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The Southern Colonies

(Lecture Notes from Mr. Kersey's 8th Grade U.S. History Class)

The Southern Colonies:

  • The colonies of Georgia, Maryland and Carolina were Proprietary colonies.
  • A proprietary colony is a colony which is owned by an individual as private property.

How the Proprietors Made Money:

  • Many people wanted to own their own land, but few could afford it.
  • The headright system helped wealthier people.
  • A "quit-rent" is where you own the land as long as you pay rent on it.
  • The quit-rent system enabled poorer people to own land.
  • While the amount paid in quit-rent was small, it added up for the proprietor.

The Maryland Colony:

  • George Calvert founded Maryland as a place for Catholics to go.
  • Remember - Catholics were not very popular in England.
  • In 1632, a group of 200 Catholics and 2 priests came and founded Maryland near Virginia. They had a pretty easy time since Jamestown could help out, and they came prepared.
  • The problem was, more Puritans would end up coming to Maryland than Catholics.
  • This caused religious tension in the colony.
  • So, Calvert, being the proprietor, made the Act of Toleration, which said everyone in Maryland was free to worship as they chose.

Back in England…:

  • King Charles was worse than King James as far as the Puritans were concerned.
  • They hated Charles so much that he was beheaded, and Oliver Cromwell took over.
  • Cromwell was a Puritan and a military dictator during the 1650's, and made a miserable time for Catholics, but he didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the colonies.
  • But, soon enough, Cromwell died, and Charles II came to the throne.
  • Charles II repaid his supporters by making them Proprietors in the area South of Virginia.
  • South Carolina found success in growing indigo, a type of plant which made an excellent purple dye.
  • North Carolina was much poorer, and they made most of their money growing tobacco.

Georgia:

  • This happened much later than the other Colonies, in the 1730's.
  • It was an experiment in social reform, they sent debtors and petty criminals there to start a new life. They were not allowed to drink or gamble, etc.
  • But, they did not mend their ways. The colony succeeded by growing rice and indigo, but the social experiment failed.