Albemarle and Other Fringes, 1661–1674

This chapter describes the alternative societies built by radicals in the borderlands of the Chesapeake. John Jenkins and others created a sanctuary in the Albemarle region of North Carolina. There, Quakers and Levelers were welcome. After William Berkeley suppressed servant rebellions in Virginia, some Quakers found refuge in Somerset County, Maryland. In all these frontier places that governors could not control, radicals deviated from political, social, and cultural norms. But at the same time, the big planters of Tidewater Virginia were making the shift to a slave labor force.

Revolution in the Chesapeake, 1675–1679

This chapter places Bacon’s Rebellion in the context of political developments in the surrounding colonies. In Virginia, Governor Berkeley had recently disenfranchised many of the poorer farmers. This allowed his elite supporters in the assembly to pass a high poll tax. Dissatisfaction became violent in the summer of 1676, in both Virginia and in an area of Maryland known as the Clifts. The rebellions were eventually suppressed, but when a new governor tried to tax the Albemarle settlers, he was met with Culpeper’s Rebellion, which successfully saved representative government in North Carolina.

Papists in Trouble, 1681–1688

This chapter describes developments in England and the colonies, as the Stuart kings passed Navigation Acts and built the infrastructure for Atlantic trade in people and commodities that would help them remain independent of Parliament. The opposition to them in Maryland took the form of anti-popery, for the Stuarts were Catholic-friendly. In Virginia, in the plant-cutting of 1682, desperate small farmers tried to systematically destroy tobacco crops to stop the glut that drove down prices and their income. Meanwhile the big planters enslaved more Africans and developed a philosophy of white supremacy to justify racial hierarchy. The rich grew richer.

Conclusion

This section takes a broad look at the history from Ingle’s Rebellion to the American Revolution, tracing how republican ideas and a belief in equality was affected by gender norms and racial slavery. It argues that the Gerard network should be seen as important players in the long American pursuit of equality and democracy..

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.

Fendall’s Rebellion, 1650s

This chapter describes the events of 1650s Maryland, including the Battle of the Severn. Cromwell ended censorship and radical ideas, and theologies spread, with Quakers questioning inherited status. In Maryland, at first, Puritans fought against Josias Fendall and Thomas Gerard. Gradually they realized their common goals and organized another attempt to establish a republican commonwealth. The Assembly overthrew Lord Baltimore and his Council. But the rebellion ended with the Restoration of King Charles II. The Calvert family took back power. One of the rebels, John Jenkins, escaped.

Introduction

The Introduction gives an overview of the book’s narrative -- the seventeenth-century English Revolution’s overthrow of monarchy and the quest for more political representation by regular people. While a king was reinstated in England in 1660, poor people carried the ideas across the Atlantic to the Chesapeake colonies. There a network of activists, with women at the center, crossed colonial boundaries to pursue a society founded on equality. But the growth of the slave system would undermine their efforts.

Ingle’s Rebellion, 1638–1650

This chapter describes events in Maryland and England in the 1640s.The settlement of Maryland as a Catholic colony by the Calvert family began in the 1630s. After the English Civil War broke out in 1642, an English trader, Richard Ingle, brought Parliament’s ideology to Maryland in 1644. Local rebels joined him to cast out the Catholic lords and would govern themselves until 1647. This was known as Ingle’s Rebellion, or the Plundering Time. Meanwhile in England, Cromwell’s New Model Army grew revolutionary, as the Leveler movement pushed for a wide franchise. In 1649, King Charles was executed.