In the 1660s, less than 25% of Maryland’s bound laborers were enslaved
Africans. By 1680 the number had increased to 33% and by the early 1700s, three
quarters of laborers were enslaved Africans. About 300 arrived each year between
1695–1708. During this time, at least half of Maryland’s enslaved
population lived in Calvert, Charles, Prince George’s, and St. Mary’s
counties. The others lived in Annapolis and Baltimore.
From the beginning, the Maryland population was religiously, socially and racially
diverse. Unlike the Virginians, the Maryland colonists brought Africans with
them. At least two men of African descent were aboard the Ark and the
Dove, ships that brought Leonard Calvert, son of George Calvert, first
Lord of Baltimore, up the Chesapeake Bay in 1634. One of these first African
Marylanders was Mathias de Sousa. A passenger on the Ark, De Sousa
was of African and Portuguese descent and, like the Calvert family, he was a
Catholic.
As the colony’s charter did not expressly prohibit the establishment of
non-Protestant churches, the Calverts encouraged fellow Catholics to settle
there. Maryland’s first town, St. Mary’s, was established in 1634
near where the Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay.
Maryland never experienced protracted Indian warfare or a “starving time”
like its neighbor Virginia. Maryland was able to trade with Virginia for needed
items and the Calvert family personally supported the settlers’ early
financial needs. However, like Virginia, Maryland suffered from a labor shortage.
In order to stimulate immigration, in 1640 Maryland adopted the head-right system
that Virginia had instituted earlier.
While interested in establishing a refuge for Catholics, who were facing increasing
persecution in Anglican England, the Calverts were also interested in creating
profitable estates. To this end, they encouraged the importation of Africans
and to avoid trouble with the British government, they encouraged Protestant
immigration.
Indentured laborers, mostly white, dominated the Maryland workforce throughout
the 17th century. As the laws infringing upon the rights and status of servitude
for Africans grew more stringent in Virginia in the late 17th century, free
Africans from Virginia, like Anthony and Mary Johnson and their family, migrated
to Maryland. Enslavement was not absent in 17th century Maryland but it was
not the principal form of servitude until the early 18th century (Yentsch 1994).
As the 17th century closed there were far fewer enslaved Africans in Maryland
than in Virginia. In the four counties along the lower Western shore of Maryland,
there were only 100 enslaved Africans in 1658, about 3% of the population. By
1710, their numbers had increased to 3500 making up about 24% of the population,
most were still “country-born,” that is born in Africa, and most
were men. Between 1700 and 1780, new generations of African people born in the
colony expanded the enslaved population (Menard 1975).
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