Page 110 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

I recognized as England’s. In April of 1627, Claiborne acquired the first of two licenses he would obtain from two different Governors of Virginia granting him full power and authority to explore the upper Chesapeake, “and there to trade and truck with the Indians for furrs skinns corne or any other commodities of what nature or qualitie soever they be....”2 He immediately began making regular expeditions into the Upper Chesapeake region to trade with various Native American groups, but particularly to make contact with the powerful Susquehannock Indians to the north. Claiborne travelled to England and managed to strike a bargain securing funding and support from a London merchant house called Clobbery and Company. He invested some of his own fortune to become a one-sixth partner in a joint venture with Clobbery.3 No doubt, the large and strategically situated island in the middle of the Bay that Claiborne had spied while on his previous trading expeditions was discussed during his negotiations with William Clobbery. By May of 1631, Claiborne would have a Royal license through the auspices of Sir William Alexander, Secretary of Scotland to add to his two trading commissions from Virginia.4 What he did not have was a royal patent and charter granting him title to the lands on which he hoped to establish his trading empire.
A major roadblock to Claiborne’s designs had first presented itself on October 1st, 1629. On that date Lord Baltimore, Sir George Calvert, arrived in Jamestown with his family from his failed colony of Avalon in Newfoundland. Though he probably didn’t advertise the fact, Sir George was visiting the region with an eye towards obtaining a royal patent to colonize land with a more southerly climate. He had learned his lesson the hard way in Newfoundland. Certainly not at first, but within short order it became clear to the Virginians that Lord Baltimore was a threat to the territorial integrity
of their colony. To make matters worse, George Calvert was a Catholic and Virginia was a firmly Protestant colony. To the seventeenth century mind, conformity to the kingdom’s religious doctrines was an essential act of national loyalty. All others were suspect and potentially treasonous. Claiborne, Governor John Potts, and other prominent Virginian’s soon sent Lord Baltimore on his way. They also drafted a letter to His Majesty’s Privy Council stating their objection to Baltimore’s desire to plant amongst them and further stating that, “He [Calvert], and some of his followers, being of the Romish religion, utterly refused to take the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, tendered to them according to instructions received from King James. As they [the Virginia Protestants] have been made happy in their religion, they implore that as heretofore no Papists may be suffered to settle amongst them.”5 Before the close of the decade, Claiborne and the Calverts would quite literally be at war over the Chesapeake.
While Lord Baltimore was busy in England entreating King Charles for a charter to establish a new colony in the northern Chesapeake, Claiborne had returned to Virginia with a ship loaded with trade goods, indentured servants, and supplies. In Virginia he took on 10 freemen, fowl and livestock, bricks for an oven, tools, arms, and ammunition before setting sail for Kent Island. On August 17th, 1631 he arrived on Kent Island and set to work building a fort.6 By the time Lord Baltimore’s son Cecil Calvert, Second Lord Baltimore, had finally secured a royal charter and planted in southern Maryland, Kent Island was already a thriving community boasting a palisaded fort, warehouses, several residences, two windmills, cleared fields planted in tobacco, outbuildings for cattle and other livestock, a constantly expanding boatyard, trading vessels, and representation in the Virginia House of Burgesses.7
Lord Baltimore’s charter was clear. He was absolute ruler of a proprietary colony of some twelve million acres in the northern Chesapeake enveloping Kent Island and large swaths of land that were formerly a part of Virginia. To his credit, Lord Baltimore appears to have initially extended an olive branch. In his 1633 letter of instructions to Leonard Calvert and the other leaders of the new colony, Lord Baltimore asked that they seek out Claiborne, encourage him to proceed in the establishment of his plantation and fur trading outpost on the island, but request that he submit to the authority of “His Lordship” (i.e. Calvert and the Maryland colony). He further instructed them to notify Claiborne that his business partners in London were soliciting Baltimore to grant them Kent Island and were endeavoring to cut Claiborne out of the deal. Baltimore stated that his surrogates should entreat Claiborne to come to Maryland to discuss with them, “the true state of their business” (i.e. that of the joint fur trading venture) and that he was confident they could all come to some agreement that was to everyone’s satisfaction. Interestingly, Baltimore specifically asked that a Protestant be sent to convey these messages to Claiborne, a telling clue that may reveal something about the disposition and worldview of the staunchly puritan William Claiborne (or at least Baltimore’s understanding of it).8
For William Claiborne, submission to a Catholic overlord was out of the question. Claiborne contended that Baltimore’s charter did not apply to Kent Island as the Maryland Charter clearly referenced “a Country hitherto uncultivated, in the Parts of America, and partly occupied by Savages, having no knowledge of the Divine Being.”9 Since he had planted Kent Island and it fell within the original territory of Virginia, he reasoned that it must be exempt from the charter and a part of the Dominion of Virginia. The Virginia legislature fell firmly in line
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