PG Tricentennial Prince George's County:
Over 300 years of History


THE BEGINNINGS OF MARYLAND

Maryland was the dream of George Calvert. A native of Yorkshire, born about 1580, he was educated at Oxford and entered a career of government service, working first as secretary to the British statesman Sir Robert Cecil. Knighted in 1617, Calvert rose to high office. He was a member of Parliament, secretary of state, and member of the privy council. On the side, he was also an investor in colonial enterprises; he was a member of the East India Company, the Virginia Company, and the Council for New England. In 1620 he entered into his first independent colonial venture by buying a large tract of land on the island of Newfoundland, off the Canadian coast. There he established a small farming colony named Avalon, and in 1623 he received a charter from the crown granting him broad powers of government. Avalon, under the charter, was no democracy; Calvert ruled it, from England, like a feudal prince. His ultimate goal was to make his colony return a profit. Avalon was as much a business enterprise as it was an outpost of empire.

Not long after receiving the charter for Avalon, George Calvert's political fortunes fell at home. As secretary of state, he sought to improve relations with England's longtime rival, Spain. But neither the Spanish nor many Englishmen were interested in better relations at the time, and all his efforts were frustrated. As relations between the two nations worsened, his political position deteriorated. When the two countries went to war, the question became not whether, but how long, he could remain in government. Calvert eventually did submit his resignation, but, despite the pressures on him, he did not leave office solely for the obvious political reasons. Rather his personal life had taken a turn that would have required his departure in the best of political times. Long attracted to Catholicism, Calvert decided, in the midst of his political difficulties, to become a Catholic and acknowledge the fact publicly. In a Protestant kingdom, in an age not noted for its religious toleration, this decision alone would have cost George Calvert his power and position. Ever grateful for his years of loyal service, King James accepted Calvert's resignation and raised him to the peerage, naming him Baron of Baltimore, in Ireland. But by then -- it was 1625 -- Calvert's main interests were no longer in England or in Ireland. His dream lay across the Atlantic.

George Calvert was determined to make his struggling colonial venture on Newfoundland a success. He poured a lot of money into the enterprise, but with little result. The colonists complained that the summers were too short and the winters too long and hard to farm successfully on the island, but Calvert suspected mismanagement and fraud. He visited Avalon in 1627 and again in 1628 before he, too, concluded that the harsh climate made it useless to continue there. After spending the winter of 1628-1629 on Newfoundland, he sailed south to investigate the warmer climes of the Chesapeake. On his return to England, he petitioned the crown for a land grant there.

Calvert was dealing with a new king, Charles I. King Charles was reluctant to make another grant, but Calvert was persistent. Finally, despite the vigorous objections of the Virginians (who thought the whole of the Chesapeake should be theirs), the king assented. A charter was prepared, but before final approval could be granted, George Calvert died. Thus, it was his eldest son, Cecil Calvert, who on June 20, 1632, received the charter and became the first proprietor of Maryland.

Cecil Calvert, like his father before him, had many motives for establishing the colony called Maryland. He hoped it would be a profitable enterprise and enrich his family. He hoped to convert the Indians to Christianity. He also shared the desire of Englishmen to extend the dominions of their king. But like George Calvert (in his later years), Cecil Calvert had another motivation: the dream to build a society where English Catholics could worship freely and participate fully in public life. He knew an all-Catholic colony would be impossible -- the Catholic population of England was too small to support one -- so instead he hoped to found a colony where toleration of religious differences would be the fundamental social precept. Although he wanted to sail to Maryland himself, Cecil Calvert found that he would have to remain in England to defend his charter against the challenges of Virginians, anti-Catholics, and others. So when the first party of Marylanders left England in November 1633, he was not among them.

Cecil Calvert's new domain was not uninhabited. Before the first Marylanders arrived, the Indians were here. The Indians of the Chesapeake region were of Algonquian stock. They lived in small villages and camps along the rivers and streams, where they hunted, fished, and raised a variety of crops. The Indians of Southern Mary- land -- where the first colonists settled -- were united in a loose confederation known to the English as the Piscataway Confederacy. Their chief-whom the colonists grandly styled an emperor-lived in a village along Piscataway Creek, now part of Prince George's County. Another important village was on the Anacostia River, near the present site of Saint Elizabeth's Hospital. The Virginians, as well as English traders, visited the Piscataways many times before the first Marylanders came on the scene, and fought with them on several occasions. About the time the Maryland colonists arrived, the Piscataways were being pressured by a more warlike tribe to the north, the Susquehannocks, who were ranging into their territory and raiding their villages. While somewhat wary of the Marylanders, the Piscataways did not oppose their settlement. They saw in the Marylanders potential allies against the threat from the north.

After a voyage of three and a half months -- with stops in Barbados and Virginia -- the Ark and the Dove arrived in the Potomac in March 1634 with the first 140 Marylanders. Most of the colonists were young men, and most were Protestants. A number of gentlemen were on board -- the younger sons of the gentry-- and they were mostly Catholic. Those who were paying their own way would receive generous grants of land. Those who could not pay their way would have to work as servants for several years before they could own land. It was the promise of land, so hard to come by in England, that brought most of the colonists to Maryland.

Upon arriving in the Potomac, the Marylanders made camp on Saint Clement's Island. Traders advised them to seek the permission of the Piscataway Indians before making a permanent settlement, so Leonard Calvert, the leader of the expedition and brother of the lord proprietor led the Dove up the Potomac to Piscataway Creek to meet the Indian emperor. A Jesuit priest who accompanied the mission, Father Andrew White, wrote of the chief's lukewarm greetings: "He would not bid him goe, neither would he bid him stay, but that he might use his own discretion." Encouraged nonetheless, Calvert returned to Saint Clement's Island, where on March 25, 1634, the colonists proclaimed the establishment of Maryland and celebrated the first mass in English America. Two days later the Marylanders bought from the Indians a village on the mainland that was being abandoned for fear of Susquehannock raids. It was complete with living quarters and cleared fields. The colonists renamed the place Saint Mary's City, and it became Maryland's first settlement.

After the first few difficult years, Maryland's population grew steadily and rapidly. Lord Baltimore's promise of religious toleration, as well as his promise of land, drew the settlers here, a steady stream of Anglicans, Catholics, Presbyterians, Puritans, Quakers, and other dissenters, coming from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and even France. By the 1680s Maryland was the home of 25,000 souls-the most diverse and pluralistic population in North America. The colonists spread far beyond Saint Mary's City. They lived on both shores of the bay and as far north as the Susquehanna River. Every year, more and more land was taken up, and a prosperous agricultural economy developed.

The key to Maryland's success was one crop: tobacco. Maryland's soil and climate were ideal for the growth of tobacco, and the demand for it in England and Europe was great. Very quickly Maryland followed the pattern of her older neighbor, Virginia, and became a tobacco colony. Even though the market for the crop fluctuated, there was always a demand, and even small farmers could support their families by planting the "sotweed." The tobacco was sent back to England for consumption there or reexport to the Continent. In return came coffee, tea, sugar, rum, tools, clothing, and other necessities and luxuries of life. Except for food for the table, Marylanders grew little else but tobacco.

Maryland's tobacco planters did not live together in towns and villages like the settlers of New England. Instead, Maryland's geography -- the great water highway system of the Chesapeake -- encouraged the dispersion of the population. Wrote Lord Baltimore in 1678: "The people there not affecting to build nere each other, but soe as to have their houses nere the Watters for conveniencye of trade and their Lands on each syde of and behynde their houses by which it happens that in most places there are not fifty houses in the space of Thirty Myles." Port cities and harbor towns were unnecessary and nonexistent in early Maryland. The ships from England called at all the little local landings to collect tobacco and deliver orders of goods from home. The largest town in seventeenth-century Maryland was the provincial capital, Saint Mary's City, and it was a mere village.

As Maryland's tobacco economy developed, so did its political institutions. The early years of the province were often tumultuous ones, full of disputes between the colonists and Lord Baltimore's government, and sometimes among the colonists themselves. More than once there was armed rebellion. But time and time again the rights of the proprietor were confirmed by the crown, even as the rights of the people were broadened. The proprietor appointed the officers of provincial government, but the General Assembly-elected by male freeholders-became a genuine legislative body, even if the proprietor retained the veto power. Closer to the people, the county became the principal unit of local government, and freeholders could be fined for not voting or taking their turn in office when called upon. The principle upon which Maryland was founded-religious toleration-was enshrined in law by the famous Act of Toleration of 1649.

This picture of a prosperous, growing province should not obscure the fact that life could be hard for the individual settler in early Maryland. So many of the luxuries of England were not present here. Housing was crude. The work was hard. Life expectancy was not long, and disease took many before their time. Nevertheless, Maryland grew, by immigration and natural increase. The twin promises of land and freedom made Maryland a beacon for those seeking better lives in a new land.

Return to the Index of "Prince George's County: a Pictorial History" or continue reading from here.


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These pages were created as a part of the 1996 PG County Tricentennial celebration. Additional history resources are listed on the bibliography page. These pages are not being updated. They are now located on the Prince George's County Historical Society's web site. Contact links: web site manager - Society information. You can search the entire site through this search form.:

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