As all the other English settlements in America were Protestant, the party had great trouble in securing supplies and getting started for the New World. Before they were quite ready, the first Lord Baltimore died, and his eldest son, Cecil Calvert, who then became Lord Baltimore, inherited Maryland as part of his father’s estate. But some of the land granted to Lord Baltimore had been settled years before and was claimed by the colonists of Virginia. On account of this, young Lord Baltimore had to stay in London to look out for his rights in America. Therefore his younger brother, Leonard Calvert, was sent to act for him as governor of Maryland.
At last the voyagers sailed away in two ships, the Ark and the Dove. There were one hundred and twenty-eight passengers, not counting servants and children. There were others on board who, not having money, bound themselves by law to work for a certain time in America to pay their passage across the sea.
The two ships were caught in a terrific storm on the way and the Dove was not to be seen anywhere. After many days of hoping against hope, those on the Ark gave up for lost the Dove and all their friends on it. Then the Ark sailed on alone, stopping, after many weeks, at one of the islands of the West Indies. While they were anchored there their sorrow was turned to joy, for the Dove caught up with them. It had been driven out of sight by the fierceness of the gale and had found refuge in a harbor near by.
The two sister ships now sailed northward and entered the mouth of the Potomac. Of this river Father White, one of the company, wrote:
“Never have I beheld a larger or more beautiful river. The Thames seems a mere rivulet in comparison with it; it is not disfigured by any swamps, but has firm land on each side. Fine groves of trees appear, not choked with bushes and undergrowth, but growing at intervals as if planted by hand, so that you might easily drive a four-horse carriage through the midst of the trees.”
Governor Leonard Calvert had heard so many stories of the fierceness and cunning of the Indians that he did not land at once. After the two ships had cruised about the rivers and the bay awhile, he decided to settle at the mouth of a small river, which they named St. Mary’s, and built a group of cabins, calling this place St. Mary’s also.
They were quite surprised to find their Indian neighbors friendly, bringing corn and provisions, and showing them all they could about planting and trapping and hunting. The settlers soon learned that the Indians were friendly because they wanted the white men to help them when they went to war with their savage enemies. The red men thought the strangers’ “firesticks” (guns) worked magic, like lightning and thunder from above. The children of young Maryland saw much to entertain and sometimes to frighten them. When the Indians painted themselves with red, black, and yellow stripes, they looked even uglier than before. The white people had heard of the savages’ war dances and scalp dances, but they now found the natives had also their corn dances, something like a harvest or Thanksgiving festival.
The Maryland colonists were kind to the tribes and gained their friendship, as Champlain had done and as William Penn and the Quakers of Philadelphia were to do about fifty years later. The Indians in and around Maryland learned to believe in the goodness of the people of the Baltimore colony.