In 1649, the Act of Toleration

The maryland toleration act did not bring complete religious freedom, as is so often assumed, and as a reading of this document will quickly prove. nor did it come about because of a profound humanistic conviction on the part of lord baltimore, the maryland proprietor. the act was a pragmatic solution to a serious problem. the catholics in originally catholic maryland had become a minority of the population although still powerful politically. they were in great danger of being ill-treated by the protestant majority. the toleration act, it was believed, was a way of providing protection for catholics while at the same time representing a nod in the direction of the english government, which in 1649 and for a dozen years thereafter was firmly under the control of the english puritans. nonetheless, the document is important because it did provide modest although impermanent protection for catholic marylanders and set a precedent to which others could refer. despite baltimore's catholic background and his desire to use maryland as a refuge for catholics persecuted elsewhere, the catholic church never became the established church. in the eighteenth century this distinction was given to the church of england.