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Margaret Brent ~ Maryland
Not long after King Charles made the
grant of land to his friend, Lord Baltimore, a woman of queenly
daring and republican courage found her way to the new colony
and into the councils of its leading men, and her name, Margaret
Brent, stands for the most vigorous force in the early history
of Maryland. She was born in England, about 1600, and died at
Saint Mary's, Maryland, about 1661. A writer of this time has
said about her, "Had she been born a queen she would have been
as brilliant and daring as Elizabeth; had she been born a man
she would have been a Cromwell in her courage and audacity."
However, she might not have exerted
quite so much influence over these first Maryland colonies had
she not stood in the relationship she did to the Governor of
Maryland, Leonard Calvert, the brother of Lord Baltimore. There
are some who think that Margaret Brent was an intimate friend or
kinswoman of Leonard Calvert, and there are others who believe
that she was his sweetheart. But at any rate an atmosphere of
doubt and mystery still lingers about the names of Margaret
Brent and Leonard Calvert and their old-time relationship.
It was in the year 1634, that Leonard
Calvert came to America bringing over three hundred colonists,
some twenty of them men of wealth and position. These three
hundred English colonists sailed into wide Chesapeake Bay and up
that broad river, the Potomac, till they reached the place where
a little river joins the waters of the larger, and there they
founded their city, calling both city and river Saint Mary's.
Four years after the coming of Leonard
Calvert, Margaret Brent arrived in the city of Saint Mary's. It
was in November, that Mistress Margaret first saw Maryland, then
brilliant in the beauty of Indian Summer. The orioles were still
singing in the forests, the red wild flowers were blooming in
the crevices of the rocks and the trees still kept their foliage
of red and gold, and the English woman is said to have remarked
that the air of her new home was "Like the breath of Heaven;"
that she had entered "Paradise."
Margaret, with her brothers and sisters,
seem always to have had a prominent part in the affairs of the
colony. Immediately after their arrival they took up land in the
town and on Kent Island built themselves a Manor House and
carried on a prosperous business. Margaret became as wise as her
brothers or even wiser in the intricacy of the English law. We
hear of her registering cattle marks, buying and selling
property and signing herself "Attorney for My Brother." The
early records of the American Colony afford rare glimpses of
Mistress Margaret Brent as a person of influence and power. She
was indeed a woman of pronounced courage and executive ability.
She knew people and was able to manage them and their affairs
with remarkable tact. Moreover, although she was no longer very
young, she could still please and fascinate, and so it is not
surprising that she became in effect if not in fact the woman
ruler of Maryland. She is supposed to have shared the exile of
Governor Calvert when rebellion drove him from the colony, but
with fearlessness and daring she seems to have appeared in the
colony at the time when her home was threatened by raids under
Clayborne, the claimant of Kent Island. Two years passed before
Governor Calvert was able to put down the rebellion and return
to his colony and he did not live long to enjoy the peace that
followed. He died in the summer of 1647, and there was wondering
as to whom he would appoint his heir. Thomas Green, with a few
others of the Governor's council, and Margaret Brent were with
him just before he died. He named Thomas Green as his successor
as Governor. Then his eyes rested upon Margaret Brent, perhaps
with love, perhaps with confidence and admiration. There was no
one in the colony so wise, so able, so loyal as she. Leonard
Calvert had always known that. Pointing to her, so that all
might see and understand, he made the will that has come down to
us as the shortest one on record: "I make you my sole
executrix,'' he said, "Take all, and pay all." And after he had
spoken those words of laconic instruction, he asked that all
would leave him except Mistress Margaret. One cannot know what
passed between Leonard Calvert and Margaret Brent in this last
interview, nor what they said, for Margaret Brent never told.
But, 'Take all and pay all,'' he had
said, and Margaret Brent determined to carry out his command to
the letter. The first thing that she took was his house. There
was some dispute as to her title to it, but Mistress Margaret
did not wait for this dispute to close; she at once established
herself in the Governor's mansion, for she was well acquainted
with the old letter by which possession is nine points. Then
having secured the house she collected all of Governor Calvert's
property and took it under her care and management.
This would have been enough for most
women but Mistress Margaret was not so easily satisfied. She was
determined to have all that was implied in the phrase, 'Take all
and pay all," so we soon find her making claim that since she
had been appointed "Executrix" of Leonard Calvert, she had the
right to succeed Leonard Calvert as Lord Baltimore's attorney
and in that character to receive all the profits and to pay all
the debts of his lordship's estate and to attend to the state's
reservation.
Her next step was more daring than all
those that had gone before, being no less than a demand for vote
and representation. This demand was made two centuries and a
half ago, when talk of Woman's Rights was as unheard of as the
steam engine or electricity. Certainly Margaret Brent was far in
advance of her times. She might be known to history as the
Original Suffragette. Her audacity carried her even further. She
was Leonard Calvert's executrix, she told herself, and was
entitled to vote in that capacity and so she concluded she had
the right to two votes in the general assembly. No one but
Margaret Brent would have meditated those two votes, one for a
foreign Lord, who had never authorized her to act for him, and
the other for a dead man whose only instruction to her had been,
"Take all and pay all." We can only wonder at her ingenious
reasoning, as did that biographer of hers who was moved to
exclaim in admiration of her daring, "What woman would ever have
dreamed of such a thing!"
Her astonishing stand for woman's rights
was made on the 21st of January, 1648. At the first beat of the
drum, that was used to call the assemblymen together in the
early days of the Maryland colony. Mistress Margaret started on
her way for Fort Saint John's, where the general assembly was to
meet. We may well believe there was determination in her eye and
in her attitude as she sat erect upon her horse and rode over
the four miles of snow-covered roads to the fort, for she was.
determined that at least she would have her say before the crowd
and show the justice of her suit Mistress Margaret would not let
herself be disturbed by the cool reception with which she was
met; for, although the court tried to hedge her about with rules
and orders to keep her quiet, she remained firm in her
intentions to speak. And finally when her opportunity came she
rose and put forward for the first time in America the claims of
a woman's right to seat and vote in a legislative assembly.
We can only imagine the scene that
followed that brief and dangerous speech of hers in the court
room at Fort Saint John's. A wave of startled wonder and
amazement passed over the whole assembly and preposterous as her
demand was to those first Maryland planters, there were some
among them who moved by her persuasive eloquence would have been
willing to grant her request. But Governor Green, who had always
regarded Margaret Brent as his most dangerous rival, braced
himself for prompt and autocratic action and promptly refused.
The Maryland records attest, "The said Mistress Brent should
have no vote in the house." The "said Mistress Brent" did not
take her defeat without protest. She objected vehemently to the
proceedings of the assembly and departed from the court room in
anger and dignity. She had failed in her purpose but by her bold
stand she had made for herself the signal record as the first
woman in America to advocate her right to vote. It is to be
noted, moreover, that the Governor Green who had denied her this
right was the Governor who turned to her for help whenever an
emergency arose.
Soon after the death of Leonard Calvert
there threatened to be a mutiny in the army. The soldiers who
had fought for Governor Calvert when he was an exile in Virginia
had been promised that they should be paid in full ''out of the
stock and personal property of his Lordship's plantation."
Governor Calvert was dead, the pay was not forthcoming and the
only course left to the soldiers seemed to be insurrection.
Governor Green could think of nothing to appease the
half-starved indignant troops, so he went to Margaret Brent for
aid. As soon as Mistress Margaret heard of the trouble, she
recalled the instructions which Leonard Calvert had given her to
"pay all" so without hesitation she sold the cattle belonging to
Lord Baltimore and paid off all the hungry soldiers. News
traveled slowly in those early Colonial days and it was some
time before Lord Baltimore heard of all that Margaret Brent was
claiming and doing as his own attorney and executrix of his
brother. And not really knowing Mistress Margaret he was
inclined to lode upon her as a person who had been "meddling" in
his affairs and he wrote "tartly" and with "bitter invectives"
concerning her to the general assembly. But the general assembly
understood Margaret Brent better than Lord Baltimore did and
they sent a spirited reply to him in gallant praise of Margaret
Brent and her wise conduct. So we find the Maryland Assembly
which could not give Mistress Margaret the right to vote
defending her even against the Lord of their own colony and
declaring her "the ablest man among them."
To the end of her days Margaret Brent
continued to lead a life of ability and energetic action. There
are occasional glimpses of her latter history as she flashes
across the records of the Maryland colony, always a clear-cut,
fearless, vigorous personality. At one time she appears before
the assembly claiming that the tenements belonging to Lord
Calvert's manor should be under her guard and management. Again
she comes pleading her cause against one Thomas Gerard for five
thousand pounds of tobacco. At another time she figures as an
offender accused of stealing and selling cattle only to retort
indignantly that the cattle were her own, and to demand a trial
by jury. In all of these cases and many others she seems to have
had her own way. The General Assembly never denied her anything
but the right to vote. She had only to express a wish in her
clear persuasive fashion and it was granted. In point of view
Margaret Brent ruled the colony.
When she came for the last time before
the General Assembly her hair must have been gray, but her
speech no less eloquent, and her manner no less charming, than
in the days of Leonard Calvert. We can imagine her in the
presence of the court stating with dignity and frankness that
she was the heir to Thomas White, a Maryland gentleman, who,
dying, left her his whole estate as a proof of ''his love and
affection and of his constant wish to marry her." One would like
to know more about this Thomas, but he appears only in the one
role, that of Margaret Brent's lover. It has been suggested that
possibly if Mr. White had lived, Mistress Margaret might have
been induced at last to resign her independent state; that she
had grown weary of her land operations and her duties as
executrix and attorney and was willing to settle down to a life
of domestic calm. But it is almost impossible to think of
Margaret Brent as changing her business-like, self-reliant
nature and meditating matrimony. It is more likely that this
interesting and unusual Colonial dame died as she had lived,
loving nothing but the public good and the management of her own
and other people's affairs.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
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