114. Religion-Education-Manners and Customs. The colonists of Virginia belonged to the Church of England, and originally no one could settle in Virginia unless he acknowledged the king as head of the church. This shut out many Protestants as well as Catholics from the colony, but the laws against the latter were especially severe. No Catholic could vote, hold office, or be heard in a court of justice. No priest was allowed in the colony.

Colonial Virginia was slow in providing educational advantages. As the government was narrow in its religious principles, it did not favor education. Moreover, the widespread population made it impossible to have schools located at convenient distances. Free schools, therefore, were not established until 1688. The first college in the colony was the College of William and Mary, founded at Williamsburg (1693).

The Virginians were social, hospitable, and fond of amusements, such as fishing, horse racing, fox hunting, and other outdoor sports. They resided in large mansions, while their slaves lived apart in small cabins. They had no large towns, but lived on plantations, and engaged in raising tobacco, corn, and sweet potatoes. During the one hundred years intervening between Bacon's Rebellion and the Revolution, Virginia prospered greatly and became the most populous as well as the richest of the English colonies.

THE SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND

Unlike Vir

115. The Maryland Grant-First Settlement. ginia, which was settled by a company, Maryland was founded and practically owned by a lord proprietor. George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, a prominent English Catholic, who desired to found a colony in America which might serve as a refuge for the persecuted Catholics of England, obtained from Charles I a grant of the unoccupied land north of the Potomac. He died, however, before his

patent had received the royal signature, and his rights descended to his son, Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, who inherited not only his noble father's titles, but also his benevolent views. Thinking that it would be to the interest of the colony for him to remain in England, Cecilius appointed his younger brother, Leonard, governor of the new colony.

The Catholics of England had been cruelly persecuted since the time of the Reformation, and longed for a

GEORGE CALVERT

refuge where they might practice their religion in peace. They therefore gladly enlisted under the banner of the Calverts, who themselves, in the face of intolerant laws and still more intolerant sentiments of the time, had become conscientious Roman Catholics, at the peril of station, honors, and office.

The little band of Maryland immigrants, imbued with a true colonizing spirit, brought with them their families, servants, a considerable body of artisans and laborers, and four Jesuits,

numbering in all about three hundred. They sailed from Cowes, England, in the Ark and the Dove on St. Cecilia's day, and, after a stormy four months' voyage, landed on the northern bank of the Potomac on the festival of the Annunciation. Father White celebrated Holy Mass in honor of the day in an Indian wigwam on the very soil where Spanish Jesuits, half a century before, had offered the same holy sacrifice for the first time in that wild region. A large cross was erected, and St. Mary's was then solemnly founded near the sites of the future Mount Vernon, and the future political center of the nation, the capital city of Washington.

At the request of King Charles I, the new colony received the name of Maryland in honor of his Queen, Henrietta Maria, the Catholic daughter of Henry IV of France. The newly founded town was called St. Mary's in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on whose festival the colonists had landed. Maryland was thus founded (1634) at St. Mary's on the Potomac River by English Catholics.

116. Extent and Significance of the Maryland Grant. The country originally granted to Lord Baltimore was located south of the fortieth parallel and embraced, besides the present states of Maryland and Delaware, large portions of Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Unlike Virginia and Pennsylvania, Maryland was given, by its charter, a western boundarythe meridian of the source of the Potomac. Maryland had as its southern boundary, the southern bank of the Potomac to a certain point whence the line extended across the bay and the peninsula to the ocean. Many disputes arose between Maryland and Virginia because of this southern boundary and because of the fact that Virginia controlled the entrance of the river, while Maryland controlled the river itself.

The patent granted Lord Baltimore, which had been prepared by his own hand, was the most liberal ever given any British subject. It showed, as Bancroft observes, that "its author deserves to be ranked among the wise and benevolent lawgivers of all ages." It made religious freedom the basis of

the state, and secured to the colonists a large share in their government. The proprietor was an almost independent sovereign. He could coin money, grant titles of nobility, create courts, appoint judges, pardon criminals, and summon an assembly of representatives. Enactments of the assembly needed only his signature, not that of the king, to become laws. Moreover, his office was hereditary in his family. One limitation of his proprietary power should, however, be noted: he could make laws and collect taxes only with the consent of the people. Hence, Maryland had its assemblies from the beginning. As an acknowledgment of his allegiance to the crown, the proprietor was required to pay annually two Indian arrows and one-fifth of all the gold and silver that might be found in the province.

117. St. Mary's and the Indians. Maryland, unlike most of the other colonies, never had any serious Indian troubles. The colonists originally paid the natives for their land, treated them with kindness and justice, and endeavored to convert and civilize them. The savages in turn, won by the gentle and friendly manners of the strangers, readily gave them every assistance in their power. Fathers Andrew White and John Altham, and the lay brothers, John Knowles and Thomas Gervase, joined. by others of their Order, established missions among the Indians. The effect of their devoted zeal was soon manifest. Old and young responded to their efforts.

118. Prosperity of St. Mary's. The settlers of St. Mary's, unlike those of Jamestown, immediately began to build and plant. A crop of corn was gathered the first autumn; the Indians taught the colonists how to prepare it for food and how to trap game. Before winter, all were comfortably sheltered. Bancroft says: "Within six months the colony had advanced more than Virginia had done in as many years. The persecuted and the unhappy thronged to the domains of the benevolent prince. Affections expanded in the wilderness. The planter's whole heart was in his family; his pride, in the

children that bloomed around him, making the solitudes laugh with innocence and gayety."

119. Claiborne's Rebellion. William Claiborne, a Virginian, with his adherents, refused to submit to the authority of Lord Baltimore, in whose domain he had established a trading post. When he was driven out by Calvert he fled to England, but soon returned, and with the aid of Puritans, who had been expelled from Virginia and kindly received in Maryland, attacked St. Mary's. He expelled Governor Calvert and took possession of the government. Lawlessness and intolerance now distressed the country for more than a year. Governor Calvert, with a force of his colonists, finally drove out the rebels and peace was restored. Claiborne, who has been called "The evil genius of the colony," troubled the settlement for ten years. During this period many of the Maryland Catholics were persecuted and the altars of their religion overthrown. The Jesuit Fathers, among whom was the aged Father White, were seized, put in irons, and shipped to loathsome dungeons in England.

120. Religious Toleration-Toleration Act. The distinctive feature of the Maryland colony under the Calverts was religious toleration. St. Mary's was the refuge of Catholics persecuted in England, and of Protestants who fled from religious intolerance in the other colonies. Throughout Maryland religion had its peaceful sway, in the wigwam of the Indian as well as in the town of St. Mary's. Bancroft says: "From France, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Finland, and Piedmont, the children of misfortune sought protection under the tolerant scepter of the Roman Catholic."

After the execution of Charles I, and the triumph of the Puritan party in England, the Maryland colonists, fearing religious persecution, determined to place religious freedom on as secure a basis as possible. Accordingly the Maryland assembly passed (1649) the celebrated Toleration Act, which provided that all Christian denominations should be protected in