Maryland formally recognizes March 25th, as the day of its founding. It was on that day in 1634 that the first settlers sent by Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Lord Baltimore established the first settlement in land chartered to the Calvert’s.
Mathias de Sousa, listed in records as a Mulatto, was of probable African and Portuguese descent. He was one of nine indentured servants at that first settlement. His indenture service ended in 1638 and he became a full free member of the colony becoming a mariner and fur trader. As a freeman he was allowed to participate and vote in the colonial assembly.
When those first settlers arrived there were already pockets of settlers on lands that would become Maryland. In August of 1631 William Claiborne, a resident of the Virginia colony of Jamestown, founded a settlement near the southern end of the the largest island of the Chesapeake Bay. The trading post bore his name and was established with the purpose of trading with Native Americans. He named the island Kent Island after his birthplace of Kent, England.
For the first 150 years of the English settlement the peninsula colonial borders were questioned. Maryland felt that the entire peninsula north of the Potomac parallel should be part of the Maryland Colony.
When Cæcilius Calvert was given the grant for Maryland in 1632, the charter stated his control was eastward to the Delaware River and Bay on lands not already settled by Europeans. The Dutch settlement of Hoerekil was founded in 1631, near Lewes, Delaware and was one of the first settlements of Delaware. In fact it’s because of this settlement that Delaware is not part of Maryland.
Near the town of Lewes lies Cape Henlopen. It’s the southern Cape of the Delaware River. Originally spelled Cape Hinlopen, Cape Henlopen is named after Thijmen Jacobsz Hinlopen. This spelling caused confusion with another Cape Hinlopen located about 24 miles south at Fenwick Island. Cape Hinlopen was decided to be the beginning of the Transpeninsular Line, as surveyed by Mason and Dixon and established the southern border of Delaware to Maryland. The Calvert’s intended for the Lewes’ Cape to be the start of the line. Had it began at Cape Henlopen at Lewes, Delaware would have been about 1000 square miles smaller.
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This was also published at ChesaDel Crier – Art and Entertainment Between the Bays