As unbelievable as it may sound, there are a number of Dopers who seem to be interested in discussing late 17th century Maryland.
How did it even come up? Look here
So, lets start with Satan’s original question:
Discuss
By the way, here’s my joke:
What did the black slave say to the white servant?
.
.
.
Stop smiling! Your indentures are showing! 
So, as I mentioned in that (sniff) other thread, Louis B Goldstein, who passed away a few years ago had a long running show late at night about Maryland history. He was on WHFS FM, back when it was alternative rock, and Maryland Politics was somewhat to the right of Rock and Roll.
It was a great show, with dazed and confused hippies calling up in the middle of the night to ask history questions of the Comptroller of the Treasury. I loved it.
Donald Schaeffer’t got nothing on the guy, nothin.
Tris
Imagine my signature begins five spaces to the right of center.
Oh, Goldstein was a great comptroller and all, but Don Donaldo is waaaaay more entertaining.
On topic, I believe initially, Maryland was the most tolerant colony reguarding religious freedom. Catholics were allowed here, and treated normaly, something that did not happen in the northern colonies. Anyone else?
Cecil said it. I believe it. That settles it.
That’s Schaefer, Tris (he’d have a fit)…and I believe Louis was the longest serving elected official in the country.
I’ve got some books that detail the Catholic story…apparently didn’t quite happen the way it’s usually undersood.
Catholics were allowed in Maryland because the Lords Baltimore were Catholic, but Maryland was not really any more noted for its religious tolerance than Virginia or New York. (Most places were a bit more tolerant than Massachussetts, initially.) To get religious tolerance as an act of law, you really had to go to Rhode Island. I don’t remember whether Pennsylvania was able to maintain its tolerant standards after Penn died, or not.
Tom~
(I’ll figure out the UBB codes at some point…)
The Toleration Act was passed in 1649…as you can see in the second paragraph (http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1601-1650/maryland/mta.htm), toleration only went so far. But I’d guess MD was more tolerant by that point than most other colonies.
the form is {url}http://www.whatever.com{/url} but replace { and } with [ and ]
Cecil said it. I believe it. That settles it.
Woohoo! Maryland!
I’m no expert on the history of the state as a whole, but my family did come there at the end of the 17th century and has had a total of 8 generations (so far) live there, so I’ve been “schooled” on the topic since my childhood.
My guess is that in the late 1600’s, there wasn’t much there.
[aside]Tom, are you sure it was the Lords Baltimore that were Catholic? I thought it was the Calverts. [/aside]
My family in particular initially settled there as farmers after venturing north post-indenture servitude. Some names in my family are Beall, Slater, & Howard (of Howard County fame). I’m not sure how accurate this is, but the story my aunt passes down goes that the Howards lived in Virginia (mom, dad, bunch of kids). The parents died when the oldest child was about 16. He took all the kids up to Maryland, settled on some land, and began farming. They thrived and eventually became one of the wealthiest families in the area.
Errr… C3, the title Lord Baltimore belonged to the Calvert family. The various Lord Baltimores were Catholic (as was the Calvert family) until the turn of the 1700’s IIRC, when the then Lord Baltimore converted to Protestantism.
As for religious freedom in Maryland- it was on paper, but that didn’t matter much. The main reason for the Toleration Act was as a diversion against the anti-Catholics (“It’s a Catholic colony! It must be burned!” “No, wait, wait, we’re not really all Catholics. We’re… uh… diverse! And tolerant! Yes, that’s it!”) back in England and elsewhere, but once the Puritans began emigrating into Maryland, well, just because being Catholic was legal didn’t mean it wouldn’t get you ridden out of town on a rail.
JMCJ
Give to Radiskull!
John–
Good! Glad you found this thread.
I wasn’t aware that any significant number of Puritans came to Maryland. Please elaborate.
Also, in another thread, you said that this was your specialty (or something). What do you do?
thanks for the correction, John…I guess my local history is a bit rusty
During the early 1640’s, a massive number (or, at least massive in comparison to the number of established colonists trying to eke out a living near St. Mary’s) of Puritans emigrated to Maryland, some from England but a large number from the neighboring colony of Virginia. They founded the town of Providence (later to be re-named Annapolis), and started a minor civil war in the state when they decided to oust the (mostly Catholic) colonial authorities in order to purge the colony of those evil Catholics. Said civil war went disastrously for the Calvert government, but the government was saved by Quaker missionaries who managed to convert nearly all of the Puritans to Quakers.
I’m a temp, and I’ve taken a senior-level college course in the history of Maryland (focusing mostly upon the pre-Revolutionary times). I was floundering in said thread to come up with an example of something I could be an ‘expert’ in, and figured, “Hey, colonial Maryland history is such an obscure subject, the fact that I have any knowledge probably means that I have the most knowledge.” I definitely should have known better.
JMCJ
Give to Radiskull!
About the Puritans/Quakers–that’s really interesting. Do you have any books you could recommend on the subject?
About your dubious “expert” status–Well, even if you WERE a “real” expert, I’d bet there would be someone on this board who claims to know more! 
You are obviously more expert on Maryland-specific stuff than me, in any case. Did you go to college in MD? If so, I am glad they are teaching local history.
I will get around to answering the original question one of these posts…
I’ll have to check my syllabus over to see if there are any era-specific books for that period. I’m sure there are; but as I did go do college in Maryland (specifically, the University of Maryland), I’m not sure how easy it would be to find said books anywhere other than at the UofM College Book Store.
JMCJ
Give to Radiskull!
It’s really easy to get obscure books these days, thanks to the 'net. I can get almost anything that is still in print through Amazon. Bibliofind works great for out-of-print stuff. And if all else failed, I’d just call the Maryland bookstore. No problemo!
So, if you have that syllabus handy, I’d love to hear what was on it.
I don’t have anything to add yet, but let me just say that I find this thread pretty interesting and I would like to see more like it in the future. I like to learn. This board seems to be full of people who like to teach. Teach me stuff.
Spring Ice: 2 parts gin, 1 part Cointreau, 1 part Midori, 2 parts fresh squeezed lime, 7-up to fill - Garnish: Orange slice in bottom of glass.
Yeah…I got some insight for ya! Maryland? Tolerant to all religious beliefs? C’mon! Wake up and smell the steamed crabs! Doesn’t anyone know the history of Rhode Island? The US colonists, in general, were all a bunch of egocentrics concerned about the religious freedoms for the majority BUT little tolerance for any other beliefs. The colony of Rhode Island proposed the concept of religious freedom be added to the US Constitution.
{Hmm…if this amendment weren’t added, then RI might not have joined. What if RI refused to ratify the Constitution? Would it be its own little country today?}
“They’re coming to take me away ha-ha, ho-ho, hee-hee, to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time… :)” - Napoleon IV
When did Penn die? The University of Pennsylvania (well, it's precursor founded with Ben Franklin) was founded in 1740, and it was the first secular college in America. Newport, RI, of course, has the oldest shul in the country.
What was the status of Baptists in MD in this era? I believe that any form of Christianity was (in theory) protected, but I could be wrong.The status of Baptists in Maryland I think falls sort of out of the realm of colonial Maryland- when did the Baptist movement start?
As for the idea of ‘relgious tolerance’, Maryland was never the safe-haven for free thinkers that it seems to want to portray itself as having been. It was established by the first Lord Baltimore specifically as a Catholic colony, and while there were some Protestants amongst the early settlers, the vast majority of the original settlers (and the majority of those that followed over the next twenty or so years) were Catholics looking for a place to worship freely. As I said, the Religious Toleration Act was less a matter of forward-thinking, enlightened calls to freedom of religion than something to hide behind when the Calverts were persecuted for harboring Catholics in their colony (“But we can’t get rid of the Catholics- we promised to treat all religions equally!”)
It is known that there was at least one Jewish settler in the 1660’s; it is not known how well he was treated (the only reason we know of him is that he was arrested- IIRC, for fraud- whether his arrest had anything to do with his religion or whether he felt free to practice his religion is lost in the mists of time; his trial never came about becuase he escaped during the civil war.)
After the Protestants took over control of the colony in the early 1700’s (following the then-Lord Baltimore’s conversion to Protestantism) the Religious Toleration Act pretty much went out the window. Catholics were mostly driven underground (in their worship, I mean, not into the massive sprawls of tunnels underneath Baltimore where Great Cthulu sleeps), and massive taxes to support state-sponsored Protestant Churchs became the norm, just as they were the norm for most of the other colonies.
JMCJ
“Y’know, I would invite y’all to go feltch a dead goat, but that would be abuse of a perfectly good dead goat and an insult to all those who engage in that practice for fun.” -weirddave, set to maximum flame