This Country of OursMarshall, H. E. (Henrietta Elizabeth)
History
This Country of Ours
Marshall, H. E. (Henrietta Elizabeth)
United States -- History
And thus a new colony was begun.
With the Indians Calvert made friends, for he was both just and
kind to them, paying them for their land in hoes, hatchets, coloured
cloths and the beads and gew-gaws they loved. So in those early
days there were no Indian wars and massacres in Maryland.
But although at peace with the Redmen the Marylanders were not at
peace with their fellow white men. For the Virginians could not
forget that Lord Baltimore had taken land which they had looked
upon as their own. They had done their best to hinder him coming
at all. And now that he had come they did their best to drive him
away again. They tried to stir up mischief between the newcomers
and the Indians by telling the Indians that these newcomers were
Spaniards, and enemies of the English nation. They complained to
the people in power at home, and did everything they could to make
Maryland an uncomfortable dwelling place for those they looked upon
as interlopers.
The chief enemy of the Marylanders among the Virginians was a man
named William Clayborne. Before the coming of these new colonists
he had settled himself upon the Isle of Kent, which was within
their bounds, and now he absolutely refused either to move or to
recognise the authority of Calvert as Governor; for he claimed the
Isle of Kent as part of Virginia.
Calvert on his side insisted on his rights, and as neither would
give way it came at length to fighting. There was bloodshed on both
sides, now one, now the other getting the upper hand. Each appealed
in turn to King, Parliament, or Protector, and so for more than
twenty years the quarrel went on. But when the great Cromwell came
to power he took Lord Baltimore's part, Catholic though he was. And
at length in 1657, weary perhaps of the struggle, each side gave
way a little and there was peace between the two colonies.
But in spite of the constant trouble with Clayborne the colony grew
and prospered, for there was greater religious freedom to be found
there than anywhere else either in England or America. And in the
seventeenth century religion bulked more largely in an Englishman's
thoughts than almost anything else. Then in 1649 the Governor issued
an Act called the Toleration Act, which has made him famous. It
gave freedom to every one to follow his own religion save Jews and
Unitarians, and for those days it was a wonderfully liberal and
broad-minded Act. It threatened with a fine of ten shillings any one
who should in scorn or reproach call any man such names as popish
priest, Roundhead, heretic. It declared that no person whatsoever
within the Province professing to believe in Jesus Christ should
be in any way troubled or molested for his or her religion.
This was the first law of its kind ever brought into force in
America, and although suspended once or twice for short periods it
remained almost continuously in force for many years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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