Margaret Brent
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Margaret Brent (c. 1601 – c. 1671), was an English immigrant to the
With
Early life and education
Born in
Immigration to Maryland
Margaret, her sister Mary, and her brothers Giles Brent and Fulke Brent sailed together from England and arrived at St. Mary's, Maryland on November 22, 1638, where they hoped to improve their fortunes.[6] In England the father's estate went to the eldest son, and the remainder of the children had to make their own ways. Margaret Brent was about 37 and unmarried.[1]
In the colony, the Brents secured large land grants and corresponding political offices due to their prestigious ancestry and/or political affiliations. Fulke Brent returned to England, but the other three stayed on in Maryland. On October 4, 1639, Margaret Brent became the first Maryland female land owner. She obtained the first recorded land grant in St. Mary's, a 70.5-acre (285,000 m2) patent, with which she and her sister Mary established the "Sisters' Freehold", and an adjacent 50 acres (200,000 m2) titled St. Andrew's. The Brent sisters had land entitlement letters from Maryland's Proprietary Governor, awarding them land portions equal in size to those of arrivals in Maryland in 1634. Their initial
Margaret Brent also received credit or
English Civil War comes to the Maryland colony
Meanwhile, by the mid-1640s, the English Civil War spilled over to Maryland. Protestant sea captain
Lord Baltimore had always managed his proprietorship from England, where he worked to keep political support for the colony, as well as to prove his loyalty (as a Catholic) to the new government of Protestants. He had appointed his brother as governor and to manage his lands. During the emergency after Calvert's death, the Provincial Court on January 3, 1648 appointed Brent attorney-in-fact for Lord Baltimore, as there was no time to contact him about financial matters, and he had not appointed a successor to Calvert. She collected his rents and paid his debts.[1][6]
Thus, as Lord Baltimore's representative (as well as Calvert's executrix and a landowner in her own right),[1] on January 21, 1648, Brent attended the provincial assembly, where she requested a voice in the council, as well as two votes in its proceedings (one as an independent landowner and the other as Lord Baltimore's attorney.)[9] Margaret stated in her request to the Maryland General Assembly, "I've come to seek a voice in this assembly. And yet because I am a woman, forsooth I must stand idly by and not even have a voice in the framing of your laws."[10] Governor Thomas Greene refused her request, as the assembly at the time considered such privileges for women to be reserved for queens. Brent left but said that she "Protested against all proceedings ... unless she may be present and have vote as aforesaid."[6]
That same day, Brent called for corn to be brought from Virginia to feed the hungry troops camped at St. Mary's. Some accounts suggest that she had spent all of Leonard Calvert's personal estate by this time, and proceeded to sell Lord Baltimore's cattle to pay the soldiers' wages, although there is disagreement among historians on this matter. English law would not permit the sale of such possessions without a court order or a special act of the legislature. But Calvert's lands and buildings were added into the inventory of his estate. Brent and then Governor William Stone also disagreed upon the act of a sale of a 100-acre (0.4 km2) land tract entitled "The Governor's Field".
Brent appeared at the assembly a final time as Lord Baltimore's attorney, on February 9, 1648 in a case against Thomas Cornwallis. She may have been replaced by Thomas Hatton, the new Provincial secretary.
From England, Lord Baltimore wrote to the assembly objecting to the sale of any of his property after the death of his brother.[1][6] He may have been suspicious of Brent's motives in managing his assets, or not realized that the colony had been in danger of extinction, had the mercenaries not been paid to leave. While the assembly had refused to give Margaret Brent a vote, it defended her stewardship of Lord Baltimore's estate,[1] writing to him on April 21, 1649, that it "was better for the Colony's safety at that time in her hands than in any man's ... for the soldiers would never have treated any others with that civility and respect ...".[6][11]
Move to Virginia
Given Lord Baltimore's (and Governor Stone's) hostility to the Brent family, Giles and his young wife Mary moved to Chopawamsic Island in the Potomac River in 1649, then to Virginia's Northern Neck in 1650. The two sisters, Margaret and Mary Brent, also bought Virginia land starting in 1647, and they moved by 1650. They lived on a plantation called "Peace" in what was then Westmoreland County, Virginia.[11][12] No records exist of her practice as an attorney in Virginia, but records do exist of her sagacious land investments, including in what during the following century became Old Town Alexandria, Virginia[13] and Fredericksburg, Virginia, as well as George Washington's Mount Vernon. Margaret Brent also held festive annual court leets for her people.[14][15]
Neither she nor her sister Mary ever married; they were among the very few unmarried English women of the time in the Chesapeake colony, when men outnumbered women there by 6:1 (but most were lower class indentured workers). Historian Lois Greene Carr believes the two sisters had taken vows of celibacy under Mary Ward's Institute in England.[6]
In 1658 Mary Brent died, leaving her entire estate of 1000 acres (4 km2) to her sister.
Exact dates of Margaret Brent's birth and death are not known, in part because Brent family estates were burned by British raiders in the American Revolutionary War and War of 1812. Furthermore, Union troops vandalized the Brent family graveyard (on George Brent's property) during the Civil War. The remaining gravestones were documented by a WPA historian, and the property acquired and preserved by a local church.[18]
Legacy and honors
- Margaret Brent is today seen as a "founding mother" of Maryland,[19] alongside its "Founding Fathers".[19]
- Margaret Brent continues to be cited by some scholars as a historical feminist figure, and alternately (and more commonly now) as instead a notable woman in American history who forwarded women's rights implicitly, rather than explicitly.[20]
- Margaret Brent is memorialized at Historic St. Mary's City. The museum at the former site of Maryland's colonial capital features her in exhibits and explains that she did not advocate for all women's rights, only her own right to execute Lord Baltimore's estate as he intended.[21] The St. John's site archaeologymuseum, located above the exposed foundations of the house where Brent appealed to the Assembly, includes an exhibit devoted to her life. The Historic St. Mary's City grounds also include a garden dedicated in memory of Brent.
- The Public Honors College, St. Mary's College of Maryland, also located in modern-day St. Mary's City, has a building named after her. It is called Margaret Brent Hall. A street on the campus is also named Margaret Brent Way. The school also maintains a scholarship and academic program for gifted and talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds called the DeSousa-Brent Scholars Program, partly named in her honor.
- In 1978, Virginia erected a historical marker in Jones Point Park commemorating Mistress Margaret Brent's fight for women's rights, as well as her ownership of the land which became Alexandria, Virginia.[13]
- In 1991, the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award was established by the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession recognizing and celebrating the accomplishments of women lawyers who have excelled in their field and have paved the way to success for other women lawyers.[22]
- In 1998, Virginia erected a historical highway marker commemorating Margaret, Giles and her sister Mary Brent for constructing the first Roman Catholic Settlement in Virginia, along historic Route 1 near the former Brent family graveyard.[23]
- In 2010, Virginia erected a historical highway marker (about a mile south of the 1998 religious markers) noting Margaret Brent's role as guardian for Mary Kittamaquund,[1][24] who was a Native American princess[1] of the Yaocomico (Southern Maryland) branch of the Piscataway Indian Nation.[1] She had moved with the Brents to Virginia when they were forced from the Maryland colony by the second Lord Baltimore.
- Several public schools in the state of Maryland are named for her, such as Margaret Brent Middle School.
- In 2004, Stafford County, Virginia opened Margaret Brent Elementary School.[25]
- Margaret Brent was named a member of the inaugural class of Virginia Women in History in 2000.[26] In 1985 she was one of the first group of women inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame.[27]
See also
- List of first women lawyers and judges in the United States
- List of women in the Heritage Floor
- List of American women's firsts
References
Citations
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v "Notable Maryland Women: Margaret Brent, Lawyer, Landholder, Entrepreneur", Winifred G. Helms, PhD, Editor, Margaret W. Mason, section author, Tidewater Publishers, Cambridge Maryland, 1977, page 5, republished online by the Maryland State Archives: Online manual.
- Reigning Queen ruled the throne of England.
- ^ W.B. Chilton, The Brent Family, in Genealogies of Virginia Families: From the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. 1981) Vol. 1, pp. 272-273.
- ^ Bruce E. Steiner, "The Catholic Brents of Colonial Virginia: An Instance of Practical Toleration," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 70 (1962), 392-393 and note 21.)
- ^ Daniel M. French, Brent Family: the Carroll Families of Colonial Maryland (Alexandria, Va 1981) pp. 29-31 states that Brent sold Admington to Fulke, Lord Brooke circa 1625, and after his four children emigrated to Maryland in 1637-38 (and seven more relatives emigrated to Virginia), about 2/3 of the remaining estates were "compounded or sequestered by Parliament because of their religion" in 1644. In 1688, a mob attacked Richard's heir, Robert, for treasonously abetting "Romish Priests and Jesuits", and he fled to France, where he died in 1695, although his children later gained possession of some of his property and in 1715 paid fines as Catholics. French at pp. 33-34. French also states that his sisters Elizabeth and Eleanor (who took the name Helen) Brent joined Catherine (who served as abbess from 1641-45 and 1677-81) in the Low Countries by 1633. Elizabeth Brent and other Cambrai nuns established the English Convent of Our Lady of Good Hope in Paris in 1652. The only sister who definitely married and had children, Jane Brent Cassie, died in France about 1680. French disagrees with those who assert the youngest sister Anne Brent married Leonard Calvert, since his children were born ten years previously. French at p. 45. Another relative, daughter of Robert and Mary Wharton Brent, Mother Mary Margaret Brent (1731-1784) became a nun in 1778 and Prioress of the English Carmelite convent at Antwerp. Shortly after her death, four nuns (3 from Charles County Maryland) came from Europe to Port Tobacco, Maryland (part of Margaret Brent's estate in 1640) and established their religious order in America. French at pp. 83-84.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lois Green Carr (7 February 2002). "Margaret Brent -- A Brief History". Maryland State Archives. Retrieved 31 July 2006.
- ^ Chilton, pp. 314-315
- ISBN 978-0-06-124651-7.
- ^ Archives of Maryland, I, 215
- ISBN 0-7656-8038-6.
- ^ a b James Henretta, "Margaret Brent: A Woman of Property", Early American Review, 1998, reprinted with permission from James A. Henretta, Elliot Brownlee, David Brody, Susan Ware, and Marilynn Johnson, America's History, Third Edition, Worth Publishers Inc., 1997, accessed 8 October 2011
- ^ French p. 43
- ^ a b "Mistress Margaret Brent". The Historical Marker Database. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
- ^ "Brent, Margaret (1601-1671)". Duhaime. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
- ^ Spruill, Julia Cherry (1934). "Mistress Margaret Brent, Spinster" (PDF). Maryland Historical Magazine. XXIX (4): 259–269.
- ^ "Brent Cemetery Callie Freed" (PDF). Retrieved 13 December 2016.
- ^ "The Brent Family". Virginia Places. 24 March 2002. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
- ^ Brent Cemetery talk
- ^ a b Jo-Ann Pilardi, Baltimore Sun, "Margaret Brent: a Md. founding mother", March 05, 1998.
- ^ Henretta, James. "Margaret Brent: A Woman of Property". Varsity Tutors. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
- ^ [1] Archived June 9, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Previous Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award Recipients". American Bar Association. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
- ^ "First Roman Catholic Settlement in Virginia". The Historical Marker Database. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
- ^ "Mary Kittamaquund". The Historical Marker Database. 19 April 2011. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
- ^ "Home Page". Margaret Brent Elementary. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
- ^ "Virginia Women in History". 30 June 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
- ^ "Margaret Brent, Maryland Women's Hall of Fame". Retrieved 13 December 2016.
Cited works
- David M. French, The Brent Family, The Carroll Families of Colonial Maryland (privately published), Alexandria, VA, 1981
Further reading
- Marie Francis Bernhardt, Mistress Margaret Brent, Richmond: Catholic Women's Club, 1925.
- Jeanne Cover, Love, the Driving Force: Mary Ward's Spirituality, Its Significance for Moral Theology, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University Press, 1997
- Allen Johnson, ed. Dictionary of American Biography, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936.
- Cameron, Mabel Ward, compiler Biographical Cyclopedia of American Women, Volume I, New York: Halvord Publishing Co., Inc., 1924.