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MODULE 2.3a The Regions of British Colonies 81

was put down. They were mostly Presbyterian Protestants, although there was also a subsistence farmer
significant minority of Catholics who had fought for independence from Great Britain. A farmer who grows crops
These sample pages are distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
They swelled the existing ranks of subsistence farmers in the South Carolina back- that can supply only the
country. These farmers purchased few goods manufactured by artisans, relying instead needs of the family rather
on home production. To complicate matters, these tenant farmers relied almost entirely than being sold for profit.
on large landowners for access to land to earn their sustenance, whether by farming or
Copyright (c) 2024 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
hunting.
Like other poor people in the colonies, some in South Carolina fared far worse
than the few plantation owners who controlled its economy and politics. Twenty
Strictly for use with its products. NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION.
percent of white southerners lived in poverty. The very few free Black people in the
colony had almost no opportunities for economic independence. Those who were
enslaved faced harsh slave codes that policed their movement at all times. Thus, like
their counterparts in North Carolina and the Chesapeake, they had little hope of
gaining their freedom.
Economic changes driving expansion of existing plantations and the development
of new plantation systems in the British American colonies did produce positive effects
for some colonists. Large landholders able to secure bound labor generated great wealth
that could be passed down to their families. The mechanization of cloth production in
England during the eighteenth century also demanded vast amounts of labor and raw
materials from both the English countryside and the colonies. It ensured, for exam-
ple, the enormous profitability of indigo that was cultivated on southern plantations
and used to dye English textiles in the mid-to-late eighteenth century. Thus, cash-crop
indigo, tobacco, rice, and sugar plantations, each with profits built through the bound
labor of hundreds of enslaved Black people, benefited white plantation families, who
passed their profits and land to their children, creating a class of inherited wealth.

REVIEW

■ What factors contributed to the rise of slavery in South Carolina?

AP ® Skills Workshop: Thinking Historically

Analyzing Claims and Evidence in Secondary Sources

As you read in Period 1, historians make claims. Claims are arguments that attempt
to convince a reader about a general truth about the past.
But historians aren’t the only people who make claims. We make claims every day.
For example, when my friend asks me, “How was your day?” I might reply that “I had
an awful day.” “I had an awful day” is an opinion about my day. It is a personal opin-
ion based on my reflection on the facts. But a claim is more than just how I feel at the
moment. Instead, a claim is based on my interpretation of specific factors that justify
it, namely, the events that made my day so awful. These events are the evidence that I
reflect upon to make my claim.
But my friend doesn’t know about any of these events. So, to make my claim
something that my friend can understand (and agree with), I should relate the evi-
dence that made my day awful. Then, while my friend might not have experienced
my awful day, they can review the evidence and decide whether to agree with me.
Let’s say that I want to prove to my friend that “I had an awful day” by using
evidence to support my claim. I might say, “Well, first my alarm didn’t go off and I
overslept. Then, I got fired from my job for being late. And finally, I crashed into a fire

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