INDUSTRIES, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS OF THE SOUTHERN PLANTERS
Farms near the sea
59. The Carolina and Georgia Planters. The colonial farms south of Virginia lay mostly in a narrow strip near the sea. Inland were the "pine barrens," a poor, sandy country grown up in pine woods. Inland also were strong and fierce tribes of Indians like the Cherokees and Creeks.
Rice becomes an important product
The younger colonies could not live by growing tobacco. Virginia was nearer to the English market, and supplied it with most of the tobacco needed. They did raise corn and cattle for their own use. One day a ship captain from the Orient sailed into Charleston with some rice. The story runs that he gave a few handfuls of this to the governor as a curiosity. The wise old governor heard that this rice had been grown in swamps, and he thought of the swamps all along the coast of Carolina and Georgia. He had some of it planted in this wet land, and it grew beyond all hopes. In a few years rice was produced in such quantity that it could be shipped to England, where it was thought the best on the market.
Indigo also grown
Some one else discovered that the low, wet land would also grow indigo, a plant used for making a brilliant and valuable blue dye. Indigo soon brought the settlers as much money as did the rice.
Lumber, tar, and turpentine
The great pine woods furnished lumber that was sent to Europe by the boatload. From the sap of the pine trees the colonists also learned to make turpentine and rosin. By heating or distilling the wood itself they produced tar. To this day one of the most striking sights in these states are the great sawmills and the stills, where negroes are making turpentine much as it was made a century and a half ago.
When Georgia was settled Oglethorpe did not permit slaves to be brought in, and the colonists had to do all their own work. But later there were as many slaves in Georgia as in the Carolinas or Virginia.