Page 18 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

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The Van Sweringen kitchen during excavation in 1979. This brick floor was first displayed to the public in 1934.
This proprietary colony gave Baltimore ef- fectively royal powers over the enterprise but also meant the financial costs had to be borne by him and his associates. Such broad authority permit- ted him to attempt to create a new kind of colony. The Calverts were Roman Catholics in a coun- try where that faith was being actively persecut- ed, along with other dissenter groups that were not members of the official Church of England. The Maryland Design formulated by the Calverts involved three unpopular principles: Liberty of Conscience, the Free Exercise of Religion, and no official state religion. Lord Baltimore hoped to found a society that would avoid the religious conflicts and hostilities that dominated Britain and Europe at the time. He also hoped to es- tablish a society that would generate wealth for himself and the settlers, and to prove that English Catholics could be loyal subjects by helping expand the realm.1
Maryland was thus conceived as an exper- iment that defied the accepted roles of govern- ment and religion in the 16th and 17th centuries. The expedition departed England in November of 1633 in two ships, The Ark and The Dove, and reached the Chesapeake in March of 1634. We know what happened during the voyage and after their arrival because of a detailed account kept by
Jesuit Father Andrew White and several letters from the expedition leader Leonard Calvert.2
The first action after reaching the Potomac River was to meet with the Tayac of the main Maryland Indian group, the Piscataways, to es- tablish friendly relations and obtain permission to settle. Next a suitable place to start the colony was sought. Calvert selected the site of a Yaocomico Indian village because it had well-drained, high land with fine soil, was defensible, had cleared fields and offered abundant fresh water from nu- merous springs. Negotiating with the werowance3 of the community produced an agreement where the Yaocomico would leave half the village im- mediately so the colonists could have shelter and vacate the entire village when their corn crops were harvested. Documents suggest the Yaocomi- co were already planning to vacate the agricultural hamlet and move to their main village. The En- glish moved into the vacated homes, built a large fort and began life in America.
Due to the effort to establish peaceful rela- tions, an unusual situation developed where the English settlers and Yaocomico lived serenely ad- jacent to each other for about 6 months. During this time, these two peoples exchanged knowl- edge and materials. Native agrarian methods of slash and burn cultivation with hoes were taught
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