South of Pennsylvania, the long growing season and rich coastal soil shaped colonies built on cash crops. Virginia (Jamestown and the Chesapeake) was the first; four more followed.
Key idea
Maryland (1634) was founded by the Calverts as a refuge for English Catholics. The Carolinas (charter 1663) grew rice and indigo on plantations worked by enslaved Africans. Georgia (charter 1732) was the last of the thirteen colonies.
Why it works
Each Southern colony was a proprietary grant: the king gave land and power to an owner or group of owners, who hoped to profit from rents and trade. Their plans shaped the colonies at first, but the land shaped them more. Crops that sold well in Europe, such as tobacco, rice and indigo, needed many workers, and planters turned more and more to enslaved Africans.
- Maryland: granted in 1632 to the Calvert family (Lords Baltimore), settled in 1634. Protestants soon outnumbered Catholics, so in 1649 the assembly passed the Toleration Act, protecting Christians who believed in the Trinity. Like Virginia, it grew tobacco.
- The Carolinas: granted in 1663 to eight Lords Proprietors. Many early settlers of Charles Town (Charleston), founded in 1670, came from Barbados, an English sugar island built on slavery, and brought its slave laws. Rice became South Carolina's great crop, and indigo (for blue dye) another. Carolina traders also captured and sold Native people as slaves. North and South Carolina became separate colonies in the early 1700s.
- Georgia: chartered in 1732 for trustees led by James Oglethorpe; Savannah was founded the next year. Georgia was to be a buffer against Spanish Florida and a fresh start for poor English families. The trustees at first banned slavery; under pressure from settlers, the ban ended in 1751, and rice plantations spread.
Worked example: Why Georgia?
Name two reasons Britain founded Georgia in the 1730s.
- Look at the map: Georgia lies between South Carolina and Spanish Florida.
- Read the founders' aims: Oglethorpe wanted a fresh start for poor English families.
Answer: To guard South Carolina against Spanish Florida, and to give poor settlers a new start.
Worked example: Who lived in the South?
In the 1700s, did most white Southerners own large plantations?
- Large plantations needed money for land and enslaved workers.
- Most white families farmed small plots, often without enslaved workers.
- A small group of wealthy planters owned most of the enslaved people and much of the best land.
Answer: No. Most were small farmers; the planter elite was small but powerful.
Common mistake
A common picture has every Southern colonist living on a plantation. Most white Southerners were small farmers, and the large plantations, which held most of the enslaved people, belonged to a wealthy few. Another slip: Maryland was founded as a Catholic refuge, but Protestants were a majority there from early on.