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:::SOUTHERN
COLONIES:::
Rural
Region
In
contrast to New England and the Middle Colonies were the predominantly
rural southern settlements: Virginia, Maryland, North and South
Carolina, and Georgia.
Planters
Lead the Way
By
the late 17th century, Virginia and Maryland's economic and social
structure rested on great planters and farmers. The planters, who were
supported by slave labor, held most of the political power and the best
land. They built great houses, adopted an aristocratic way of life and
kept in touch as best they could with the world of culture overseas.
Farmers
for Freedom
At
the same time, yeoman farmers were those who worked smaller tracts of
land, sat in popular assemblies, and found their way into political
office. Their outspoken independence was a constant warning to the
planters not to step on the rights of free men.
Booming
Carolinas
Charleston,
South Carolina, became the leading port and trading center of the South.
There the settlers quickly learned to combine agriculture and commerce.
The marketplace became a major source of prosperity. Dense forests also
brought revenue. Lumber, tar and resin from the longleaf pine provided
some of the best shipbuilding materials in the world. Not bound to a
single crop as was Virginia, North and South Carolina also produced and
exported rice and indigo, a blue dye obtained from native plants. It was
used in coloring fabric. By 1750 more than 100,000 people lived in the
two colonies of North and South Carolina.
Back-country
Homes
In
the southern-most colonies, as everywhere else, population growth in the
back-country had special significance. German immigrants and Scots-Irish
were unwilling to live in the original settlements where English
influence was strong. Therefore they pushed inland. Those who could not
secure fertile land along the coast, or who had exhausted the lands they
held, found the hills farther west a bountiful refuge. Although their
hardships were enormous, restless settlers kept coming. By the 1730s
they were pouring into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Soon the
interior was dotted with farms.
Country
Living
Living
on the edge of the Native American country, frontier families built
cabins, cleared tracts in the wilderness and cultivated maize and wheat.
The men wore leather made from the skin of deer or sheep, known as
buckskin. The women wore garments of cloth they spun at home. Their food
consisted of venison, wild turkey and fish. They had their own
amusements -- great barbecues, dances, house-warnings for newly married
couples, shooting matches, and contests for making quilted blankets.
Quilts remain an American tradition today.
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