Maryland in The American Revolution

Maryland In The American Revolution

The Province of Maryland had been a British colony since 1632, when the Lord Baltimore first created a haven for English Catholics in the New World. The first signs of rebellion against the mother country occurred in 1765, when the tax collector Zachariah Hood was injured while landing at the Annapolis dock, arguably the first violent resistance to British taxation in the colonies. After a decade of bitter argument and internal division, Maryland declared her independence from Great Britain in 1776, along with the other Thirteen colonies. Four Marylanders - Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton signed the Declaration of Independence on her behalf.

Although no major Battles of the American Revolutionary War occurred in Maryland, this did not prevent the state's soldiers from distinguishing themselves through their service. General George Washington counted the "Maryland Line" who fought in the Continental Army among his finest soldiers, and Maryland is still known as "The Old Line State" today.

From November 26, 1783 to June 3, 1784, Annapolis briefly served as the capital of the fledgling United States of America, and it was in the Old Senate Chamber of the Maryland State House in Annapolis that George Washington famously resigned his commission as commander in chief of the Continental Army on December 23, 1783. It was also there that the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War, was ratified by Congress on January 14, 1784.

Like other states, Maryland was bitterly divided by the war; many Loyalists refused to join the Revolution, and saw their lands and estates confiscated as a consequence. The Barons Baltimore, who before the war had exercised almost feudal power in Maryland, were among the biggest losers. Almost the entire political elite of the province was overthrown, replaced by an entirely new political class, loyal to a new national political structure.