Southern Colonies
Maryland
Virginia
North Carolina
South Carolina
Georgia
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.
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?