The Maryland Toleration Act

Maryland Toleration Act Worksheet - Primary Source (American Colonies)

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Maryland Toleration Act of - History Facts

The Maryland Toleration Act was an act of tolerance, allowing specific religious groups to practice their religion without being punished, but retaining the ability to revoke that right at any time. It also only granted tolerance to Christians who believed in the Trinity. Settlers who blasphemed by denying either the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus Christ could be punished by execution or the seizure of their lands. That meant that Jews , Unitarians , and other dissenters from Trinitarian Christianity were practicing their religions at risk to their lives.

Otherwise, Trinitarian Christians' right to worship was protected. The law outlawed the use of "heretic" and other religious insults against them. The law was used in at least one attempt to prosecute a non-Christian.

In a Jew named Jacob Lumbrozo was accused of blasphemy after saying that Jesus was not the son of God and that the miracles described in the New Testament were conjuring tricks. Lumbrozo did not deny having said such things, but argued that he had only been responding to questions asked of him. The law had its detractors, even among those groups protected by it.

Puritans were concerned that the act and the proprietary government in general were royalist. They were also concerned that by swearing allegiance to Calvert, who was Catholic, they were being required to submit to the Pope , whom they considered to be the antichrist.

Lord Baltimore and the Maryland Colony

Some Anglicans also opposed the law, believing that the Church of England should be the colony's sole established church. In , only five years after its passage, the Act was repealed. In the early stages of that conflict, the colonial assembly of Maryland and its neighbors in Virginia had publicly declared their support for the King. Parliament appointed Protestant commissioners loyal to their cause to subdue the colonies, and two of them, the Virginian William Claiborne and Puritan leader Richard Bennett , took control of the colonial government in St.

Introduction

Mary's City in In addition to repealing the Maryland Toleration Act with the assistance of Protestant assemblymen, Claiborne and Bennett passed a new law barring Catholics from openly practicing their religion. This time, it would last more than thirty years, until They quickly rescinded the Toleration Act and banned public practice of Catholicism, and it would never be reinstated under colonial rule. In fact, the colony established the Church of England as its official church in and explicitly barred Catholics from voting in His political control remained tenses enough that he did not risk an attempt to reinstate protections for Catholics.

While the law did not secure religious freedom, and while it included severe limitations, it was nonetheless a significant milestone. It predates the Enlightenment , which is generally considered to be when the idea of religious freedom took root, and stands as the first legal guarantee of religious tolerance in American and British history.

Later laws ensuring religious tolerance and freedom, including the British Act of Toleration of , the Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania , and laws concerning religion in other colonies such as South Carolina , may have been influenced by its example. Thus, despite its lack of a full guarantee of religious freedom or broad-based tolerance, the law is, "a significant step forward in the struggle for religious liberty.

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George Calvert was an Englishman who looked to America as a place of religious freedom. For years his family had to practice its Roman Catholic faith in secret while openly participating in the Church of England. Calvert sought a land grant in America and King Charles the First gave him a big chunk of territory.

Calvert's son Cecelius carried out his father's dream of establishing a colony in America as a refuge for Catholics. From its founding in Maryland allowed a greater than usual amount of freedom for both Catholics and Protestants.

Maryland Toleration Act

With England in the hands of Puritans and Protestants beginning to outnumber Catholics in Maryland, the colony's legislature passed an Act of Toleration to ensure the religious liberty of Maryland's Catholics. The Toleration Act, passed on April 24, , granted religious freedom to all who believed in the Trinity and that Jesus was the son of God. In addition, the law made it a crime to jeer at other believers by calling them names such as "papist," "heretic," or "Puritan.

Those who profaned Sunday by swearing excessively, becoming drunk or working unnecessarily could be fined. Anyone who spoke against the Virgin Mary could be fined and whipped. Today the Toleration Act seems harsh and restrictive, but in its day it offered more religious freedom for the citizens of Maryland than for those in England and most of Britain's colonies.

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