I think the major reason why American colonists were different is because they came to a new land to flee persecution from their government. In what I have learned about societies forming colonies, many colonies were formed in other countries because a nation had control of that country. Take the Greek empire for example. The Greek citizens moved to counties that Greece had invaded and dwelt among those people and learned from them as well. In the Americas no one had really formed a colony or claimed the land for their country. Hopefully this helps.
The southern economy depended very much on slavery, using slaves to pick cotton and other things for the farmers. Normally the more slaves you had, the richer you were. Slaves were very important to the southern economy because southerners depended solely on slaves' labor. The families were affected when they could no longer keep slaves so the South was very mad because this was their main source of production. Once rich families no longer had laborers, causing loss of money and crops. The whole southern economy was affected by the loss of slaves but when slaves were allowed the southern economy was booming.
The sharecropper has to work on the owners land and whatever crops they harvest has to be given to the owner in return for the use of the landowners items.
