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{{Infobox Former Country
|conventional_long_name = Maryland Colony
|common_name = Maryland
|continent = North America
|country = United States
|status = Colony
|empire = United Kingdom
|government_type = Constitutional monarchy
|event_start = Charter granted
|year_start = 1632
|event_end = [[United States Declaration of Independence|Independence]]
|year_end = 1776
|date_end = July 4
|p1 =
|s1 = Maryland
|flag_s1 = Flag of Maryland.svg
|image_flag =
|image_coat =
|image_map = Marycolony.png
|image_map_caption = A map of the Province of Maryland.
|capital = Annapolis
|common_languages = English
|currency = Pound sterling
|representative1 = [[Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore|Lord Baltimore, 2nd]]
|year_representative1 = 1632–1675
|representative2 = [[Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore|Lord Baltimore, 6th]]
|year_representative2 = 1751–1776
|title_representative = Royally Chartered Proprietor
|deputy1 = Leonard Calvert
|year_deputy1 = 1634–1647
|deputy2 = [[Sir Robert Eden, 1st Baronet, of Maryland|Robert Eden]]
|year_deputy2 = 1769–1776
|title_deputy = Proprietary Governor
|legislature = [[Maryland General Assembly]]
}}

The '''Province of Maryland''' was an [[Kingdom of England|English]] and later [[British Empire|British colony]] in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the [[Thirteen Colonies]] in [[American Revolution|rebellion]] against [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]] and became the [[U.S. state]] of [[Maryland]]. Its first settlement and capital was [[St. Marys City, Maryland|St. Marys City]], in the southern end of St. Marys County, which is a peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay and is also bordered by four tidal rivers.

The province began as a [[proprietary colony]] of the English [[Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore|Lord Baltimore]], who wished to create a haven for English [[Roman Catholic|Catholics]] in the [[Catholic Church in the Thirteen Colonies|new world]] at the time of the [[European wars of religion]]. Although Maryland was an early pioneer of religious toleration in the [[English colonial empire|English colonies]], religious strife among [[Anglicans]], [[Puritans]], [[Catholics]], and [[Quakers]] was common in the early years, and Puritan rebels briefly seized control of the province. In 1689, the year following the [[Glorious Revolution]], [[John Coode (Governor of Maryland)|John Coode]] led a Protestant rebellion that expelled Lord Baltimore from power in Maryland. Power in the colony was restored to the family in 1715 when [[Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore]], swore publicly that he was a [[Protestant]].

Despite early competition with the [[Virginia colony|colony of Virginia]] to its south, and the Dutch colony of [[New Netherland]] to its north, the Province of Maryland developed along very similar lines to Virginia. Its early settlements and populations centers tended to cluster around the rivers and other waterways that empty into the [[Chesapeake Bay]] and, like Virginia, Maryland's economy quickly became centered around the farming of [[tobacco]] for sale in Europe. The need for cheap labor, and later with the mixed farming economy that developed when tobacco prices collapsed, led to a rapid expansion of [[indentured servitude]] and, later, forcible immigration and [[American slavery|enslavement of Africans]].

The Province of Maryland was an active participant in the events leading up to the [[American Revolution]], and echoed events in [[New England]] by establishing [[committee of correspondence|committees of correspondence]] and hosting its own [[Chestertown Tea Party|tea party]] similar to the one that [[Boston tea party|took place in Boston]]. By 1776 the old order had been overthrown, as Marylanders signed the Declaration of Independence, forcing the end of British colonial rule.

==17th Century origins==

===Founding charter===
[[File:HenriettaYoung.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Henrietta Maria, the French Princess who gave her name to the young colony of "Maryland"]]
On June 20, 1632 [[Charles I of England]] granted the original charter for [[Maryland]], a [[proprietary colony]] of about twelve million acres (49,000&nbsp;km²), to [[Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore|Cæcilius Calvert]] (Cecil), 2nd [[Baron Baltimore]] in the [[Peerage of Ireland]]. Some historians view this grant as a form of compensation for Calvert's father's having been stripped of his title of [[Secretary of State]] upon announcing his [[Roman Catholicism]] in 1625. The charter had originally been granted to Calvert's father, [[George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore]], but the 1st Baron Baltimore died before it could be executed, so it was granted to his son in his place.<ref name=sparky>{{cite book
| last =Sparks
| first =Jared
| title =The Library of American Biography: George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore
| publisher =Charles C. Little and James Brown
| year =1846
| location =Boston
| pages =16-
| url =http://books.google.com/books?id=RBsNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR3&dq=Leonard+Calvert#PPA16,M1
| doi =
| isbn = }}</ref>

Whatever the reason for granting the colony specifically to Baltimore, however, the King had practical reasons to create a colony north of the Potomac in 1632. The colony of [[New Netherland]] begun by England's great imperial rival in this era, the [[Dutch Republic|United Provinces]] specifically claimed the [[Delaware River]] valley and was vague about its border with Virginia. Charles rejected all the Dutch claims on the Atlantic seaboard, but was anxious to bolster English claims by formally occupying the territory.

The new colony was named after the devoutly Catholic [[Henrietta Maria]], the Queen Consort.<ref>[http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/name.html Maryland State Manual]</ref> The Lords Baltimore were the only Catholics in the history of the [[British Empire]] (or indeed members of the [[Irish House of Lords]]) to have been granted a proprietary colony.{{citation needed|date=August 2012}}

Colonial Maryland was considerably larger than the present-day state of [[Maryland]]. The original charter granted the Calverts an imprecisely defined territory north of Virginia and south of the 40th parallel, comprising perhaps as much as 12 million acres (49,000&nbsp;km²).<ref>Alan Taylor, ''American Colonies'' (New York: Viking, 2001), p.136; John Mack Faragher, ed., ''The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America'' (New York: Facts on File, 1990), p.254.</ref> In the 1760s Maryland lost the northernmost slice of its original territory to [[Pennsylvania]]. For 80 years the powerful Penn and Calvert families had feuded over overlapping Royal grant. Surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon mapped the Maryland-Pennsylvania border in 1767, setting out the [[Mason-Dixon Line]].<ref>Edward Danson, ''Drawing the Line: How Mason and Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America'' (2000)</ref>

===Early settlement===
[[File:Maryland Dove.jpg|thumb|right|150px|1975 reconstruction of ''[[Maryland Dove]]'' at St. Mary's City]]
[[File:St Marys City Historic District Catholic Church Jul 09.JPG|thumb|left|200px|Catholic church at St Mary's City]]
In Maryland, Baltimore sought to create a haven for English Catholics and to demonstrate that Catholics and Protestants could live together harmoniously, even issuing the [[Maryland Toleration Act|Act Concerning Religion]] in matters of religion. Cæcilius Calvert was himself a convert to [[Catholicism]], a considerable political handicap for a nobleman in 17th century England, where Roman Catholics could easily be considered enemies of the crown and potential traitors to their country. Like other aristocratic proprietors, he also hoped to turn a profit on the new colony.

The Calvert family recruited Catholic aristocrats and Protestant settlers for Maryland, luring them with generous land grants and a policy of religious toleration. Of the 200 or so initial settlers who traveled to Maryland on the ships ''Ark'' and ''Dove,'' the majority were Protestant. In fact, Protestants remained in the majority throughout the history of colonial Maryland.{{Citation needed|date=April 2009}}

The ''[[The Ark (ship)|Ark]]'' and the ''[[Maryland Dove|Dove]]'' landed at [[St. Clement's Island]] on March 25, 1634. The new settlers were led by Lord Baltimore's younger brother [[Leonard Calvert]], whom Baltimore had delegated to serve as governor of the new colony. The 150 or so surviving immigrants purchased land from the [[Yaocomico]] Indians and founded [[St. Mary's City]].

===Government===
Maryland's foundational charter created a state ruled by the ''[[Palatine lord]],'' Lord Baltimore. As ruler, Lord Baltimore owned directly all of the land granted in the charter. He possessed absolute authority over his domain. Settlers were required to swear allegiance to him rather than to the [[King of England]]. The charter created an aristocracy of ''[[lord of the manor|lords of the manor]]'', who bought 6,000 acres (24&nbsp;km²) from Baltimore and held greater legal and social privileges than the common settlers. {{Citation needed|date=August 2012}}

However, as elsewhere in English North America, English political institutions were re-created in the colonies, and the [[Maryland General Assembly]] fulfilled much the same function as the [[House of Commons of England]].<ref name="Andrews, p.70">Andrews, p.70</ref> An act was passed providing that:
:"from henceforth and for ever everyone being of the council of the Province and any other gentleman of able judgement summoned by writ (and the Lord of every Manor within this Province after Manors be erected) shall and may have his voice, seat, and place in every General Assembly...together with two or more able and sufficient men for the hundred as the said freedmen or the major part of them...shall think good".
In addition, the Lord Proprietor could summon any delegates whom he was pleased to select.<ref>Andrews, p.71</ref>

In some ways the General Assembly was an improvement upon the institutions of the mother country. In 1639, noting that Parliament had not been summoned in England for a decade, the free men of Maryland passed an act to the effect that "assemblies were to be called once in every three years at the least", ensuring that their voices would be regularly heard.<ref name="Andrews, p.70"/>

===Conflict with Native Americans===
In 1642, the colony Maryland declared war on the [[Susquehannock]] Indian nation. The Susquehannock (with the help of the colony of [[New Sweden]]) defeated Maryland in 1644. The Susquehannocks remained in an inactive state of war with Maryland until a peace treaty was concluded in 1652.<ref name="Andrews, p.76">Andrews, p.76</ref> Records from this era are poor and accounts of these early conflicts are incomplete.<ref name="Andrews, p.76"/>

===Religious conflict and the English Civil War===
[[Image:Large Broadside on the Maryland Toleration Act.jpg|thumb|400px|right|The [[Maryland Toleration Act]], passed in 1649.]]
From 1644 to 1646, the so-called "[[Plundering Time]]" was a period of civil unrest caused by the tensions of the [[English Civil War]] (1641–1651). Governor [[Leonard Calvert]] led colonial defenses against [[Parliamentary]] [[privateers]] such as Captain [[Richard Ingle]] and [[William Claiborne]]. {{citation needed|date=August 2012}}

In 1649 Maryland passed the [[Maryland Toleration Act]], also known as the Act Concerning Religion, a law mandating religious tolerance for trinitarian Christians. Passed on September 21, 1649 by the assembly of the Maryland Colony, it was the first law requiring religious tolerance in the British North American Colonies. The [[Calvert family]], who had founded Maryland partly as a refuge for English Catholics, sought enactment of the law to protect Catholic settlers and those of other religions that did not conform to the dominant [[Anglicanism]] of [[Kingdom of England|England]] and her colonies. {{citation needed|date=August 2012}}

In 1654, after the [[Third English Civil War]] (1649–1651), Parliamentary ([[Puritan]]) forces assumed control of Maryland and Governor [[William Stone (Maryland governor)|William Stone]] went into exile in the [[Colony of Virginia]]. Stone returned the following spring at the head of a [[Cavalier]] ([[Roman Catholic]]) force and marched on [[Annapolis]]. At this time there were about 4,500 colonists in Maryland. In what is known as the [[Battle of the Severn]] (March 25, 1655), Stone was defeated and taken prisoner. Stone was replaced as Governor by [[Josias Fendall]] (ca. 1628-1687). {{citation needed|date=August 2012}}

===Protestant Revolution of 1689===
{{main|Protestant Revolution (Maryland)}}
[[File:Henry Darnall I.JPG|thumb|150px|right|Col. Henry Darnall, Deputy Governor of Maryland and a Roman Catholic.]]
In 1689, Maryland [[Puritans]], by now a substantial majority in the colony, revolted against the [[Proprietary Governor|proprietary government]], in part because of the apparent preferment of Catholics like Colonel [[Henry Darnall]] to official positions of power. Led by Colonel [[John Coode (Governor of Maryland)|John Coode]], an army of 700 Puritans defeated a proprietarial army led by Colonel Darnall.<ref name="roarke">[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ybHa6D24qQC&pg=PA78&dq=henry+darnall&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_brr=3&ei=fcKDS_qNIKjoygTH_rnxCg&cd=5#v=onepage&q=henry%20darnall&f=false Roark, Elisabeth Louise, p.78, Artists of colonial America] Retrieved February 22, 2010</ref> Darnall later wrote: "Wee being in this condition and no hope left of quieting the people thus enraged, to prevent effusion of blood, capitulated and surrendered." The victorious Coode and his Puritans set up a new government that outlawed [[Catholicism]], and Darnall was deprived of all his official positions.<ref name="roarke" /> Coode's government was however unpopular and both [[William III of England|William III]] and Coode himself wished to install a crown-appointed governor. This man ended up being [[Lionel Copley]] who governed Maryland until his death in 1694 and was replaced by Francis Nicholson.<ref>John E. Findling, Frank W. Thackeray, ''Events that Changed America Through the Seventeenth Century'', pp. 133-134.</ref>

After this "[[Protestant Revolution (Maryland)|Protestant Revolution]]" in Maryland, Darnall was forced, like many other Catholics, to maintain a secret chapel in his home in order to celebrate the [[Roman Catholic Mass]]. In 1704 an Act was passed "to prevent the growth of Popery in this Province", preventing Catholics from holding political office.<ref name="roarke" /> Full religious toleration would not be restored in Maryland until the [[American Revolution]], when Darnall's great-grandson [[Charles Carroll of Carrollton]], arguably the wealthiest Catholic in Maryland, signed the [[American Declaration of Independence]].

In 1672, Lord Baltimore declared Maryland included the settlement of Whorekills on the west shore of the Delaware Bay, an area under the jurisdiction of the [[Province of New York]] (as the British had renamed New Netherland after taking possession in 1664). A force was dispatched which attacked and captured this settlement. New York could not immediately respond because New York was soon recaptured by the Dutch. Maryland feared the Dutch would use their [[Iroquois]] allies to recapture the settlement.{{Citation needed|date=April 2009}} This settlement was restored to the Province of New York when New York was recaptured from the Dutch in November, 1674.{{citation needed|date=August 2012}}

===Plantation economy===
[[File:Tobacco cultivation (Virginia, ca. 1670).jpg|thumb|left|300px|Tobacco was the main export crop in the colonial era; it involved a great deal of hand labor, usually done by slaves as shown here in an 1670 painting from Virginia]]

In the 17th century, most Marylanders lived in rough conditions on small family farms. While they raised a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, and livestock, the cash crop was [[tobacco]], which soon came to dominate the provincial economy. Tobacco was used as money, and the colonial legislature was obliged to pass a law requiring tobacco planters to raise a certain amount of corn as well, in order to ensure that the colonists would not go hungry. By 1730 there were public tobacco warehouses every fourteen miles. Bonded at £1,000 sterling, each inspector received from £25 to £60 as annual salary. Four hogsheads of 950 pounds were considered a ton for London shipment. Ships from English ports did not need port cities; they called at the wharves of warehouses or plantations along the rivers for tobacco and the next year returned with goods the planters had ordered from the shops of London.<ref>Gloria L. Main, ''Tobacco Colony: Life in Early Maryland, 1650-1720'' (1982).</ref><ref>C. A. Werner, ''Tobaccoland A Book About Tobacco; Its History, Legends, Literature, Cultivation, Social and Hygienic Influences'' (1922)</ref>

Outside the plantations, much land was operated by independent farmers who rented from the proprietors, or owned it outright. They emphasized subsistence farming to grow food for their large families. Many of the Irish and Scottish immigrants specialized in rye-whiskey making, which they sold to obtain cash.<ref>Gregory A. Stiverson, ''Poverty in a Land of Plenty: Tenancy in Eighteenth-Century Maryland'' (Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1978)</ref>

==18th Century==
Like its larger neighbor, Virginia, Maryland developed into a [[plantation]] colony by the 18th century. In 1700 there were about 25,000 people and by 1750 that had grown more than 5 times to 130,000. By 1755, about 40% of Maryland's population was black.<ref>John Mack Faragher, ed., ''The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America'' (New York: Facts on File, 1990), p.257</ref> Maryland planters also made extensive use of [[indentured servants]] and [[penal labor]]. An extensive system of rivers facilitated the movement of produce from inland plantations to the Atlantic coast for export. [[Baltimore]] was the second-most important port in the eighteenth-century South, after [[Charleston, South Carolina]].

In the latter colonial period, the southern and eastern portions of the Province continued in their tobacco economy, but as the [[American Revolution]] approached, northern and central Maryland increasingly became centers of wheat production. This helped drive the expansion of interior farming towns like [[Frederick, Maryland|Frederick]] and Maryland's major port city of [[Baltimore, Maryland|Baltimore]].<ref>Bayly Ellen Marks, "Rural Response to Urban Penetration: Baltimore and St. Mary's County, Maryland, 1790-1840," ''Journal of Historical Geography'' (1982) 8#2 pp 113-127.</ref>

Maryland lost some of its original territory to [[Pennsylvania]] in the 1760s when [[Charles II of England|King Charles II]] granted the Penn family, owners of Pennsylvania, a tract that overlapped the Calvert family's Maryland grant. To settle the feud between the two powerful families, surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon surveyed a new boundary known as the [[Mason-Dixon Line]].<ref>Edwin Danson, ''Drawing the Line: How Mason and Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America'' (2001)</ref>

===The American Revolution===
{{Main|History of Maryland in the American Revolution}}
Up to the time of the [[American Revolution]], Province of Maryland was one of two colonies that remained an [[England|English]] [[proprietary colony]], [[Pennsylvania]] being the other.<ref>America's Founding Charters: Primary Documents of Colonial and Revolutionary Era Governance, Volume 1 by Jon. L. Wakelyn. 2006. p.109.</ref>
[[Maryland]] declared independence from [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Britain]] in 1776, with [[Samuel Chase]], [[William Paca]], [[Thomas Stone]], and [[Charles Carroll of Carrollton]] signing the [[Declaration of Independence (United States)|Declaration of Independence]] for the colony. In the 1776-77 debates over the [[Articles of Confederation]], Maryland delegates led the party that insisted that states with western land claims cede them to the Confederation government, and in 1781, Maryland became the last state to ratify the Articles of Confederation. It accepted the [[United States Constitution]] more readily, ratifying it on April 28, 1788.

Maryland also ceded some territory to create the new [[District of Columbia]] after the [[American Revolution]].

==See also==
*[[List of colonial governors of Maryland]]
*[[Colonial families of Maryland]]
*[[History of Maryland]]
*[[History of slavery in Maryland]]
*[[Thomas Cresap]]
*[[Economic history of Colonial Maryland]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist|2}}

==References==
*Andrews, Matthew Page, ''History of Maryland'', Doubleday, New York (1929)

==External links==
{{Wikisource|Charter of Maryland}}
*[http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/Our_Country_Vol_1/colonialh_ig.html Colonial history of Maryland]

{{13colonies}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Maryland, Province of}}
[[Category:1632 establishments in Maryland|Province of Maryland]]
[[Category:Pre-statehood history of Maryland|Province of Maryland]]
[[Category:Thirteen Colonies]]
[[Category:Former English colonies]]
[[Category:States and territories established in 1632]]
[[Category:1776 disestablishments in Maryland|Province of Maryland]]
[[Category:Colonial Maryland| ]]
[[Category:Colonial United States (British)]]

Revision as of 18:34, 24 September 2014

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