VOA慢速英语口语:美国史话—南方殖民地发展农场经济

STEVE EMBER: From VOA Learning English, this is THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in Special English. I'm Steve Ember.
This week in our series, we finish the story of the first thirteen American colonies. We'll tell about how the southern colonies developed.
Among the southern colonies, the northernmost was Maryland. The king of England, Charles the First, gave the land between Virginia and Pennsylvania to George Calvert in sixteen thirty-two. George Calvert was also known as Lord Baltimore. He wanted to start a colony with greater religious freedoms than existed in England. Calvert was Roman Catholic. Catholics could not openly observe their religion in England. They also had to pay money to the government because they did not belong to the Anglican Church, the Church of England.

A painting of George Calvert
George Calvert never saw the colony that was named Maryland. He died soon after he received the documents giving him the land. The land went to his son Cecil Calvert, who became the next Lord Baltimore. He had the power to collect taxes, fight wars, make laws and create courts in Maryland. Cecil named his brother Leonard as the colony's first governor.
Cecil Calvert believed that English Catholics could live in peace in Maryland alongside Protestants. So he urged Catholics in England to move there. To get more settlers, he allowed people to own farms and gave them some power in local politics. Some Catholics did go to Maryland, but not as many as he hoped. Protestants were in the majority. In sixteen forty-nine, Lord Baltimore accepted a Toleration Act passed by the local government. It guaranteed freedom of religion, but only for Christians.
King Charles the Second gave away more land in America in sixteen sixty-three. He gave eight English lords the territory known as Carolina. It extended south from Virginia into Florida, an area controlled by Spain. Spain also claimed the southern part of Carolina.
Spanish, French and English settlers had tried earlier to populate the area. The eight new owners promised forty hectares of land to anyone who would go to Carolina to live. They also promised religious freedom. The first successful Carolina settlers left England in sixteen seventy. They built a town in an area where two rivers met. They called it Charles Town, for King Charles. Spanish ships attacked the port city many times, but the settlers defended their land.
The settlers planted all kinds of crops to see what would grow best. They found that rice was just right for the hot, humid conditions. Also, their cattle and pigs did so well that the Carolina settlers started selling meat to the West Indies. Many of Charles Town's settlers came from Barbados, a port used in the West Indies slave trade. The settlers began buying black slaves to help grow the rice. By seventeen eight, more blacks than whites lived in the southern part of Carolina. The success of the farming economy depended on slave labor.
The northern part of the Carolina colony grew much more slowly than the southern part. Many settlers in the northern part were from neighboring Virginia. Some had left Virginia because people who disagreed with the Anglican Church were not welcome there.
Historians say the area that became North Carolina may have been the most democratic of all the colonies. The people generally did not interfere in each other