Welcome back! This week, we’re going to talk about Maryland in the aftermath of the Plundering Time and the end of the First English Civil War.
Introduction
We left Maryland at a pivotal moment in its history. The Plundering Time was over, Calvert had resumed his role as governor of Maryland, and just afterward, he had died. Maryland was back under Baltimore’s authority, but without his brother’s able leadership within the colony, and without the Jesuit Mission which had formed its heart since the beginning.
Fundamentally, this meant that Maryland was now at a crossroads. The Plundering Time hadn’t lasted, but it had effectively devastated the group who had led the colony since its founding. There were now at least as many Puritans in the colony as Catholics, whose numbers were now only bolstered by immigrants from Germany, Italy and France, and the Puritans were ideologically aligned with the people now leading England. The fundamental question that Maryland faced in 1647 was whether its future would align to its original vision, or whether the colony would adopt what was essentially a more New England style approach to everything. The original vision for the colony had been held up by effective leadership and dedication on the part of the colony’s elite, if you could call anyone in the Chesapeake elite, and now that elite was pretty much gone. Meanwhile, Maryland’s Puritan population was growing stronger. Indentured servants got their freedom, and with that they got land and the ability to vote in the General Assembly, and Puritans had been invited to move from Virginia to Maryland. Meanwhile, Calvert was dead, Cornwallis was in England, never to return, the Jesuit Mission was gone, and everything of value it had had been stolen, and within England, Baltimore was having to deal with the fact that the Puritans were, in fact, in control. He had supported the king as much as he could, but there was a new reality, and that was very much a Puritan dominated one.
Calvert, as we know, had been devoted to the colony’s original vision, and because of this, on his deathbed, he had named Thomas Greene as his successor. Greene was a perfect choice for governor. He had come to Maryland on the Ark and Dove expedition, and he had frequently held leadership positions in the colony. He had always been competent and tolerant, while being devoted to Catholicism and the king’s cause in England. In other words, he could easily be expected to continue to govern Maryland exactly as Calvert had, and perhaps even similarly effectively.
Former Governor Hill was the first to challenge Greene. As soon as he found out that Calvert had died, he resumed his argument that he was the rightful governor of Maryland because the governor should be popularly elected, not appointed by the Lord Proprietor. Greene refused his petition, but said that he hadn’t realized that Hill hadn’t been fully paid for his time as governor, and said he would ensure he was paid if he sent an attorney to show how much he was owed.
That was a fairly minor challenge, but the issue of payment was actually a big deal. It wasn’t just Hill who was owed money. It was also the Virginians who had helped Calvert re-take the colony, and who had also manned St. Inigoe’s Fort to help keep it. Maryland at least needed to be able to feed those soldiers, but in the aftermath of the Plundering Time, corn was scarce, and even after Margaret Brent had exhausted Calvert’s estate to help pay for everything that needed to be done, the colony didn’t even have enough corn to feed them. Going hungry in the colony they’d helped re-take was pushing some of the soldiers to consider mutiny.
To add to the problems, some of Ingle’s rebels had moved just across the border into Virginia, and regularly visited Maryland to stir up trouble, and the colony’s weakness had also emboldened the Nanticokes and Wicocomicos to start attacking colonists. They would come to town pretending to want to trade, something which was easy to do because the colony did have Native allies, but then once in the town, they would kill, plunder and rape. These attacks became so severe that Greene had to adjourn local courts, because having even 12 men tied up on a jury would weaken the colony too much.
So Maryland was facing a lot of existential threats at this point, and Greene went about trying to stabilize the colony.
To stabilize the government, he implemented a series of oaths colonists needed to take. Because of Ingle’s rebels, Greene’s government declared that everyone entering the Province must take an oath of fidelity to Baltimore’s government. Anyone entertaining people who had snuck in without taking the oath would be punished. Furthermore, the General Court would not give assistance to, or hear the case of, anyone who hadn’t taken an oath of fealty to Baltimore’s government. In order to benefit from the government, you had to promise not to try to topple it.
To start to stabilize the colony economically, Greene then forbade colonists from exporting corn or horses. Corn was the most fundamental need in the Chesapeake, and horses were the greatest extravagance of life there. Most transportation was done via boat, and horses were difficult to transport across the Atlantic, but valued. They were the two highest impact commodities in the area, and both would have to remain within the colony’s borders.
These were emergency measures, but they kept the colony on stable enough footing to survive through the fall and winter, and by January 1648, Greene’s government was able to call an assembly, and what an interesting assembly it was! Seriously, it’s always fun to read through the histories of these assemblies and to see the issues which were so important 400 years ago, but this one was unique.
First, two people who were not entitled to participate tried to sneak in, but they were caught. This would likely have been related to fights over Proprietary vs. Popular government. Then, Margaret Brent asked for the right to vote in the Assembly. She was Calvert’s attorney, the executrix of his estate, and she argued that this gave her the right to participate in government affairs. This is almost certainly the first time in American history that a woman had asked for the right to vote. She wasn’t allowed, obviously, but it’s a fascinating story nonetheless, and it came not from a Puritan-style radical, but from a Catholic woman who may well have been a nun.
Then, the colony got down to business. In order to feed the soldiers at St. Inigoe’s more than starvation rations, the court was going to have to levy corn from the settlers. Greene proposed that they take all corn above what was needed for basic survival from the colonists, paying a fair price out of Baltimore’s estate or replacing it if the colony was able to import more, and the Assembly agreed to the plan. Whatever colonists concealed, they would be fined double.
After this, though, the Assembly submitted a protest to Governor Greene, asking that all laws passed at the previous Assembly, the one led by Calvert after he had retaken the province, be repealed. This protest was signed by all members of the assembly, and argued that the laws weren’t properly enacted, because there hadn’t been a summons to all members of the colony to let them participate. Practically speaking, this would have been an incredibly difficult thing to do right after retaking the colony. Many of the people who could have participated would have been in Virginia or England at the time, and the people who were left would have primarily been Ingle’s rebels.
Why, though, were colonists united in this petition? Certainly some of them would have been sympathetic to the practical issues. For those who wanted popular government, this was simply a good way to protest the Proprietary government and anything that didn’t respect popular participation enough. It was financial issues, though, which motivated many of the petitioners. Stabilizing the colony had cost money, lots and lots of money, and that Assembly had saddled colonists with more of the financial burden than they wanted. Even the most pro-Baltimore colonists felt that he should be the one responsible for most of the payment, and they could point to laws which would indicate this. Practically speaking, though, this was just impossible. It was too much for anyone to pay. It was practically too much for everyone combined to pay. Maryland had been devastated by Ingle’s Rebellion, and this is just another indication of how much, and how many problems this had caused. From England, Baltimore would read this petition and see discontent and aversion to his rule and the current state of affairs in his colony.
Greene couldn’t reverse this decision, simply as a matter of practicality. The Plundering Time had been two years of violence and destruction, and Baltimore couldn’t afford to pay the whole bill for stabilizing the colony. Colonists had returned to their homes with virtually nothing left, and with virtually no corn or tobacco having been grown in two years, but out of that poverty, they would have to pay. Greene declined to hear their protest, but he did issue a pardon to all citizens for all offenses committed since 1644. It wasn’t much, but it was all he could do. It confirmed the pardon of Ingle’s rebels and everyone else in the colony.
That’s how Maryland continued for the next year. The May Court was adjourned because of Native threats, and colonists survived as best as they could. The political tensions in the colony were very much there, but for a while, mere survival would have to be the priority.
In England, though, Baltimore was having to take serious stock of his circumstances. The king had lost, and the fight now was between the Presbyterians and Independents. At this point, Baltimore seems to have backed the Independents, and this was something that a lot of Catholics did. It was a simple calculation. They knew that Presbyterians wouldn’t tolerate Catholics. Their whole goal was to purge the Anglican Church of all vestiges of Catholicism. With the Independents, they might not have had much chance of being tolerated, but it was at least a possibility. Independents, to rival the Presbyterians, had had to accept more and more radical people, to the point that their movement was starting to lack any theological cohesion. It wasn’t impossible to imagine that maybe, possibly, Catholics could be included in that. It was the decision between a “definitely not” and a “probably not,” and a fair number of Catholics, Baltimore included, seemed to have gone for the “probably not.”
Regardless, though, and far more practically, the question was what to do with Maryland. From the beginning, Baltimore had dealt with every imaginable type of Puritan protest to his colony’s existence, and now they both controlled England and had crippled Maryland. It had been easy to justify Calvert as governor, because Calvert was his brother. He’d led the colony since its founding, and he’d done a good job. Now he wasn’t there, though, having a Catholic governor of Maryland would send a much stronger statement that the colony was Catholic in nature, and it was less and less feasible to maintain a Catholic colony. The question was what was necessary and what wasn’t. What was just going to cause suspicion, a fight, and possibly the end of Baltimore’s control of the colony, and what actually was necessary to keep the peace in the colony, and to protect the people who had gone to Maryland for religious protection.
At the end of the day, Baltimore decided that having Catholic leadership within the colony just wasn’t necessary as long as the laws protecting Catholics were strong enough, and as long as the government in Maryland was sufficiently submitted to his own authority. He started looking for a Protestant governor, and sent a Protestant to serve as Secretary of the colony, replacing Lewger. At this point, Lewger disappears from Maryland’s record entirely, so it’s possible that he either left or died soon after getting the news. His brother was in Barbados, so I personally wonder if he went there. Regardless, Baltimore ensured that there was a firm Protestant majority in the Governor’s council, and kept Greene as the assistant governor. He also created a new office, muster master general, and appointed the Catholic Captain John Price to that position.
To prevent Protestants from using their authority to oppress the Catholics, though, Baltimore restricted the powers of the Governor’s Council. They could no longer repeal any laws, couldn’t change any officers, couldn’t raise taxes or impose fines for anything except Baltimore’s personal finances, couldn’t impose any oaths, and couldn’t do anything at all regarding religion or tithes.
He wrote oaths that colonists would have to take. Government officials would have to sign an oath of fidelity to his government, and even landowners would have to take such an oath in order to have a right to own land in the colony.
It was in this set of legislation that Maryland’s famous Toleration Act was implemented. This was the first act of its kind anywhere. Nowhere else in England or its colonies could actual religious liberty be found, no matter how much people talked about it.
The act included severe punishments for actual blasphemy, and also fined people 10 shillings any time they insulted another’s religion – half paid directly to the person they’d insulted. If they couldn’t pay, they’d be publicly whipped and imprisoned, and only released when they had both asked and received the forgiveness of the person they’d insulted. “Whereas the enforcing of conscience, in matters of religion, hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence, in those commonwealths where it has been practiced, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this province, and the better to preserve mutual love and unity amongst the inhabitants, etc, no person or persons whatsoever within whatsoever, within this province or the islands, ports, harbors, creeks or havens thereunto belonging, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be any ways troubled or molested, or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion, neither in the free exercise thereof, within this province or the islands thereunto belonging, nor any way compelled to the belief or exercise of any other religion against his or her consent.”
It was absolutely an embodiment of Maryland’s founding principles, and though it was implemented as a somewhat defensive measure, it was also totally unique for its time period. It was also an important document in the evolution of American ideals. On a more immediate level, this was a document which both protected Catholics and encouraged other Englishmen to go to Maryland at a time when an increase in population was necessary for the stabilization of the colony.
All that was left was to find a suitable Protestant governor, and this is where the Virginia puritans come in. William Stone was a Virginian Protestant Parliamentarian, probably a very mild Puritan, and the epitome of a Virginia success story. He had been born in Lancashire, and first gone to Virginia in 1620 at the age of 14, as an indentured servant. On getting his freedom and land, he had steadily built up a fair amount of wealth and become actively involved in Virginia politics, serving multiple terms in the House of Burgesses. He wrote to Baltimore and asked to be made governor of Maryland, and as an incentive, he offered to take 500 settlers from Virginia to Maryland. He intended to do this by taking Virginia’s Puritans to Maryland, and it seemed like a good deal to Baltimore. Stone clearly was experienced enough to lead the colony, he knew the Chesapeake, and the increased population would greatly help Maryland. It would mean more rents for his own finances, more people able to protect the colony from Nanticoke and Wicocomico threats, and more people producing both corn and tobacco. Stone wasn’t ultimately able to get 500 colonists, but he did bring 300 Puritans with him to join, and really establish, the settlement at Providence in Anne Arundel County.
So, Baltimore appointed Stone as the new governor, and to send an even bigger signal to both colonists and English puritans that things were now different, he created a new seal, and wrote 16 new laws for Stone to present to the Assembly. One of these was the Toleration Act, and it, like most of them, passed.
That’s where we’ll stop for today. This was a huge transition for Maryland. It was a decision that the colony could not survive, or be allowed to survive, in the way it had in the past, and an attempt to carve a new course which would still allow Catholics to worship freely. Ingle may have lost, but in many ways his followers had won, and Maryland would be a different place going forward.