The Making of a Nation: Southern Expansion - Program No 7

June 06, 2013

A painting of George Calvert

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.

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.