Curated OER
American Life in the 17th Century: 1607-1692
What was American life like during the 1600s? Help your class discover facts about the unhealthy conditions at Chesapeake Bay, the tobacco economy, Bacon's Rebellion, colonial slavery, the Salem Witch Trials, and colonial life. Slides...
![United States History: Ch. 3 Sec. 1: The Southern Colonies [Pdf] eBook](https://d15y2dacu3jp90.cloudfront.net/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/FPO-knovation.png "United States History: Ch. 3 Sec. 1: The Southern Colonies [Pdf] eBook")
Other
United States History: Ch. 3 Sec. 1: The Southern Colonies [Pdf]
A chapter from a history text that looks at the development of the Southern Colonies. It discusses the Southern agricultural economy that relied on slave labor, tobacco as a cash crop, Southern society, indentured servitude, Bacon's...
South Carolina Educational Television
Etv: The Last Auction
Interactive experience that allows students to walk through a small, farming town in South Carolina, and see its transition from a tobacco farming community and a textile based economy to a new economy. Witness the residents' struggles...
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
History Is Fun: Life at Jamestown [Pdf]
A 16-page history of the establishment and growth of the colony of Jamestown. Covers the early challenges, the starving time, the Virginia Company, the conflict with Powhatan, the beginnings of the tobacco economy, the introduction of...
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
History Is Fun: Early Industries in Virginia [Pdf]
Discusses the many enterprises undertaken by the colonists in Virginia to try to make a profit. They were not successful until they began to grow tobacco.
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
History Is Fun: Tobacco and Labor [Pdf]
A clear explanation of the system of indentured servitude that supplied Virginia tobacco plantations with the labor force they needed in order to manage their crops. Explains how such servants were able to earn their own land, and how...
Library of Virginia
Virginia Memory: Tobacco Counterblast
For this lesson, students look at why King James I thought that smoking tobacco was a dangerous habit.
PBS
Africans in America: Virginia Looks Toward Africa for Labor
This website explains why Virginia needed laborers, why it led to the use of African labor and how it was justified by Christians. Hyperlinks to related topics on the site.
Other
U.s. History on Line: Tobacco Culture
Page with informational text and questions for students to answer, details the process of planting and growing tobacco in the Chesapeake region. Information is from a book published in 1918.