 1776 beneath the "Tiadaghton Elm" on the banks of Pine Creek.
Read more about Fair Play Men: The 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, The Fair Play System, The Pine Creek Declaration of Independence, The Big Runaway, After The War, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words fair play, fair, play and/or men:
“When all is said and done, friendship is the only trustworthy fabric of the affections. So-called love is a delirious inhuman state of mind: when hot it substitutes indulgence for fair play; when cold it is cruel, but friendship is warmth in cold, firm ground in a bog.”
—Miles Franklin (1879–1954)
“Those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest, and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favoredly.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Hail, comly and clene,
Hail, yong child!
Hail, maker, as I meene,
Of a maden so milde!”
—Unknown. The Second Shepherd’s Play (l. 6–8)
“Radiation burns. Men did this to me. Men and their wars.”
—Charles Beaumont (1930–1967)