Ch.4, Sec.3 – The Southern Colonies: Plantations & Slavery

- the Southern Colonies were made up of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia

Ch.4, Sec.3 – The Southern Colonies: Plantations & Slavery

The Plantation Economy

- the South’s fertile soil and almost year-round growing season was ideal to grow cash crops like tobacco, rice, and cotton

- transporting resources was very easy because of the many waterways

Ch.4, Sec.3 – The Southern Colonies: Plantations & Slavery

- the Southern Colonies didn’t have large cities like the New England & Middle Colonies because plantations had everything the families needed

- because plantations were mostly self-sufficient, large cities were not as common in the South – the only exception was Charles Town, South Carolina (Charleston)

Ch.4, Sec.3 – The Southern Colonies: Plantations & Slavery

- by the A.D. 1660s, the labor system in the Southern Colonies began to change as indentured white servants began to leave the plantations

- it was politically dangerous (like Bacon’s Rebellion) to keep White servants on their plantations

The Turn to Slavery

- therefore, landowners turned to African slaves

- by A.D. 1750, there were over 235,000 African slaves in America and 85% lived in the Southern Colonies

Ch.4, Sec.3 – The Southern Colonies: Plantations & Slavery

- African slaves were used to cultivate the rice fields in South Carolina & Georgia

- African slaves were also used to cultivate the indigo plant, which was introduced as a plantation crop by Eliza Lucas

Plantations Expand

Ch.4, Sec.3 – The Southern Colonies: Plantations & Slavery

- slave labor allowed the planter class to become very wealthy & powerful

- many gained political & economic control of the South and they ruled their plantations like tyrants

The Planter Class

Philip Ludwell William Byrd II

Ch.4, Sec.3 – The Southern Colonies: Plantations & Slavery

- overseers often forced slaves to work 15 hour days in the hot sun with backbreaking work and whipped them if they were not working hard enough

- many still tried to hold on to their African cultures (music, dances, religion)

Life Under Slavery

Ch.4, Sec.3 – The Southern Colonies: Plantations & Slavery

- many slaves fought against their enslavement through rebellions

- the Stono Rebellion in A.D. 1739 was one famous example of 20 slaves killing their owners (all were killed in battle or executed after capture)

Resistance to Slavery