John Smith

Southern Colonies in Colonial America: History and Facts

The Southern Colonies in North America were established by the British during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Slaves and indentured servants, although present in the North, were much more important to the South. They were the backbone of the Southern economy. Settlers in the Southern colonies came to America to seek economic prosperity they could not find in Old England.

Religion was the key to the founding of a number of the colonies. Many were founded on the principal of religious liberty. The New England colonies were founded to provide a place for the Puritans to practice their religious beliefs. The Puritans did not give freedom of religion to others, especially non-believers.

Colonialism in Nigeria provided an industrial and agricultural boom to the country. It also helped Nigerians to solve their medical problems. Europeans were exposed to new disease from Africa and had to find ways to treat them, and in the process, provided cures for sick Africans too.

British administration in Nigeria formally began in 1861, when Lagos became a crown colony, a step taken in response to factors such as the now-illegal activities of slave traders, the disruption of trade by the Yoruba civil wars, and fears that the French would take over Lagos.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REASONS: A BETTER LIFE Most colonists had faced difficult lives in Britain, Ireland, Scotland, or Germany. They came to the Americas to escape poverty, warfare, political turmoil, famine and disease. They believed colonial life offered new opportunities.

The Nigerian colonial economy depended on three major export crops – cocoa, palm produce and groundnuts. Poor Nigerian peasants were forced by circumstances imposed on them by colonial economic policies to ditch the production of food crops to focus on cash crops.