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 and/or men:
““He neither shall be christened
In white wine or red,
But with fair spring water,
With which we were christenèd.””
—Unknown. As Joseph Was a-Walking (l. 17–20)
“D--n me, stranger, ef you can’t stay as long as you please, and I’ll give you plenty to eat and drink. Play away, stranger, you kin sleep on the dry spot tonight!”
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“It could not have come down to us so far,
Through the interstices of things ajar
On the long bead chain of repeated birth,
To be a bird while we are men on earth,”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)