Maryland was founded by the Catholic Calvert family with the intent of functioning as a refuge for English Catholics and would go on to be one of the first of the American colonies to enact religious tolerance. This policy of tolerance subsequently led to a large influx of Protestant settlers who would eventually become the majority of the colony’s population. Despite official religious tolerance, the colonial government still showed favoritism towards Catholicism, with most government offices being occupied by Catholics. This, combined with other economic and political problems caused by the lackluster governance of the Calvert family, led to a great deal of resentment amongst the Protestant majority. This would all come to a boiling point following the Glorious Revolution in England. Following the overthrow of the Catholic King James II and the crowning of his Protestant replacement, King William, the Maryland colonial government was slow to swear its allegiance to the new Protestant King. Lord Baltimore was present in England at the time and attempted to send a messenger to the colony to announce his allegiance, but the messenger unfortunately died during the journey. This lack of response from the Catholic-dominated colonial government resulted in conspiracies and rumours circulating among Protestant settlers. This culminated in an event known as the Maryland Protestant Revolution, where a militia of 700 Protestants engaged in a successful standoff with the colonial government and established a new Protestant-controlled colonial government. In an ironic twist, this new government would then go on to outlaw Catholicism, with full religious tolerance not being restored until the American Revolution.
More Detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Revolution_(Maryland))
by Ted_Normal
13 Comments
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America has had a pretty substantial history of anti-Catholicism that still kind of flares up to this day
Wow that’s impressively dumb
Honestly, the colonial period is one of the most underrated and fascinating periods of American history. Both schools and pop history barely explore it and only provide a bare minimum overview and only highlight a select few major events. Basically everything between the founding of the colonies and the French and Indian War get overlooked. There is just so many interesting events that take place during this period some of which helped shape American history as a whole.
Protty moment.
From the Wikipedia article:
“Although Maryland was the most heavily Catholic of the English mainland colonies, the religion was still in the minority, consisting of less than 10% of the total population.”
So yeah, not all that surprising that the 90% majority turned against the 10% minority.
What the actual FOOK?
At least it’s not as bad as early Massachusetts where it was practically a theocracy. Rhode Island was founded to be the first free area in New England.
Still sucks though.
It had also been outlawed earlier (before being reinstated), during the English Civil War, following the battle of the Severn. Under the circumstances it was unwise for the Catholics to challenge the Puritans to a military contest.
Like straight men and gay bars
Many of the colonies had a major religion, but not quite a theocracy. There were 13 separate experiments on democracy ongoing up until the revolution. The Constitution contains some of the lessons from those collective experiences, including Freedom of Religion and avoidance of a single state religion.
The rest of the western world was practically catholic majority. They spent enough time ruinining things for everyone else…
FIle this under the heading of “No good deed goes unpunished”