Page 60 - Foy

But, that wasn’t all. In addition to these extra fees, a system of “permanent liabilities”

was set up. This was similar to what we today know as yearly property taxes on the
land and improvements. These payments were called “quitrents”, but “quitrents” were
NOT really a tax, rather they amounted to a rent because the money did not go to a
government to be used for the common good of the citizens. The money went to the
private income of Lord Baltimore. Government taxes were extra. This tax-fee system
contributed to the discontent of the people which later led to the Revolutionary War
a hundred years later.

Land was plentiful and early adventurers concentrated on the settlement of Southern
Maryland in the 1630s and 1640s choosing land along navigable waterways where
goods could easily be brought in and out by boat as there were no roads. By the 1650s
attention turned to the Northern Chesapeake Bay area and the unfolding of Baltimore
County’s recorded history began.

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SUSQUEHANNAS, PISCATAWAYS, YACOCOMICOS, and SENECAS

When early settlers ventured into Baltimore County they had reason to be uneasy
because that area was the hunting grounds of the fierce Susquehannough Indians.

This warring tribe actually lived some twenty-one miles up the Susquehannough
River in Pennsylvania but came South in the fall and winter to hunt for game. At
other times the Susquehannough passed through Baltimore County on their way to
Southern Maryland where they attacked the more peaceful tribes, such as the
Piscataways and the Yaocomicos.

Maryland settlers had severe problems with Indians until about 1699 despite efforts
by Maryland’s governor, his Council, and the colonial government’s soldiers and
rangers. The Susquehannough were finally rendered almost extinct by long wars with
other Indian tribes, treaty breaking attacks by Maryland settlers and a force that no
one could control, a killer epidemic of smallpox.

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LIFE and LABOR: A CRUDE EXISTENCE

Ch. 5 Pg. 4