Page 73 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

curtained bed, and dozens of Dutch, Rhenish, and English tablewares and white pipes reflect an interior as English in appearance as St. John’s or St. Clement’s Manor. Perhaps most impressively, William and Magdalen Stevens had a per-square- foot density of domestic artifacts more than three times higher than either the Old Chapel Field or St. Clement’s Manor sites, even though all three sites were occupied for approximately the same length of time. These findings not only suggest the Stevens’ wealth, they also indicate that even with the political disruptions experienced in early Maryland and an evolving architectural tradition, a consumer economy (characterized by imported goods) was rapidly developing in the colony not long after settlement.35
As at the earlier sites, the recovery of Native-made artifacts at the Stevens plantation, including ceramics and tobacco pipes, indicate continued interactions with the region’s indig- enous population. A number of sand-tempered ceramic fragments are large in size and directly associated with colonial materials indicating a primary deposition. The nature of the interaction with Natives at the Stevens farm is unknown, but the sand-tempering could suggest interac- tion with middle Potomac River groups, where a sand-tempering tradition had existed for at least three centuries. Shell-tempered ceramics are the predominant ware type found in late pre-Contact and Contact Native sites in the lower Patuxent valley, where the Stevens plantation was locat- ed. Significantly, the density of weapons-related artifacts at the Stevens plantation is four times that for Gerard’s St. Clement’s Manor, suggest- ing a heightened awareness of the threats posed by both other Europeans and the people whose homeland was being slowly and completely occupied (see table 2).36
Plantations as Symbols of Calvert Authority
In 1661, Charles Calvert, the 24-year-old son of Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, arrived in Maryland as governor. The colony had just come through some politically trying years, including the Calvert family’s struggles with William Claiborne at Kent Island (1635–1637), Ingle’s Rebellion (1645), the Battle of the Severn (1655), and Fendall’s Rebellion (1660). The resto- ration in 1660 of Charles II to the throne eased the political situation in London for the propri- etor, but Baltimore still faced the challenge of
figure 11
Table glass fragment and Saintonge ceramic handle, probably
from a barrel costrel, ca. 1650, Stevens plantation.
figure 12
Tin-glazed tablewares, Stevens plantation (18CV279).
figure 13
Potomac Creek ceramic fragment, Stevens plantation (18CV279).
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PHOTOGRAPH BY JULIA A. KING, COURTESY OF THE MARYLAND PHOTOGRAPH BY JULIA A. KING, COURTESY OF THE MARYLAND PHOTOGRAPH BY JULIA A. KING, COURTESY OF THE MARY- ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSERVATION LABORATORY. ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSERVATION LABORATORY. LAND ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSERVATION LABORATORY.