Liberty of Conscience: The Founding of Maryland

ANNOUNCER: Funding for Liberty of Conscience, The Founding of Maryland provided by... The Richard C. von Hess Foundation, The Charles T. Bauer Charitable Foundation, The James F.

Knott Family, The Fancy Hill Foundation, The Summerfield Baldwin Jr.

Foundation, Henry and Judy Stansbury, The Society of the Ark and the Dove, The Thomas F. and Clementine L. Mullan Foundation, The Society of Colonial Wars in Maryland and The General Society of Colonial Wars, The Sheridan Foundation and The Helen Clay Frick Foundation.

NARRATOR: Yorkshire England sees native son George Calvert ascend from a country farm to the highest station in the court of King James I. Hounded on account of his Catholic faith, Calvert seeks new opportunity in the Americas.

His efforts, and those of his sons, lead to the establishment of the colony of Maryland in 1634.

Native Americans endeavor to live alongside English settlers, with success and failure.

Maryland takes its first steps into the darkness of slavery.

Events in the colony still resound through American history.

At the heart of colonial Maryland is the freedom of individuals to worship as they choose, to enjoy a Liberty of Conscience.

[Rhythmic Orchestra Strings Music] [Sounds of farm and nature] [Carriage wheels rattling] NARRATOR: Having resigned his position as Secretary of State to King James I, George Calvert, now Lord Baltimore, travels north to Yorkshire, back to his beginnings.

[Horse chuffs] [Rattling of carriage] NARRATOR: Calvert now owns the land of his youth, where his father was a tenant farmer, and where the family endured harassment due to their Catholicism.

[Gate squeaks] NARRATOR: His purchase of an estate and construction of Kiplin Hall represent a local boy's success and a man's wish to remain connected to his roots.

[Orchestra Strings and Lute Music] NARRATOR: Kiplin Hall affords Lord Baltimore opportunity to reflect on an accomplished career and on an uncertain future.

Yorkshire stirs the memories of his youth.

[Rhythmic Strings and Lute Music] NARRATOR: August 1588, the Calvert family gathers with farmers and laborers from neighboring estates.

All England knows Queen Elizabeth has dispatched The Dragon, Sir Francis Drake, to repel the mighty Spanish Armada assembled in the English Channel.

MAN: Rider!

NARRATOR: The people are eager for any word, as news travels from village to village.

RIDER: I bring news!

The Spanish Armada has been repulsed.

[Crowd cheers] NARRATOR: The Armada's defeat is enormously significant for all Europe and for young George Calvert.

[Mysterious Strings Music and Sheep Sounds] NARRATOR: Matters of faith are at the fore throughout George Calvert's life and career.

Born during the reign of Elizabeth I, he sees hostility toward Catholics from the official state religion.

[Chicken clucking] NARRATOR: The Church of England forbids the Catholic mass and any form of Catholic education.

[Footsteps in gravel] NARRATOR: In 1592, Yorkshire officials disrupt the Calvert home under orders to stop the Catholic upbringing of George and brother Christopher.

[Banging on door] OFFICIAL: Leonard Calvert, open up!

LEONARD: Who is that?

OFFICIAL: Open up!

[Voices of angry crowd] [Banging] LEONARD: Who are you?

NARRATION: The family must report to a commission every month for evaluation.

George's father is forced to declare his loyalty to the Church of England and ordered to display a Church of England Bible in the home.

OFFICIAL: There's no pope here, so we'll take him.

NARRATOR: George is sent to a Protestant tutor in York, some forty miles away.

OFFICIAL: We're taking him to where he'll be taught.

[Chamber music] NARRATOR: At age 14, Calvert heads to Trinity College at Oxford University, where he excels, graduating in 1597.

ALICE ROSE: Oxford really changes the trajectory of his life.

Um at that time, we have to understand Jacobean society, looking at the wider context.

And it was this beginning of really a middle class starting to emerge.

And the exciting thing is George Calvert was part of that emerging middle class.

And so from him being able to attend Oxford, that was really him being able to further his education.

But actually at that time, most importantly, being able to learn the social etiquette of the time, being able to expand his circle and his network, being able to make those contacts that then, in the future, would enable him to build his own success.

[Flute music] NARRATOR: Young George Calvert travels to Europe in the summer 1601.

NARRATOR: Heading home, Calvert meets British Ambassador Sir Thomas Parry in Paris.

HENRY MILLER: He met the ambassador of- in Paris of England and was asked to carry papers back to a man in England who was very important in England and in George's subsequent life.

His name was Sir Robert Cecil who was the Secretary of State for England and in 1603, George delivered those papers to him and apparently Cecil was very impressed by the talents of this young man.

[Strings and Lute Music] NARRATOR: Sir Robert hires Calvert onto his official staff and over several years George becomes a diligent, loyal, and invaluable assistant.

MILLER: He even started working directly with the King, helping translations, helping him write a response to a particular uh book.

Uh George was becoming known to the highest powers in all of England at this time period.

ALICE ROSE: It's really from meeting Robert Cecil he could expand that network.

He could start to understand the ways uh the court worked, how it how you kind of, did favors for one another to be able to levy your own position as well.

It was very much the way the society worked at the time.

[Sad Strings Music] NARRATOR: Calvert is devastated by the news of Robert Cecil's death.

His friend and mentor is gone, and his future becomes uncertain.

Fortunately, Calvert maintains a strong relationship with King James.

Calvert's status continues to rise at court, to his benefit both financially and politically.

MILLER: And is this he added him to the Privy Council, which was a very significant post.

In 1617 out of, I think, respect and to honor him, the king made George a knight.

So, in 1617, he becomes Sir George Calvert.

NARRATOR: King James appoints Calvert Secretary of State in 1619.

The King has a plan to restore peace in Europe and assigns Calvert to spearhead the effort, which becomes known as the Spanish Match.

MILLER: King James wanted his son, Charles, to marry a Spanish princess.

And why?

Well, there was something that had started in 1618 called the Thirty Years War, devastated Europe.

King James thought if he could have connection with Spain, he might be able to be the one who brought peace to Europe.

[Suspenseful Piano Music] NARRATOR: Calvert's ardent support of the Spanish Match prompts gossip and concern among some at court.

Is he secretly still a Catholic?

Where do his true loyalties lie?

MILLER: Unfortunately, it all fell apart in 1624 when Charles and his aide Buchanan went on a secret mission to Spain and it didn't work out.

[Suspenseful Piano Music] NARRATOR: Political adversaries take advantage of Calvert's failure with the Spanish Match.

He quickly falls from favor at court.

Wishing to spare King James a political dilemma, Calvert resigns as Secretary of State in February 1625.

NARRATOR: Just a few days later, Calvert receives notice that the King has appointed him Baron of Baltimore, County Longford, Ireland, as thanks for his years of loyal service.

Knowing he will be the talk of London, the new Lord Baltimore leaves the city heading north for refuge to contemplate one fateful decision.

[Light Piano Music] NARRATOR: Calvert spends time with his old friend Sir Toby Mathew, a devout Catholic.

The precise time and reason for Calvert's decision to return to the "Old Faith" is unknown.

Whether meeting with Sir Toby initiates or simply confirms the move, Lord Baltimore openly returns to Catholicism.

George Calvert now commits his energies to a new project, the English colonization of the Americas.

[Guitar and Piano Music] NARRATOR: On the island of Newfoundland, at the extreme eastern point of the Avalon Peninsula - "Ferryland" is Lord Baltimore's first colonial venture in the Americas.

[Seagull calls] Calvert sees great promise in Newfoundland's thriving fishing industry.

He hopes to profit from this trade while establishing a traditional English plantation on the island.

NARRATOR: Tragically, George Calvert fares poorly with his Colony of Avalon.

MILLER: The winter of 1628-29 was brutal and without question there was sickness, they were intensely cold, there was disputes among the people because it was Catholics and Protestants there.

EDWARD PAPENFUSE: Everybody got ill.

It was a terrible winter and he said "oops, this is enough for me.

Let's see if we can't do a little bit better."

SEAN CADIGAN: I think that he found that uh, there, it wasn't really easy in Newfoundland to live the life of the English gentry, right?

You weren't going to have big agricultural estates here.

You were never going to have the kinds of things that the English often associated uh with uh... the basis for privilege.

[Tall Ship Music] NARRATOR: George Calvert returns to England with the aim of securing land in a more favorable climate.

He seeks a charter to found a new colony in the Chesapeake Bay region just north of Virginia.

GEORGE CALVERT: I'm so pleased, you've come to hear my... NARRATOR: King James' son Charles now occupies the throne.

His negotiators are disposed towards Calvert, knowing he has the King's respect.

Charles may also feel some responsibility for Calvert's fall from grace at King James' court, due to the failure of the Spanish Match.

NEGOTIATOR: If we go there.

NARRATOR: And Charles' Queen, Henrietta Maria, is Catholic, possibly another point in Calvert's favor.

[Sad Piano and Strings Music] [Geese honking] NARRATOR: Negotiations conclude by early April, 1632.

An ailing Calvert takes comfort knowing the land will be granted for his colony, north of the Potomac River, on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay.

George Calvert never sees the charter.

He dies in his lodgings at Lincoln Inn Field, on April 15, 1632, at age fifty-two.

[Harpsicord Music] NARRATOR: Upon his father's death, twenty-six-year-old Cecilius Calvert takes over the family enterprises, and the title of Lord Baltimore.

On June 20, 1632, he learns that the charter for the colony of Maryland is approved.

Cecilius shares George's aspirations and looks forward to fulfilling his father's final vision.

[Intense Strings Music] NARRATOR: From the port of Cowes on the Isle of Wight, on November the 22nd, 1633, two ships commissioned by Lord Baltimore, the Ark and the Dove, set sail for the Chesapeake Bay.

Days into the voyage a vicious storm forces the vessels to separate.

Passengers include Protestants and Catholics, gentlemen and indentured servants, a few women, no children, about one hundred-forty in all.

Lord Baltimore writes to a friend, "I have sent a hopeful colony to Maryland, with a fair and probable expectation of good success."

The Ark and Dove eventually reunite in Barbados in January 1634.

After a brief stop at Jamestown, Virginia, they land at St.

Clements Island in the Chesapeake Bay and use the spot as a base of operations.

NARRATOR: On Saturday, March 25th, Father White delivers the first Mass in English-speaking America.

[Native American Music] NARRATOR: Across from St.

Clement's Island, the mainland is home to thousands of indigenous people of approximately forty tribes.

For ten thousand years, vibrant Native American communities rich with culture have thrived on these fertile lands and waterways.

NORRIS HOWARD JR.

: The fact of the matter is that these were very developed civilizations that were here.

They had political structures.

They had intercommunication uh up and down the eastern shore, throughout Maryland and throughout the United States, tribe to tribe.

They had trade routes.

They had population centers.

CHIEF DONNA ABBOTT: They lived off the land.

They used what Mother Earth provided for them and um, they only took from that, from Mother Earth, what they intended to use for their families and the communities.

RICO NEWMAN: The communal idea of food whether it was- if it was an animal, a deer or a bison, uh whatever it was, it's like when you got it and you brought it to the village, you didn't keep it to fill your belly, you had to- it filled everybody's belly, it was shared.

CHIEF MARK TAYAC: The land and the people were intertwined.

You cannot separate the land and the people.

So, we had one of the most highly sophisticated and beautiful lives.

[Tall Ship Music] NARRATOR: After arriving at St.

Clements Island, a group of colonists heads to the mainland to meet with Wannas the Tayac, head chieftain of the Piscataway.

George Calvert's second son, 27-year-old Leonard, leads this expedition.

As Governor, Leonard is directly tasked with ensuring Maryland's success.

Henry Fleet is a Virginia fur trader whose experience with the indigenous people proves invaluable.

Fleet has proposed the meeting with Wannas.

NARRATOR: Well-connected English gentleman Jerome Holley has invested in the colony and is wholly committed to the venture.

[Sound of waves and wind] NARRATOR: Father John Altman is part of the Jesuit contingent led by Father Andrew White.

Altman's presence on this mission indicates the importance of the Jesuits' objectives.

[Seagull cries] NARRATOR: Leonard is under strict orders from his brother to establish peaceful relations with the indigenous people.

The indigenous are well aware what the Europeans' arrival portends.

TRAVIS PARNO: The assumption that indigenous people had never, were not familiar with what European colonialism looked like is a fallacy.

The first colonists arrived in this region, at least 50 years prior to the Marylanders arriving.

Uh the, the Piscataway people who control much of Maryland's western shore at this time had themselves been attacked by colonists coming from Virginia who had allied with a group called the Patawomecks in 1622, came across the Potomac and attacked Piscataway villages.

So they know what colonizers can bring, they can bring violence, they can bring displacement.

They can also bring a potential trade partner and military ally.

[Ominous music] NARRATOR: As Chief of the Piscataway, Wannas is surrounded by warriors, elders, and members of his clan.

Wannas' orator, believed to speak the chief's mind, reads from the sacred wampum belt, which represents spiritual truth and authority, and serves as a living historical record.

NARRATOR: Fleet introduces Leonard Calvert as a man from far away who seeks permission for his people to settle in the area.

[Talking] He offers gifts for Wannas and his people.

Ruler of more than 130 square miles of territory, including numerous villages along the upper Potomac River, Wannas knows his decision will have immense consequences for his people.

Wannas grants permission for the English to settle further south.

[Rattle of wampum belt] NARRATOR: Representing an agreement and understanding between the parties, the wampum belt is passed to Leonard Calvert.

[Native American Music] NEWMAN: The thing is when Calvert sat down and spoke with Wannas... I can't say he lied, but he failed to disclose what he knew.

This man you know, shaking his hand, being uh... gracious et cetera, asking permission.

He's got priests here with him who know what the deal is but nobody is making it known to Wannas.

At least we assume they didn't.

Nobody documented it.

Meanwhile he's got a piece of paper in his back pocket that said I don't really need to ask your permission my king has given me all of this.

I don't need to ask you.

I'm asking only to avoid, problems.

MARK TAYAC: We thought there was enough land.

We didn't understand private land ownership.

We thought there was enough land for everyone to live on collectively together.

PARNO: Now, according to colonial records, he neither bid them stay nor bid them go.

So, it's sort of a not in my backyard, uh we would prefer that you not settle here.

But he also doesn't want to make another enemy.

He sees there can be some value of maybe placing these English as a buffer against some of his enemies, like the Susquehannocks, who are coming down from Pennsylvania and attacking villages along the coast, uh particularly villages that are located on the mouths of rivers.

And so if those English go further south, settle close to the mouth of the Potomac, they might provide a buffer uh for the Piscataway against the Susquehannocks and that's what the English end up doing.

SETTLER: ...Inviting us here.

It's great to be back in your presence.

NARRATOR: Captain Fleet guides the group south.

Leonard Calvert brokers a deal with the chief of the Yaocomico, who sees value in allying with the English.

In exchange for axes, hatchets, rakes, and several bolts of colorful cloth, Calvert gains access to a substantial tract of land, including parts of a Yaocomico village.

The colonists have secured a place to settle, without a shot fired.

MILLER: But keep in mind, twelve years before, there had been a major event in Virginia where the Pot- Powhatan people had uprisen and killed hundreds of the Virginia colonists.

So they were very concerned.

This was in everybody's mind at the time, the potential for conflict here.

I think Lord Baltimore and his people instructed them, we really want to be good neighbors.

We don't want to be enemies of these these local natives.

[String and Woodwind Music] NARRATOR: March 27, 1634: Colonists conduct an elaborate ceremony as they take possession of the Yaocomico village.

On behalf of King Charles I and Lord Baltimore, Leonard Calvert names the colony "Maryland."

[Applause] NARRATOR: The Yaocomico observe the ceremony and their new neighbors keenly.

MILLER: So we had a very unique situation where the English settlers move into half the village where the natives had left their dwellings.

So they had shelter in these recently vacated uh native buildings and the other half of the village remained occupied by the Yaocomico.

PHILIP GOLDSBOROUGH: And then right away, when you come in as colonists, and you have to establish yourself in new territory.

You've got to know a lot of things.

You've got to know when the fish come.

You've got to know where to get something to eat.

CHIEF HOWARD: And the ones that were working on the water learned their ways from the indigenous people here, else they would have starved.

You know?

They had no- you know, they were not used to living like the indigenous people but once they learned those ways they were able to survive.

GOLDSBOROUGH: The native people were immediately transferring that information to the Calverts and the people that came with them.

MILLER: This created an interaction which was just amazing.

Because they were living literally side by side.

There's talk about uh them teaching them how to hunt deer.

[Speaking Native language] [Fire crackling] NARRATOR: Yaocomico women teach colonists to cook with corn, a crop entirely unfamiliar to the newcomers.

Corn becomes one of the main crops of 17th century Maryland.

[Religious Music] NARRATOR: Leonard Calvert implements his father's idea of "Liberty of Conscience," the first example of religious tolerance in America.

PARNO: Leonard Calvert was a an interesting figure.

He is dealing with a challenging situation as a leader of a fledgling colony and stepping into that complex indigenous landscape and trying to make sure his colony survives and his people survive.

And that begins, interestingly, before they even step onto the Ark and Dove.

And there are instructions provided by Lord Baltimore, but are communicated and executed by Leonard Calvert that Protestants and Catholics are supposed to get along.

So they want to start this idea of religious toleration in 1634 before they've even set foot on land.

It's everybody's going to be calm.

We're going to be chill and we're going to get along so that we're trying to minimize conflict.

MAN: Let us pray.

Our Father who art in heaven.

MILLER: Indeed, it was called sort of a non-establishment of religion.

Unlike England, or Virginia or New England, Maryland had no official religion.

Individuals could worship on their own as their conscience dictated.

And this is the real key to the Maryland design.

Lord Baltimore championed throughout his life: "liberty of conscience" or what we might call freedom of religion.

But it was the idea of a conscience, your well-formed conscience, that gives you the sense of right and wrong.

You should have the freedom, the free will, which comes from natural law in the thinking of the time to decide what was right, especially about something as intimate as your religious beliefs.

This was impossible in England.

It was impossible in most of Europe.

NARRATOR: At home in London, Lord Baltimore sees American tobacco as the path to profit.

But tobacco production is labor intensive.

In 1637, he asks the Secretary of Virginia to sell "forty neat cattle, ten sows, forty hens, and ten Negroes for his plantation at St.

Mary's City."

The sale never happens, but the letter is one of the few historical documents regarding slavery in early colonial Maryland.

When exactly the first enslaved Africans arrive in Maryland remains a mystery.

Colonists had little interest in documenting events involving people from Africa whom they considered inferior.

RICHARD BELL: I think it's certainly fair to say that one of the baseline assumptions of the early founders of the Maryland colony and some of the early settlers of the Maryland colony was that people of African descent were inferior.

They were "less than" in some way or other.

And it was that baseline assumption of African inferiority compared to white European superiority, especially English superiority in this period, that is what permits, what enables, what allows uh the idea of owning someone of African descent as human property.

MAYA DAVIS: You have European settlers who don't see Africans as 100 percent human.

This ideal is not something that's new.

It is something that is you know, understood but maybe not written in law but you have to see the humanity in someone for them to be able to abide by the same rules as you.

With that lack of humanity, it allowed uh, uh settlers to actually disassociate themselves from including enslaved Africans among the humans that they're referring to in the early documents of the colony.

MICAH CONNOR: I think for us to understand the history of Maryland, the history of our nation in full and totality, we need to understand, the documents from... the mostly white perspective but as well as documents related to people of color who contributed just as equally.

[Grating of saw] NARRATOR: Indentured servants are about 95 percent of the labor force in 17th-century Maryland.

These individuals contract to serve in exchange for transport to the colony and the opportunity to own land.

The average contract is four to five years.

Upon completion of the term, the indentured servant is released.

[Moving Strings and Flute Music] NARRATOR: Mathias de Sousa, an indentured servant of African ancestry, arrives in Maryland with the original settlers.

He serves Father Andrew White and the Jesuits on their plantation until his release around 1638.

De Sousa makes the most of his hard-earned freedom.

A skilled mariner, de Sousa becomes a trader and a master of a cargo vessel.

He delivers goods to indigenous people and settlers throughout the colony.

Successful in trade and highly respected, Mathias de Sousa serves in the legislative assembly of 1642.

He is the first man of African descent known to participate in a legislative body in English-speaking America.

There are no records of de Sousa's activity after 1642.

[Intense String Music] GOV.

CALVERT: We have heard the evidence... NARRATOR: In 1642 Governor Calvert presides over the trial of John Elkin, a former indentured servant accused of murdering the Yaocomico Chief.

Back in England, Lord Baltimore has ordered that English settlers and Native Americans receive equal treatment under law.

But despite a signed confession, a jury finds Elkin not guilty.

They believe that killing a "pagan" does not violate "his Lordship or peace with the King."

GOV.

CALVERT: Gentlemen, we have a responsibility.

NARRATOR: Twice Calvert sends the jury to reconsider, but the verdict holds.

NEWMAN: Yet they say that if an Indian killed an Englishman he would suffer according to the English law.

But yet this guy can kill a Tayac and he doesn't suffer according to the native law.

You know, I don't get it.

You know, it's all one-sided.

[Native American Music] NARRATOR: Relations between natives and colonists continue to deteriorate, further fueled by the expanding immigrant population and additional land needed for tobacco production.

HOWARD JR.

: The natural resources were uh, important to the natives.

They were important to the- to the English and this demand from from both really had no uh, uh workable solution so far as the English were concerned.

It was theirs for the taking and the native people got what was leftover, if that.

CHIEF MARK TAYAC: We now start to see the theft.

That theft impacted the land that we called our villages.

[Piano music] NARRATOR: Increased tobacco production creates a labor shortage for the colony.

Indentured servants, adequate so far, may prove insufficient to meet future demand.

ED PAPENFUSE: Dealing with tobacco is a very labor-intensive activity, alright, and the idea was that you would have enough in the way of indentured servants to do so.

But, it was also discovered that it might be possible to basically cultivate this tobacco with labor that you could hold onto for more than seven years and that became became an interesting question very early on for the colony.

NARRATOR: In 1642 Governor Calvert attempts to purchase seventeen slaves to work his fields.

This effort is unsuccessful, but the need for a larger workforce remains.

DAVIS: But I think Leonard Calvert, having come here and actually lived and able to see the need for a plantation society and growing economy, that there was a need for enslaved labor.

That indentured servants weren't going to be the only way because, of course, with indentured servitude it does have a term limit and that means that people will expire and eventually become free to live out just like any other white families of the time.

But, enslaved labor, there is a lifetime of servitude.

[Drum, strings and flute music] [Rifle Shots] NARRATOR: The English Civil War leads to the execution of Charles I in 1649, and the rise of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth.

These events have repercussions across the Atlantic.

MAN: Aim, fire!

NARRATOR: February 1645, Richard Ingle leads heavily-armed privateers employed by Parliament to take control of St.

Mary's City.

[Rifle shots] When residents refuse to declare loyalty to the Church of England, Ingle's forces plunder the town.

PARNO: They come in and they burn the wooden chapel that's present at the time as that symbol of Catholicism and religious toleration.

Um they capture Father Andrew White, put him in chains and ship him back to England, and the Calverts are forced to flee to Virginia.

MILLER: So, it was a very tumultuous and difficult time.

Leonard Calvert returned in 1647, recaptured the colony but then died within six months there.

[Piano with Strings Music] NARRATOR: A trusted friend of the Calvert family, Margaret Brent is executor of Leonard Calvert's will.

But, as a woman, Brent's authority is suspect, yet she perseveres, carrying out Calvert's deathbed request to "take all and pay all."

[Footsteps] NARRATOR: Having retaken St.

Mary's City, Leonard Calvert's militia has yet to be paid, and threatens mutiny.

Brent deftly averts crisis, liquidating some of the Calverts' estate for funds to pay the militiamen.

Their patience at an end, militia leaders accept Brent's proposal.

MARGARET BRENT: Thank you, sir.

PETER FRIESEN: In that sense, by doing this action, though it upsets Lord Baltimore, it saves the colony.

And the Assembly writes to Lord Baltimore and explains that she did what no man could do.

[Angry shouting] NARRATOR: Brent's financial maneuvering outrages Lord Baltimore.

And he bristles at the Assembly suggesting they know what's best for the colony.

LORD BALTIMORE: Cannot believe the audacity of these colonists.

[Piano with Strings Music] [Bird calls] MAN: Gentlemen of the Assembly... NARRATION: Thomas Greene, Maryland's second Proprietary Governor, presides as Margaret Brent addresses the 1648 Assembly.

MARGARET BRENT: With the utmost respect for this esteemed... NARRATOR: As a property owner and as the Calvert family lawyer, Brent petitions for two votes in the Assembly.

[Shouting] This audacity shocks Assemblymen, and Governor Greene declares the demand "preposterous."

Brent is the first woman to request a vote in the colonies.

Her petition is denied.

[Piano with Strings Music] NARRATOR: Lord Baltimore is pleased to appoint a Protestant and friend of Parliament, William Stone, as Maryland's Governor in 1649.

Governor Stone and the Maryland Assembly immediately pass The Act Concerning Religion.

This law affords freedom of worship to all Christian denominations.

[Small String Ensemble Music] NARRATOR: Tobacco is king in colonial Maryland.

Every aspect of life centers around this labor-intensive crop.

PETER FRIESEN: Each man is going to be responsible for three acres of tobacco with roughly 1,500 plants on them.

That's a lot of work.

NARRATOR: The colonial family works dawn to dusk.

Each day more chores demand attention.

Men in the tobacco fields, the rest of the family manages house, livestock, and gardens.

Some wealthy families hire tutors, but most children receive no formal education.

In Maryland, survival is a family affair.

[Violin music] NARRATOR: Lord Baltimore is encouraged by the restoration of the monarchy.

He sends 24-year-old son Charles to govern Maryland.

Charles pledges to strengthen the colony's Catholic identity, appointing Catholics to chief governmental positions.

Despite a steady decline in tobacco prices, few planters take interest in Charles' proposal to bring slaves from Africa.

BELL: They were expensive.

Uh many tobacco growers in early Maryland uh weren't um, orchestrating huge plantations of the sort of scale like "Gone with the Wind" 19th century uh plantations.

That was all in the future and a slightly different geography.

Uh instead, they were operating relatively small farms with relatively small labor forces, and they weren't doing very well.

They weren't hugely prosperous.

DAVIS: There is a company, the Royal African Slave Trade Company that had a monopoly on the slave trade and for a very long time until the end of the 17th century.

And so, it was very expensive with one company having all the monopoly and controlling that.

RICHARD BELL: So, the idea of setting aside the sort of enormous uh savings required to buy a human being's life and labor was quite simply beyond the means of many tobacco planters.

It wasn't that they weren't interested.

It was that they couldn't afford it.

[Assemblymen voting Yay] NARRATOR: But the drumbeat for enslaved labor reaches a crescendo in 1663, assemblymen overwhelmingly approve laws stating that slavery shall be life-long, and that children of slaves shall also be enslaved for life.

ASSEMBLYMAN: Yay.

BELL: We think that from the foundation of the colony of Maryland to the end of the 1600s that no more than perhaps a thousand people of African descent arrive in Maryland to serve in slave-like uh, conditions.

And yet, we can also see through the courts and assemblies that elected officials, and other political appointees are laying the groundwork for a legal system through which and under which the use of enslaved African labor could expand.

[Positive Rhythmic Music] NARRATOR: St.

Mary's City takes shape in the 1660s.

MILLER: St.

Mary's was laid out in the first elaborate urban plan in North America, a plan inspired by Rome and Baroque planning, which was the quintessence of high quality, elegant landscape design.

NARRATOR: Streets radiate from the town center creating two triangles.

To the west, the State House and a jail.

To the north, a Catholic church and a school.

The design of St.

Mary's City symbolizes the separation of church and state.

[Chatter of men in store] NARRATOR: Businesses in the town center serve colonists' needs.

A print shop provides legal forms and other important documents.

[Sad Piano and Cello Music] NARRATOR: In 1675, Governor Charles Calvert receives word that his father, Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, has died.

Charles is the third Lord Baltimore.

He returns to England to manage the family estate.

[Clink of metal cup] NATIVE AMERICAN MAN: We had large land when you arrived, now you put us on small land where we cannot survive.

NARRATOR: For thirty years Native Americans have been displaced from their home in the region.

Denied economic and political power, natives are forced into areas inadequate for their needs.

Tribal representatives complain to the Council of Maryland.

HOWARD JR.

: The segregated uh nature of these reservations which were created uh under the auspices of keeping settlers out, um, I think frankly was, the purpose was to keep natives in.

NARRATOR: With little hope for better conditions, many members of the native tribes leave Maryland.

DREW SCHUPTAR-RAYVIS: How do you conceptualize leaving a place where literally the Creator talks to you through the wind, and the trees, through the lapping of the waves hitting the shore.

It must have been a very gut-wrenching experience, but people were trying to survive.

They were trying to live.

CHIEF ABBOTT: They lost their homes, their villages, their land, and they just dispersed in every direction.

And I believe that that, it is my personal belief, that that was their end goal, the Europeans' end goal was to do that and had very little regard for the inhabitants that were there and um, their way of life.

NEWMAN: What do you do?

You know uh, sometimes you have to pack it up and go to what's next.

Because what you have is killing you or getting you killed.

So you go ahead and leave.

CHIEF MARK TAYAC: Devastated, devastated, our people.

[Footsteps] [English court music] NARRATOR: The "Glorious Revolution" in England puts Protestant King William on the throne in 1689.

In 1692, William dispatches Sir Lionel Copley as the first Royal Governor of Maryland, ending Calvert family control.

COLONIST: Well tobacco... NARRATOR: In this new political climate, Maryland planters consolidate power and expand land holdings.

With a growing shortage of indentured servants, and to meet increased labor demands, they turn to slavery.

BELL: There's lots of reasons why slavery's use in Maryland expands at the end of the 1600's.

Uh one I think is the displacement of the Calvert uh family as being the folks in charge, they're displaced by a group of Maryland planters who want their own economic interest to be uh more explicitly recognized in the direction of the colony.

As a result, they expand their land holdings in the colony and that means their labor needs not only change and expand, but also increase.

So, their demand for laborers is rising rapidly.

NARRATOR: Slaves from Africa replace indentured servants.

By mid-18th century, slavery is firmly established in Maryland.

[Moody String Music] [Crickets chirping] NARRATOR: Under Governor Copley, the Maryland legislature closes the door on George Calvert's experiment of Liberty of Conscience.

MILLER: In 1692, Sir Lionel Copley, the Royal Governor, had the legislature pass an act to establish the Church of England as the official faith of Maryland.

All taxpayers had to pay into that church and gradually over the next decade, the uh laws uh changed.

Catholics were no longer allowed to practice their faith.

NARRATOR: Upon the death of Governor Copley, Francis Nicholson assumes leadership of Maryland.

To further reduce influence of the Calvert family and Catholicism, Nicholson moves the capital from St.

Mary's City to Providence, later renamed Annapolis in honor of Princess Anne.

MILLER: They decided to move the government away from any influence of the Lords Baltimore and Catholics, and they moved it to a Protestant stronghold called Annapolis.

And our capital is still there.

It's been there since 1695, and that allowed St.

Mary's to, fall into slumber.

It was abandoned, became a ghost town and for 200 and some years, it was simply an agricultural hinterland.

Which allowed it to be preserved for the 20th century and 21st century archaeologists, but in rediscovering this lost century and understanding what happened here.

[Positive Acoustic Music] [Birds chirping] [Chickens clucking] JOHN SIEDEL: Well, the wonderful thing about historic St.

Mary's City, in my opinion, is the combination of history and archeology.

So in the early years of the commission here in the 1960s and 70s, a new school of history was being developed.

It was social history.

We were looking at the history of common people, of everyday life, of economics, of things that, you know, were not necessarily the movers and shakers.

PETER FRIESEN: Here at historic St.

Mary's City, we're an outdoor living history museum where we have uh many reconstructed buildings built on the original landscape where buildings once stood.

Uh that's one of the unique things about historic St.

Mary's City is that we're actually the place where the first capital happened.

Um and our goal here is to really teach and interpret that past from 1634 to 1695.

[Native American Music] NARRATOR: Today, Maryland's indigenous people work to sustain an enduring legacy.

CHIEF ABBOTT: I think it's very important for uh the public to know that the descendants of the indigenous people are still here.

We try to educate our history with as many local people as we can.

RICO NEWMAN: We have a right to have our history and culture and our traditions acknowledged, for people to know it and not just assume that we are fading into the sunset, you know, part of the um, the story of the past.

CHERYL DOUGHTY: There is no Maryland history without this piece of it because it was through the intertwining of the Native American culture and their history and the settlers and their history that has led us to where we live today.

DREW SHUPTAR-RAYVIS: I am very proud to be unapologetically indigenous.

I'm proud to shave my head the way my Pocomoke ancestors once did before me.

I'm proud to tattoo my arm as my ancestors did once before me.

I'm also proud to pierce my ears and to...relearn my language.

CHIEF TAYAC: The same blood that flows through my veins, flowed through my father, my grandfather, 29 generations.

We have a very beautiful culture.

A culture that is over ten thousand years old.

And one of the things I find so beautiful is when we take an American Indian drum and we tap that drum.

[Clapping rhythmically] That drum represents the heartbeat of life.

And our elders have always taught us, as long as we keep our drum alive, the beauty of our people will carry on for our children, for their children, and even as far as our next seventh generation yet to be born.

[Positive and Reflective Music] NARRATOR: Maryland's founding may be best understood from the perspectives of those who lived the complex history.

Religious freedom and pursuit of profit, motivate George Calvert and his heirs to establish the colony of Maryland.

For six decades the Calverts sustain their vision, until the experiment ends as English royalty asserts control over the colony.

NARRATOR: For over ten thousand years vibrant indigenous civilization thrives throughout the Chesapeake region.

Colonists disrupt lands and traditions.

Yet even today, Maryland's natives strive for recognition and understanding.

Forays into slavery taint the earliest years of Maryland.

NARRATOR: As generations retell the story of Maryland's origin, George Calvert's ideal of religious tolerance will be acknowledged, ahead of its time and unique to Maryland.

Seeking truth in four hundred years of history is an inexact science.

Perhaps true insight can benefit from a Liberty of Conscience.

[Bright Period Music] ANNOUNCER: Funding for Liberty of Conscience, The Founding of Maryland provided by... The Richard C. von Hess Foundation, The Charles T. Bauer Charitable Foundation, The James F.

Knott Family, The Fancy Hill Foundation, The Summerfield Baldwin Jr.

Foundation, Henry and Judy Stansbury, The Society of the Ark and the Dove, The Thomas F. and Clementine L. Mullan Foundation, The Society of Colonial Wars in Maryland and The General Society of Colonial Wars, The Sheridan Foundation and The Helen Clay Frick Foundation.