What would life be like if you lived in the southern colonies in 1780?

Answer 1

depends on just whom "you" are. for many, especially the poor, white and black, free and slave alike, i'm sure it was a hobbesian vision......"...poor, nasty, brutish, and short". the wealthy and middle class would have it better in some ways, such as education and medical care, but were susceptible to many of the same things, like disease.
most cities would be considered villages by today's standards and the vast majority of residents were rural dwellers.

Answer 2

I do believe "I kno" was talking about 1780? the South wasn't really establish that much. Appalachia was starting to get settled by the Irish and the Welsh settlers, that was their heritage. The Mississippi valley was the areas of real settlements, where the rivers ran, that was where landing where established and towns were established. Towns were built out from there.
The French were driven off their lands in Newfoundland by the British in the early 1700's and moved further South through the colonies due to prejudice, they were forced into the swamps of the South, they merged with the Native American Indians down there, forming the Creole race. The Cherokee Indians had large farms, they learned to farm early in the years and established farms, they were envied by the white settlers.
Andrew Jackson, the President at the time was a former Indian fighter, he hated the Indians and formed a pact to eradicate the Cherokee Indians off their lands and take them over, giving them to the Whites. The "trail of tears"

The large plantations, the large cotton fields and hundreds of slaves all came at a later time when the South started to boom, along with the North and Industrialization and factories of the mid 1800's. The jealousy of who was going to rule who, the North or the South, the rest is history.

Answer 3

I know that there was such a thing as a plank road because the roads were so muddy that they had to put planks down. That if you were poor the only way to get rich was to become a pirate which many men did. That houses had a detached kitchen because so many fires started there. That not all southern plantations had big houses because they were owned by northerns (absentee landowners) and were run by overseers who lived in modest houses. That slaves wore colorful clothes and were sold in a market with little clothes on in order for the buyer to see their bodies. There were still Indians around at that time because they weren't removed until the 1830s. That's all I can remember.