Maryland - 4th Blog

Social Conflicts
In first 100 years Maryland a land of immigrants that could not increase its own population too much with its families. as a result, the social structure of early Maryland was very diverse with different groups of immigrants with diverse mindsets and ways of life. Different traditions meant some fragmentation within early Maryland society.


Religious Practice
Maryland was founded with the idea of it being a place where Catholics and other Christians would be welcome and accepted and be able to live in peace and harmony. Unfortunately, non - Christians did not enjoy the same hospitable welcome.


Ordinary Lives of People
Early Marylanders had short life spans. Their average age of death was just 43. Indentured servants in the colony were young, with half between the ages of 18 and 22. Their specialties included yeoman, husbandmen, farm laborers, artisans, and others untrained with a particular specialty. While middle aged men any have the perception of colonists as middle aged men, the Majority of men in Maryland were between 17 and 28 years of age. Why was this so? Probably because those men were required to performing difficult physical labor and would be more suited to such work than would an older man.



SOURCES:

The Planter's Wife: The Experience of White Women in Seventeenth-Century Maryland Author(s): Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh Source: The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Oct., 1977), pp. 542-571 Published by: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2936182