VOA慢速英语2012 THE MAKING OF A NATION - American History: Southern Colonies Develop on Farming Economy

 

THE MAKING OF A NATION - American History: Southern Colonies Develop on Farming Economy

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 Catholic¹. 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.

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 alongside² 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 Christians³.

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 labor⁴.

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.

Historians⁵ say the area that became North Carolina may have been the most democratic of all the colonies. The people generally did not interfere⁶ in each other’s lives. Together, they faced a common enemy: the pirates⁷ who made the North Carolina coast their home base.

In sixteen seventy-seven, some of the people in the northern part of the Carolina territory rebelled against England. They did not like England's Navigation Acts. These laws forced people in Carolina to pay taxes to England on goods sold to other colonies. Some northern Carolina settlers refused to pay this tax. These independent thinkers even set up their own government and tried to break free of England. But the English soldiers in the colonies stopped the rebellion⁸ by arresting its leader.

There were growing differences between the people of northern Carolina and southern Carolina. Finally the owners of the colony divided it in seventeen twelve, forming what would become the states of North Carolina and South Carolina.

The last English colony founded in the New World was Georgia. It was established in seventeen thirty-two, under King George the Second. Georgia was the idea of a man named James Oglethorpe. He wanted to solve a problem in England involving a growing number of people who could not repay⁹ their debts. At that time, debtors¹⁰ were put in prison. This made it impossible for them to earn the money they needed to get out of debt.

Oglethorpe wanted to create a colony where debtors could go instead of going to prison. He wanted it to be a place where people could have good lives while they worked to earn money. But not many debtors wanted to go to Georgia.

The people who did settle there were much like the people in the other colonies. They did not agree with all of Oglethorpe's ideas. They wanted to do things he did not believe were right, like drinking alcohol and owning slaves. In the end the settlers won. They rejected Oglethorpe's ideas about how they should live.

Life was not easy in Georgia. Spaniards and pirates captured ships along the coast. Spain controlled Florida and also claimed Georgia and the Carolinas. Border fights were common. Oglethorpe lost all his money trying to establish Georgia. King George took control of the colony in seventeen fifty-two.

As new colonies were being established nearby, the colony of Virginia was growing. A way of life was developing there that was very different from that of the North. Most people in Virginia at this time were members of the Church of England. Religion was not as important a part of their lives as it was to the people in the North. In the New England colonies, members of the clergy¹¹ were considered the most important. In the southern colonies, rich land owners were the more important.

People in Virginia did not live in towns, as people did in Massachusetts. They lived along rivers on small farms or on large farms called plantations¹². Being located on a river made it easy to export goods by ship. Virginians were sending large amounts of tobacco to England. It was the crop that earned them the most money.

But growing tobacco breaks down the soil. After a few years, nothing grew well on land that was planted with tobacco. The farmers had to stop planting anything on the land every few years. That meant they needed a lot of land. They also needed a large work force. So tobacco farmers in Virginia began to buy land -- and workers.

At first, they bought the services of indentured¹³ servants, poor people who had no money or jobs. These indentured servants agreed to work for a farmer for a period of four to seven years. After that they were free to work for themselves.

In sixteen nineteen, a Dutch ship brought a group of Africans to Jamestown. They had been kidnapped from their homes by African traders and sold to the ship's captain. He sold them to the Virginia settlers. These first Africans may have been treated like indentured servants. Later, however, colonists¹⁴ decided¹⁵ to keep them as slaves so they would not have to continue paying for workers. Slowly, laws were approved in Virginia that made it legal to keep black people as slaves. By seventeen fifty, there were more Africans in Virginia than any other group.

Indians did not make good slaves because they could run away. The slaves from Africa could not. They had no place to go.

Slavery in the South affected¹⁶ the course of American history. It divided the people and led to a civil war that nearly tore the nation apart. Slavery in the South will be our story next week.

You can find our series online with transcripts¹⁷, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at www.voanews.cn. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I’m Steve Ember, inviting¹⁸ you to join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.

1 catholic   

adj.天主教的；n.天主教徒

参考例句：

• The Pope is the supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church.教皇是罗马天主教的最高领袖。
• She was a devoutly Catholic.她是一个虔诚地天主教徒。

2 alongside   

adv.在旁边；prep.和...在一起，在...旁边

参考例句：

• There was a butcher's shop alongside the theatre.剧院旁边有一家肉店。
• Alongside of him stood his uncle.他的身旁站着他叔叔。

3 Christians   

n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Christians of all denominations attended the conference. 基督教所有教派的人都出席了这次会议。
• His novel about Jesus caused a furore among Christians. 他关于耶稣的小说激起了基督教徒的公愤。

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 historians   

n.历史学家，史学工作者( historian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Historians seem to have confused the chronology of these events. 历史学家好像把这些事件发生的年代顺序搞混了。
• Historians have concurred with each other in this view. 历史学家在这个观点上已取得一致意见。

6 interfere   

v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰

参考例句：

• If we interfere, it may do more harm than good.如果我们干预的话，可能弊多利少。
• When others interfere in the affair,it always makes troubles. 别人一卷入这一事件，棘手的事情就来了。

7 pirates   

n.海盗( pirate的名词复数 )；剽窃者；侵犯版权者；非法播音的人（或组织）

参考例句：

• Children dressed (themselves) up as pirates. 孩子们假扮成海盗。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The pirates treated their captives with barbarity. 海盗们残暴地对待他们的俘虏。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

8 rebellion   

n.造反，叛乱，反抗

参考例句：

• The next year they rose up in rebellion.第二年他们就揭竿起义了。
• The new government quickly suppressed the rebellion.新政府迅速把叛乱镇压下去。

9 repay   

v.偿还，报答，还钱给

参考例句：

• I feel honor bound to repay the money I borrowed.我觉得有责任归还我借的钱。
• I must repay her for her kindness.我必须报答她的恩惠。

10 debtors   

n.债务人，借方( debtor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Creditors could obtain a writ for the arrest of their debtors. 债权人可以获得逮捕债务人的令状。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Never in a debtors' prison? 从没有因债务坐过牢么？ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

11 clergy   

n.[总称]牧师，神职人员

参考例句：

• I could heartily wish that more of our country clergy would follow this example.我衷心希望，我国有更多的牧师效法这个榜样。
• All the local clergy attended the ceremony.当地所有的牧师出席了仪式。

12 plantations   

n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Soon great plantations, supported by slave labor, made some families very wealthy. 不久之后出现了依靠奴隶劳动的大庄园，使一些家庭成了富豪。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• Winterborne's contract was completed, and the plantations were deserted. 维恩特波恩的合同完成后，那片林地变得荒废了。 来自辞典例句

13 indentured   

v.以契约束缚（学徒）( indenture的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The Africans became indentured servants, trading labor for shelter and eventual freedom. 非洲人成为契约上的仆人，以劳力交换庇护及最终的自由。 来自互联网
• They are descendants of indentured importees. 他们是契约外来工的后代。 来自互联网

14 colonists   

n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Colonists from Europe populated many parts of the Americas. 欧洲的殖民者移居到了美洲的许多地方。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Some of the early colonists were cruel to the native population. 有些早期移居殖民地的人对当地居民很残忍。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

16 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

17 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句

18 inviting   

adj.诱人的，引人注目的

参考例句：

• An inviting smell of coffee wafted into the room.一股诱人的咖啡香味飘进了房间。
• The kitchen smelled warm and inviting and blessedly familiar.这间厨房的味道温暖诱人，使人感到亲切温馨。