Act of Toleration in AP US History
The Act of Toleration was a 1649 law passed by Maryland's colonial assembly that guaranteed freedom of worship to Christians who believed in the Trinity. Maryland's Catholic proprietors backed it to protect the colony's Catholic minority from a growing Protestant majority. It expanded religious accommodation, but it still punished anyone who denied the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus with death.
This definition is part of Fiveable's AP US History review, which also has guided practice questions.
1634-1649: A Catholic haven with a Protestant majority
Maryland was a proprietary colony owned by the Calvert family, the Lords Baltimore. The Calverts were Catholic, and they meant Maryland to be a refuge for English Catholics, who faced legal penalties at home.
The problem was numbers. Protestant settlers arrived in large numbers and soon outnumbered Catholics. In a colony where the proprietors were a religious minority, a law protecting all Trinitarian Christians was also a law protecting the people in charge.
That self-protective motive matters when you explain the act. A strong answer says the law came out of a minority's practical need for security. Treating it as a statement of Enlightenment ideals gets the motive wrong, because those ideas came later.
What the 1649 law protected, and what it punished
The act made it illegal to harass or discriminate against a Christian over their denomination, and it banned insulting religious name-calling. Catholics and most Protestants could worship without being harassed by their neighbors.
Its limits show why the law counts as restricted toleration rather than universal religious freedom. The law covered only Christians who accepted the Trinity. Jews, non-Trinitarian Christians, and nonbelievers had no protection, and denying the Trinity or Jesus's divinity was punishable by death.
On a multiple-choice set built around an excerpt from the act, a wrong choice might call it full religious freedom or separation of church and state. The better choice describes limited toleration among Christian groups. If the stem asks for the colony with the broadest religious liberty, look to Rhode Island. After Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts, he founded the colony and kept church and state separate.
Repeal in 1654 and the Protestant takeover
The protection didn't last. During the Puritan ascendancy tied to England's civil wars, a Protestant-controlled government in Maryland repealed the act in 1654 and barred Catholics from practicing openly. Toleration was restored later in the 1650s, but after England's Glorious Revolution, Protestants took control of Maryland's government. Maryland established the Church of England in 1692. Over the following years, Catholics faced restrictions on political participation, including a ban on voting enacted in 1718.
This sequence is good evidence for a continuity-and-change argument. Toleration in the colonies was fragile and depended on who held power. A Long essay on colonial religion is stronger if it shows that the 1649 act was reversed, not just that it was passed.
Don't confuse it with England's Toleration Act of 1689. That was a law passed by Parliament for Protestant dissenters, decades after Maryland's act. The shared name makes the two easy to mix up in a short-answer response.
Maryland as a test case for the regional pattern in Topic 2.3
In Unit 2, Topic 2.3 (The Regions of the British Colonies) asks why British colonies grew in different ways between 1607 and 1754. The course links greater religious tolerance mainly to the middle colonies, where diverse European migration made pluralism practical. Pennsylvania, founded by the Quaker William Penn, is the standard example.
Maryland complicates that pattern because it's a Chesapeake colony. It had a tobacco economy, indentured servants, and later enslaved labor, which is the standard Chesapeake profile. Its religious history came from its Catholic proprietors, not from its region's economy. That makes it useful in a short-answer response that asks you to explain an exception or a factor besides environment. Proprietors' goals and religious politics in England shaped colonies alongside geography.
It also contrasts well with New England. Massachusetts Puritans expected religious conformity and banished dissenters like Anne Hutchinson. For a comparison essay, Maryland gives you a dated example of a colony that made room for more than one Christian group.
Where this sits in APUSH
- Unit 2: Colonial Society, 1607–1754 (about 6–8% of the multiple-choice section)
- Topic 2.3: The Regions of British Colonies Study guide →
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