<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (March 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (March 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> The recorded history of Maryland dates back to when Europeans began exploring the area, starting with the Italian / Venetian John Cabot (c. 1450--c. 1500), exploring the coast of the continent of North America for England in 1498 . The first European settlements were made in 1634, when the English arrived in significant numbers and created a permanent colony . Maryland was notable for having been established with religious freedom for Roman Catholics . Like other colonies of the Chesapeake Bay, its economy was based on tobacco as a commodity crop, cultivated primarily by African slave labor, although many young people came from Britain as indentured servants in the early years . </P> <P> In 1778, during the American Revolutionary War (1775--1783), Maryland became the seventh state admitted to the United States by ratification of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union . After the war, numerous planters freed their slaves as the economy changed . Baltimore grew to become one of the largest cities on the eastern seaboard, and a major economic force in the country . Although Maryland was still a slave state in 1860, by that time nearly half the African American population was already free, due mostly to manumissions after the American Revolution . Maryland was among the four divided border states that officially remained in the Union during the American Civil War (1861--1865), although large numbers of Marylanders "went south" to fight for the rebelling / seceded Confederacy . </P>

Who founded maryland and why was it founded