The Southern Colonies

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The Southern Colonies
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The Southern Colonies The Carolinas

• North Carolina
• Settlers were mostly poor tobacco farmers who
  drifted from Virginia
• They tended to have small farms

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The Southern Colonies The Carolinas

• South Carolina
• A group of 8 English nobles set up a larger
  colony.
• The largest settlement, Charles Town, grew up
  where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers met.
• Later Charles Town was shortened to Charleston
• Most early settlers were English people who had
  been living in Barbados

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The Southern Colonies The Carolinas

• Around 1685, a few planters discovered that rice
  grew well in the swampy lowlands along the coast.
• Before long, Carolina rice was a valuable crop
  traded around the world.
• Settlers in South Carolina, later learned to
  raise Indigo, a plant used to make a valuable dye.

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The Southern Colonies The Carolinas

• Carolina planters needed large numbers of workers
  to grow rice.
• At first they tried to enslave local Indians.
• Many Indians died of disease or mistreatment
• Others escaped into the forests.
• Planters then turned to slaves from Africa.
• By 1700, the majority of people coming to
  Charleston were African men and women brought
  against their will.

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The Southern Colonies The Carolinas

• The northern areas of Carolina had fewer slaves.
• Differences between the two areas led to division
  of the colony into North Carolina and South
  Carolina in 1712.

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The Southern Colonies Georgia

• The last of Englands 13 colonies was carved out
  of the southern tip of South Carolina.
• James Oglethorpe, a respected English soldier and
  energetic reformer, founded Georgia in 1732.
• He wanted the new colony to be a place where
  debtors could make a new start.

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The Southern Colonies Georgia

• Under English law, the government could imprison
  debtors until they paid what they owed.
• If they ever got out of jail, debtors often had
  no money and no place to live.
• Oglethorpe offered to pay for debtors and other
  poor people to travel to Georgia.

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The Southern Colonies Georgia

• Oglethorpe set strict rules for the colony
• Farms could be no bigger than 500 acres and
  slavery was forbidden
• At first Georgia grew slowly.
• Later Oglethorpe changed the rules to allow large
  plantations and slave labor.
• After that the colony grew more quickly

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The Southern Colonies Georgia

• England hoped that Georgia would act as a buffer
  between Spanish Florida and the Carolinas.
• A buffer is a land located between two larger
  bodies that reduces the possibility of conflict
  between them
• Spain tried to force Oglethorpe and the English
  out, but they held their ground.

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The Southern Colonies Two Ways of Life

• One along the Atlantic Coast and one in the
  backcountry
• Along the Atlantic Coast plantations were built
  up and farming thrived.
• Slaves would be found here
• In the backcountry smaller fields thrived
• People were more likely treated as equals
• More democratic