This episode is about a radically democratic political movement in Maryland in the 1650s. Veterans of the New Model Army, many of whom had been swimming in political movements like the Levellers, came to Maryland and joined with other Protestants chafing under Catholic and aristocratic rule. Blood would be shed at the Battle of the Severn, and in the aftermath Lord Baltimore would install a man named Josias Fendall as the fourth governor of his proprietary colony. Fendall, it would turn out, decided he agreed with the populists, and led a legislative revolution that, for a time, would make Maryland the most politically radical government, other than in Rhode Island, anywhere in the English world.

X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2

Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast

Primary reference for this episode

Noeleen McIlvenna, Early American Rebels: Pursuing Democracy from Maryland to Carolina, 1640-1700 (Commission earned)