3 Maryland: A Catholic Proprietary
Unlike the French and the Dutch, whose seventeenth-century North American colonies were initially organized around the fur trade, new English colonies on the mainland continued to be planned as agricultural settlements, like their predecessors in Virginia and New England. Unlike those predecessors, though, the next English colony, Maryland, was intended as a haven for English members of the Roman Catholic Church who were being persecuted because of their religion.
The Catholics had of course opposed England's break with Rome and the changes to the liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer, and insisted that the pope, not the monarch, be head of the church. For these views they were bitterly persecuted by the English government and reviled by England's Protestant majority. Their position worsened following the excommunication of Elizabeth I in 1570, which seemingly condoned the subsequent attempt by Guy Fawkes to kill James I on the opening of Parliament in November 1605 in what came to be known as the Gunpowder Plot. In addition English paranoia against Catholicism had increased with the war against Spain, in which the most Catholic state in Europe had seemingly committed its vast wealth to a crusade against the Protestant nations. A series of progressively harsher penal laws against Catholics was therefore introduced in England from 1571. Graduated fines were imposed for anyone attending mass and severe punishment was inflicted on priests who were caught officiating, while generous rewards were offered to informers.
Despite these difficulties many Catholics persisted in their faith, including some members of the aristocracy who sought to balance their attachment to Rome with loyalty to the Crown. Although they refused to take the oath of supremacy acknowledging the monarch as head of the church, they denounced regicide. Fortunately, the accession of Charles I in 1625 promised a more relaxed regime, for his queen, Henrietta Maria, was a Catholic herself.
It was inevitable in an age of colonization that the idea of Catholic emigration would surface. The Catholics, like the Puritans, felt an obligation to protect their religion and believed that ultimately the true faith would be restored. In their view Protestantism was merely an aberration in the Catholic Church's 1,600-year history. North America, in the meantime, might provide a refuge.
Among those interested in such a scheme was George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore. For most of his life Baltimore had not been a Catholic. Indeed, for two decades he was a prominent courtier, holding the position of secretary of state. His conversion in 1625 was, however, not unexpected, for both his parents were Catholics, while his son had recently married into a recusant (i.e., Roman Catholic) family.
Calvert's interest in the New World was first stimulated by one of his Protestant relatives, the earl of Warwick, who persuaded him to invest in the Virginia Company. Later Calvert joined Warwick on the reconstituted Council for New England and started a small settlement of his own in Newfoundland to exploit the fishery, undisturbed by the French fishermen who lived nearby. Unfortunately, when he visited the site at Avalon in 1627 he found the winters too harsh and the soil too barren for any hope of a successful farming colony.
Like most other sponsors of colonial ventures, Calvert was motivated mainly by profit; and even after his conversion his actions were not entirely altruistic. Like his colleagues on the Council for New England, he hoped to increase his fortune by settling a plantation in America. But Baltimore's aspirations were shaped as well by his social class. As befitted a member of the nobility, his ambition was also to increase his estates, for more land would bring not only more income but also greater power and honor. So while the merchants saw Virginia in terms of expanding their trade, Baltimore and the nobility saw the New World primarily as a way of enlarging their estates.
After his experiences in Newfoundland, Baltimore went in search of somewhere warmer, setting sail in the summer of 1629 to explore Virginia. Once the Virginians knew he was a Catholic, however, they refused him entry and sought to prevent him obtaining a patent at all. Baltimore persevered, and only his death prevented him from seeing a charter issued on June 20, 1632, for a grant of territory in the upper Chesapeake, to be called Maryland in honor of the queen.
Baltimore had sought a patent different from those issued to Virginia and Massachusetts; his primary aim was the advancement of his family rather than of a group of shareholders, whom he believed had ruined the Virginia Company. Earlier he had discovered an old patent issued in the fourteenth century to the Bishop of Durham, giving that prelate extensive powers on the frontier between England and Scotland in the form of a palatinate. Baltimore persuaded Charles I to issue him a grant using this palatinate model of princely authority. His charter, customarily called a proprietary charter, was an essentially feudal grant of property and governing authority. Baltimore and his heirs were to be “absolute Lords and Proprietors,” with the right to all minerals, except for the usual 20 percent of any precious metals reserved for the Crown. He could create his own titles and grant lands with manorial rights. This provision may have appealed to Baltimore as a way to induce members of the aristocracy and gentry to purchase land, thus eliminating the need for shareholders. Baltimore could also incorporate towns, license all trade, raise revenues, and license churches “according to the Ecclesiastical Laws” of the kingdom. Most remarkably, he was to be excused all duties to the Crown, delivering only a symbolic two arrows every year in acknowledgment of his fealty.
In addition, the charter gave Baltimore “full, and absolute Power … to ordain, Make, and Enact Laws” subject to “the Advice, Assent, and Approbation of the Free Men of the same Province … or of their Delegates or Deputies.” The reason Baltimore gave the freemen the power to veto his legislation is uncertain, though most likely he recognized that some such concession was necessary if he was to compete with Virginia for settlers. In any case an exemption clause was included which allowed the proprietor to make laws unilaterally in an emergency, including martial law. The only restriction was that both kinds of law were to be “agreeable to the Laws, Statutes, Customs and Rights” of England. Those emigrating were otherwise entitled to the same “Privileges, Franchises and Liberties” as at home. It was a remarkable grant, conferring authoritarian powers that were already anomalous in England and were likely to prove so in America as well.
A final difference between this new patent and the charters granted to earlier investors was that it mentioned the native inhabitants only as savages who might have to be repelled. There would be no pretense here that the English were coming to North America to convert the Indians to Christianity.
Despite its intended purpose as a refuge for Catholics, the colony would be shaped from the beginning by tensions between the proprietor's plan for a Catholic haven and the fact that it was mostly Protestants who wished to emigrate to North America. An initial expedition to the colony was delayed, largely because wealthy Protestant gentry were not attracted by the prospect of investing in a colony with a Catholic proprietor. Meanwhile most Catholics had given up the idea of emigrating now that persecution had subsided. Nevertheless, some 25 gentlemen, mostly Catholics, did depart and contribute to the cost. The rest of the passengers were servants, artisans, or yeoman farmers, many of whom were Protestants. Baltimore's heir, Lord Cecilius, emphasized that all Christian denominations would be welcome. He realized there were unlikely to be enough Catholics to make the scheme a success, and seems genuinely to have believed that coexistence was the best policy to ensure that his coreligionists would not remain an isolated and distrusted minority.
Cecilius's two ships finally left Portsmouth in November 1633, reaching the upper Chesapeake by way of the West Indies in March 1634. The first mass was celebrated on the Potomac near Blakiston. The local inhabitants were mostly Piscataways and Yacomicos, small groups of Algonquian speakers who were threatened by the much larger Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannocks to the north. Apparently eager for a trading relationship and an alliance with the English to protect them against the Susquehannocks, the Indians agreed to t
rade with Calvert and sold him a site which had already previously been cleared for farming. A fort was built at St. Mary's with several cannon mounted on top, followed by a storehouse and chapel. With the ability to plant on land that the Indians had already cleared, the Englishmen quickly produced a crop of corn.
Baltimore himself was not one of the passengers. Instead it was his younger brother, Leonard Calvert, who began the task of organizing the colony according to the charter. The first Catholic gentry to arrive with their servants were given manors, with grants of 2,000 acres for every five servants they brought with them. Those who arrived thereafter would receive a grant of 1,000 acres for the same number of retainers, while anyone bringing over a male servant would receive 100 acres, or 50 acres for a maid. In return there was to be a sliding scale of rents, though all grants of over 1,000 acres would qualify for manorial status, each with its own court in which the owner dispensed justice for petty misdemeanors, collected fees, and enjoyed other administrative privileges. Initially some 25 manors were patented with plans for a total of 60, ranging in size from 1,000 to 6,000 acres.
Baltimore experienced challenges to his authority from the beginning. In May 1631 one of the Virginians, William Claiborne, had obtained a commission from the Crown to develop Kent Island as an independent trading post, which he had used to establish a trading relationship with the Susquehannocks. Apart from wishing to preserve control himself, Claiborne did not want to be the tenant of a Catholic landlord. The main conflict concerned Claiborne's right to trade, which according to Baltimore's charter had to be licensed from him. Shots were fired several times between vessels representing the rival elements. Fortunately for Baltimore, Claiborne was then disowned by his merchant associates in England; and the dispute ended in 1635 with Baltimore's men taking possession of the island by force.
Apparently hoping to gain greater support for his government, Baltimore ordered the issuance of a summons for a representative assembly on January 25, 1638. Leonard Calvert had called all the freemen together once before, but Baltimore nullified their acts, insisting that only he had the right of proposing laws. This time the assembly was determined to assert its authority to make laws for the colony. Its members passed an act prescribing an oath of loyalty to Charles I promising to defend him “against all conspiracies,” a gesture necessary to reassure the authorities that Maryland was not going to be a haven for Catholic regicides like Guy Fawkes. It defined the future nature of the legislature, which was to comprise the governor, council, lords of the manor, and one or two freemen elected from every hundred.11 And it passed a third act requiring an assembly to be summoned at least once every three years, with “the like power, privileges, authority, and jurisdiction … as in the House of Commons.” Clearly the assembly was seeking to acquire the characteristics of a parliament.
Figure 13 First Maryland State House, 1634–1694 (reconstructed). St. Mary's City. Photo by Acroterion.
Because the assembly had no legal right to initiate this legislation, Baltimore nullified these acts as he had previously, declaring that the charter had given the assembly no right to initiate legislation. The following year, however, he permitted Leonard to be more flexible. As a result most of the laws were passed, though still not in the language demanded by the proprietor, being full of expressions about the rights of Parliament and the individual reminiscent of Magna Carta and other such precedents.
By 1640 Maryland contained perhaps 500 inhabitants in three main clusters: St. Mary's, St. Clements, and St. George's, all organized as hundreds on the English model. They in turn contained 16 manors, occupying over 80 percent of the patented land. Even at this stage, however, Baltimore's hopes for a European-style aristocracy were fading; only a handful of the original gentry remained, though several others had arrived to take their place.
Economically, though, the colony had established itself quickly, mainly because the requirements of settlement in the Chesapeake were now well known. The settlers sought (at least initially) to avoid conflict with the local inhabitants by paying for their land and supplies. The settlers learned from the Indians how to cultivate and use local plants and how to employ the slash and burn method to clear the land. They initially concentrated on making themselves self-sufficient in food by raising corn, cattle, hogs, and other livestock which flourished in the region. Corn was fenced rather than the livestock, in contrast to European practice. Cattle and hogs were left to fend for themselves because it was more profitable to use cleared land for crops. Only cows in milk were temporarily fenced. There were risks to this method of husbandry from wolves and other hazards, but the savings in labor more than offset the dangers. During the early years most farmers also planted an orchard for cider. Once these initial tasks were completed, farmers typically devoted their attention to tobacco-growing. Although tobacco prices were only a fraction of what they had been 10 years earlier, the market now was much wider. Consequently the settlers could sell all that they grew.
The 1640s were tumultuous years in England. The ascendancy of Parliament, with its anti-Catholic majority after 1640, was fraught with danger for the new settlement. Furthermore, the outbreak of hostilities in England meant that Baltimore was cut off from his province, a situation which worsened in 1642 when Leonard Calvert came to England to consult with his brother, leaving a political vacuum in America. Soon Claiborne reappeared to seize Kent Island. Meanwhile a London tobacco trader named Richard Ingle, masquerading as the protector of Protestantism, succeeded in capturing St. Mary's. Thus when Leonard returned to Maryland in the autumn of 1644 he was compelled to flee to Virginia. For two years Maryland, without any government, endured “the plundering time,” which continued until Leonard returned with aid from Governor Berkeley of Virginia. Ingle hurried off to England to accuse Baltimore and Leonard of harboring treasonous recusants but did not prove his case, and Baltimore managed to keep his charter. Parliament still had many aristocrats anxious to show that proprietary rights were not incompatible with the parliamentary cause.
The execution of Charles I in England in 1649 provoked a virtual civil war in Maryland, as neighbor turned against neighbor in a climate of suspicion and fear. To calm the situation Baltimore appointed a Protestant, William Stone, as governor, and presented the Maryland assembly with a bill for religious toleration. Baltimore's hope for such a bill was to pacify the authorities in England and induce a predominantly Protestant assembly to acknowledge his proprietary authority. Another reason was that the Catholics themselves now needed protection. The Protestant population had greatly increased with the arrival in 1643 of Richard Bennett and some 400 Puritans from Virginia, following the expulsion of their ministers by Governor Berkeley and the Anglican Church. Indeed, the Act Concerning Religion can be seen as the first attempt to protect a minority group, an unusual phenomenon in the seventeenth century, when the reverse was usually the motivation behind religious legislation.
Baltimore was undoubtedly sincere in wanting to calm the religious passions in Maryland. He may have been inspired by the new climate in England itself, where the belief was growing that Christian unity was unobtainable and that toleration was the only course. Certainly Cecilius's own measure was influenced by such reasoning. The act did not positively affirm toleration, but it made intolerance a crime, at least among Christians. Non-Christians, of course, were not included.
Unfortunately, the measure served to exacerbate the tension, since the Puritan newcomers were virulently anti-Catholic and interested in toleration only for themselves. They were soon aided by events in England, where in 1650 Parliament decided to dispatch a commission to seize several of the colonies on behalf of the Commonwealth. Baltimore's old enemy Claiborne was on the commission, as was the Puritans' leader Bennett. In 1651 these two seized effective control over Maryland's government.
The conflict continued for another six years with bloodshed on both sides. Baltimore's proprietary faction, which had a solid following in the lower counties of St. Mary's and St. Georg
e's, was pitted against the Puritan faction, which controlled Anne Arundel and Kent counties. The Puritans wanted a commonwealth like Massachusetts from which Catholics and even Anglicans were barred. When Governor Stone's advance towards the Severn River in March 1655 resulted in a complete victory for the Puritans, four of the invading proprietary party were executed, while many of the rest had to pay heavy fines or flee for their lives. Ultimately, however, the outcome of the conflict was decided in London. Here Baltimore's contacts and diplomatic skills gave him an advantage. Oliver Cromwell now ruled England as lord protector, and he had little sympathy for the extreme demands of the Maryland Puritans. In consequence the two parties had to compromise. At the end of 1657 Baltimore was reinstated as proprietor, in return for which he pardoned his opponents, who then accepted the Act Concerning Religion. For the time being, the colony's Catholic proprietor and its mostly Protestant inhabitants had achieved a truce.
Document 10
An Act Concerning Religion, reprinted in W. Keith Kavenagh, Foundations of Colonial America: A Documentary History (New York, 1973), Vol. 2, 1322–4
This unique act anticipated George Mason's Virginia Bill of Rights by 130 years in its provisions for religious toleration. Unlike Mason and the later federal Bill of Rights, Baltimore's act extended only to Christians, excluding adherents of other religious faiths. Questions to consider: What is the purpose of this act? What kinds of behavior or speech are prohibited in section 2? How are these prohibitions similar or different from modern prohibitions of “hate speech”?
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