England's southern colonies in North America developed a farm economy that could not survive without slave labor. Many slaves lived on large farms called plantations. These plantations produced important crops traded by the colony, crops such as cotton and tobacco.
The southern colonies were made up of mostly coastal plains and piedmont areas. The soil was good for farming and the climate was warm, including hot summers and mild winters. The growing season here was longer than any other region. The southern colonies' economy was based on agriculture (farming).
The Southern colonies included Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. English American Southerners would not enjoy the generally good health of their New England counterparts. Outbreaks of malaria and yellow fever kept life expectancies lower.
By 1750, there were over 235,000 enslaved Africans in America. About 85 percent lived in the Southern Colonies. Enslaved Africans made up about 40 percent of the South's population. The growth of slavery allowed plantation farming to expand in South Carolina and Georgia.
The southern colonists were a mixture as well, including Baptists and Anglicans. In the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland (which was originally founded as a haven for Catholics), the Church of England was recognized by law as the state church, and a portion of tax revenues went to support the parish and its priest.
An indentured servant or indentured laborer is an employee (indenturee) within a system of unfree labor who is bound by a signed or forced contract (indenture) to work without pay for the owner of the indenture for a period of time. The contract often lets the employer sell the labor of an indenturee to a third party.
The predominant culture of the South has its origins with the settlement of the region by British colonists. In the 17th century, most were of English origins, but in the 18th century, large groups of Scots-Irish settled in Appalachia and the Piedmont.
a group of people who leave their native country to form in a new land a settlement subject to, or connected with, the parent nation. the country or district settled or colonized: Many Western nations are former European colonies. any people or territory separated from but subject to a ruling power.
Plantation colonies were typically organized around large estates rather than small holdings in order to better exploit slave labour. Colonies like Virginia combined manorial wealth with innovative traditions of democratic government.
Trade was restricted so the colonies had to rely on Britain for imported goods and supplies. The King and Parliament believed they had the right to tax the colonies. They decided to require several kinds of taxes from the colonists to help pay for the French and Indian War.
The colonial economy depended on international trade. American ships carried products such as lumber, tobacco, rice, and dried fish to Britain. In turn, the mother country sent textiles, and manufactured goods back to America.
The economy of the Southern Colonies was based primarily on agriculture, the growing and exporting of cash crops.
Lumber, wool, iron, cotton, tobacco, rice, and indigo were among the products needed in England. British manufacturers in the meantime needed markets for the goods they produced. The American colonies bought their cloth, furniture, knives, guns, and kitchen utensils from England.
That story is incomplete–by the time Englishmen had begun to establish colonies in earnest, there were plenty of French, Spanish, Dutch and even Russian colonial outposts on the American continent–but the story of those 13 colonies (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey,
Mercantilism led to the emergence of what's been called the “triangular trade”: a system of exchange in which Europe supplied Africa and the Americas with finished goods, the Americas supplied Europe and Africa with raw materials, and Africa supplied the Americas with enslaved laborers.
Unlike solidly Puritan New England, the middle colonies presented an assortment of religions. The presence of Quakers, Mennonites, Lutherans, Dutch Calvinists, and Presbyterians made the dominance of one faith next to impossible. The middle colonies included Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware.
Connecticut merchants kept this trade in motion. They collected “country produce” from outlying farmers at their stores in exchange for imported goods: English cloth, iron, glass, and crockery; East Indian silk, tea, and spices; and West Indian sugar, molasses, rum, salt, fruit, and coffee.
The northern counties of North Carolina traded primarily with Virginia, while the southern Piedmont and western counties traded with South Carolina and Tennessee. In the late 1830s, the economic outlook of the state began to improve.
The Great Awakening was a religious revival that impacted the English colonies in America during the 1730s and 1740s. The movement came at a time when the idea of secular rationalism was being emphasized, and passion for religion had grown stale. The result was a renewed dedication toward religion.
In the mid-1720s, the first permanent settlers arrived in the area around the lower Cape Fear River. Instead, he granted this land to settlers who left South Carolina to settle in North Carolina. The settlers from South Carolina were fleeing economic depression, high taxes, and political unrest in their colony.
On March 24, 1663, Charles II issued a new charter to a group of eight English noblemen, granting them the land of Carolina, as a reward for their faithful support of his efforts to regain the throne of England. The eight were called Lords Proprietors or simply Proprietors.
When was Virginia founded?
