Southern Colonies

I CAN...• ID and label the Southern colonies and natural boundaries on a map.

• Describe the political, religious and economical aspects of the Southern colonies.

• Describe reasons for the institutionalizing of slavery in America.

Maryland

Virginia

North Carolina

South Carolina

Georgia

Geography & Economy

Southern = rich soil & warm climate for farming– Development plantations (large farms).

• Most important = tobacco (rice, indigo, cotton)• Most southerners lived on small farms, few wealthy

owned plantations and slaves.

This means less manufacturing (factories) than in NE... Southern colonists imported finished goods from England.

Southerners spread inland along rivers, away from the coast… very diff. from NE and M cities.

Slavery (political)• Large crops needed large #s of unskilled

workers. (South had large population)– South had largest amount of African slaves.

• 1706, 24 slaves brought into Charlestown, SC – 1735, 2,641 slaves brought into Charlestown, SC.

• The owner had the right to sell a slave’s children and to sell husbands and wives away from each other.

• A very wealthy and powerful plantation master in the 1700’s could own up towards 200,000 acres and 50 or more slaves (80% of southern farmers owned 0-10 slaves).

• Slave codes (laws) were developed because soon slaves outnumbered the whites.

– Slaves had no legal status, no rights… slavery for life – they were property, not people.

Religion & Education

• Because farms were scattered, ministers found it hard to enforce Church rules of behavior…

• The Church had less influence in the Southern colonies & Southern education focused on reading, writing, farming and trading.

Education and Religion was not as strong in the Southern colonies as in the New England colonies… what did the southern region’s land and economy have to do with that?