Settling the Southern Colonies

1. Settling the Southern Colonies

2. The Carolinas • Proprietors tried to replicate the lucrative sugar-plantation system of Barbados • Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina • Provided for large and small head rights (land grants) to create an American nobility • Religious toleration (even Jews and “heathens”)

3. Enslaving Indians • The 8 proprietors of South Carolina realized that commercial farming was expensive • Many settlers brought slaves and indentured servants, but they were expensive to transport and keep • Colonists began to trade with Indians for skins that they would turn into goods to be exported • Indians became dependent on British commerce, and soon colonists started bribing them to capture members of rival tribes to be sold as slaves • Enslaved Indians were usually sold to other colonies • Eventually these slaving raid led to war with the Indians

4. Georgia • Last British continental colony • Settlers moved from the Carolinas to the Florida borderlands to try to take trade with Indians from the Spanish • Indians took advantage of the English/Spanish rivalry • Georgia was unique in that it was a key military buffer against Florida • It was also a philanthropic colony, as a refuge for the poor and religiously persecuted