Province of Maryland

The Province of Maryland was an English and later British proprietary colony established in 1632 under the Calvert family. It became the U.S. state of Maryland in 1776.

Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore: The second Lord Baltimore, who governed Maryland from England and directed its early settlement. He inherited the proprietary grant and organized Maryland’s founding as a refuge and investment.
Proprietary colony: An English colony governed by an individual or family holding authority granted by the Crown. Maryland’s proprietors exercised powers that elsewhere often belonged directly to royal officials.
Leonard Calvert: Maryland’s first governor and Cecilius Calvert’s younger brother, who led the initial settlement. He governed the colony on behalf of the proprietor and negotiated its early survival.
Maryland in the American Revolution: Maryland’s political and military participation in the American independence movement. Revolutionary institutions ended proprietary rule and transformed the colony into a state.
Virginia Colony: An English colony founded at Jamestown in 1607 that became a major Chesapeake tobacco society. Virginia’s earlier royal-company origins contrasted with Maryland’s family-held proprietary government.
George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore: An English statesman who pursued a colony in North America for his family and Catholic settlers. His colonial plans led to the grant later inherited by his son Cecilius.
Maryland General Assembly: Maryland’s legislature, which developed from an assembly of freemen into a bicameral colonial body. It made laws alongside the proprietor and became a site of recurring political conflict.
William Claiborne: An English trader and Virginia official who challenged the Calverts’ authority in the Chesapeake region. His armed resistance helped trigger Maryland’s early political and religious conflicts.
Slavery in Maryland: The enslavement of Africans and their descendants in Maryland from the colonial era through emancipation in 1864. Tobacco cultivation and colonial law made enslaved labor central to Maryland’s economy and society.
Province of Pennsylvania: An English proprietary colony founded under William Penn’s charter in 1681. Both colonies were proprietary ventures, but Pennsylvania’s founding came later and under Quaker leadership.

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