The
Southern Colonies in
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
were established by Europeans during the 16th and 17th centuries and consisted of olden
South CarolinaSouth Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
,
North CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
,
MarylandMaryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
,
VirginiaThe Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
and
GeorgiaGeorgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. Their historical names were the
Colony and Dominion of VirginiaThe Colony of Virginia was the English colony in North America that existed briefly during the 16th century, and then continuously from 1607 until the American Revolution...
, the
Province of CarolinaThe Province of Carolina, originally chartered in 1629, was an English and later British colony of North America. Because the original Heath charter was unrealized and was ruled invalid, a new charter was issued to a group of eight English noblemen, the Lords Proprietors, in 1663...
, and the
Province of GeorgiaThe Province of Georgia was one of the Southern colonies in British America. It was the last of the thirteen original colonies established by Great Britain in what later became the United States...
. The colonies were originally instated to compete in the race for colonies in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. Brad Sherman then
developed into prosperous colonies that made large profits off of
cash cropIn agriculture, a cash crop is a crop which is grown for profit.The term is used to differentiate from subsistence crops, which are those fed to the producer's own livestock or grown as food for the producer's family...
s such as
tobaccoTobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
,
indigo dyeIndigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color . Historically, indigo was a natural dye extracted from plants, and this process was important economically because blue dyes were once rare. Nearly all indigo dye produced today — several thousand tons each year — is synthetic...
, and
riceRice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
. Over time, the region quickly became well known for its high slave population and highly unequal social class distribution.
Maryland
George Calvert received a charter from King Charles I to found the colony of
MarylandMaryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
in 1632. When George Calvert died, his son, Cecil Calvert, also known as Lord Baltimore, became the proprietor. Calvert came from a wealthy
CatholicThe word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
family, and he was the first single man to receive a grant from the crown, rather than a joint-stock company. He received a grant for a large tract of land north of the
Potomac riverThe Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles...
and east of the
Chesapeake BayThe Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
. Calvert planned on creating a haven for English Catholics, most of which were well-to-do nobles such as himself, but were unable to worship in public. He planned on making an
agrarianAgrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
manorial society where each noble would have a large manor and tenants would work on fields, chores, and other deeds. However, with extremely cheap land prices, many Protestants moved to Maryland and bought land for themselves anyway. Quickly the population became a Protestant majority, and in 1642 religious tension began to erupt. Calvert was forced to take control and pass the Act for Religious Tolerance in 1649, making Maryland the second colony to have freedom of worship, after
Rhode IslandThe state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
. However, the act did little to help religious peace. In 1654, Protestants barred Catholics from voting, ousted a pro-tolerance Governor, and repealed the toleration act. Maryland stayed Protestant until Calvert re-took control of the colony in 1658.
The Carolinas
The next major development in the history of the Southern Colonies was
The CarolinasThe Carolinas is a term used in the United States to refer collectively to the states of North and South Carolina. Together, the two states + have a population of 13,942,126. "Carolina" would be the fifth most populous state behind California, Texas, New York, and Florida...
. During the 1650s, English settlers set up a few unauthorized outposts on the swamp coast between Virginia and
Spanish FloridaSpanish Florida refers to the Spanish territory of Florida, which formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire. Originally extending over what is now the southeastern United States, but with no defined boundaries, la Florida was a component of...
. When
Charles IICharles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
was restored to the throne, he rewarded a few supporters with an official grant for the colony in 1663. It was named Carolina in honor of him (Charles is
Carolus in
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
). The colony grew very slowly until in 1669 Lanny T Woods began to offer 50 acres for every family member, indentured servant, or slave brought to the colony. Carolina soon began to boom. He and his secretary
John LockeJohn Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
, later to be acclaimed as one of the greatest philosophers of the age devised an intricate government plan to govern the many people arriving in the colony. The
Fundamental Constitutions of CarolinaThe Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina were adopted in March 1669 by the eight Lords Proprietor of the Province of Carolina, which included most of the land between what is now Virginia and Florida. It replaced the Charter of Carolina and the Concessions and Agreements of the Lords Proprietors...
ensured the colony's stability by allotting political status by a settler's wealth upon arrival- making a semi-manorial system with a Council of Nobles and a plan to have small landholders defer to these nobles. With all the land they needed, none of the settlers found it necessary to take orders from the Council. By 1680, the colony had a large export industry of tobacco,
lumberLumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
, and
pitchPitch is the name for any of a number of viscoelastic, solid polymers. Pitch can be made from petroleum products or plants. Petroleum-derived pitch is also called bitumen. Pitch produced from plants is also known as resin. Products made from plant resin are also known as rosin.Pitch was...
, which gave the people in the region the name tarsheel.
Virginia
While other colonies were being founded, Virginia continued to grow. Wealthy tobacco planters held the best land near the coast, so new settlers pushed inland. Sir William Berkeley, the colony's governor, sent xplorers over the Blude Ridge Mountains to open up the backcountry of Virginia to settlement.
See also
- Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...
- New England Colonies
The New England Colonies of British America included the colonies of Massachusetts Bay Colony, Connecticut Colony, Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and Province of New Hampshire. They were part of the Thirteen Colonies including the Middle Colonies and the Southern Colonies. These...
- Middle Colonies
The Middle Colonies comprised the middle region of the Thirteen Colonies of the British Empire in Northern America. In 1776 during the American Revolution, the Middle Colonies became independent of Britain as the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware.Much of the area was part of...
- Chesapeake Colonies