Archaeology

Arts

Economy

Education

Historical Overviews

Science, & Technology

Sports & Recreation

Transportation

Wildlife & Natural Resources

Search:

Brent before the Assembly

Maryland Historical Society

Margaret Brent was a Catholic leader in early colonial Maryland. She is most renowned today for requesting a vote in the Maryland Assembly in an age when women, queens excepted, were not allowed to participate directly in political life. She arrived in Maryland in 1638 with a sister, Mary, and two brothers, Giles and Fulke. Their father was Richard Brent, hereditary Lord of Lark Stoke and Abington in Gloucestershire and third cousin of Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore and proprietor of the Maryland Province. Unmarried and hence able to own and manage property, Margaret Brent soon established herself as a landowner and business woman, capable of managing her affairs without male assistance. She early gained the confidence of Governor Leonard Calvert, Lord Baltimore's brother, who made her joint guardian, with himself, of the daughter of the Piscataway Indian "Emperor" Kittamaquand.

Ingle's Rebellion and Aftermath
Mistress Brent's business and diplomatic skills proved crucial to the survival of Maryland in the aftermath of Ingle's Rebellion (1645), an offshoot of the English Civil War. Governor Calvert had fled to Virginia and on his return late in 1646 found Maryland in disarray. A colony with about 500 inhabitants in 1645 now had perhaps only 100. On June 9, 1647, he died after naming Margaret Brent his executrix with instructions to pay his debts. These included wages-to avoid pillage-due the twenty-eight or so soldiers he had brought with him, promising to pay them, if need be, from his own estate or that of his brother, the proprietor.

Unfortunately, the executory process was slow. Severe shortages of corn, the main food, were increasing tensions. Brent had to pacify soldiers threatening mutiny. Finally, on January 3, 1648, the Provincial Court, without time to seek the proprietor's permission, appointed Brent as his attorney-in-fact-replacing the deceased Leonard-so that she could start using his cattle as payment .

Request for the Vote
To avoid this unauthorized exchange, on January 21, at the first assembly since Calvert's death, Brent "requested to have vote in the howse for her selfe and voyce allso.as his Lordships Attorney." She well knew that without her persuasion the Assembly would not vote to pay soldiers whom Governor Calvert had promised to pay himself. When refused admittance, she faced the immediate and risky necessity of using the proprietor's cattle without his consent. That day she began payment. Thereby, she averted a crisis that might have ended Calvert rule with its experiment in freedom of conscience in religion.

Lord Baltimore's Anger
Lord Baltimore, weeks away in England, remained for nearly a year unaware of this assembly and Mistress Brent's doings. Over that time, unknown to him, she was active in the courts as his attorney. He was outraged when he learned of the use she had made of his property and was suspicious of her motives. Her brother, Councillor Giles Brent, had been a ringleader in opposing a "custom" on tobacco exports to pay the soldiers. Worse, when Governor Calvert had been absent in England in 1644, she had allowed her brother to marry her ward, the Piscataway "Princess," Mary Kittomaquand. Lord Baltimore feared that the Brents would claim Indian lands in her name without a grant from him. By 1651, his wrath had driven all the Brents to the Northern Neck of Virginia. At their plantation called "Peace," Mistress Margaret Brent died about 1671.

Margaret Brent's Legacy
Some modern advocates of women's rights have interpreted Margaret Brent as an early feminist. This she surely was not. Nothing she did indicates belief that women generally should have the vote or that the patriarchal arrangements that deprived married women of independence were wrong.

The Maryland Assembly of 1649 expressed well the nature of Mistress Brent's achievement. "We do Verily Believe," they wrote Lord Baltimore, "that [your estate] was better for the Collonys safety at that time in her hands then in any mans else.for the Soldiers would never have treated any other with.Civility and respect.. She rather deserved favour and thanks from your Honour for her so much Concurring to the publick safety then to be justly liable to.bitter invectives." The men of her place and time would not give her the vote, but they openly acknowledged that her abilities and civilizing talents were of critical importance to the "public safety."

—Lois Green Carr