When Virginia became crown property (1624), the
king could do with it what he pleased. King Charles I accordingly
cut off a piece and gave it to George Calvert, Lord Baltimore.1
This Lord Baltimore was a Catholic who had tried in vain to
found a settlement in Newfoundland. He died before the patent, or
deed, was drawn for the land cut off from Virginia, so (1632) it was
issued to his son Cecilius, the second Lord Baltimore. The
province lay north of the Potomac River and was called Maryland.
By the terms of the grant Lord Baltimore was to
pay the king each year two arrowheads in token of homage, and as rent
was to give the king one fifth of all the gold and silver mined.
This done, he was proprietor of Maryland. He might coin money,
grant titles, make war and peace, establish courts, appoint judges, and
pardon criminals. But he was not allowed to tax the people without
their consent. He had to summon a legislature to assist him in
making laws, but the laws when made did not need to be sent to the king
for approval.
The First Settlers - The first settlement
was made by a company of about twenty gentlemen and three hundred
artisans and laborers. They were led and accompanied by two of
Lord Baltimore's brothers, and by two Catholic priests. They came
over in 1634 in two ships, the Ark and the Dove, and not
far from the mouth of the Potomac founded St. Marys. In February,
1635, they held their first Assembly. To it came all freemen, both
landholders and artisans, and by them a body of laws was framed and set
to the proprietor (Lord Baltimore) for approval
Self Government Begun - This was refused,
and in its place the proprietor sent over a code of laws, which the
Assembly in its turn rejected. The Assembly then went on and
framed another set of laws. Baltimore with rare good sense now
yielded the point, and gave his brother authority to assent to the laws
made by the people, but reserved the right to veto. Thus was free
self-government established in Maryland. 2
Trouble with Clairborne - Before Lord
Baltimore obtained his grant, William Claiborne, of Virginia, had
established an Indian trading post on Kent Island in Chesapeake
Bay. This fell within the limits given to Maryland; but Claiborn
refused to acknowledge the authority of Baltimore, whereupon a vessel
belonging to the Kent Island station was seized by the Marylanders for
trading without a license. Claiborne then sent an armed boat with
thirty men to capture any vessel belonging to St. Marys. This boat
was itself captured, instead; but another fight soon occurred, in which
Clairborne's forces beat the Marylanders. The struggle thus begun
lasted for years.3
The Toleration Act - The year 1649 is
memorable for the passage of the Maryland Toleration Act, the first of
its kind in our history. This provided that "no person or
persons whatsoever within this province, professing to believe in Jesus
Christ, shall from henceforth be any ways troubled, molested, or
discountenanced for, or in respect to, his or her religion."
End of the Clairborne Trouble - The nine
years that followed formed a stormy period for Maryland. One of
the parliamentary commissioners to reduce Virginia to obedience was our
old friend Clairborne. He and the new governor of Virginia forced
Baltimore's governor to resign, and set up a Protestant government which
repealed the Toleration Act and disfranchised Roman Catholics.
Baltimore bade his deposed governor resume office. A battle
followed, the Protestant forces won, and an attempt was made to destroy
the rights of Baltimore; but the English government sustained him, the
Virginians were forced to submit, and the quarrel of more than twenty
years' standing came to an end. Thenceforth, Virginia, troubled
Maryland no more.
Growth of Maryland - The population of the
colony, meantime, grew rapidly. Pamphlets describing the colony
and telling how to emigrate and acquire land were circulated in
England. Many of the first comers wrote home and brought out more
men, and were thus enabled to take up more land. Emigrants who
came with ten or twenty settlers were given manors or plantations.
Such as came alone received farms.
Most of the work on plantations was done by
indented white servants, both convicts and redemptioners4.
Negro slavery existed in Maryland from the beginning, but slaves were
not numerous till after 1700.
Food was abundant, for the rivers and bay abounded
with geese and ducks, oysters and crabs, and the woods were full of
deer, turkeys, and wild pigeons. Wheat was not pletniful, but corn
was abundant, and from it were made pone, hominy, and hoe-cakes.
No Towns - As everybody could get land and
therefore lived on manors, plantations, or farms, there were practically
no towns in Maryland. Even St. Marys, so late as 1678, was not
really a town, but a string of some thirty houses straggling for five
miles along the shore. The bay with its innumerable creeks,
inlets, coves, and river mouths, afforded find water communication
between the farms and plantations; and there were no roads. As in
Virginia, there was no need of shipping ports. Vessels came direct
to manor or plantation wharf, and exchanged English goods for tobacco or
corn. Such farmers or planters as had no water communication
packed their tobacco in a hogshead, with an axle through it, and with an
ox or a horse in pair of shafts, or with a party of Negro slaves or
white servants, rolled it to market.
Notes:
1 George Calvert was the son of a
Yorkshire farmer, was educated at Oxford, and went to Parliament in
1604. Becoming a favorite of King James I, he was knighted in
1617, and two years later was made principal Secretary of State.
He became a Roman Catholic, although Catholics were then bitterly
persecuted in England. Just before the king died, he resigned
office, and received the title of Lord Baltimore, the name referring to
a town in Ireland. Finding all public offices closed to him
because he was a Catholic, Baltimore resolved to seek a home in America.
2 Baltimore ordered that any
colonist who came in the Ark or Dove and brought five men with him
should have 2000 acres of land, subject to an annual rent of 400 pounds
of wheat. A settler who came in 1635 could have the same amount of
land if he brought ten men, but had to pay 600 pounds of wheat a year as
rent. Plantations of 1000 acres or more were manors, and the lord
of the manor could hold courts.
3 Clairborne's London partners
took possession of Kent Island, and acknowledged the authority of
Baltimore; but after the Civil War broke out in England, Clairborne
joined forces with a half pirate named Ingle, and recovered the
island. For two years Ingle and his crew lorded it over all
Maryland, stealing corn, tobacco, cattle, and household goods. Not
till 1646, when Calvert received aid from Virginia, was he able to drive
out Clairborne and Ingle, and recover the province.
4 The redemptioners, when their
time was out and they became freemen, received a set of tools, clothes,
and a year's provisions from their former masters, and fifty acres from
the proprietor of the colony.
