37 quotes found
"There is nothing does more endanger the loss of commerce with the Indians than want of truck to barter with them."
"[Mary] received the sacrament a year later, when the Tayac gave her to be raised by Governor Leonard Calvert and his sister-in-law, Margaret Brent, so that she could communicate between the two cultures."
"The first governor of the colony was Calvert's brother, Leonard, and Calvert appointed a Council to advise his brother. While the Calverts tried to keep representative government to a minimum, an Assembly soon developed, after persistent pressure from below on the proprietors. The proprietor and the Assembly soon quarreled over the extent of their relative powers, the proprietor claiming the sole right to initiate legislation, which the Assembly could then reject. The Assembly, with the power to hold up the enactment of laws, refused to consent to any imposition of a code by Calvert and thus won the fight to initiate legislation."
"In the mid-1640s, as the Puritan Revolution arose in England, Lord Baltimore sided with the king, and Leonard Calvert received privileges (or "letters of marque") from the king to capture vessels belonging to Parliament. On the other hand, the Protestant tobacco trader, Capt. Richard Ingle, a friend of Claiborne's, received a similar commission from Parliament. The governor ordered Ingle's arrest for high treason in denouncing the king, whereupon Ingle escaped and in 1645 mounted a successful attack on Maryland. Captain Ingle took the opportunity, "for conscience'" sake, to plunder and pillage "papists and malignants," seizing property and jailing his enemies. The venerable Father Andrew White, a Jesuit missionary who had arrived on the first ships to land in Maryland, was sent to England in irons to be tried for treason. Happily, the old missionary was acquitted.In the meanwhile, Claiborne took the opportunity to retrieve Kent Island from Maryland's seizure. Under Ingle's attack, Leonard Calvert escaped to Virginia, from where Berkeley helped him to recapture Maryland and Kent Island.Returning to England, Ingle almost succeeded in revoking Maryland's charter, but Calvert retained it by taking pains to placate Parliament. Calvert, for example, encouraged a group of Dissenters exiled from Virginia to settle in Maryland, a little further up the Chesapeake Bay from St. Marys, in what is now Annapolis. Furthermore, after Leonard Calvert died in 1648, Lord Baltimore appointed the Protestant William Stone as governor."
"Here our governour had good advice given him, not to land for good and all, before hee had beene with the Emperour of Paschattoway, and had declared unto him the cause of our coming: which was, first to learne them the divine Doctrine, which would lead their soules to a place of happinesse after this life were ended: and also to enrich them with such ornaments of a civill life, wherewith our Countrey doth abound: and this Emperour being satisfied, none of the inferiour Kings woulde stirre."
"Both George and Cecilius Calvert may claim the title of founders of Maryland. The original design belongs to the former; the charter was a modification of his earlier charter of Avalon, and was, no doubt, drawn up in conformity with his suggestions; only his personal favor with the king would have obtained a grant of such a nature, and nothing but what we may call the accident of his death prevented his being the first proprietary. On the other hand, it was Cecilius in whose name the character was drawn, who sent out the first colonists and guided their earliest political steps, and who watched over the infancy of the colony and shielded it from ruin."
"Cecilius…seems to have studied to withdraw himself from publicity. Except in connection with his colony, his name scarcely appears in history, and hardly any letters of his or addressed to him, other than those of a formel and official character, are known to exist."
"The grant of Maryland—so named in honour of the queen, Henrietta Maria—was made out in the name of Cecilius, Baltimore's eldest son and heir to the title. As at first drawn, it included the whole peninsula east of the Chesapeake Bay; but it having been shown that some settlements had been made by Virginians in the southern part of this peninsula (now the Eastern Shore of Virginia), the southern boundary of Maryland was drawn eastward from the mouth of the Potomac. With this alteration, the charter was confirmed on June 20th, 1632."
"During the last years of his life Cecilius seems to have lived altogether in retirement, and few references to him, other than official, are to be found. … On November 30th, 1675, Cecilius Calvert, the founder of Maryland, died at the age of sixty-nine. His life had been in many ways one of trial and anxiety; he had passed through dangers and difficulties when far more than his own happiness and fortune was at stake, and by his patience, prudence, and moderation he preserved safe his own rights and the franchises of his people."
"William Claiborne, a leader of the Virginia colony and secretary of its Council, had obtained a royal license to establish a fur-trading post on Kent Island, between Maryland and Virginia, which he had purchased from the Indians. The Virginia House of Burgesses—which included a representative from Kent Island—backed Claiborne in his refusal to recognize the overlordship of the Maryland feudal proprietor, Lord Baltimore. Egged on by a competing Virginia fur trader's accusation that Claiborne was inciting the Indians to attack the Marylanders, Lord Baltimore ordered the seizure of Claiborne and the confiscation of his property. Maryland's ships attacked and seized a vessel of Claiborne's, and not only killed several Kent Islanders in the process, but also hanged one as a "pirate" after the battle. Governor John Harvey of Virginia angered the Virginians by taking the side of Lord Baltimore, removing Claiborne from his office as secretary, and jailing an official who sided with Claiborne."
"The first American proprietary was a grant of land in 1632 by King Charles I to Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore. The grant was carved out of Virginia territory and extended from the Potomac River north to the fortieth parallel, including (but rather larger than) the present boundaries of Maryland. The king reserved for himself but one-fifth of the gold and silver that might be mined each year in the province. Otherwise, Lord Baltimore was as free to govern in his vast domain as the king was in England. The king even expressly granted the power to levy any taxes on Maryland, so named in honor of the English queen Henrietta Maria. The charter granted to Lord Baltimore ownership of all the land, minerals, rivers, and fisheries in the area as well as the right to confer titles, incorporate cities and towns, levy taxes, erect churches and feudal manors, and constitute courts. This was a veritable feudal government—a "Palatinate" as existed in Europe, specifically like the Palatinate of Durham in England. One important limitation on Calvert's absolute rule, as in the case of the king himself, was that he could levy taxes only with the consent of an Assembly representing the freemen, or landholders, of the province."
"From the first, Cecilius wanted to make Maryland a haven from persecution for Catholics in England. But, eager to encourage settlement (for without settlers there would be no profit from his feudal domain), Calvert made no religious test for settling in the colony. As a result, Protestants outnumbered Catholics among the settlers by nearly ten to one from the beginning—with the Protestant faith predominating among the poorer classes and Catholicism among the gentlemen. Both Protestants and Catholics enjoyed full religious liberty and there was no established church in the colony."
"Early relations with the Indians were peaceful, with the land acquired from them by voluntary purchase rather than by force. This peaceful coexistence was assured by Calvert's simple expedient of instructing his men to deal fairly with the Indians.<!--Indeed, the largest wigwam in St. Marys was after purchase consecrated as a church by the two Jesuit priests of the first expedition.*"
"The land system, however, in keeping with the vast feudal powers given to Calvert, was established on the most rigidly feudal lines in America. Calvert early advertised that every settler who would finance the transport of five other settlers to the colony would receive a grant as "Lord of the Manor" of 2,000 acres of land—not outright, however, or in fee simple, but as a feudal tenancy with a quitrent of 400 pounds of good wheat per year to the proprietor. The manor lords, most of them Catholic, in turn rented their land to smaller planters in exchange for rent in produce. This restrictive method of allocating land or landownership decidedly hampered the growth of the entire colony during the seventeenth century. Furthermore, Calvert gave vast estates as manors to his friends and relatives."
"While the Calverts tried to keep representative government to a minimum, an Assembly soon developed, after persistent pressure from below on the proprietors. The proprietor and the Assembly soon quarreled over the extent of their relative powers, the proprietor claiming the sole right to initiate legislation, which the Assembly could then reject. The Assembly, with the power to hold up the enactment of laws, refused to consent to any imposition of a code by Calvert and thus won the fight to initiate legislation."
"The governor and the proprietor, who appointed the governor, had veto power over all legislation and the governor could also dissolve the Assembly at will. However, the Assembly assured its continuing existence by refusing to grant taxes for more than a year at a time."
"We have already alluded to the conflict between Lord Baltimore and William Claiborne, a Virginian who had established a trading post on Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay. This quarrel was embittered by Claiborne's virulent anti-Catholicism, which had spurred him to play a leading role in ousting Calvert from Virginia, before the founding of the Maryland colony. With Claiborne refusing to recognize Calvert's overlordship of Kent Island, Calvert moved to assert his dominion over Claiborne, wielding his land grant as his claim. The conflict was punctuated by a naval battle between the ships of Lord Baltimore and of Claiborne. Finally, the king decided the issue by ruling in Lord Baltimore's favor."
"In the mid-1640s, as the Puritan Revolution arose in England, Lord Baltimore sided with the king, and Leonard Calvert received privileges (or "letters of marque") from the king to capture vessels belonging to Parliament. On the other hand, the Protestant tobacco trader, Capt. Richard Ingle, a friend of Claiborne's, received a similar commission from Parliament."
"Returning to England, [Capt. [[Richard Ingle|Richard] Ingle]] almost succeeded in revoking Maryland's charter, but Calvert retained it by taking pains to placate Parliament. Calvert, for example, encouraged a group of Dissenters exiled from Virginia to settle in Maryland, a little further up the Chesapeake Bay from St. Marys, in what is now Annapolis. Furthermore, after Leonard Calvert died in 1648, Lord Baltimore appointed the Protestant William Stone as governor. He required the governor to take an oath not to violate the free exercise of religion by any Christians, specifically including Roman Catholics."
"Charles II, still in exile, embittered by what he regarded as acts of treachery by Lord Baltimore, deposed him and appointed instead Sir William Davenant as royal governor, for Baltimore "did visibly adhere to the rebels in England, and admit all kinds of sectaries and schismatics and ill-affected persons into the plantation.""
"Former governor Stone now raised his insurrectionary army loyal to the proprietary, and in 1655 attacked Providence, the principal Puritan settlement in Maryland. The erstwhile governor was crushed by a force of Puritan planters, Stone was imprisoned, and several of his followers executed, even though they had been promised their lives before surrender. Calvert, however, proved extremely agile and managed to convice Cromwell and Parliament that religious toleration and hence his own rule should be reestablished. Calvert was permitted to appoint a new governor in 1656 and this governor, Josiah Fendall, joined with the Puritans in agreeing to establish religious toleration, including toleration for Catholics."
"With the death of Cromwell, Fendall tried to seize the opportunity to liberalize the colony further by casting off proprietary rule and submitting himself to appointment by the Maryland Assembly. The restoration of Charles II, however, ended such hopes for the remainder of the century, and Baltimore moved swiftly to crush this move for independence, appointing Philip Calvert as governor."
"Walking the tightrope of religious liberty between the demands of Parliament and those of the Crown was a difficult feat, and in 1651 the rulers of Maryland fell off. The Catholic royalist deputy governor, Thomas Greene, foolishly decided to recognize Charles II in the same year as the legitimate ruler of England. This proclamation naturally angered Parliament and precipated severe reaction. The following year Parliament sent to the Chesapeake colonies commissioners, of whom the angry Claiborne was one, to subdue the recalcitrants. After settling matters in Virginia, the commissioners proceeded to Maryland, where they removed the governor and ousted the proprietary. Governor Stone was reinstated…."
"Until Stone's appointment, Maryland's Catholic rulers had had to struggle with indigenous Protestants, Protestants from Virginia, and Protestants in England to retain control. Stone further complicated matters when in 1649 he invited a group of some 500 Puritans to settle what is now Annapolis. As the proprietor's representative, he soon found himself on the defensive when the Commonwealth government in England appointed Maryland's old enemy Claiborne, the Puritan leader at Annapolis, and two Protestant sea captains to obtain the submission of the Chesapeake colonies. Claiborne and the Puritan leader went to St. Mary's in 1652, ejected Stone from governorship, and sought to establish a new administration under their control. When Stone, under orders from Lord Baltimore, resisted, they appointed William Fuller as governor, and in 1655 civil strife broke out. The Puritan faction quickly won a decisive victory."
"Hon. William Stone, Governor of Maryland, was the second son of Lord Dunlam of Sussex, England, whose family name was Stone. Owing to unkind feelings between him and his father and a brother, William Stone left England to seek his fortune in the American colonies. ... A letter was written urging his son to return (was supposed to be the contents), but his son, deeply resentful, destroyed the letter unopened. Some years later another letter came which met the same fate. Many years later the respected Governor had been gathered to his fathers. After his death it was discovered the announcement of his succession of the title and estate in England. He had unwittingly destroyed the proof of his inheritance. This was discovered by his descendant, Thomas Stone, the signer of the Declaration of Independence. A British officer, Captain Ponsonby, was found to be a younger member of the family and the succession went to him in default of the real heir."
"[A]fter Leonard Calvert died in 1648, Lord Baltimore appointed the Protestant William Stone as governor. He required the governor to take an oath not to violate the free exercise of religion by any Christians, specifically including Roman Catholics. Subsequently, in April 1649, the Maryland Assembly passed the famous Toleration Act, which guaranteed all Christians the free exercise of their religion. However, tolerance and religious liberty went only so far and the death penalty was levied against all non-Christians, including Jews and Unitarians. Neither did toleration extend to freedom of speech, for any use of such religious epithets as "heretic" and "popish priest" was outlawed. Also prohibited on the Sabbath were swearing, drinking, unnecessary work, and disorderly recreation. Actually, the much vaunted Toleration Act was a retreat from the religious liberty that had previously prevailed in Catholic-ruled Maryland, and was a compromise with the growing spirit of Puritan intolerance."
"The Catholic royalist deputy governor, Thomas Greene, foolishly decided to recognize Charles II in the same year as the legitimate ruler of England. This proclamation naturally angered Parliament and precipated severe reaction. The following year Parliament sent to the Chesapeake colonies commissioners, of whom the angry Claiborne was one, to subdue the recalcitrants. After settling matters in Virginia, the commissioners proceeded to Maryland, where they removed the governor and ousted the proprietary. Governor Stone was reinstated, but he, in turn, persisted in trying to reinstate the authority of the proprietor. He compounded his difficulties by insisting on imposing an oath of allegiance on Lord Baltimore. The oath offended Puritans. Stone then denounced the Puritans and the commissioners as fomenters of sedition. The result was the capture of St. Marys by the commissioners in 1654, and their appointment of a Puritan Council and of Capt. William Fuller as governor. Catholics were now excluded from voting and from the Assembly, and the Toleration Act as well as the rule of the proprietor were canceled. A law of 1654 declared that "none who professed and exercised the popish religion could be protected in this province." The law disfranchised not only Catholics, but also Anglicans. The Puritans made it clear that freedom of worship would now be extended only to Protestants free of either "popery or prelacy."Former governor Stone now raised his insurrectionary army loyal to the proprietary, and in 1655 attacked Providence, the principal Puritan settlement in Maryland. The erstwhile governor was crushed by a force of Puritan planters, Stone was imprisoned, and several of his followers executed, even though they had been promised their lives before surrender."
"The last public levy was 297 lbs. (of tobacco) per poll, and the great levy the year before has given occasion for malignant spirits to mutter, and may cause some to mutiny, "for the common people will never be brought to understand the just reason of a public charge, or will they ever believe that the expense is for their own preservation." Since General Davis and Pate were hanged the rabble have been much appalled. Now enjoy peace among themselves, though never body was more replete with malignancy and frenzy than our people were about August last, and they wanted but a monstrous head to their monstrous body. The greatest revolution has occurred in Virginia affairs, for as their rebellion was grounded upon madness and folly, so the wheel has turned again as wonderfully and swiftly in the submission of all the chief rebels…"
"In 1667 a Maryland slave who had come from Barbados lived on the plantation of Barbadian immigrant and Maryland governor Thomas Notley. John Batten, agent of Barbadian planter William Bushey, identified the man as belonging to Bushey and having been illegally brought to Maryland. When faced with the possibility of being parted from his wife and returned to Barbados, the man convinced Notley and Batten that "If he had not been prevented, he would have hanged himself." Notley bought the man from Bushey for one thousand pounds of tobacco, double the market value according to Batten."
"At the height of Bacon's Rebellion, in September 1676, sixty persons, led by William Davyes and John Pate, assembled in Calvert County, Maryland, to declare their opposition to crushing taxation and to Lord Baltimore's disfranchisement of the freemen. They also declared their refusal to swear to a new loyalty oath proposed by the proprietor. They refused to obey the governor's order to disband on promise to consider their grievances in the next Assembly, pointing out that the manipulated Assembly no longer represented the people. But the death of Bacon caused the quick collapse of the embryo Davyes-Pate rebellion, and Davyes and Pate were hanged after being denounced as traitors. The governor observed with satisfaction that the people were now suitably "terrified." The threat was over, but the governor wrote in warning to Lord Baltimore that never had a people been "more replete with malignancy and frenzy." Apparently, the Maryland regime had had a close call. The result increased the bitterness in the colony against the proprietor."
"Calvert, however, proved extremely agile and managed to convice Cromwell and Parliament that religious toleration and hence his own rule should be reestablished. Calvert was permitted to appoint a new governor in 1656 and this governor, Josiah Fendall, joined with the Puritans in agreeing to establish religious toleration, including toleration for Catholics.With the death of Cromwell, Fendall tried to seize the opportunity to liberalize the colony further by casting off proprietary rule and submitting himself to appointment by the Maryland Assembly. The restoration of Charles II, however, ended such hopes for the remainder of the century, and Baltimore moved swiftly to crush this move for independence, appointing Philip Calvert as governor."
"However, the struggle against the oppression of the feudal proprietary in Maryland had not been crushed. The veteran rebel Josiah Fendall of Charles County, elected to the Assembly but barred from his seat for his rebellious activities in 1660, now took up the libertarian torch. In particular, Fendall led a movement against high taxes and quitrents imposed by the proprietor. Fendall also championed freedom of speech—a rarity in that era. Philip Calvert denounced Fendall for "telling the people they were fools to pay taxes" and for allegedly saying that "now nothing was treason . . . a man might say anything." Assisting Fendall were Thomas Gerrard, a veteran rebel and a Catholic, and John Coode, an ex-Catholic and ex-clergyman, in a welcome display of religious amity. In 1681 Lord Baltimore had a law passed forbidding the dissemination of "false" news—that is, news aiming to stir up unrest and rebellion—in an attempt to hamper the Fendall movement. Finally, in the same year, a Fendall-Coode plan for rebellion was betrayed and the leaders imprisoned. The jury, drawn necessarily from the populace, favored the defendants, whereas the judges, being appointees of the proprietor, were hostile. Fendall was convicted, fined heavily, and exiled forever from the province. Coode, an Assemblyman, won acquittal. Lord Baltimore denounced Fendall and Coode as "rank Baconists" and wrote afterwards to a friend that had these leaders not "been secured in time, you would have heard of another Bacon.""
"The question of his drunkenness was never finally determined, however, as Gerrard was soon faced with a far more serious charge and that was of being implicated in a rebellion fomented by Josias Fendall. Fendall, it seems, had tried to change the government of Maryland "into the form of a Commonwealth," of which he aspired to be head, to "the great prejudice of his Lordship's right.""
"The other case of hanging a woman as a witch occurred on a vessel also bound for Maryland of which John Greene was the master, and Edward Prescott, a merchant, the owner. … Josias Fendall, who was governor of Maryland at this time, at once ordered Prescott arrested."
"The real causes of the disturbances that now arose are scarcely explained by Maryland historians. Governor Fendall is charged with being the chief cause of rebellion. It is true that Fendall tried to keep in favor with the party of resistance, and that he initially connected with Gerrard, whose party was destined to triumph in 1689; but it was really the question of taxation that caused the so-called Fendall's Rebellion. It is sometimes said it was a Puritan movement, and so it was in one sense; but Gerrard, who seemed to be the real leader, was a Catholic who had been and was then a member of the Council. In 1647 an act was passed by the Assembly granting the Proprietor a duty of ten shillings on every hogshead of tobacco exported from the province. This act, by admission of the Proprietor, was the cause of complaints."
"The upper house being dissolved, Governor Fendall gave up the remaining powers of government given to him by Lord Baltimore's commission into the hands of the provincial delegates, and, in order to abolish his lordship's dominion over the province, he accepted from them a commission as governor. … Among other acts which they passed, was one commanding all persons to own no authority save that which came from the king of England or the "grand assembly" of the province of Maryland. These men sheltered their rebellion against Lord Baltimore under the name of the king about to ascend the throne in England, expecting thereby to overthrow all proprietary government in the province. From the time of the beginning of the Puritan revolution in England to the time of the end of Fendall's rebellion in Maryland, ten years went by in which Lord Baltimore was almost entirely deprived of his government. … On the 24th of June, in the same year, Lord Baltimore appointed his brother, Philip Calvert, governor of Maryland. He was sworn in at the provincial court, held at Patuxent, on the 11th of December following; and Fendall's rebellion was at an end. Fendall and certain members of his council surrendered themselves to the new governor, were indicted by a grand jury, tried, and found guilty. They were sentenced to banishment from the province, and confiscation of their estates, real and personal. … It will be seen that the great seal generally called Fendall's seal sealed his own pardon."
"Appointed by the Parliamentary Commissioners in England, Puritan governors twice convened unicameral legislatures in Maryland, first in 1654, and again in 1657. Catholic Lord Baltimore regained control of the colony in 1658 with the aid of several loyal Protestants, including Josias Fendall. To show his appreciation, Baltimore appointed Fendall governor of Maryland. In 1660 though, Fendall turned traitor, conspiring with the Lower House to abolish the Upper House and establish a commonwealth system of government (Archives of Maryland I: 388-391). "Fendall's Rebellion", however, was short-lived, as Proprietary forces quickly regained control of the government. Once restored, the Upper House kept the same composition for the next century. The only major change was the removal of the governor's position from the Upper House in 1675."