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The Maryland Colony's original name was the Province of Maryland.
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The Maryland Colony was founded as a refuge for English Catholics. Although the charter had been originally issued to George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, he died before it was formally executed and his son Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore was granted the charter.
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George Calvert had been stripped of his title as Secretary of State in 1625 when he declared his Catholicism. George and Cecil were the only Roman Catholics in the British Empire's history to be given a colony.
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The original Maryland Colony encompassed a lot more land than it does today as the state of Maryland. It originally covered approximately 12 million acres. It is approximately half that today.
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Major cities in the Maryland Colony included Baltimore and Annapolis.
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The early settlements in the Maryland Colony often clustered around its rivers and waterways, in particular those that emptied into Chesapeake Bay.
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Although the settlers in the Maryland Colony grew a variety of crops, the major export was tobacco.
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The climate in the Maryland Colony was much warmer than in the New England and Middle Colonies. This made it easier to grow crops year round but the warmer temperatures made it easier for disease to spread.
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Plantations in the Maryland Colony were dominated by tobacco, and as prices dropped the plantation owners grew to rely heavily on slaves to maximize profits.
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Natural resources in the Maryland Colony included forests, fish, and good farming land.
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Plantations grew tobacco, cotton, corn, vegetables, grains, and fruit. Livestock was also commonly raised in the Maryland Colony.
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Plantations often included everything they required to be self-sufficient including the main house, slave quarters, a laundry house, smokehouse, a dairy, a blacksmith's shop and several barns.
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Major industry in the Maryland Colony included agriculture, iron works, shipbuilding and other manufacturing.
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Parts of the original Maryland Colony eventually became other states as Maryland ceded land that became part of Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia. Maryland's northern border was established after a legal dispute which resulted in the Mason-Dixon Line in 1763.
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In 1776 the Maryland Colony signed the Declaration of Independence. Maryland's signers included Samuel Chase, William Paca, Charles Carroll, and Thomas Stone.
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The Maryland Colony was the last of the 13 colonies to ratify the Articles of Confederation, which it did in 1781.
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The Maryland Colony became a state on April 28th, 1788 when it ratified the United States Constitution.
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Nicknames given to Maryland over the years include the Free State, and the Old Line State.
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