Maryland began in 1632 as a proprietary colony of the English Lord
Baltimore, as a haven for English Catholics in the New World.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE [ edit ]
Discuss the founding of the Province of Maryland and its impact on the rest of the North
American colonies.
KEY POINTS [ edit ]
Settlers raised a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, livestock, and the major cash crop, tobacco.
Maryland faced early competition with the colony of Virginia to the south and the Dutch colony of
New Netherland to the north.
In the Protestant Revolution of 1689 Puritans revolted and took over the colony.
TERMS [ edit ]
Protestant Revolution
The Protestant Revolution of 1689 was an event in Maryland when Puritans, by then a substantial
majority in the colony, revolted against the proprietary government, led by the Roman Catholic
Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore.
Toleration Act
The Toleration Act 1688 (1 Will & Mary c 18), also referred to as the Act of Toleration, was an Act
of the Parliament of England. 24 May 1689. The Act allowed freedom of worship to
Nonconformists who had pledged to the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and rejected
transubstantiation, i.e., Protestants who dissented from the Church of England such as Baptists
and Congregationalists but not to Catholics.
Lord Baltimore
Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore (August 8, 1605 – November 30, 1675), was an English peer
who was the first Proprietor and Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland, and ninth
Proprietary Governor of the Colony of Newfoundland.
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The Province of Maryland was a British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until
1776, when it joined the other twelve of the North American colonies in rebellion against
Great Britain and became the US state of Maryland . The province began as a proprietary
colony of the EnglishLord Baltimore, as a haven for English Catholics in the new
world. Charles I of England granted the charter for Maryland to create a colony north of the
Potomac to rival New Netherland's claims to the Delaware River valley.
map of the Province of Maryland
A map of the Province of Maryland.
Colonial Maryland was larger than the present­day 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. Maryland lost some of its
putative original territory toPennsylvania in the 1760s when, after Charles II granted that
colony a tract that overlapped the Maryland grant, the Mason­Dixon Line was drawn to
resolve the boundary dispute between the two colonies. Maryland also ceded some territory
to create the new District of Columbia after theAmerican Revolution.
Maryland's foundational charter created a state ruled by Lord Baltimore, who directly owned
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 land from Baltimore and
held greater legal and social privileges than the common settlers.
The Lord Baltimore Map, 1635
The Lord Baltimore Map, 1635
The first settlers purchased land from the Yaocomico Indians and founded St. Mary's City. In
1642, Maryland declared war on the Susquehannock Indian nation and remained in an
inactive state of war until a peace treaty was concluded in 1652.
In Maryland, Baltimore sought to create a haven for English Catholics and to demonstrate
that Catholics and Protestants could live together harmoniously. 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. The majorityof settlers were Protestant. In 1649,
Maryland passed theMaryland Toleration Act, also known as the Act Concerning Religion, a
law mandating religious tolerance for Christians. Passed by the assembly of the Maryland
colony, it was the first law requiring religious tolerance in the British North American
colonies.
Although Maryland was an early pioneer of religious toleration in the English colonies,
religious strife among Anglicans, Puritans, Catholics, and Quakers was common in the early
years. From 1644 to 1646, the "Plundering Time" was a period of civil unrest caused by the
tensions of theEnglish Civil War (1641–1651). In 1654, after the Third English Civil War
(1649–1651), Puritan rebels briefly seized control of the province.
The Protestant Revolution of 1689 was an event in Maryland when Puritans, by then a
substantial majority in the colony, revolted against the proprietary government, in part
because of the apparent preferment of Catholics to official positions of power. The Puritans
set up a new government that outlawed Catholicism and deprived Catholics of all official
positions. Full religious toleration would not be restored in Maryland until the American
Revolution.
In the 17th century, most Marylanders lived in rough conditions on small family farms. While
they raised a varietyof fruits, vegetables, grains, and livestock, the cash crop was tobacco,
which soon came to dominate the provincialeconomy. 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. Baltimore's was the second­most important port in the 18thcentury South,
after Charleston, South Carolina.
The need for cheap labor to help with the growth of tobacco led to a rapid expansion of
indentured servitude and, later, forcible immigration and enslavement of Africans. In 1664,
the Maryland assembly passed a "black code" which declared each Negro to be a slave for life
by virtue of his color and, by 1755, about 40% of Maryland's population was black.
Up to the time of the American Revolution, Maryland, along with Pennsylvania, was one of
two remaining English proprietary colonies. In the late colonial period, the southern and
eastern portions of the province continued their tobacco economy, but as the revolution
approached, northern and central Maryland increasingly became centers of wheat
production. The Province of Maryland was an active participant in the events leading up to
the American revolution and echoed events in New England by establishingcommittees of
correspondence and hosting its own tea party similar to the one that took place in Boston.