Maryland After the Restoration
But in Maryland, even before the death of Cecil Calvert, inherent evils
were beginning to form of themselves a visible body. In Maryland, as in
Virginia, there set in after the Restoration a period of reaction, of
callous rule in the interests of an oligarchy. In 1669 a "packed" Council
and an "aristocratic" Assembly procured a restriction of the franchise
similar to that introduced into Virginia. As in Virginia, an Assembly
deemed of the right political hue was kept in being by the device of
adjournment from year to year. In Maryland, as in Virginia, public
officials were guilty of corruption and graft. In 1676 there seems to have
lacked for revolt, in Maryland, only the immediate provocative of acute
Indian troubles and such leaders as Bacon, Lawrence, and Drummond. The new
Lord Baltimore being for the time in England, his deputy writes him that
never were any "more replete with malignancy and frenzy than our people
were about August last, and they wanted but a monstrous head to their
monstrous body." Two leaders indeed appeared, Davis and Pate by name, but
having neither the standing nor the strength of the Virginia rebels, they
were finally taken and hanged. What supporters they had dispersed, and the
specter of armed insurrection passed away.
The third Lord Baltimore, like his father, found difficulty in
preserving the integrity of his domain. His father had been involved in a
long wrangle over the alleged invasion of Maryland by the Dutch. Since
then, New Netherland had passed into English hands. Now there occurred
another encroachment on the territory of Maryland. This time the invader
was an Englishman named William Penn. Just as the idea of a New World
freedom for Catholics had appealed to the first Lord Baltimore, so now to
William Penn, the Quaker, came the thought of freedom there for the
Society of Friends. The second Charles owed an old debt to Penn's father.
He paid it in 1681 by giving to the son, whom he liked, a province in
America. Little by little, in order to gain for Penn access to the sea,
the terms of his grant were widened until it included, beside the huge
Pennsylvanian region, the tract that is now Delaware, which was then
claimed by Baltimore. Maryland protested against the grant to Penn, as
Virginia had protested against the grant to Baltimore -- and equally in
vain. England was early set upon the road to many colonies in America,
destined later to become many States. One by one they were carved out of
the first great unity.
In 1685 the tolerant Charles the Second died. James the Second, a
Catholic, ruled England for about three years, and then fled before the
Revolution of 1688. William and Mary, sovereigns of a Protestant England,
came to the throne. We have seen that the Proprietary of Maryland and his
numerous kinsmen and personal adherents were Catholics. Approximately one
in eight of other Marylanders were fellows in that faith. Another eighth
of the people held with the Church of England. The rest, the mass of the
folk, were dissenters from that Church. And now all the Protestant
elements together -- the Quakers excepted -- solidified into political and
religious opposition to the Proprietary's rule. Baltimore, still in
England, had immediately, upon the accession of William and Mary,
dispatched orders to the Maryland Council to proclaim them King and Queen.
But his messenger died at sea, and there was delay in sending another. In
Maryland the Council would not proclaim the new sovereigns without
instructions, and it was even rumored that Catholic Maryland meant to
withstand the new order.
In effect the old days were over. The Protestants, Churchmen and
Dissenters alike, proceeded to organize under a new leader, one John
Coode. They formed "An Association in arms for the defense of the
Protestant religion, and for asserting the right of King William and Queen
Mary to the Province of Maryland and all the English Dominions." Now
followed a confused time of accusations and counter-accusations, with
assertions that Maryland Catholics were conspiring with the Indians to
perpetrate a new St. Bartholomew massacre of Protestants, and hot
counter-assertions that this is "a sleveless fear and imagination fomented
by the artifice of some ill-minded persons." In the end Coode assembled a
force of something less than a thousand men and marched against St.
Mary's. The Council, which had gathered there, surrendered, and the
Association for the Defense found itself in power. It proceeded to call a
convention and to memorialize the King and Queen, who in the end approved
its course. Maryland passed under the immediate government of the Crown.
Lord Baltimore might still receive quit-rents and customs, but his
governmental rights were absorbed into the monarchy. Sir Lionel Copley
came out as Royal Governor, and a new order began in Maryland.
The heyday of Catholic freedom was past. England would have a
Protestant America. Episcopalians were greatly in the minority, but their
Church now became dominant over both Catholic and Dissenter, and where the
freethinker raised his head he was smitten down. Catholic and Dissenter
and all alike were taxed to keep stable the Established Church. The old
tolerance, such as it was, was over. Maryland paced even with the rest of
the world.
Presently the old capital of St. Mary's was abandoned. The
government removed to the banks of the Severn, to Providence -- soon, when
Anne should be Queen, to be renamed Annapolis. In vain the inhabitants of
St. Mary's remonstrated. The center of political gravity in Maryland had
shifted.
The third Lord Baltimore died in 1715. His son Benedict, fourth
lord, turned from the Catholic Church and became a member of the Church of
England. Dying presently, he left a young son, Charles, fifth Lord
Baltimore, to be brought up in the fold of the Established Church.
Reconciled now to the dominant creed, with a Maryland where Catholics were
heavily penalized, Baltimore resumed the government under favor of the
Crown. But it was a government with a difference. In Maryland, as
everywhere, the people were beginning to hold the reins. Not again the old
lord and the old underling! For years to come the lords would say that
they governed, but strong life arose beneath, around, and above their
governing.
Maryland had by 1715 within her bounds more than forty thousand
white men and nearly ten thousand black men. She still planted and shipped
tobacco, but presently found how well she might raise wheat, and that it,
too, was valuable to send away in exchange for all kinds of manufactured
things. Thus Maryland began to be a land of wheat still more than a land
of tobacco.
For the rest, conditions of life in Maryland paralleled pretty
closely those in Virginia. Maryland was almost wholly rural; her
plantations and farms were reached with difficulty by roads hardly more
than bridle-paths, or with ease by sailboat and rowboat along the
innumerable waterways. Though here and there manors -- large, easygoing,
patriarchal places, with vague, feudal ways and customs -- were to be
found, the moderate sized plantation was the rule. Here stood, in sight
usually of blue water, the planter's dwelling of brick or wood. Around it
grew up the typical outhouses, household offices, and storerooms; farther
away yet clustered the cabin quarters alike of slaves and indentured
labor. Then stretched the fields of corn and wheat, the fields of tobacco.
Here, at river or bay side, was the home wharf or landing. Here the
tobacco was rolled in casks; here rattled the anchor of the ship that was
to take it to England and bring in return a thousand and one manufactured
articles. There were no factories in Maryland or Virginia. Yet artisans
were found among the plantation laborers -- "carpenters, coopers, sawyers,
blacksmiths, tanners, curriers, shoemakers, spinners, weavers, and
knitters." Throughout the colonies, as in every new country, men and
women, besides being agriculturists, produced homemade much that men,
women, and children needed. But many other articles and all luxuries came
in the ships from overseas, and the harvest of the fields paid the
account.
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