Early Southern Society

1. Early Southern Society By: Jordan LaPorta, Katie Schock, and Austin Petrey

2. Maryland: Toleration of different religious beliefs • Virginia: Successful tobacco industry, tough slave laws, and oldest colony • North Carolina: “Poor man’s Virginia;” poor and small town tobacco farmers • South Carolina: Rich aristocrats of wealthy English nobles dwelled here; notable for Charleston • Georgia: Notable for its probation of slavery and its rugged frontier of prisoners looking for a new chance Colonies and their Significance

3. 1585-1587: The English make several attempts to colonize Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina; the final colony vanished without a trace • 1606: King James I of England issues a character for the Virginia Company of London to establish a colony in the New World; the colony is named the Virginia and is the first colony established in the South • 1607: Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was founded in Virginia • 1629: George Calvert (Lord Baltimore) is given a charter by King Charles I to establish a new Catholic colony, dubbed Maryland • 1649: The Maryland Toleration Act was passed that ensured toleration of both Protestants and Catholics • 1663: King Charles II of England granted a charter for a new colony to be established; he named it Carolina, in honor of his father Charles II. • 1660s and 1670s: Maryland and Virginia established slave codes • 1670: The city of Charles Towne is established (modern day Charleston) • 1712: Carolina splits into North Carolina and South Carolina • 1732: The Trustees of the Province of Georgia, led by James Oglethorpe, were granted a charter by King George II to establish a new colony; Georgia • 1733: The city of Savannah is established Chronology

4. Colonial Life Analysis: In the South, women were hostesses and servants to their husbands before all else. They were expected to marry and raise a family early in life and devote their lives to helping their husbands be better men. This work examines the cultural role of women as mothers and as keepers of the homestead Social Life in Virginia Before the War: 1607-1861

5. Average Annual Value of Colonial Exports from the South: 1768

6. The Maryland Toleration Acts of 1649 ensured the toleration of all Trinitarian Christians, including Catholics. It was passed by the Catholics in Maryland who wanted to ensure that the rising Protestant population in Maryland would not become oppressive. • Colonial Life Analysis - Religion: Protestant Anglican Christianity was the dominant religion of England and thus Protestants became the dominant force in the English colonies. This is the first form of religious toleration in the English colonies and was an important step toward the establishment of freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights. Maryland Toleration Acts: 1649

7. The colony of Georgia was established by the Trustees of Georgia on April 21st, 1733 and authorized by King George II as a corporate colony. James Oglethorpe became the first leader of the colony that was to be a haven for felons, debtors, and other convicts who need a second chance outside of England. It originally prohibited slavery and included strict behavioral laws. It was a buffer state between prosperous South Carolina and militaristic Spanish Florida. • Colonial Life Analysis – The Frontier: Establishing a new colony was always a dangerous or uneasy prospect for the people who were settling it. The Charter of Georgia is an example of the dangers one might face on the frontier, as the colony was at the nexus of Native American tribes, prosperous British farmers who abhorred the Georgia convicts, and militaristic Spanish Florida always looking to defend itself from the growing English. Also, each colony was very individualistic in its approach to the frontier. Also notable is the prohibition of slavery, a first for the South. Charter of Georgia: June 1732

8. The Virginia Slavery Act of 1669 states that if a slave owner kills his slave he cannot be held accountable for murder since it can not be proven that the crime was premeditated, which “alone makes a murder a felony” in colonial Virginia. • Colonial Life Analysis – Slavery: Slaves in the southern colonies were nothing more than property and were afforded no rights. They were abducted from their villages in Africa and shipped on tightly packed slave ships to an unknown land where they were sold to strangers and forced to work the land in brutal and harsh conditions. Virginia Slavery Act: 1669

9. Southern Women: The Plantation House from Social Life in Old Virginia Before the War by Thomas Nelson Page (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897). • John Smith’s Journal: http://www.johnsmith400.org/journalfirstvoyage.htm • Maryland Toleration Acts: http://www.mdhs.org/Maryland%20Toleration%20Act%20of%201649.pdf • Virginia Slavery Act: Virginia General Assembly, Virginia Slavery Act (19 March 1705), reprinted in Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia, ed. William Waller Hening, vol. 2, (Richmond, Va.: Samuel Pleasants, 1809–1823), 270. • Charter of Georgia: http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/charter.htm Works Cited