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.
Prince George's County: 
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.
