Life in the South

Compare and Contrast

Choose two of the colonies we have studied. Using your  knowledge and the vocabulary below, compare and contrast the two different colonies you chose.

What do they have in common? What are their differences?

Use the handout chart for brainstorming before writing your text.

The slaves in the 13 colonies

The slaves in the 13 colonies2014-09-25T16:08:03+00:00

Slavery was the status of several thousand inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies. Starting around 1680, more than

 100,000 Africans were forcibly transported to these colonies to serve as manual labour. They formed about one-fifth

 of the workforce. In South Carolina, nearly half of the population lived in slavery.

Hundreds of slaves had been brought to New York, Boston and Rhode Island, but it was in the southern colonies
where slavery was more deeply rooted. In Virginia and South Carolina, slaves worked on plantations that grew
 tobacco, rice and indigo (a plant used to make blue dye). These crops required a lot of labour over very long periods,
and involved backbreaking work in unhygienic conditions. In 1745, cotton was not widely grown in the colonies.
 It would only flourish in the 19th century.

Not all slaves worked on plantations. Some cut and sawed wood in North Carolina. On many small farms in the South,

 farmers had only one slave who helped him work the land.

In this system, slaves lost their freedom and worked long, hard days. Slaves were considered a commodity, like a tool

 that could be bought and sold.

Author: Léon Robichaud

http://blogdev.learnquebec.ca/societies/societies/the-thirteen-colonies-around-1745/the-slaves-2/

Two types of slavery

shelley August 14, 2014 Two types of slavery2014-09-25T15:44:27+00:00

Pehr Kalm, Swedish naturalist, during a visit of the 13 Colonies in 1749

“There were two classes of servants in the English colonies, domestics and slaves, and the former class was divided

 into two categories:

1. Those, of free condition, who rented themselves out for the year at a price ranging from eight to 20 louis (a French coin), not including food.
2. Poor immigrants who, not having the means to pay their passage, had agreed with the captain of the ship on which they made the crossing, to let themselves be sold for a few years upon their arrival in America. This category of domestics, who were called indentured servants, included men and women of all ages, and many unfortunates fleeing oppression and religious persecution.”

The Breadbasket Colonies

The Middle Colonies were composed of what is today the states of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

Because the soil was rich in the Middle colonies, farmers were able to grow more grain than they could use. They began selling grain to other colonies and to England, shipping out of the big ports in Philadelphia and New York. Because of this, the middle colonies became known as the Breadbasket colonies.

http://www.slideshare.net/ajroets/61-the-middle-colonies-55805719

Source: http://13colonies.mrdonn.org/middlecolonies.html

New England Colonies

Life in the Middle Colonies

Jamestown Colony, Virginia Would you have survived?

   The Virginia Company was assigned land in the New World by the king of England. They had high hopes of making a lot of money by growing and making things in their colony that they could ship back to England for a profit. To do this, they needed a labor force.
The Virginia Company advertised for colonists. Anyone who agreed to make the journey was promised 50 acres of land and a share in the profits. That was quite an offer. About 1000 people accepted. A ship set sail for the New World.
   Jamestown was the name of the area selected by the Virginia Company to be the new home of these colonists. It was a swampy area, nearly an island, connected to the mainland by a sandbar. It was selected because the Virginia Company believed it could be defended. The colonists were not worried about the natives. The Indians in the area seemed friendly. They were worried about Spanish invasion.
   The choice of location did not work out well. The colonists soon ran out of game on the "island", and fresh water was in short supply.
They had other problems. The colonists were badly equipped to start a colony. About half of the colonists had been "gentlemen" back in England. They had little or no work experience. They knew nothing about farming or building. They had no intention of doing any of the work. They expected the others to feed and care for them. As you can imagine, this did not go over well with the other colonists.
    Hindsight: More colonists might have survived if ...

• Even then, the colonists in Jamestown might have survived if they had had time to plant crops and harvest before winter set in. They did plant. But they were not worried about food. They expected ships to arrive from England. But only a few ships arrived. The ships brought some supplies, but the ships had been sent to take goods back to England, goods that had not yet been created by the colonists.
• If they had abandoned their original settlement and moved inland where food, water, and firewood were in ample supply. Of course, they did not know if the natives would remain friendly if they moved inland. The fort they built on the "island" did offer some protection. So they did not move inland.

   If it had not been for the generosity of the Indians in the area, they all would have died.
As it was, with only two doctors, low supplies of food and fresh water, freezing temperatures, and almost no medicine to combat disease, only about 100 of the original colonists survived Jamestown.