The Foundation of Delaware, Maryland, North and South Carolina - North American Colonies
Taken from The British Empire in the Nineteenth Century (1898) by Edgar Sanderson
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oaths that this, the only treaty not sworn to, was the only treaty never broken. Love begets love, and, amidst the internecine conflicts waged between colonists and natives, the Indians never shed the blood of a single Quaker.
Delaware was composed of three counties on the lower course of that river, which broke off from Pennsylvania after the founder's return to England. Penn allowed their action, and granted them a separate assembly, but the two colonies remained under one governor until the revolt from the British crown.
All the states to the south, lying between Chesapeake Bay and Florida, were formed out of the original extensive "Virginia", and were mainly, in religion, attached to the Anglican Church, and in social and political matters were aristocratic in tastes and form of rule.
The foundation of Maryland takes us back to the year 1634, when Charles the First granted to Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, a Catholic, a grant of land in Virginia. The nobleman's object was to find a place of free worship for his brethren who suffered persecution in England. A body of emigrants settled at an Indian village near the mouth of the Potomac, and the colony had its name from the queen, Henrietta Maria. The yield of corn from the virgin soil was so rich that the growers could at once export to New England. The charter gave all freemen a share in legislation, and the assembly in 1649 passed a famous Toleration Act, securing freedom of worship to all Christians. Armed civil strife occurred at intervals, owing in one case to interference from Virginia, and in another to the disgraceful conduct of a Protestant majority in the assembly, who excluded the Catholics, and declared them outlaws. After a long and varying struggle Maryland was made a "royal province" in 1690, and the Church of England became the established form of religion. The Catholics, with the greatest injustice and ingratitude, were disfranchised in the very territory which they had planted. Redress came in 1715, when the fourth Lord Baltimore recovered the proprietary rights lost to his predecessor, and restored the system of religious toleration.
North and South Carolina arose from a grant of 1663, whereby Charles the Second gave to patentees, including Lords Clarendon, Ashley, and Albemarle, the territory lying between Virginia and the river St. Mathias, in Florida. The name was derived from … continue reading »