Causes Of Southern White Tidewater Settlements

The acclaimed book begins with Georgia beginning as a dry and modest colony. As the years pass, these ideals and morals are changed to desiring more than a hardworking farmer. The people of Georgia desired to have slaves. Therefore, Georgia changed and started a path to become identical to South Carolina. However, as the amount of plantations sky-rocketed, so did the need for more slaves. It is a marvel to imagine that I live in the city of Savannah that was a beacon for the selling and exchanging of human beings.

Before rice became the staple crop, naval stores drove the economy and whites of South Carolina imported more and more slaves to provide labor for this lucrative business. The book as a whole, seems to be lacking any sort of strong conclusion which would bring together the countless points discussed throughout the work. The fear of revolts or violence drove the whites to seek measure to try and control this segment of the population that far outnumbered them. However, as a result of this early repression of the rights of slaves, the number of runaways steadily increased. Slaves even served in the colony’s militia, playing an acknowledged role in several early defenses of the colony, exemplified in their role during the Yemasee War of 1715. However, the fact remains that his argument is only supported with documents revealing primarily how the white minority saw and reacted to the developing black majority. While Wood does paint a vivid picture of the activities and impact the majority of the population had on the colony, he is (perhaps forced) to illustrate this picture from a decidedly one-sided point of view; a point of view not of the majority, but of the

Stewart writes, “A fundamental argument of this book is that planters used the environment and appropriated knowledge about it to reinforce their own class interests, and that slaves created counterstrategies to promote their own interests” (Stewart xii). This book proves that without slavery, the Georgia settlers could not have succeeded. They also used slavery to reinforce class systems. Even though slaves had more knowledge on the subject matter, they were not allowed to live as well as the settlers and were treated as lower than the others. Chapter three goes into detail about slavery and how the Georgia coast thrived due to slave help.

the lower south during the rise of King Cotton and the sugar plantations, including the

By the 1700’s, The northern and souther colonies had evolved into two distinct societies. This is so because the northern and southern colonies had different environments and also different reasons of settlement. The North was established for mainly religious freedom, while on the other hand, the south had been established for economic freedom. The climate also affected the different turnout of the north and the south. The north was much colder and so their soil was not beneficial for farming, so the people of the north found other jobs, while on the other side, the south had rich soil and the colonists there used that idea to set up huge plantations and farms.

The economy of the two regions also greatly differed because of the terrain that they landed on. Because the land in the south was much more fertile than in the north, the southern colonies thrived in rice and tobacco, profiting greatly. In New England the settlers could not grow anything in the rocky terrain and were forced into fishing, building, and farming. However, not much farming went on because of the infertile soil. In the Chesapeake slaves were also a main part of their economy. The slave trade made them very wealthy because of their closeness to the West Indies. They would be shipped many slaves and then use them to harvest their crops and plant their land. Soon, the slaves outnumbered white settlers by about four to one.

The crops grown on plantations and the slavery system changed significantly between 1800-1860. In the early 1800s, plantation owners grew a variety of crops – cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, hemp, and wheat. Cotton had the potential to be profitable, but there was wasn’t much area where cotton could be grown. However, the invention of the cotton gin changed this - the cotton gin was a machine that made it much easier to separate the seeds from cotton. Plantation owners could now grow lots of cotton; this would make them a lot of money. As a result, slavery became more important because the demand for cotton was high worldwide. By 1860, cotton was the main export of the south. The invention of the cotton gin and high demand for cotton changed

This led to one third of the population being made up of slaves in the south. Plantation owners became self-efficient with their farms and there was not much need for towns to be around. The Sothern’s economy became based on agriculture and

Agriculture and environment were factors in the way each culture grew. The fertile land of the south along with a warmer climate made it possible for the colonists to grow cash crops such as tobacco, rice and indigo. However, this was not the case with

” For many, the economic structure of slavery still held strong and it established status in British America. Slavery had begun in the later half of the 17th century and in many ways, it had made Atlantic commerce and overseas settlement possible. Thousands of Africans had been shipped overseas to work in the fields of staple crops. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, high concentrations of slaves remained in the southern colonies where they continued to labour on cotton and tobacco plantations. Of the thirteen colonies, Georgia, Virginia and the Carolinas held the highest concentrations of slaves. In 1775, it is estimated that of the 2.5 million people living in the thirteen colonies, 500,000 were blacks. The vast majority of these blacks were slaves, with many labouring for their masters under harsh conditions. Although their experiences were difficult, blacks rarely revolted or staged rebellions against their masters. This has often been associated with the plantation system, and the role it played in severing blacks’ ties to one another. As highlighted by historian Silvia Frey, “The North American plantation organization, with the dominating presence of the master, inhibited the development of the tribal cohesiveness that characterized the islands’ plantation organization and produced widespread violence against whites by black guerrilla bands.” However, despite the absence of any significant

Slavery was the main resource used in the Chesapeake tobacco plantations. The conditions in the Chesapeake region were difficult, which lead to malnutrition, disease, and even death. Slaves were a cheap and an abundant resource, which could be easily replaced at any time. The Chesapeake region’s tobacco industries grew and flourished on the intolerable acts of slavery.

The North’s economy was based on textiles, shipping, and skilled trades. Their climate was not suited for the same type of agricultural products that the South produced like cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. Northern states like New England manufactured and shipped goods like guns, clocks, plows and axes (page 399). One reason for the South’s dependence on slavery is because their economy relied on the existence of slave labor. For example, the cultivation of cotton depended largely on slave labor, with 75% of the crop grown on plantations,

With the economic system, the south had a very hard time producing their main source “cotton and tobacco”. “Cotton became commercially significant in the 1790’s after the invention of a new cotton gin by Eli Whitney. (PG 314)” Let

The citizens of the Southern Colonies such as Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina were mainly successful with lots of crops; mostly tobacco and rice, which in turn gained a lot of money for them. These large plantations usually were farmed by forced labor of

During the development of the colonies and the nation as a whole, slaves were utilized in order to produce the crops and perform laborious tasks that were “below” white people. In the 1660s, there was an increased demand for tobacco products as well as indigo and rice in England (“African American Slavery in the Colonial Era, 1619-1775”). In order to fulfill the demand, there was a spike in interest in purchasing slaves. More and more slaves were needed to produce larger amounts of crops for the plantation owners.