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72 C

HAPTER 3

Terms & Names

MAIN IDEA

One American's Story

The Agricultural South

•cash crop

•slave

•triangular trade

•middle passage

•Stono Rebellion

In the Southern colonies, a

predominantly agricultural

society developed.

The modern South maintains

many of its agricultural traditions.

WHY IT MATTERS NOW

In the fall of 1773, Philip Vickers Fithian left his home in

Princeton, New Jersey, to tutor the children of Robert Carter

III and his wife Frances at their Virginia manor house.

Fithian, who kept a journal of his one-year stay there,

recalled an evening walk through the plantation.

A PERSONAL

VOICE PHILIP VICKERS FITHIAN

“ We stroll’d down the Pasture quite to the River, admiring

the Pleasantness of the evening, & the delightsome Prospect

of the River, Hills, Huts on the Summits, low Bottoms, Trees

of various Kinds, and Sizes, Cattle & Sheep feeding some

near us, & others at a great distance on the green sides of

the Hills. . . . I love to walk on these high Hills . . . where I

can have a long View of many Miles & see on the Summits of

the Hills Clusters of Savin Trees, through these often a

little Farm-House, or Quarter for Negroes.

”

—Journal & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian

Although Fithian’s journal goes on to express outrage over

the treatment of the slaves, he was fascinated by the planta-

tion system, which had come to dominate the South. The

plantation economy led to a largely rural society in which

enslaved Africans played an unwilling yet important role.

A Plantation Economy Arises

Since the early days of Jamestown, when the planting of tobacco helped save the

settlement, the Southern colonists had staked their livelihood on the fertile soil

that stretched from the Chesapeake region to Georgia. Robert Carter, like his

father and grandfather before him, specialized in raising a single cash crop—one

grown primarily for sale rather than for the farmer’s own use. In Maryland,

Virginia, and North Carolina, farmers grew the broad green leaves of tobacco. In

South Carolina and Georgia, rice and later indigo were successful cash crops.

The Shirley plantation house in Virginia

is representative of many old Southern

mansions. Built in 1723, it was the

birthplace of Ann Hill Carter, the mother

of Civil War general Robert E. Lee.

▼

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Page 1 of 7

The Colonies Come of Age 73

Throughout the South, plantations developed instead of towns. Because the

long and deep rivers allowed access for ocean-going vessels, planters—owners of

large proﬁtable plantations—could ship their goods directly to the northern

colonies and Europe without the need for city docks and warehouses. Because

plantation owners produced most of what they needed on their property, they

had little use for shops, bakeries, and markets. There were some cities in the

South, including Charles Town (later Charleston), South Carolina, one of the

most thriving port cities in the British empire. On the whole, the South developed

largely as a rural and self-sufﬁcient society.

Life in Southern Society

As the Southern colonies grew in wealth and population, they also grew in diver-

sity. However, not all groups beneﬁted equally from the South’s prosperity.

A DIVERSE AND PROSPEROUS PEOPLE

During the 1700s, large numbers of

European immigrants traveled to North America in search of a new start. The

inﬂux of immigrants helped create a diverse population in both the Northern and

Southern colonies. In the South, thousands of Germans settled throughout

Maryland and Virginia and as far south as South Carolina. There they raised grain,

livestock, and tobacco. A wave of Scots and Scots-Irish also settled in the South,

residing mainly along the hills of western North Carolina.

MAIN IDEA

Making

Inferences

How did the

geography of the

South contribute

to the self-

sufﬁciency of

Southern

plantations?

A. Answer The

long and deep

Southern rivers

allowed planters

to ship their

goods directly,

without the

need for city

docks and

warehouses.

Image not available

for use on CD-ROM.

Please refer to the

image in the textbook.

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HAPTER 3

While small farmers formed the majority of the Southern pop-

ulation, the planters controlled much of the South’s economy. They

also controlled its political and social institutions. The activities at

the Carter mansion described by Philip Fithian reﬂected the luxury

of planter life. Fithian recalled attending numerous balls, banquets,

dance recitals, and parties that continued for several days.

By the mid-1700s, life was good for many Southern colonists,

particularly those in the Chesapeake Bay region. Due to a large

growth in the entire colonies’ export trade, colonial standards of

living rose dramatically in the years from 1700 to 1770. Colonists

along the Chesapeake, where tobacco prices had rebounded after

tumbling during the late 1600s, saw the greatest economic boom.

From 1713 to 1774 tobacco exports there almost tripled, and many

Chesapeake farmers and merchants prospered.

THE ROLE OF WOMEN

Women in Southern society—and

Northern society as well—shared a common trait: second-class citi-

zenship. Women had few legal or social rights; for instance, they

could not vote or preach. Even daughters of wealthy Southern

planters were usually taught only the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Instead, they were mostly educated in the social graces or in domestic tasks, such

as canning and preserving food, sewing, and embroidery.

Throughout the day, the average Southern woman worked over a hot ﬁre bak-

ing bread or boiling meat. Her outdoor duties included milking the cows, slaugh-

tering pigs for ham and bacon, and tending the garden. She was also expected to

sew, wash clothes, and clean. Women of the planter class

escaped most of these tasks, as servants handled the

household chores. Regardless of class, however, most

▼

Detail from The Country Housewife,

published in London in 1770. Many

settlers brought this guidebook

with them when they immigrated

to the colonies.

MAIN IDEA

Analyzing

Causes

Explain how

colonial standards

of living rose so

dramatically in the

18th century.

B. Answer

There was a

large growth in

the colonies’

export trade.

TOBACCO AND

NORTH CAROLINA’S

ECONOMY

Tobacco has long been a key ele-

ment of the Southern economy.

The soil and climate of the South

are ideal for growing tobacco,

which was ﬁrst harvested for com-

mercial use in 1612. In recent

years, however, tobacco revenues

have shrunk as North Carolina

lessens its dependence on tobac-

co and develops a more diversi-

ﬁed economy.

The focal point of North

Carolina’s new economy is the

Research Triangle, so called for

the cluster of major universities

in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel

Hill. These universities cooperate

in research and development in

many areas, including technology

and health care. Other new

industries, such as computers

and telecommunications, are

fueling North Carolina’s growth.

NORTH CAROLINA IN THE COLONIAL ERA

General farming

Tobacco

Rice and indigo

Raleigh

Durham

Chapel

Hill

General farming

Cotton

Cotton and

general farming

Tobacco and

general farming

Special crops and

general farming

NORTH CAROLINA TODAY

Charlotte

banking

chemicals

computers

printing

telecommunications

textiles

Greensboro

ﬁnance

heavy equipment

telecommunications

Winston-Salem

food products

furniture

machinery

tobacco products

Asheville

the arts

furniture

lumber

paper

Raleigh, Durham,

and Chapel Hill

computers

instruments

medicines

research

telecommunications

textiles

p0072-78aspe-0103s2 10/16/02 3:51 PM Page 74

Page 3 of 7

women bowed to their husbands’ will. An excerpt from Virginia plantation owner

William Byrd’s diary hints at Lucia Parke Byrd’s subservient position: “My wife

and I had another scold about mending my shoes,” Byrd wrote, “but it was soon

over by her submission.”

INDENTURED SERVANTS

Also low on Southern society’s ladder were inden-

tured servants. Many of these young, mostly white men had traded a life of prison

or poverty in Europe for a limited term of servitude in North America. They had

few rights while in bondage. Those who lived through their harsh years of labor—

and many did not—saw their lives improve only slightly as they struggled to sur-

vive on the western outskirts of the Southern colonies.

While historians estimate that indentured servants made up a signiﬁcant por-

tion of the colonial population in the 1600s—between one-half and two-thirds of

all white immigrants after 1630—their numbers declined toward the end of the

century. With continuing reports of hardship in the New World, many laborers in

Europe decided to stay home. Faced with a depleted labor force and a growing

agricultural economy, the Southern colonists turned to another group to meet

their labor needs: African slaves.

Slavery Becomes Entrenched

The English colonists gradually turned to the use of African slaves—people who

were considered the property of others—after efforts to meet their labor needs

with enslaved Native Americans and indentured servants failed. During the 1600s

and 1700s, plantation owners and other colonists would sub-

ject hundreds of thousands of Africans to a life of intense

labor and cruelty in North America.

THE EVOLUTION OF SLAVERY

In the early days of the

colonies, the English, like their Spanish counterparts, had

forced Native Americans to work for them. However, the

English settlers found it increasingly difﬁcult to enslave

Native Americans. Aside from being reluctant to learn

English labor techniques, Native Americans could easily

escape because they had far better knowledge of the local

ﬁelds and forests than did the colonists.

As the indentured servant population fell, the price of

indentured servants rose. As a result, the English colonists

turned to African slaves as an alternative. A slave worked for

life and thus brought a much larger return on the invest-

ment. In addition, most white colonists convinced them-

selves that Africans’ dark skin was a sign of inferiority, and so

had few reservations about subjecting them to a life of servi-

tude. Black Africans were also thought better able to endure

the harsh physical demands of plantation labor in hot cli-

mates. By 1690, nearly 13,000 black slaves toiled in the

Southern colonies. By 1750, that number had increased to

almost 200,000.

THE EUROPEAN SLAVE TRADE

Before the English began

the large-scale importation of African slaves to their colonies

on the American mainland, Africans had been laboring as

slaves for years in the West Indies. During the late 1600s,

English planters in Jamaica and Barbados imported tens of

thousands of African slaves to work their sugar plantations.

By 1690, the African population on Barbados was about

The Colonies Come of Age 75

MAIN IDEA

Making

Generalizations

What roles

did women play

in the Southern

household?

MAIN IDEA

Analyzing

Causes

What were the

main reasons that

English colonists

turned to African

slaves to ﬁll their

depleted labor

force?

C. Answer The

average woman

cooked, milked

cows, slaugh-

tered pigs, and

tended the gar-

den. Women of

the planter class

had servants

who performed

these duties.

D. Answer

African slaves

were thought to

be economical

in the long run.

Africans were

also thought

better able to

endure the

harsh physical

demands of

plantation labor

in hot climates.

SERFS, SLAVES,

AND SERVANTS

Many forms of servitude existed

throughout Europe and the

Americas well into the 19th cen-

tury. Serfs were peasants who

were considered par t of a lord’s

property. Unlike slaves, who

could be moved to different loca-

tions, serfs were obliged to

remain on the land that they

farmed for the landowner.

While the institution of serfdom

declined in the later Middle Ages,

it persisted with remarkable

strength in the west and south of

England. These were the very

regions where many Southern

landowners and indentured ser-

vants originated.

Serfdom was ended in England

in the 1600s, but survived in

Russia until 1861. Tsar

Alexander’s Edict of

Emancipation freed the Russian

serfs just two years before

President Lincoln’s Emancipation

Proclamation began the process

of freeing the American slaves.

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60,000—three times the white

population.

During the 17th century,

Africans had become part of a

transatlantic trading network

described as the triangular

trade. This term referred to a

three-way trading process: mer-

chants carried rum and other

goods from New England to

Africa; in Africa they traded their

merchandise for enslaved people,

whom they transported to the

West Indies and sold for sugar

and molasses; these goods were

then shipped to New England to

be distilled into rum. The “trian-

gular” trade, in fact, encom-

passed a network of trade routes

criss-crossing the Northern and

Southern colonies, the West

Indies, England, Europe, and

Africa. The network carried an

array of traded goods, from furs

and fruit to tar and tobacco, as

well as African people.

THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

The

voyage that brought Africans to

the West Indies and later to

North America was known as the

middle passage, because it was considered the middle leg of the transatlantic

trade triangle. Sickening cruelty characterized this journey. In the bustling ports

along West Africa, European traders branded Africans with red-hot irons for iden-

tiﬁcation purposes and packed them into the dark holds of large ships. On

board a slave ship, Africans fell victim to whippings and beatings from

slavers as well as diseases that swept through the vessel. The smell of

blood, sweat, and excrement ﬁlled the hold, as the African passen-

gers lived in their own vomit and waste. One African, Olaudah

Equiano, recalled the inhumane conditions on his trip from West

Africa to the West Indies in 1756 when he was 11 years old.

A PERSONAL VOICE OLAUDAH EQUIANO

“ The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate,

added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that

each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us.

This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became

unﬁt for respiration from a variety of loathsome smells, and

brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died . . . .

”

—The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

Whether they died from disease or from cruel treatment by

merchants, or whether they committed suicide, as many did by

plunging into the ocean, up to 20 percent or more of the Africans

aboard each slave ship perished during the trip to the New World.

76 C

HAPTER 3

This plan and section of the British slave ship “Brookes” was published in

London around 1790 by a leading British antislavery advocate named Thomas

Clarkson. The image effectively conveys the degradation and inhumanity of

the slave trade, which reduced human beings to the level of merchandise.

▼

Olaudah Equiano was kidnapped

from Africa and sold to a

succession of owners before

buying his freedom.

▼

MAIN IDEA

Developing

Historical

Perspective

What parts

of the world were

involved in the

triangular trade?

E. Answer The

triangular trade

involved the

colonies, the

West Indies,

Europe, and

Africa.

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SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH

Africans who survived their ocean voyage entered an

extremely difﬁcult life of bondage in North America. Most slaves—probably 80 to

90 percent—worked in the ﬁelds. On large plantations, a white slave owner direct-

ed their labor, often through ﬁeld bosses. On smaller farms, slaves often worked

alongside their owner.

The other 10 to 20 percent of slaves worked in the house of their owner or as

artisans. Domestic slaves cooked, cleaned, and raised the master’s children. While

owners did not subject their domestic slaves to the rigors of ﬁeld labor, they

commonly treated them with equal cruelty. Other slaves developed skills as arti-

sans—carpenters, blacksmiths, and bricklayers. Owners often rented these slaves

out to work on other plantations.

Whatever their task, slaves led a grueling existence. Full-time work began

around age 12 and continued until death. John Ferdinand Smyth, an English trav-

eler, described a typical slave workday.

A PERSONAL VOICE JOHN FERDINAND SMYTH

“ He (the slave) is called up in the morning at daybreak, and is seldom allowed

time enough to swallow three mouthfuls of hominy, or hoecake, but is driven out

immediately to the ﬁeld to hard labor, at which he continues, without intermission,

until noon . . . About noon is the time he eats his dinner, and he is seldom allowed

an hour for that purpose . . . They then return to severe labor, which continues in

the ﬁeld until dusk in the evening.

”

—quoted in Planters and Pioneers

Slave owners whipped and beat those slaves they thought were disobedient

or disrespectful. In Virginia, the courts did not consider slave owners guilty of

murder for killing their slaves during punishment.

Africans Cope in Their New World

The Africans who were transported to North America came from a variety of dif-

ferent cultures and spoke varied languages. Forced to labor in a strange new land,

these diverse peoples bonded together for support and fought against their plight

in numerous ways.

CULTURE AND FAMILY

In the midst of the horrors of slavery, Africans devel-

oped a way of life based strongly on their cultural heritage. Enslaved people wove

baskets and molded pottery as they had done in their homeland. They kept alive

their musical traditions and retold the stories of their ancestors. Because slave

merchants tore apart many African families, slaves created new families among

the people with whom they lived. If a master sold a parent to another plantation,

other slaves stepped in to raise the children left behind.

The African inﬂuence remained particularly strong among the slaves of South

Carolina and Georgia. By the mid-1700s, planters in these colonies had imported

large numbers of Africans with rice-growing expertise to help develop rice as the

colonies’ main cash crop. Many of these slaves came from the same region in

West Africa.

One of the most important customs that Africans kept alive in North America

was their dance. From Maryland to Georgia, slaves continued to practice what

became known in the colonies as the ring shout, a circular religious dance.

While variations of the dance brought to North America differed throughout

the regions in West and Central Africa, the dance paid tribute to the group’s

ancestors and gods and usually involved loud chants and quick, circular steps.

Despite the white colonists’ efforts to eradicate it, the ritual endured.

The Colonies Come of Age 77

Background

Rice was an

important crop

in West Africa for

centuries before

the slave trade

began.

F. Possible

Answer

Because slaves

were consid-

ered less than

human.

MAIN IDEA

Making

Inferences

Why weren’t

slave owners

punished if they

killed their slaves?

▼

The gourd ﬁddle and

drum, both made by

slaves, reﬂect ways

in which enslaved

African Americans

continued their

African traditions.

Image not avail-

able for use on

CD-ROM.

Please refer to

the image in the

textbook.

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HAPTER 3

•cash crop

•slave

•triangular trade

•middle passage

•Stono

Rebellion

1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining

its signiﬁcance.

MAIN IDEA

2. TAKING NOTES

Fill in a chart like the one below to

show the social order of Southern

society. In the tiers, name and

describe the different social classes,

ranging from most powerful at the

top to least powerful at the bottom.

CRITICAL THINKING

3. DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

Why were so many enslaved

Africans brought to the Southern

colonies? Think About:

• why Native Americans were not

used instead

• why Europeans were not used

instead

• the cash crops of the South

• the triangular trade

4. ANALYZING

PRIMARY SOURCES

The ad shown above is from a

Virginia newspaper of the 1730s.

What does this ad reveal about the

brutality of the slave system?

5. ANALYZING CAUSES

Why did fewer cities develop in

the South during the 1700s? Use

evidence from the text to support

your response.

1. planters

RESISTANCE AND REVOLT

Enslaved Africans also resisted their position of

subservience. Throughout the colonies, planters reported slaves faking illness,

breaking tools, and staging work slowdowns. One master noted the difﬁculty in

forcing African slaves to accept their lot, commenting that if a slave “must be

broke, either from Obstinacy, or, which I am more apt to suppose, from Greatness

of Soul, [it] will require . . . hard Discipline. . . . You would really be surpriz’d at

their Perseverance . . . they often die before they can be conquer’d.”

Some slaves pushed their resistance to open revolt. One such uprising, the

Stono Rebellion, began on a September Sunday in 1739. That morning, about

20 slaves gathered at the Stono River southwest of Charles Town. Wielding guns

and other weapons, they killed several planter families and marched south, beat-

ing drums and loudly inviting other slaves to join them in their plan to ﬂee to

Spanish-held Florida.

By late Sunday afternoon, a white militia had surrounded the group of escap-

ing slaves. The two sides clashed, and many slaves died in the ﬁghting. Those cap-

tured were executed. Despite the rebellion’s failure, it sent a chill through many

Southern colonists and led to the tightening of harsh slave laws already in place.

However, slave rebellions continued into the 1800s.

Despite the severe punishment that escape attempts brought, a number of

slaves tried to run away. The runaway notices published in the various newspa-

pers throughout Virginia show that from 1736 to 1801, at least 1,279 enslaved

men and women in that state took to ﬂight. Many who succeeded in running

away from their masters found refuge with Native American tribes, and marriage

between runaway slaves and Native Americans was common.

As the Southern colonies grew, they became ever more

dependent on the use of African slavery. This was not the

case in the Northern colonies, due mainly to an economy

driven by commerce rather than agriculture. This eco-

nomic distinction spurred the North to develop in ways

that differed greatly from the South.

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