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5. The Southern Colonies

Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, the indentured servants who worked them, and the plantation society that followed.

5. The Southern Colonies

Map of DeSoto's 1539-43 exploration through the Southeast Virginia was the first successful southern colony. While Puritan zeal was fueling New England's merca…

5a. Maryland: The Catholic Experiment

James Barry, 1793In this engraving, Cecil Calvert presents his 1649 Act Concerning Religion to the ancient Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, while libertarians throu…

5b. Indentured Servants

William Hogarth, 1747This picture, Industry and Idleness, shows 2 apprentices starting in identical circumstances, one is the industrious Francis Goodchild and…

5c. Creating the Carolinas

Charles II returned to the British throne in 1660, after the brutal dictatorship of Cromwell. It was under his rule that the Carolinas were founded. While wayw…

5d. Debtors in Georgia

The city of Savannah, once a part of Oglethorpe's utopian design, makes its beginnings in 1734. The development of Georgia was unlike all the other British col…

5e. Life in the Plantation South

Slave Cabin at Sotterley Plantation, Maryland, is one of the only remaining freely accessible examples of its kind in the state. Plantation life created a soci…