Unit 1: American Beginnings

Catholic Maryland

Lord Baltimore

Following the two patterns of early American culture in Virginia and New England was the pattern in the colony of Maryland founded by the Catholics. The founder was the second Lord Baltimore. His father, George Calvert, was born into an ordinary English family, not from the nobility nor from a Catholic background. While at Oxford, he came to know some influential people, and upon his graduation, he became the secretary of state in the king's Privy Council. During his service to the throne, he was converted to Roman Catholicism. This conversion created some problems for his service to the English king. In England, the king was both the head of state and the head of the Church of England. Anyone who served the king must take the oath of supremacy recognizing the monarch as the supreme head of state and church. As a Catholic, Calvert could not take the oath because his religious supreme head was the Pope in Rome. So he was driven out of the court. But the English king Charles I personally excused him and made him a noble with the title of Baron Baltimore. As he had the experience of being suppressed for his Catholic beliefs and witnessed the persecution of his fellow Catholics, he decided to find a haven in North America for his persecuted fellow religious believers. He went to his old friend King Charles I and asked for his help. In 1623, he was granted a charter from the king and was allowed to set up a colony in today's Maryland. But before he could do so, he died. His son, the second Lord Baltimore, carried out his father's will in 1632. He became the owner of the colony, captain—general of the armed forces, head of the church and disposer of all offices and the governor. In fact, he had the power comparable to that of the king in England. All he had to do was the promise of one—fifth of all the gold and silver discovered in Maryland and two Indian arrow heads a year to the king.

Colonial Servant

Lord Baltimore wished to introduce a feudal system similar to the manor system in Europe to his colony. His plan was that each gentleman who brought 5 servants with him settled in his land was allowed to establish a manor of 2000 acres. This gentleman had the privileges received in England, the privileges such as wearing distinctive medals to set the manor lord apart from the common herd. Lord Baltimore also declared that each freeholder was given 100 acres of land plus another 100 acres for his wife, 100 acres for a servant, and 50 acres for each of his children. But the freeholders could not enjoy the rights and privileges as the gentlemen. Both lords and freeholders must pay some rent to Lord Baltimore. Gentlemen's lands were to be tilled by indentured servants.

Indentured Labor

This feudal plan was bound to be doomed as were other feudal plans experimented with in North America due to various factors in the New World. In order to develop his colony, Baltimore had to attract as many settlers as possible to his land. So he encouraged the immigration of Protestants as well as Roman Catholics. Since relatively few of the Catholics were inclined to leave England, the Protestant settlers soon far outnumbered the Catholics. In 1648, Lord Baltimore appointed a Protestant governor, and the next year, the Maryland Toleration Act, which assured freedom of worship to all who believed in Jesus Christ, was passed. Because the Protestant majority were capitalistic-minded people and refused to carry out the feudal plan, and because the wilderness of North America provided plenty of land while labor was scarce, it was impossible for Lord Baltimore to have his feudal plan executed. Not long after the founding of his colony, the feudal experimental plan was dropped, and the colony, like other colonies in North America, followed a capitalist development road.

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