Download General Characteristics of Southern Colonies

General Characteristics of Southern Colonies
• Dominated to a degree at least by
rice (later cotton)
– tobacco and
•
– Mostly indentured servants until late 17th century (VA and MD), then
increasingly black slavery
• Large land holdings in the hands of a few – aristocratic (exceptions
NC and some of GA)
•
– Churches and schools were rare, too expensive
•
– Needed fresh land to replace depleted soil due to tobacco farming
• Practiced some form of
– Anglican Church was dominant
Chesapeake Colonies cont.
• Labor shortages
– Unhealthy climate and high death rate
• Disease
• Indian raids
– Solutions
•
(usually
: under contract for set number of years
) in exchange for transatlantic passage
– Early 17th century were given startup money, supplies, even land
sometimes after contract expired
– Dominant system until late 17th Century
•
: VA offered
for each
immigrant who paid his own passage or any plantation owner who
paid for a white indentured servant’s passage
– By 1700  planters brought in almost 100,000 indentured servants,
or 75% of all European immigrants to VA and MD
•
:(
) at first similar to indentured
servants, colonists were too poor to afford, mid 1600’s VA began
to differentiate between white and black
Life in the Chesapeake
•
– Malaria, dysentery, typhoid
– ½ of those born in VA and MD did not live past age 20
– Roughly 10 year shorter life expectancy (25% of men reached 50,
women 40 years)
•
– Mostly single men in late teens and early 20s
– Women married early  were a scarcity
• Men had trouble finding wives, often did not
•
– Increased immunities to disease and arrival of more women
– 1700
 VA had about 50,000 colonists, largest colony
 MD about 30,000 colonists, third largest colony
Frustrated Freemen and Bacon's Rebellion
•
, about 1,000 Virginians rebelled
– Led by
• Resented VA Gov.
friendly Indian policies
– Berkeley refused to retaliate for a series of Indian attacks on
settlements
• Controlled monopoly of the fur trade
• The crowd attacked Indians and chased Berkeley from
, Virginia
• Bacon suddenly died from disease
• Berkeley then crushed the uprising, hanging more than 20 rebels
– (Charles II complained of the penalties dealt by Berkeley!)
• Due to the rebellions and tensions started by Bacon, planters looked
for less troublesome laborers to work their tobacco plantations 
Colonial Slavery
• Africans brought to Jamestown in
,
by
, they numbered only about 2,000 in VA
– (only about 7% of the total population of the South)
•
, wages in England rose  number of
indentured servants decreased
– Also reports of negatives of indentured servitude
•
, black slaves outnumbered white
servants among new arrivals to Chesapeake
region
Colonial Slavery, cont.
• In 1698, the Royal African Company, first chartered in 1672,
lost its monopoly on carrying slaves to the colonies
– Many Americans rushed to cash in on the slave trade
• Blacks accounted for half the population of VA by 1750
– In SC, they outnumbered whites 2:1
• Most of the slaves came from the west coast of Africa
• Beginning in VA in 1662, statutes formally decreed the iron
conditions of slavery for blacks
– These earliest "slave codes" made blacks and their children the
property of the white masters for life
Proprietary Maryland
•
• Granted to
rather than
– 1634
– Wanted wealth
– Haven for fellow
•
– 1649
– Protestants now outnumbered Catholics
–
• (death to anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus – Jews,
atheists)
– Repealed in late 1600’s
• Catholics lost their right to vote in elections for the Maryland
assembly
Proprietary Carolina: A
Restoration Reward
• 1663 eight nobles had been given land in return for their
support during the Restoration, Charles II
• English Civil War – 1640s
• Cromwell’s Protectorate – 1650s
• Restoration Colonies
– Carolinas, NY, PA
• Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina 1669-70
– Presumed to be written by
– Combined democratic and aristocratic ideas
• 1729 royal colonies of South and North Carolina were
formed from original Proprietorship
Early Carolina Society
• South Carolina
– Originally based on trading furs and food to West Indies, by mid 1700s
large
plantations resembled the economy and culture of
the West Indies
• North Carolina,
– Officially created in 1712
– Small self-sufficient
farms, less slavery due to less
hospitable conditions for plantations
– Became refuge for religious dissenters and poor whites
• Rhode Island of the South
– Democratic views and autonomy from British control
• Impact of West Indies on Carolinas
– West Indies (esp Barbados) developed plantation system based around
production
– Increasingly relied on mainland British America for
– Small farmers were crowded out and many moved to
(with
slaves)