Expansion St._Mary's_City,_Maryland

1 expansion

1.1 tobacco successes , expansion of slavery
1.2 growing religious tensions
1.3 margaret brent

expansion
tobacco successes , expansion of slavery

st. mary s city experienced economic boom due successful tobacco farming, important export commodity. tobacco became extremely valuable cash crop in colony. drove expansion of african chattel slavery. older practices of allowing chattel slaves gain freedom converting catholicism or grandfathering indentured rights them after many years of servitude abolished. character of colony began change more , more slave-based economy , slavery began embed culture.

an increasing town population contributed desire constructing public buildings, of state house, jesuit chapel, jail, , inn.

growing religious tensions

during , after english civil war, fights between protestants , catholics developed in colony. tension went in long cycles, extended periods tension more repressed followed acute periods religious divisions flare up, driving change in st. mary s city , maryland in process.

margaret brent

margaret brent business-savvy , successful catholic settler in st. mary s city, who, contrary mores of time discouraged women managing own estates, although legal, insisted on managing own business affairs. had traveled colony single, unmarried woman contrary expectations of time.

the law, in writing, had been on brent s side, common practices , beliefs of day did not guarantee enforcement, in male-dominated frontier environment of colonies, far away courts of england. woman, had defend legal rights in order sure respected.

brent defended right run own estate in common law court before assembly in st. mary s city, making spirited case, , won, making first woman in english north america stand herself in court of law , before assembly. demanded right vote in assembly.

brent served attorney before colonial court, representing women of colony. considered have been legally astute. surviving records indicate pleaded @ least 134 cases. although did not explicitly campaign women s rights in general, credited having done implicitly.

margaret brent making case maryland assembly in 1648.

1934 black , white painting.



reconstruction of original schweringen s inn stood in st. mary s city. st. mary s city historic district, july 2009.



reconstructed 17th-century planter s house typical of colonial st. mary s city. st. mary s city historic district.