Introduction to History of Maryland
Maryland was inhabited by Indians centuries before European settlement. The major tribes were the Piscataway in the west and the Nanticoke in the east, both of the Algonquian language family. They were generally peaceful peoples and engaged mainly in agriculture. There were also some Susquehanna Indians, of the Iroquoian language family, in the north. The Indians in Maryland were gradually displaced by the European settlers, and most had left the colony by the end of the 18th century.
Important dates in Maryland1572 Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the Spanish governor of Florida, explored Chesapeake Bay.1608 Captain John Smith explored Chesapeake Bay.1631 William Claiborne established a trading post on Kent Island.1632 King Charles I of England granted the Maryland charter to Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore.1634 The first European settlers arrived in Maryland.1649 Maryland passed a religious toleration act.1654 William Claiborne seized control of the colony.1658 Cecilius Calvert regained control.1691 England assumed direct rule of the colony and sent a royal governor, who arrived in 1692.1715 The Calvert family regained proprietorship of the colony.1767 Mason and Dixon completed their survey of the Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary, begun in 1763.1774 Marylanders burned the Peggy Stewart and its cargo of tea in protest against the Boston Port Act.1776 Maryland declared its independence.1776-1777 The Continental Congress met in Baltimore.1783-1784 The Continental Congress met in Annapolis.1786 The Annapolis Convention met.1788 Maryland became the seventh state on April 28.1791 Maryland gave land for the District of Columbia.1814 Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner" during the British bombardment of Fort McHenry.1828 Building of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad began.1845 The U.S. Naval Academy was founded at Annapolis.1850 The National (Cumberland) Road, west from Cumberland, was completed.1862 Federal forces drove back the Confederates from Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg.1864 A constitution abolishing slavery was adopted.1904 The Great Fire destroyed Baltimore's downtown area.1919-1933 Maryland resisted the nation's prohibition laws and became known as the Free State.1952 The Chesapeake Bay Bridge (now the William P. Lane, Jr., Memorial Bridge) was opened to traffic.1985 Maryland, in cooperation with Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., began a project to cleanup polluted Chesapeake Bay.The Calverts In Maryland
While the region was known to many 16th-century navigators, the first actual exploration was conducted by Captain John Smith in 1608. A trading post was established on Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay by William Claiborne of Virginia in 1631. In 1632 a charter for the province of Maryland was granted by Charles I of England to Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore. (The charter was originally granted to Calvert's father, the first Lord Baltimore, who died before it became official.) The first settlement under this charter was made at St. Marys City, at the mouth of the Potomac River, in 1634. Claiborne, at the urging of the Virginia Assembly, refused to acknowledge Maryland jurisdiction. Kent Island was then occupied by settlers from Maryland. In retaliation Claiborne seized St. Marys City, holding it during 1644–46.
Lord Baltimore, a Roman Catholic, provided a refuge for his coreligionists, but also welcomed without distinction all who joined the colony. Until 1649 there was complete religious freedom. Virginia-exiled Puritans moved into Maryland and established the town of Providence (later Annapolis). After their arrival, the General Assembly passed an Act Concerning Religion in 1649. The first part of this act affirmed the principles of religious freedom previously practiced but it went on to impose penalties on non-Trinitarians. This law has been called the “Toleration Act,” but actually it limited the practice of religious freedom that had preceded its enactment.
Growing tension between Catholics and Protestants led a group of Virginians, Claiborne included, to seize control of Maryland in 1654, during the rule of Cromwell's Commonwealth in England.
The Calverts again held authority during the Restoration in England, but after the Stuarts were deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Maryland was made a royal colony. The capital was moved from St. Marys City to Annapolis in 1694. In 1715 the Calverts, who by this time had become Protestant, were again put in charge. They retained control of the colony until the Revolutionary War.
Western Maryland was the scene of many frontier raids during the French and Indian War (1754–63). A long-standing boundary dispute with Pennsylvania was settled with the establishment in 1767 of Mason and Dixon's Line. In the pre-Revolutionary period resentment against the taxes imposed by Great Britain was so strong in Maryland that in 1774 a ship loaded with tea was burned and sunk at Annapolis.
Revolutionary and Federal Periods
After the Declaration of Independence, Maryland played an important role in the formation of the new nation. Baltimore was the seat of the national government briefly during 1776–77. In 1783–84 the Confederation Congress met at Annapolis. A trade conference between Maryland and Virginia in 1785 led to the Annapolis Convention in 1786, which resulted in the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
In 1791 Maryland ceded a tract of land on the Potomac River to the United States for the national capital. During the War of 1812 Maryland was invaded by the British in their attacks against Washington (August, 1814) and Baltimore (September, 1814). The bombardment of Fort McHenry in the second attack inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Civil War and After
Although a slave state whose sympathies were largely with the Confederacy, Maryland remained in the Union during the Civil War. There was a serious riot in Baltimore as Union troops passed through the city in April, 1861. A major engagement, the Battle of Antietam, was fought outside Sharpsburg in September, 1862.
Maryland came to be dominated in the latter half of the 19th century by railroad interests. A long struggle to free the state government from their influence led to notable reforms in the early 20th century. In 1930 Maryland and Virginia settled their dispute, known as the “oyster bed war,” over the boundary line along the lower Potomac and nearby waters. The Lane Memorial Bridge, connecting the western and eastern shores across Kent Island, was completed in 1952.
In the early 1960's, Maryland was the scene of serious racial disorders following civil rights demonstrations. In the 1970's, federal investigations into long-standing political corruption in the state led to the conviction of several officials, including Spiro T. Agnew, a former Maryland governor and then Vice President of the United States.
In the 1980's, a major program to combat pollution in Chesapeake Bay was undertaken. Antipollution efforts continued with legislation passed in 1998 to regulate run-off from industrial chicken farms after such run-off was linked to outbreaks of water-borne illnesses in several Chesapeake tributaries. The cleanup of Chesapeake Bay involves cooperation with several states and is expected to continue beyond 2010.
Maryland is now a national center for space research, development, and production, especially at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.