Southern Colonies
Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia
Virginia
Virginia was founded 1607 with the landing of the English settlers at Jamestown and ended with the established of the commonwealth of Virginia. Although Indian society existed thousand of years ago, war with European settlers and the introduction of new diseases that Indians had did not have any control over it. When summer droughts and cold winters came, many English colonists did not survive. Later on John Rolfe made a variety of tobacco plants and were sold well in England. In 1619 the first slaves were in Virginia. Most indentured servants worked on the tobacco field. In 1705 the Virginia colony became a slave colony. King James 1 of England issued the 1606 First Virginia Charter which created the Virginia Company authorizing eight Englishmen to colonize part of Virginia. After the wealth of Colonial America, the king failed their Charter. In 1624 King James made Royal Colony. The Colonial Governments were appointed by the crown, carrying out the orders of the crown. Religion in Virginia started when rich planters controlled the establishment of the Anglican Church. Baptist and Methodist preachers brought the Great Awakening welcoming black members. The law of the land from 1624 mandated that white Virginians worship in the Anglican church (Church of England) and support its upkeep with their taxes. English colonists made only fitful and often grudging efforts to bring blacks and Indians into the established church. The Powhatans and Indians further inland proved resistant to Christianity. The population in the 1600s was approximately 50,000 servants or three quarters of all new arrivals immigrated to the Chesapeake Bay colonies between 1630 and 1680. The ratio of men to women among servants in 1630s was six to one. In 1607 Powhaten Cheifdom Indians encompassed all of Tidewater Virginia from the Potomac River in the north to south of James River. Before the arrival of foreigners and their unknown diseases, the Powhatan Indians estamated 25,000.
Maryland
In 1634 Maryland was founded when the first colonists to Maryland arrive at St. Clement's island on Maryland's western shore and found the settlement of St. Mary's. In 1632 King Charles 1 of England granted a charter to George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimire, yielding him proprietary rights to a region east of the Potomac River in exchange for a share of the income Henrietta Maria, the queen consort of Charles 1. Planters in Maryland increasingly employed slave labor on farms and plantations and the black population grew rapidly in the 18th century. German immigrants began moving into western Maryland where wheat became the primary crop. The government of provincial Maryland was absolute, expressed the most extensive grant of royal powers to a colonias settlement. Lord Baltimore's main source of income as lord proprietory was the quitrent's settlers paid for their land in return. The population in Maryland was about 3,000 people due to diseases, war, and migration. Many Native Americans moved there to start a better life in the Chesapeake Bay area. Many Native American Indians groups like Powhatan, Acconannock, and Conoy moved there also. The Indigenous people had occupied the land thousands of years before the European explorers arrived. The Europeans brought with them new ideas, customs, religions, weapons, transport like horses, and cattles, and diseases that affected the history of the Native Indians. As more English colonist moved to their area, Native Indians lost their land. After that they made a treaty exchange for peace. Maryland was founded as a haven for Roman Catholics, who still make up the largest single religious group in the states although ended in 1692. Alglicanism became the established religion. Laws against popery enacted by 1704 and Roman Catholic priests were harassed; the state constitution of 1776, however, placed all Christian faiths on an equal footing. The Toleration Act of 1649 was about how all Christians are worship to Maryland. The design of St. Mary's city was a literal separation of church and state their reinforced the importance of religious freedom.