Province of Maryland

The Province of Maryland was an English colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen colonies in establishing the United States.

Charter

Charles I of England granted the charter for Maryland, a proprietary colony of about twelve million acres (49,000 km²), to Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore in the Peerage of Ireland, on June 20, 1632. 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.) The new colony was named after Charles I's Queen Consort, Henrietta Maria^[1]. Lords Baltimore were the only Catholic and/or member of the Irish House of Lords in the history of the British Empire to have or obtain a proprietary colony; all other nobles were endowed with an English, Scottish, British or UK peerage title and have been Protestant.

Colonial Maryland was 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 km²). Maryland lost some of its putative original territory to Pennsylvania in the 1760s, when the Mason-Dixon Line was drawn to resolve a boundary dispute between the two colonies. Maryland also ceded some territory to create the new District of Columbia after the American Revolution.

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 lords of the manor, who bought 6,000 acres (24 km²) from Baltimore and held greater legal and social privileges than the common settlers.

Early history

The Maryland Toleration Act

Lord Baltimore was a convert to Catholicism, which was extremely stigmatic for a nobleman in 17th century England, where Roman Catholics lacked civil rights and were widely considered enemies of the crown and traitors to their country. In Maryland, Baltimore sought to create a haven for Catholics of related familial connection. When a Protestant coup d'etat (most settlers, rather than founders, were Protestant) forced one of the Calverts' hands, he wished to demonstrate that Catholics and Protestants could live together harmoniously by issuing a law of toleration in matters of religion. (Similar circumstances enveloped King James II of England)

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.))

The Ark and the 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.

Economy

Like other aristocratic proprietors, Baltimore hoped to turn a profit on the new colony.

Maryland was one of the Southern Colonies. 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 sometimes 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.

Like its larger neighbor, Virginia, Maryland developed into a plantation colony by the 18th century. Affluent planters produced tobacco and cereal crops with slave labor. By 1755, about 40% of Maryland's population was black. 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.

Maryland and the Coming of the American Revolution

Maryland was one of the Thirteen Colonies that declared independence from Britain in 1776. The Marylanders who signed the Declaration of Independence were Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. 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. 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.

Further reading

• Carr, Lois Green, Russell R. Menard, and Lorena S. Walsh. Robert Cole's World: Agriculture and Society in Early Maryland. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
• Hoffman, Ronald, in collaboration with Sally D. Mason. Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland: A Carroll Saga, 1500-1782. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
• Land, Aubrey C. Colonial Maryland: A History. Millwood, NY: KTO Press, 1981.
• Main, Gloria L. Tobacco Colony: Life in Early Maryland, 1650-1720. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.

External link

• Colonial history of Maryland