Tobacco was the mainstay of the Virginia and Maryland economies. Religious squabbles continued for years in the Maryland colony.Ĭhesapeake society and economy. A near civil war broke out and order was not restored until 1658, when Lord Baltimore was returned to power. By 1654, however, with Maryland's Protestants in the majority, the act was repealed. In 1649, under Baltimore's urging, the colonial assembly passed the Act of Religious Toleration, the first law in the colonies granting freedom of worship, albeit only for Christians. For a time they even shared the same chapel. Baltimore granted his friends the large estates, which resembled medieval manors and paved the way for the plantation system.Īt first, relations between Maryland's Catholics and Protestants seemed amicable. Protestants were attracted by the inexpensive land that Baltimore offered to help him pay his debts. Lord Baltimore planned for Maryland to serve as a haven for English Catholics who suffered political and religious discrimination in England, but few Catholics actually settled in the colony. Maryland was the first proprietary colony, based on a grant to Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, who named the land for Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. The assembly met regularly, not so much for representative government as for the opportunity to raise taxes. In the 1650s, the colonial assembly adopted a bicameral pattern: the House of Burgesses (the elected lower house) and an appointed Governor's Council. A royal governor appointed justices of the peace, who set tax rates and saw to the building and maintenance of public works, such as bridges and roads. Virginia's colonial government structure resembled that of England's county courts and contrasted with the theocratic government of Massachusetts Bay. Religion thus was of secondary importance in the Virginia colony. ![]() But church membership ultimately mattered little, since a lack of clergymen and few churches kept many Virginians from attending church. The Church of England was the established church in Virginia, which meant taxpayers paid for the support of the church whether or not they were Anglicans. ![]() In political and religious matters, Virginia differed considerably from the New England colonies.
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