New England Vs. Southern colonies

The main economic and cultural differences between the southern colonies and the New England colonies were the dependence of the southern colonies on plantations, as opposed to the New England religious centered development. The southern colonies, or "plantation colonies," included Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. All of these colonies exported some type of agriculture, mostly tobacco and rice. This is what lead to the eventual dependence upon African slave labor. In the cases of most of these agriculture dependent colonies the focus and dependence upon the expansion of plantations caused the growth of schools and even churches to be slowed. The main focus was on producing cash crops and nothing more, this caused a somewhat aristrocratical society within some of these colonies as well. As a result this caused a largely economic centered society more than anything else. This is in great contrast to New England colonies, most of which were incredibly religion based. The Massachusettes Bay (Massachusetts and Plymouth) colonies for example were incredibly Puritan centered and were made to be a "pure society". Most of these colonies were founded for religious reasons as opposed to the profit motives of southern colonies such as Virginia. One example is Rhode Island, which was founded purely for religious freedoms for all those who were denied it in other colonies, and not for quick profit. Most of these colonies were havens to the people of certain religions whether they were Puritan, Catholic, or Seperatists communities. None of these colonies actually had economic prosperity in mind, but instead the freedom of worship. This shows a sharp contrast among not only the reasons for cultural and ecnomic development, but the actual development as well between New England and the southern colonies.