Southern Colonies Pass a Problem Answers!
Virginia:
1. What major colony was located in Virginia?
Jamestown
2. Who perfected the growing and harvesting of tobacco? When?
John Rolfe, 1612
3. How did the demand for tobacco affect the economy of Virginia?
Economy prospered because tobacco became a huge cash crop; however, the economy became
dependent on growing/selling tobacco which stunted its economic growth in the long run.
4. How did the growing of tobacco affect colonial relationships with Native Americans?
Colonists could make money by growing tobacco so they desired more land to grow more tobacco.
Colonists took desirable land from Indians causing tensions to rise and violence to spread.
5. What are some of the negative side effects of growing tobacco?
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Ruined the soil (depleted nutrients)
Virginia’s economy became tied to this crop
6. Why is it a problem to base your entire economy on the growing and selling of one crop?
When tobacco sales fall or there is not a productive harvest, the economy is ruined. Fickle friend . . .
7. How will tobacco contribute to the rise of African slavery?
Causes a demand for more laborers
8. Why is the year 1619 significant to American history? (2 reasons, describe them both!!)
1. House of Burgesses created
2. Dutch ship brought Africans to VA (probably first African slaves)
9. Describe Virginia’s transition from a charter colony to a royal colony.
James I was unhappy with the VA company and revoked their charter.
Maryland
1. By whom and when was the Maryland colony founded?
Lord Baltimore, 1634
2. What were the founder of Maryland’s two primary goals for the colony?
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Reap financial profits
Provide a safe haven for Catholics (who were being persecuted in England)
3. What was going on in England with regards to Protestants?
The Protestant Reformation had occurred making England a Protestant country. Catholics were being
persecuted.
4. Describe the causes and effects of tensions between Protestants and Catholics in Maryland?
Upper class land owners tended to be Catholic in Maryland, while Protestants lived in the back
country and did not receive as much land as the Catholics. Resentment between these groups
increased until the Protestants rebelled against the Catholics toward the late 1600s causing the
Baltimore family to lose their proprietary rights for a time.
5. What was Maryland’s economy based upon?
tobacco
6. Why system of labor preceded African slavery?
Indentured servitude
7. What was the Act of Toleration?
Granted religious freedom to anyone who believed in Jesus (Christians)
8. When was the Act of Toleration passed and who passed it?
1649, Maryland’s local representative council
9. Why is the Act of Toleration a slightly ironic name for this law?
Only tolerant to certain people (Christians) while Jews and atheists could be put to death for their
beliefs
10. What was one result of Maryland’s tolerance for Catholics once the colonial era ended?
Home to largest number of Roman Catholics in the British colonies
The Carolinas
1. Briefly describe British politics from the 1640s to 1660.
British colonization was interrupted between the 1640s to 1660 because of the English Civil War,
Oliver Cromwell’s reign, and the Restoration of the monarchy. When Charles II was “restored” to the
throne in 1660, empire building became very important to England and the British government
became heavily involved.
2. Describe how and why Carolina was founded.
Charles II granted land to eight of his favorite noblemen at court. It was founded for economic
purposes (to make money).
3. Why did Carolina prosper economically?
Involvement in sugar production/sale in the West Indies at first, then rice!
4. How were African slaves treated in the Carolinas?
Poorly, a form of the Barbados slave code was adopted in 1696
5. What role did Native American play in the Carolinas?
Native Americans were exported from the Carolinas as slaves to the West Indies and other colonial
regions
6. Why and how was the population of the Savannah Indians destroyed by the Carolinians?
The Savannah Indians were initially helping the Carolinians sell and trade other Indians but in 1707
they decided to end their alliance and attempted to move out of the colony. In response, Carolinians
massacred them and greatly depleted the population by 1710.
7. What was the principle export crop of Carolina?
rice
8. Why did Carolinians specifically want African slaves to use to grow rice?
Many African slaves were experienced in growing rice and also were immune to malaria which
flourishes in the wet, mossy, swampy areas used for rice production
9. Describe the Charleston area.
Moss-festooned Charles Town—also named for the king—rapidly became the busiest seaport in the
South. Many high-spirited sons of English landed families, deprived of an inheritance, came to the
Charleston area and gave it a rich aristocratic flavor. The village became a colorfully diverse
community, to which French Protestant refugees and others were attracted by religious toleration.
10. Describe Spain’s relationship with Carolina.
Spain did not like the Protestant Carolinians who were relatively close to Spanish Florida. They
began inciting Indians to attack the colony but by the early 1700s, Carolina was too strong to be
wiped out.
11. Who began migrating to Northern Carolina?
Poverty stricken colonists and religious dissenters from Virginia.
12. What are squatters?
People who do not purchase land but claim it be staying on it.
13. Describe the traits of Northern Carolinians.
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Tended to grow tobacco on small farms
For the most part, did not use slaves
Not particularly religious or religious dissenters
Reputation for harboring pirates
14. Why were North and South Carolina eventually separated?
Conflicts between colonists and governors
15. What were the “two distinctions” colonial North Carolina shared with colonial Rhode Island?
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Most democratic and independent-minded
least aristocratic
16. Describe Carolinians relationship with Native Americans. (Tuscarora War, Yamasee Indians, interior
Indians)
Tuscarora Indians fell upon the fledgling settlement at Newbern in 1711. The North Carolinians,
aided by their heavily armed brothers from the south, retaliated by crushing the Tuscaroras in battle,
selling hundreds of them into slavery and leaving the survivors to wander northward to seek the
protection of the Iroquois. The Tuscaroras eventually became the Sixth Nation of the Iroquois
Confederacy. In another ferocious encounter four years later, the South Carolinians defeated and
dispersed the Yamasee Indians.
With the conquest of the Yamasees, virtually all the coastal Indian tribes in the southern colonies
had been utterly devastated by about 1720. Yet in the interior, in the hills and valleys of the
Appalachian Mountains, the powerful Cherokees, Creeks, and Iroquois remained. Stronger and more
numerous than their coastal cousins, they managed for half a century more to contain British
settlement to the coastal plain east of the mountains.
Georgia
1. What was the purpose of the Georgia colony (according to the English crown)?
Buffer between Carolina and Spanish Florida
2. Because of its purpose, what did Georgia receive from the British government?
Monetary subsidiaries (money!)
3. What were two other purposes for founding Georgia?
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Producing silk and wine (money)
Creating a haven/second chance for debtors
4. What were the founders of Georgia determined to keep out of their colony?
slavery
5. Describe James Oglethorpe and his contributions to the Georgia colony.
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Interested in prison reform (debtors)
Military leader who repelled Spanish attacks
Imperialist and philanthropist
Saved the colony by personally mortgaging himself to provide resources
6. Describe Savannah.
The hamlet of Savannah, like Charleston, was a melting-pot community. German Lutherans and
kilted Scots Highlanders, among others, added color to the pattern. All Christian worshipers except
Catholics enjoyed religious toleration. Many missionaries armed with Bibles and hope arrived in
Savannah to work among debtors and Indians.
7. Why was the population of Georgia so low at the end of the colonial period?
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Unhealthy climate (bad living conditions)
Restrictions on African slavery
Spanish raids and attacks