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Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.
Relatively little attention has been paid to the relentless hostility toward the Catholics of our 13 English colonies in the period that preceded the American Revolution. Instead, historians have tended to concentrate only on the story of the expansion of the tiny Catholic community of 1785, which possessed no Bishop and hardly 25 priests
A long history of anti-Catholicism
the first general report on the state of Catholicism by John Carroll in 1785, Catholics were a mere handful. He conservatively estimated the Catholic population in those colonies to be 25,000. Of this figure, 15,800 resided in Maryland, about 7,000 in Pennsylvania, and another 1,500 in New York. Considering that the population in the first federal census of 1790 totaled 3,939,000, the Catholic presence was less than one percent, Catholics were the subject of penal measures of one kind or another during the colonial period. In most cases, the Catholic Church had been proscribed at an early date, as in Virginia where the act of 1642 proscribing Catholics and their priests set the tone for the remainder of the colonial period.
Even in the supposedly tolerant Maryland, the tables had turned against Catholics by the 1700s. By this time the penal code against Catholics included test oaths administered to keep Catholics out of office, legislation that barred Catholics from entering certain professions (such as Law), and measures had been enacted to make them incapable of inheriting or purchasing land. By 1718 the ballot had been denied to Catholics in Maryland, following the example of the other colonies, and parents could even be fined for sending children abroad to be educated as Catholics.
The Penal Age: 1645-1763
Evidence of this anti-Catholic attitude can be found in laws passed by colonial legislatures, sermons preached by colonial ministers, and various books and pamphlets published in the colonies or imported from England. For example, even though no Catholic was known to have lived in Massachusetts Bay in the first 20 years or more of the colony’s life, this did not deter the Puritan government from enacting an anti-priest law in May of 1647, which threatened with death “all and every Jesuit, seminary priest, missionary or other spiritual or ecclesiastical person made or ordained by any authority, power or jurisdiction, derived, challenged or pretended, from the Pope or See of Rome.”
When Georgia, the thirteenth colony, was brought into being in 1732 by a charter granted by King George II, its guarantee of religious freedom followed the fixed pattern: full religious freedom was promised to all future settlers of the colony “except papists,” that is Catholics.
Even Rhode Island, famous for its supposed policy of religious toleration, inserted an anti-Catholic statute imposing civil restrictions on Catholics in the colony’s first published code of laws in 1719. Not until 1783 was the act revoked.
Catholicism in Maryland
Dutch/ English prejudice against the “Romanists” would soon re-emerge from the scabbard in which it had briefly rested. Draconian law of 1700 prescribing perpetual imprisonment of Jesuits and “popish” messengers. This strong anti-Catholic prejudice persisted even into the federal period. When New York framed its constitution in 1777, it allowed toleration for all religions, but Catholics were denied full citizenship. This law was not repealed until 1806.
Catholicism in Pennsylvania
Due to the broad tolerance that informed William Penn’s Quaker settlements, the story of Catholics in Pennsylvania is the most positive of any of the original 13 colonies. A census taken in 1757 placed the total number of Catholics in Pennsylvania at 1,365. In a colony estimated to have between 200,000 and 300,000 inhabitants
Relaxation of anti-Catholicism in the revolutionary era
This phase of strong, blatant persecution of Catholicism came to a close during the revolutionary era (1763-1820).
traditioninaction.org/History/B_001_Colonies.html
Relatively little attention has been paid to the relentless hostility toward the Catholics of our 13 English colonies in the period that preceded the American Revolution. Instead, historians have tended to concentrate only on the story of the expansion of the tiny Catholic community of 1785, which possessed no Bishop and hardly 25 priests
A long history of anti-Catholicism
the first general report on the state of Catholicism by John Carroll in 1785, Catholics were a mere handful. He conservatively estimated the Catholic population in those colonies to be 25,000. Of this figure, 15,800 resided in Maryland, about 7,000 in Pennsylvania, and another 1,500 in New York. Considering that the population in the first federal census of 1790 totaled 3,939,000, the Catholic presence was less than one percent, Catholics were the subject of penal measures of one kind or another during the colonial period. In most cases, the Catholic Church had been proscribed at an early date, as in Virginia where the act of 1642 proscribing Catholics and their priests set the tone for the remainder of the colonial period.
Even in the supposedly tolerant Maryland, the tables had turned against Catholics by the 1700s. By this time the penal code against Catholics included test oaths administered to keep Catholics out of office, legislation that barred Catholics from entering certain professions (such as Law), and measures had been enacted to make them incapable of inheriting or purchasing land. By 1718 the ballot had been denied to Catholics in Maryland, following the example of the other colonies, and parents could even be fined for sending children abroad to be educated as Catholics.
The Penal Age: 1645-1763
Evidence of this anti-Catholic attitude can be found in laws passed by colonial legislatures, sermons preached by colonial ministers, and various books and pamphlets published in the colonies or imported from England. For example, even though no Catholic was known to have lived in Massachusetts Bay in the first 20 years or more of the colony’s life, this did not deter the Puritan government from enacting an anti-priest law in May of 1647, which threatened with death “all and every Jesuit, seminary priest, missionary or other spiritual or ecclesiastical person made or ordained by any authority, power or jurisdiction, derived, challenged or pretended, from the Pope or See of Rome.”
When Georgia, the thirteenth colony, was brought into being in 1732 by a charter granted by King George II, its guarantee of religious freedom followed the fixed pattern: full religious freedom was promised to all future settlers of the colony “except papists,” that is Catholics.
Even Rhode Island, famous for its supposed policy of religious toleration, inserted an anti-Catholic statute imposing civil restrictions on Catholics in the colony’s first published code of laws in 1719. Not until 1783 was the act revoked.
Catholicism in Maryland
- In that year, Puritans from Virginia succeeded in overthrowing Calvert’s rule, although Calvert regained control four years later. The last major political uprising took place in 1689, when the ‘Glorious Revolution” of William and Mary ignited a new anti-Catholic revolt in Maryland, and the rule of the next Lord Baltimore, Charles Calvert, was overthrown. Therefore, in 1692 Maryland’s famous Religious Toleration Act officially ended, and the Maryland Assembly established the so-called Church of England as the official State religion supported by tax levies. Restrictions were imposed on Catholics for public worship, and priests could be prosecuted for saying Mass. Although Catholics generally maintained their social status, they were denied the right to vote or otherwise participate in the government of the colony their ancestors had founded.
Dutch/ English prejudice against the “Romanists” would soon re-emerge from the scabbard in which it had briefly rested. Draconian law of 1700 prescribing perpetual imprisonment of Jesuits and “popish” messengers. This strong anti-Catholic prejudice persisted even into the federal period. When New York framed its constitution in 1777, it allowed toleration for all religions, but Catholics were denied full citizenship. This law was not repealed until 1806.
Catholicism in Pennsylvania
Due to the broad tolerance that informed William Penn’s Quaker settlements, the story of Catholics in Pennsylvania is the most positive of any of the original 13 colonies. A census taken in 1757 placed the total number of Catholics in Pennsylvania at 1,365. In a colony estimated to have between 200,000 and 300,000 inhabitants
Relaxation of anti-Catholicism in the revolutionary era
This phase of strong, blatant persecution of Catholicism came to a close during the revolutionary era (1763-1820).
traditioninaction.org/History/B_001_Colonies.html
