Brent, Margaret (1600–1671)

English-born American colonial landowner who came to Maryland in 1638. She was Maryland's first female landowner. Sometimes cited today as a pioneering protofeminist lawyer, she seems to have acted primarily as a strong-willed property owner, making no claims as a woman, nor in any way practising law.

She was born in Gloucester, England, the daughter of an aristocrat. Upon the death of her brother-in-law, Leonard Calvert, she became executor of his Maryland estate; after the Maryland assembly denied her appeal for two votes in the proceedings, one as landowner and one as attorney to the Baltimore family, she moved to Virginia in around 1651, where she developed another large property.