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This is my first TL and I wanted to create one about the Province of Maryland. It's going to be pretty amateur and ASB (I have memorized AH slang words:D). I just want to be clear that the British colonies still exist and so will the US, but Maryland, unlike OTL, will be more successful and have more influence on American history.

OTL Maryland was relatively prosperous in it's early years because of it's tobacco farming, but had little immigration and relied heavily on natural growth. The Protestant population started growing and later overtook the Catholic population. The Maryland Toleration Act, one of the first steps in religious freedom, was enacted in desperation to save the Catholic minority from persecution, but it failed and anti-catholic laws were enacted. I always thought Maryland had potential considering that there was a place eager to get Catholics out and another eager to get them in. St. Mary's City could have become an important port had there been more effort into colonization.

In Post-Reformation England, Anti-Catholicism ran rampant all over. Their were laws in place that efficiently banned Roman Catholicism, even though rarely enacted, put Catholics in a vulnerable place. Even more so under the rule of Charles I because he was tolerant of Catholics in a majority protestant country, basically political suicide. From marrying a Catholic French woman and having pro-Spanish policies, anti-Catholicism soared throughout England. Meanwhile, a Catholic Englishman by the name of George Calvert, envisions an utopia for persecuted people of all faiths (basically just Catholics) in the New World. In 1631, George was granted a colony in North America by his good friend King Charles I for his services to his King and country but George dies, before his colony could be established, in 1632 at the age of 53. In ATL, he lives a little longer and goes off to establish the colony of Maryland along with 331 Catholics from Yorkshire and Umber on the ships, "The Ark" and "The Dove". The colony is named Maryland after Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I and after Mary, the mother of Jesus.

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Source: http://www.mdhs.org/sites/default/files/1780_new map_province maryland_north america.jpg
Map of the land grant

Hope you guys like it, constructive criticism is welcome as I obviously need to improve:D

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