The Thirteen Colonies,also known as the Thirteen British Colonies,the Thirteen American Colonies,or later as the United Colonies,were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centuries,they began fighting the American Revolutionary War in April 1775 and formed the United States of America by declaring full independence in July 1776. Just prior to declaring independence,the Thirteen Colonies in their traditional groupings were:New England;Middle;Southern. The Thirteen Colonies came to have very similar political,constitutional,and legal systems,dominated by Protestant English-speakers. The first of these colonies was Virginia Colony in 1607,a Southern colony. While all these colonies needed to become economically viable,the founding of the New England colonies,as well as the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania,were substantially motivated by their founders' concerns related to the practice of religion. The other colonies were founded for business and economic expansion. The Middle Colonies were established on an earlier Dutch colony,New Netherland. All the Thirteen Colonies were part of Britain's possessions in the New World,which also included territory in Canada,Florida,and the Caribbean.
The Maryland Toleration Act,also known as the Act Concerning Religion,the first law in North America requiring religious tolerance for Christians. It was passed on April 21,1649,by the assembly of the Maryland colony,in St. Mary's City in St. Mary's County,Maryland. It created one of the pioneer statutes passed by the legislative body of an organized colonial government to guarantee any degree of religious liberty. Specifically,the bill,now usually referred to as the Toleration Act,granted freedom of conscience to all Christians. Historians argue that it helped inspire later legal protections for freedom of religion in the United States. The Calvert family,who founded Maryland partly as a refuge for English Catholics,sought enactment of the law to protect Catholic settlers and those of other religions that did not conform to the dominant Anglicanism of Britain and her colonies.
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776,when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S. state of Maryland. Its first settlement and capital was St. Mary's City,in the southern end of St. Mary's County,which is a peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay and is also bordered by four tidal rivers.
The Dominion of New England in America (1686–1689) was an administrative union of English colonies covering New England and the Mid-Atlantic Colonies. Its political structure represented centralized control similar to the model used by the Spanish monarchy through the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The dominion was unacceptable to most colonists because they deeply resented being stripped of their rights and having their colonial charters revoked. Governor Sir Edmund Andros tried to make legal and structural changes,but most of these were undone and the Dominion was overthrown as soon as word was received that King James II had left the throne in England. One notable change was the introduction of the Church of England into Massachusetts,whose Puritan leaders had previously refused to allow it any sort of foothold.
William Claiborne also,spelled Cleyburne was an English pioneer,surveyor,and an early settler in the colonies/provinces of Virginia and Maryland and around the Chesapeake Bay. Claiborne became a wealthy merchant and planter,as well as a major political figure in the mid-Atlantic colonies. He featured in disputes between the colonists of Virginia and the later settling of Maryland,partly because of his earlier trading post on Kent Island in the mid-way of the Chesapeake Bay,which provoked the first naval military battles in North American waters. Claiborne repeatedly attempted and failed to regain Kent Island from the Maryland Calverts,sometimes by force of arms,after its inclusion in the lands that were granted by a 1632 Royal Charter to the Calvert family. Kent Island had become Maryland territory after the surrounding lands were granted to Sir George Calvert,first Baron and Lord Baltimore (1579–1632) by the reigning King of England,Charles I.
Charles Calvert,3rd Baron Baltimore,inherited the colony of Maryland in 1675 upon the death of his father,Cecil Calvert,2nd Baron Baltimore,(1605–1675). He had been his father's Deputy Governor since 1661 when he arrived in the colony at the age of 24. However,Charles left Maryland for England in 1684 and would never return. The events following the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688 would cost Calvert his title to Maryland;in 1689 the royal charter to the colony was withdrawn,leading to direct rule by the British Crown. Calvert's political problems were largely caused by his Roman Catholic faith which was at odds with the established Church of England.
Benedict Leonard Calvert,4th Baron Baltimore was an English nobleman and politician. He was the second son of Charles Calvert,3rd Baron Baltimore (1637–1715) by Jane Lowe,and became his father's heir upon the death of his elder brother Cecil in 1681. The 3rd Lord Baltimore was a devout Roman Catholic,and had lost his title to the Province of Maryland shortly after the events of the Glorious Revolution in 1688,when the Protestant monarchs William III and Mary II acceded to the British throne. Benedict Calvert made strenuous attempts to have his family's title to Maryland restored by renouncing Roman Catholicism and joining the Church of England.
Richard Ingle (1609–1653) was an English colonial seaman,ship captain,tobacco trader,privateer,and pirate in the American colony of Maryland. Ingle took over the colonial capital of the proprietary government in St. Mary's City removing Catholic Governor Lord Baltimore from power in 1645. Along with another Protestant rebel,Captain William Claiborne,he waged war with the Catholic colonial Governor Lord Baltimore and Maryland Catholics in the name of English Parliament after his ship was seized and confiscated and siding with the Maryland Puritans,in a period known as the "Plundering Time" in which unrest and lawlessness existed. Ingle and his men attacked ships and conquered the colonial capital,St. Mary's City,Province of Maryland. Most of the Richard Ingle's life and background are unknown.
John Coode is best known for leading a rebellion that overthrew Maryland's colonial government in 1689. He participated in four separate uprisings and briefly served as Maryland's governor (1689–1691) as the 1st Leader of the Protestant Associators.
Lieutenant-General Josias Fendall,Esq.,was the 4th Proprietary Governor of Maryland. He was born in England,and came to the Province of Maryland. He was the progenitor of the Fendall family in America.
Colonel Thomas Brooke Jr. of Brookefield was President of the Council in Maryland and acting 13th Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland. He was the son of Major Thomas Brooke Sr. and Esquire (1632–1676) and his second wife Eleanor Hatton (1642–1725) who later remarried Col. Henry Darnall (1645-1711).
Sir Lionel Copley was the 1st Royal Governor of Maryland from 1692 through his death in 1693. He was the first official royal governor appointed by the British crown after the colony was removed from the proprietary control of the Calvert family during the Glorious Revolution. Copley engaged in a series of political struggles with the colonial assembly and the colonial secretary,Thomas Lawrence,in the year between his arrival and his death the next year.
Charles Carroll II (1702–1782) known as Charles Carroll of Annapolis to distinguish him from his similarly named relatives,was a wealthy Maryland planter and lawyer. His father was Charles Carroll the Settler,,(1661–1720),an immigrant to Maryland who had arrived in the colony in 1689 with a commission as Provincial Attorney General,and had accumulated a vast fortune,emerging as Maryland's wealthiest citizen. Charles Carroll of Annapolis inherited and extended his father's fortune but,as a Roman Catholic,was barred from participation in Maryland politics. It would fall to his son,Charles Carroll of Carrollton,(III),(1737–1832),one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence,to see religious toleration restored to Maryland and many political and scientific/technological advances in the newly independent state.
Charles Carroll (1661–1720),sometimes called Charles Carroll the Settler to differentiate him from his son and grandson,was a wealthy lawyer and planter in colonial Maryland. Carroll,a Catholic,is best known because his efforts to hold office in the Protestant-dominated colony resulted in the disfranchisement of the colony's Catholics.
The situation of the Catholic Church in the Thirteen Colonies was characterized by an extensive religious persecution originating from Protestant sects,which would barely allow religious toleration to Catholics living on American territory. Nonetheless,Catholics were a part of America's history from the beginning,especially in Maryland,a colony founded by Catholics.
Colonel Henry Darnall was a planter,military officer and politician in colonial Maryland. Darnall served as the Proprietary Agent in the colony for Lord Baltimore;he also briefly served as Deputy Governor of Maryland. During the Protestant Revolution of 1689,his proprietarial army was defeated by the Protestant army of John Coode,and he was stripped of his numerous colonial offices as a result. Darnall died in 1711,leaving the bulk of his substantial estates to his son,Henry Darnall II.
Colonel William Digges was a politician in the Colony of Virginia and a councillor in the Province of Maryland in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He was the son of Edward Digges (1620-1674/5),Governor of Virginia from 1655 to 1656. He was a member of the Maryland Proprietary Council until losing his office in 1689 during the Protestant Revolution,when the Calvert Proprietorship was overthrown by a Puritan revolt. He lived at Warburton Manor,an estate which is today the location of Fort Washington.
The Protestant Revolution of 1689,sometimes called Coode's Rebellion after one of its leaders,John Coode,took place in the Province of Maryland when Puritans,by then a substantial majority in the colony,revolted against the proprietary government led by the Roman Catholic Charles Calvert,3rd Baron Baltimore.
Henry Darnall II (1682-1759) was a wealthy Roman Catholic planter in Colonial Maryland. He was the son of the politician and planter Henry Darnall,who was the Proprietary Agent of Charles Calvert,3rd Baron Baltimore,and served for a time as Deputy Governor of the Province. During the Protestant Revolution of 1689,Henry Darnall I's proprietarial army was defeated by the Puritan army of Colonel John Coode,and he was stripped of his numerous colonial offices. After his father's death,Henry Darnall II did not enjoy political power in Maryland,but he remained wealthy thanks to his family's extensive estates. He married twice,fathering many children. His eldest son Henry Darnall III (c1702-c1783) inherited the bulk of what remained of his estates,and one of his grandchildren,Daniel Carroll,would become one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A small portion of Darnall's former property,now called Darnall's Chance,can still be visited today.
