Slavery in the English Colonies

• Traders brought millions of Africans to North America, South America, and the Caribbean for over 300 years.
• These Africans were taken from their homes, chained on ships, and sold into slavery.

Treatment of Enslaved People

• The first Africans likely arrived in the English colonies in Virginia in 1619.
• Initially, English colonies used indentured servants as workers.
• As more workers became necessary, colonial governments legalized slavery.
• By the mid-1700s, slavery was legal in every colony.
• Laws stated that children born to enslaved people were also enslaved.
• Families were often separated and sold to different owners.
• Most enslaved Africans in the Southern Colonies worked on plantations.
• Treatment varied depending on the owner and they were often beaten and abused.
• Escape was difficult, but enslaved people still attempted to resist slavery.
• Resistance included rebellion, breaking tools, feigning illness, or working slowly.
• Harsh punishments were common for such acts.
• Enslaved people preserved their culture through storytelling and songs about Africa.
• By the late 1700s, Christianity became a source of strength for some enslaved people.
• Enslaved people preserved culture with music, playing drums and banjos.

A Farming Economy

• The Southern Colonies' economy was based on plantations, which relied on the labor of enslaved people.
• Cash crops produced by enslaved workers made plantation owners, or planters, wealthy.
• Plantations resembled small villages with workshops where enslaved people made nails, bricks, barrels, and other items.
• Plantation owners hired an overseer to supervise enslaved workers.
• The overseer lived near the fields, while enslaved workers' houses were far from the planter's house.
• Some enslaved people maintained small gardens near their homes.
• Planters managed plantations but did not typically perform manual labor.
• They sometimes served the community as judges or assembly members.
• Planters hired teachers to educate their children at home.
• Enslaved children were prohibited from attending school and learning to read or write, with punishment for those caught trying.

Life on Small Farms

• While the Southern Colonies' economy depended on crops from large plantations, most colonists lived and worked on small farms.
• Former indentured servants sometimes owned these small farms, though few became rich.
• Most small farm owners did not own enslaved people.
• Those who did work alongside enslaved labourers but did not treat them as equals.
• Church services were important events due to the distance between farms, involving travel, attendance, and socializing.

Free Africans

• Some Africans were able to buy their freedom and start farms.
• Most did not want to be part of the system of slavery.
• Some free Africans bought relatives to liberate them.
• Many enslaved people ran away to escape slavery, but were often caught and returned.
• Some found refuge in Spanish Florida or with Native American tribes.

The Black Seminoles

• The Seminole tribe provided runaway enslaved people with food and shelter.
• The Seminole gave land to runaways who gave back one-third of the crops they grew.
• Many runaways dressed like the Seminole, learned their language, and became known as Black Seminoles.

Eliza Lucas Pinckney

• Eliza Lucas Pinckney moved to South Carolina with her parents in 1738.
• She experimented with indigo seeds and grew an indigo plant that produced excellent dye.
• She shared seeds with neighbors and friends.
• South Carolina planters were selling one million pounds of indigo a year to European clothmakers within a few years.

Cash Crops

• Seaports like Charles Town were important to the economy of the Southern Colonies.
• Plantations produced large quantities of cash crops for markets in England and the West Indies.
• Different colonies grew different crops based on climate.
• Maryland, Virginia, and northern North Carolina: tobacco was the main cash crop.
• Tobacco cultivation requires labor and land and depletes soil nutrients.
• Southern North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia: rice became a major cash crop known as "Carolina gold".
• Indigo plants, producing a blue dye, grew well on drier land.
• Eliza Lucas Pinckney's experiments led to indigo becoming a major cash crop in South Carolina by the 1740s.

The Economy Grows

• Plantations were largely self-sufficient but depended on merchants for some goods and services.
• Traders and merchants relied on plantations for cash crops and raw materials, this is Interdependence.

Exporting Goods

• As plantations expanded, so did the export of cash crops.
• Large plantation owners typically used a broker to sell their crops.
• Brokers are paid to buy and sell for others, taking crops to market and buying goods for planters.
• Location was a factor in the success of plantations. The most successful were near rivers or ports for easy shipping.
• Location also influenced the growth of cities.
• By the mid-1700s, cities like Norfolk and Savannah grew along the southern Atlantic coast.
• Baltimore, Maryland, was founded in 1729 on the Patapsco River.
• Baltimore exported grain and tobacco.
• As exports increased, Baltimore became a major shipbuilding center, developing the Baltimore clipper ship.

Other Industries

• Farming was most important segment within the economy.
• Forests in the region provided resources.
• Forests aided Wilmington, North Carolina.

Millions of Africans were brought to the Americas over 300 years and sold into slavery. Laws stated that children born to enslaved people were also enslaved. Enslaved people resisted through rebellion, sabotage, and escape.