Religion Is but Policy, 1689–1699
This chapter describes the overthrow of the Calverts in the 1690s by John Coode and the Protestant Association of Maryland. As word of the arrival of William of Orange spread across the Atlantic, one member of the radical network began an uprising in Virginia, known as Parson Waugh’s Tumult. Then in Maryland, the sons-in-law of Thomas Gerard organized and successfully created a democratic government, and the new King supported them. There would still be challenges. A governor tried to quell Coode’s influence, as Coode tried to teach others about Cicero and commonwealths. But the real killer of egalitarian thought was slavery. The switch to an enslaved labor force throughout the Chesapeake over the 1690s substituted race for class in the social hierarchy of the region.