Southern Maryland


Southern Maryland, also referred to as SoMD, is a geographical, cultural and historic region in Maryland composed of the state's southernmost counties on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. According to the state of Maryland, the region includes all of Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary's counties and the southern portions of Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties. It is largely coterminous with the region of Maryland that is part of the Washington metropolitan area. Portions of the region are also part of the Baltimore Metropolitan Area and the California-Lexington Park Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 Census, the region had a population of 373,177. The largest community in Southern Maryland is Waldorf, with a population of 81,410 as of the 2020 Census.
Initially inhabited by the indigenous Piscataway people, the first European settlement in Southern Maryland was established in St. Mary's City in 1634. While the settlement was intended to be a Catholic refuge, religious strife was prominent in Maryland's early years. The passage of the Maryland Toleration Act in 1649 resulted in St. Mary's City being cited as the birthplace of religious freedom in North America. The area developed an agricultural economy based on tobacco with labor sourced from indentured servants and slaves. The War of 1812 saw military action in the region during the British campaign to capture Washington, while the American Civil War saw the end of slavery in Maryland and John Wilkes Booth fleeing through the region following the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Much of the area remains rural with agriculture still playing a large role in the region's economy. Despite this, the region has seen large suburban growth and development in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as urban sprawl from nearby Washington, D.C., expands southward.
In 2023, the region was designated as the Southern Maryland National Heritage Area.

Geography

Counties located in Southern Maryland include Calvert County, Charles County, St. Mary's County, and the southern portions of Prince George's County and Anne Arundel County.
The region's northern boundary passes through Prince George's County and Anne Arundel County, east of Washington. Its eastern boundary is the Chesapeake Bay and its southern and western boundary is the Potomac River, Maryland's boundary with Virginia.
The Patuxent River runs through Southern Maryland, separating Calvert County and Anne Arundel County from Charles County, Prince George's County and St. Mary's County.
Land features in Southern Maryland include the St. Mary's Peninsula and the Calvert Peninsula.
Geologic formations of the Chesapeake Group can be found in Southern Maryland, including the Calvert Formation, the St. Marys Formation, and the Choptank Formation. Many of these formations are present at the Calvert Cliffs State Park in Calvert County.
Southern Maryland is within the Atlantic Coastal Plain physiographic region.

History

Colonial era

Southern Maryland was originally inhabited by the indigenous Piscataway people. English explorer Captain John Smith explored the area in 1608 and 1609.
Cecilius Calvert was granted a charter to establish a colony meant to be a safe-haven for Catholics in 1632. Expeditions were launched into modern day Maryland, with an expedition reaching St. Clement's Island in 1634. Later that year, the Maryland Colony was established by Leonard Calvert, first Governor of Maryland and brother of Cecilius. The colony's capital, and first settlement, was the newly established St. Mary's City.
The colony originally focused on tobacco farming and was very successful although disease was a problem and many settlers died until immunities built up in the population. Religious tensions and also periods of open conflict also continued to be a major challenge.
St. Mary's City is widely considered to be the birthplace of religious freedom in North America. The colony there started under a mandate of religious tolerance in a time when England was anything but religiously tolerant. This was due to the colony's charter, which did not prohibit non-protestant churches. In 1649, the Maryland Colonial Assembly passed of one of the earliest laws requiring religious tolerance, known as the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649.
After 61 years as Maryland's capital an uprising of Protestants put an end to religious tolerance, overthrowing the old Catholic leadership and putting an end to colonial St. Mary's City itself, moving the colonial capital to Annapolis.

Plantation economy and slavery

St. Mary's City was abandoned as a capital but was slowly consolidated from smaller farms into a large, single slave plantation by the late 1600s. Originally, laborers were Indentured Servants, with African slaves arriving in 1639. Tobacco and also wheat plantations expanded there and in Southern Maryland as a whole during the slavery era. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade brought African slaves by the boatloads, with 100,000 slaves disembarking in Maryland during the century before the American Revolution. From the late 1600s to early 1700s, about half of Maryland's enslaved population lived in Calvert, St Mary's, Prince George's, and Charles counties. By 1755, one third of Maryland's population were enslaved Africans. Slavery proved vital to Maryland's economy, with the institution providing the foundation for Maryland's economy and society. The profits from slavery also provided the means for Maryland's gentry to gain power and dominate politics.
272 slaves from across Maryland, including the Southern Maryland counties of Charles, St. Mary's, and Prince George's, were sold during the 1838 Jesuit slave sale to two planters in Louisiana.
A notable abolitionist from southern Maryland was Josiah Henson, a slave who was born in Charles County before escaping to Canada. Henson wrote an autobiography that inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. Slavery ended in Maryland in November 1864 during the American Civil War, when Maryland ratified a new Constitution that abolished slavery.

The American Revolution and the War of 1812

During the American Revolutionary War, British forces landed on St. George Island in St. Mary's County on July 15, 1776, under the command of John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore. Dunmore's forces were defeated by local Flying Camp militia led by Captain Rezin Beall, and they left the island on August 9, 1776. During the war, American slaves throughout the Chesapeake region flocked to British lines following Dunmore's Proclamation, which promised freedom for slaves who fought for the British military.
Due to Southern Maryland's proximity to the national capitol, the region was deeply affected by the War of 1812, with the war severely disrupting the lives of the region's citizens. During August and September 1814, the British launched a campaign in the Chesapeake region. British forces landed in Benedict, Charles County on August 19, 1814. Intent on marching to Washington, the British marched to Upper Marlboro before engaging American troops at the Battle of Bladensburg. The battle resulted in a British victory. By nightfall on August 24, 1814, British forces entered Washington and burned several government buildings. The British then marched back to Benedict. Similarly to what occurred in the Revolutionary War, enslaved Marylanders fled to British controlled areas to receive freedom.

American Civil War

During the American Civil War, wartime sympathies were divided in Maryland and Southern Maryland was sympathetic to the Confederates next to Maryland's Eastern Shore. From the war's beginning, however, large numbers of Union occupying troops and patrolling river gunboats prevented the state's secession, although frequent nighttime smuggling across the Potomac River with Virginia took place, including of Maryland men volunteering for Confederate service. John Wilkes Booth was helped by several people in his escape through the area and in crossing the river after killing President Abraham Lincoln. Thousands of captured Confederate troops were confined in harsh conditions at Point Lookout Prison Camp at the southern tip of the peninsula. During the war, in November 1863, Maryland ratified a new state Constitution which abolished slavery in the state.

Transition to modern era

Southern Maryland was traditionally a rural, agricultural, oyster fishing and crabbing region; linked by passenger and freight steamboat routes. These steamboat routes operated on the Chesapeake Bay and major rivers until the 1930s before the building of highways and the Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge on U.S. Highway 301.. Weekend excursion boats also carried Washingtonians to small amusement parks and amusement pavilions at numerous Potomac shore locations. From 1949 to 1968, the region was known for its poverty and its slot machine gambling.

Modernizing St. Mary's County

Poverty was common in St. Mary's County in the 1960s, and gambling in the region came to be seen as a blight and was outlawed by Governor J. Millard Tawes and the state legislature. A local political figure, St. Mary's County politician J. Frank Raley Jr. organized a slate of local candidates with the platform of challenging the political status-quo and lifting the region out of its generations long poverty.
The region's isolation was ended by having a series of bridges built and roads expanded into highways. These developments are credited for enabling the development of modern St. Mary's County.
Raley was falsely accused of working to end gambling outright in the region, which ended in his defeat and his official political career. In fact he had supported a referendum on gambling which would have put the decision directly in the hands of voters. He continued nevertheless lobbying on behalf of the Southern Maryland region and sitting on development boards and continued to have a major influence on economic development in the region for the rest of his life.