Lesson summary: Chesapeake and Southern colonies

British colonies in the south, ranging from the Chesapeake to the West Indies, focused on the production of cash crops like tobacco and sugar. The focus on plantation agriculture led to large populations of enslaved Africans in these colonies as well as social stratification between wealthy white plantation owners and poor white and black laborers.

Motivations for colonization: English colonies emerged along the eastern seaboard for a variety of reasons. People, primarily men, originally migrated to Virginia to find gold and silver to make a quick profit. After it became evident that there were no precious metals in the area, men came to Virginia to start cultivating cash crops like tobacco. Maryland was originally founded to be a safe haven for Catholics and eventually became a safe haven for all Christians. After the successful cultivation of cash crops in the Chesapeake colonies, the Southern colonies were also founded to continue creating large plantations.

Demographics in the colonies: Both the Chesapeake and Southern colonies were made up of a majority of single, young, white men who worked as indentured servants. After Bacon’s Rebellion, the Chesapeake and Southern colonies moved towards using enslaved laborers brought from West Africa.

Labor systems: The first labor system in the colony of Virginia was indentured servitude, in which servants worked for landowners in exchange for passage to America. But because indentured servants only worked for a short period of time and sometimes fought over access to land after their terms ended, plantation owners switched to using enslaved Africans as their primary source of labor. Enslaved Africans became vital to the cultivation of tobacco as they were immune to many European diseases and soon were nearly 50% of the population in the Chesapeake and Southern colonies.

Economics in the colonies: Both the Chesapeake and Southern colonies had rich soil and temperate climates which made large-scale plantation farming possible. Both regions had an agriculture-based economy in which cash crops like tobacco, indigo, and cotton were cultivated for trade.

Establishing representative governments: In Virginia, the House of Burgesses was established in 1619 serving as a representative government. It started a tradition of representative governments all throughout the English colonies.

Interactions with Native Americans: Early interactions with Native Americans remained somewhat cooperative, but as land and resources became scarcer and many more Englishmen came to the colonies, violence erupted between the white settlers and the Native Americans. When the government in Virginia would not support the colonists in attempting to eradicate Native Americans from the frontier, white settlers vented their frustrations by burning Jamestown in Bacon’s Rebellion.