The southern English colonies displayed many similar characteristics. The colonies of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia are known as the plantation colonies. The five southern colonies relied on a plantation economy and a staple crop. The plantation colonies provided some religious toleration, allowing different religious groups to flourish. Slavery was also permitted and accepted in all the southern colonies. A rich and powerful aristocracy was dominant in the southern colonies. Each colony, though maintaining its individual traits, depicts characteristics of its cultural and geographical neighbors. .
The five southern colonies established their economy on the structure of a plantation and the cultivation of a staple crop. Each colony maintained a plantation economy, but each on the basis of a different crop. One of the most successful plantation colonies, Virginia, produced the crop tobacco. The cultivation of tobacco led to Virginia's great prosperity. Maryland was another plantation colony whose economy depended greatly upon tobacco. In Maryland the aristocrats owned large portions of land on which they built large manors or plantations. Another very important crop, rice, was first grown in South Carolina. It soon was grown on large plantations and became the primary export crop of South Carolina. The large rice plantations transformed South Carolina into a profitable and highly aristocratic colony. The colony of North Carolina served as a haven for poor farmers and rejects from Virginia. Poor farmers were able to establish small farms on which they could grow tobacco and other crops. This, however, did not allow North Carolina to establish a strong plantation economy. It also proved difficult to establish a large plantation economy in George due to their poor climate and early restrictions on slavery. .
The religious toleration found in the plantation colonies encouraged various religious groups to establish their foundation in the south.