Southern Colonies
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The Southern Colonies of British Colonial America consisted of the Province of North Carolina, the Province of South Carolina, and the Province of Georgia. The Colony and Dominion of Virginia and the Province of Maryland have also been considered a part of the Southern Colonies.[1]
The hope of gold, resources, and virgin lands drew English colonists to the Southern Colonies. Their economy was driven by plantations, initially worked by indentured servants, a labor force which was largely replaced in the early 18th century by slaves imported from Africa, except for Georgia, where most plantations were worked by debtors. Colonial South Carolina relied mainly on the Indian slave trade and deerskin trade until the Yamasee War of 1715. Thereafter the colony's economy became more diversified and included rice plantations, and later other cash crops like cotton, traded with Great Britain, and harvested using slave labor. Other cash crops included tobacco, cotton, indigo, rice, and sugar cane.
Throughout the colonies, the government, subject to the Crown and royal governors, was dominated mainly by planters and farmers, and consisted only of men and landowners.
