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Plundering Time

Period of lawlessness in colonial Maryland (1644-1646)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ16933000 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Plundering Time (1644–1646), also known as "Claiborne and Ingle's Rebellion", was a period of civil unrest and lawlessness in the English colony of the Province of Maryland. William Claiborne and Richard Ingle took opportunities to seize property and pillage in and around Kent Island and St. Mary's City, Maryland.

Causes of rebellion

The causes of the rebellion included William Claiborne's disputed claim with the Calverts over Kent Island, Maryland, bitter relations between the Catholic minority elite and the Protestant majority, and the political partisanship of the English Civil War.

The period was marked by the fall of the British King and religious intolerance, which led directly to the event.

Kent Island dispute (1638-1644)

In the winter of 1638-1639 (O.S./N.S.), the first provincial Maryland governor Leonard Calvert seized a trading post on Kent Island established by Captain William Claiborne.

In 1644, Claiborne led an uprising of Protestants and reclaimed the Island.

Richard Ingle's coup (1644-1646)

Although not officially allied, privateer Captain Richard Ingle seized the Kent Island opportunity to overthrow the government based at St. Mary's City. Catholic Governor Calvert escaped to Virginia.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Plundering Time” is period of lawlessness in colonial Maryland (1644-1646). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Plundering, Time and Period, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1644, 1646, 1638, 1639—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Plundering, Time and Period is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “period of lawlessness in colonial Maryland (1644-1646)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16933000. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1644, 1646, 1638 and 1639.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Plundering Time” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.