Decscribe the economy in the Southern colonies during the 1600's and the first half of the 1700's.

The economy of the Southern colonies of what became the US
was centered around what we call staple crops.  In other words, the Southern economy was
based on raising large amounts of a very few crops and selling the produce, rather than
on more varied activities as was the case in the North.  The Southern economy was one of
plantations raising staples rather than of family farms raising nearly everything a
family needed.

For example, in early Virginia, the staple
crop was tobacco.  Farther south, the plantations produced things like rice and indigo. 
The Carolinas, for example, exported 18 million pounds of rice in 1730.  This was
typical of the South's economy -- raising and exporting large amounts of a single
crop.