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The Plantations of New England were a series of colonisation efforts by Europeans on the east coast of North America, a land that they called New England.
The name New England dates to the earliest days of European settlement: in 1616 Captain John Smith described the area in a pamphlet "New England." [1] The name was officially sanctioned in 1620 by the grant of King James I to the Plymouth Council for New England. [2]
The region was subsequently divided through further grants, including the 1629 royal grant of "Hampshire" which was issued for "making a Plantation & establishing of a Colony or Colonyes in the Countrey called or knowen by ye name of New England in America." [3]
The role plantations played in New England's economy in the past was not as significant as the role agriculture played in Southern colonies. The soil was also very rocky and wasn't good for farming
Agricultural activity existed in New England before European settlers arrived in the region. By the time colonizers arrived, "Native American agriculture in southern New England had developed into a well-ordered system". [4] The majority of the civilian diet came from corn (maize), which was planted "in hills in clearings the Native cut in the woods". Relative to the role played by the agricultural sector in southern New England, agriculture was less well developed in northern New England due to the shorter growing season. As such, the majority of the diet in the north came from hunting, fishing, and "gathering wild berries and nuts". [4] Plantations in southern New England also included farming of beans, squash, and pumpkins, which were planted with the corn. Additionally, though the tobacco industry thrived to a much greater extent in Southern colonies, tobacco was also grown to a relatively lesser extent in New England. Other crops included melons and strawberries. [4]
By the time the colonizers settled, the agricultural system was cyclical in that fields were cleared of trees, then used for five or more years after which they naturally reverted to woodland as a consequence of how quickly forests regenerated in the New England area. With respect to relative male to female involvement in plantations, though farm work was mostly conducted by the women, men were more involved in tobacco cultivation. [4]
Though agricultural activity existed in New England before early colonial settlers arrived, land was barely touched relative to the massive plantation scales seen in England at the time. As such, early settlers were greeted with great opportunities to utilize the kinds of land use improvements previously implemented in England. [4] Up until the colonial time period, there was a significant amount of unused land that was characterized by undeveloped wilderness. The primary improvement that settlers brought about was thus the recreation of the English farming system that efficiently utilized the vast areas of untamed wilderness. [4] However, relative to the massive for-profit cash-crop plantations in the South, plantations in New England were small-scale, and meant mainly for subsistence purposes rather than profit making. [5]
With the improvements came a complication: the English methods of the time were unsustainable in the New England region, such that much of the land was worn out by the early 1800s. This paved the way for another improvement in the agricultural system, namely the use of applied science to make crop production more efficient and sustainable. [4]
The half-century period before the Civil War, more generally between 1800 and 1900, saw the "development of New England manufactures and the rise of new factory villages and towns". [5] This brought about significant changes to the agricultural system in the region, specifically through new demands for raw materials and food. Though demand was quick to change, supply remained fixed for a long period of time due to the "inherent inflexibility of the agricultural industry". [5] However, with the development of railroads by 1840, supply was pretty much forced to change and meet demand. This occurred due to the sudden drop in transportation costs, [6] and thus how competitive the agricultural sector became as a result of the newer farms utilizing newer technologies in the New York area. Farmers elsewhere in New England had to institute similar changes in capital to match the increase in competition by making farming in plantations more efficient and productive. [5] Though such changes were made reluctantly, they were the steps that resulted in what would thereafter be referred to as an agricultural revolution.
Though most plantations and large farms in Northern colonies were in New England, New York and other Mid-Atlantic Colonies also had a large agriculture industry. One notable farm or "plantation" in New York is the Montskill Estate.
Evident from the evolution of agricultural systems, products, and significance in the region, plantations in New England clearly played an important role in ensuring that local demand for food was satisfied by local supply, and that profit-opportunities in the sector were exhausted through utilization of technological changes that occurred in the colonial era.
The British colonization of the Americas is the history of establishment of control, settlement, and colonization of the continents of the Americas by England, Scotland, and, after 1707, Great Britain. Colonization efforts began in the late 16th century with failed attempts by England to establish permanent colonies in the North. The first of the permanent English colonies in the Americas was established in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Colonies were established in North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Though most British colonies in the Americas eventually gained independence, some colonies have remained under Britain's jurisdiction as British Overseas Territories.
Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, opium, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, fruits, rubber trees and forest trees. Protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations are located.
The Colony of Virginia was a British colonial settlement in North America between 1606 and 1776.
The colonial history of the United States covers the period of European colonization of North America from the early 16th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States in 1776 during the Revolutionary War. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic launched major colonization expeditions in North America. The death rate was very high among early immigrants, and some early attempts disappeared altogether, such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke. Nevertheless, successful colonies were established within several decades.
The Southern Colonies within British America consisted of the Province of Maryland, the Colony of Virginia, the Province of Carolina, and the Province of Georgia. In 1763, the newly created colonies of East Florida and West Florida would be added to the Southern Colonies by Great Britain until the Spanish Empire took back Florida. These colonies were the historical core of what would become the Southern United States, or "Dixie". They were located south of the Middle Colonies, albeit Virginia and Maryland were also called the Chesapeake Colonies.
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America from 1634 until 1776, when the province was one of the Thirteen Colonies that joined in supporting the American Revolution against Great Britain. In 1781, Maryland was the 13th signatory to the Articles of Confederation. The province's first settlement and capital was in St. Mary's City, located at the southern end of St. Mary's County, a peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay bordered by four tidal rivers.
The history of agriculture in the United States covers the period from the first English settlers to the present day. In Colonial America, agriculture was the primary livelihood for 90% of the population, and most towns were shipping points for the export of agricultural products. Most farms were geared toward subsistence production for family use. The rapid growth of population and the expansion of the frontier opened up large numbers of new farms, and clearing the land was a major preoccupation of farmers. After 1800, cotton became the chief crop in southern plantations, and the chief American export. After 1840, industrialization and urbanization opened up lucrative domestic markets. The number of farms grew from 1.4 million in 1850, to 4.0 million in 1880, and 6.4 million in 1910; then started to fall, dropping to 5.6 million in 1950 and 2.2 million in 2008.
A plantation economy is an economy based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few commodity crops, grown on large farms worked by laborers or slaves. The properties are called plantations. Plantation economies rely on the export of cash crops as a source of income. Prominent crops included cotton, rubber, sugar cane, tobacco, figs, rice, kapok, sisal, Red Sandalwood, and species in the genus Indigofera, used to produce indigo dye.
In the history of colonialism, a plantation was a form of colonization in which settlers would establish permanent or semi-permanent colonial settlements in a new region. The term first appeared in the 1580s in the English language to describe the process of colonization before being also used to refer to a colony by the 1610s. By the 1710s, the word was also being used to describe large farms where cash crop goods were produced, typically in tropical regions.
The Antebellum South era was a period in the history of the Southern United States that extended from the conclusion of the War of 1812 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861. This era was marked by the prevalent practice of slavery and the associated societal norms it cultivated. Over the course of this period, Southern leaders underwent a transformation in their perspective on slavery. Initially regarded as an awkward and temporary institution, it gradually evolved into a defended concept, with proponents arguing for its positive merits, while simultaneously vehemently opposing the burgeoning abolitionist movement.
The tobacco colonies were those that lined the sea-level coastal region of English North America known as Tidewater, extending from a small part of Delaware south through Maryland and Virginia into the Albemarle Sound region of North Carolina. During the seventeenth century, the European demand for tobacco increased more than tenfold. This increased demand called for a greater supply of tobacco, and as a result, tobacco became the staple crop of the Chesapeake Bay Region.
New England is the oldest clearly defined region of the United States, being settled more than 150 years before the American Revolution. The first colony in New England was Plymouth Colony, established in 1620 by the Puritan Pilgrims who were fleeing religious persecution in England. A large influx of Puritans populated the New England region during the Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640), largely in the Boston and Salem area. Farming, fishing, and lumbering prospered, as did whaling and sea trading.
The Somers Isles Company was formed in 1615 to operate the English colony of the Somers Isles, also known as Bermuda, as a commercial venture. It held a royal charter for Bermuda until 1684, when it was dissolved, and the Crown assumed responsibility for the administration of Bermuda as a royal colony.
Manakin Sabot, consisting of the villages of Manakin and Sabot, is an unincorporated community in Goochland County, Virginia, United States. It is located northwest of Richmond in the Piedmont and is part of the Greater Richmond region.
Bermuda Hundred was the first administrative division in the English colony of Virginia. It was founded by Sir Thomas Dale in 1613, six years after Jamestown. At the southwestern edge of the confluence of the Appomattox and James Rivers opposite City Point, annexed to Hopewell, Virginia in 1923, Bermuda Hundred was a port town for many years. The terminology "Bermuda Hundred" also included a large area adjacent to the town. In the colonial era, "hundreds" were large developments of many acres, arising from the English term to define an area which would support 100 homesteads. The port at the town of Bermuda Hundred was intended to serve other "hundreds" in addition to Bermuda Hundred.
During the British colonization of North America, the Thirteen Colonies provided England with an outlet for surplus population as well as a new market. The colonies exported naval stores, fur, lumber and tobacco to Britain, and food for the British sugar plantations in the Caribbean. The culture of the Southern and Chesapeake Colonies was different from that of the Northern and Middle Colonies and from that of their common origin in the Kingdom of Great Britain.
The New England Colonies of British America included Connecticut Colony, the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, and the Province of New Hampshire, as well as a few smaller short-lived colonies. The New England colonies were part of the Thirteen Colonies and eventually became five of the six states in New England, with Plymouth Colony absorbed into Massachusetts and Maine separating from it.
Jamestown, also Jamestowne, was the first settlement of the Virginia Colony, founded in 1607, and served as the capital of Virginia until 1699, when the seat of government was moved to Williamsburg. This article covers the history of the fort and town at Jamestown proper, as well as colony-wide trends resulting from and affecting the town during the time period in which it was the colonial capital of Virginia.
Tobacco cultivation and exports formed an essential component of the American colonial economy. It was distinct from rice, wheat, cotton and other cash crops in terms of agricultural demands, trade, slave labor, and plantation culture. Many influential American revolutionaries, including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, owned tobacco plantations, and were hurt by debt to British tobacco merchants shortly before the American Revolution. For the later period see History of commercial tobacco in the United States.
The planter class, also referred to as the planter aristocracy, was a racial and socioeconomic caste which emerged in the Americas during European colonization in the early modern period. Members of the caste, most of whom were settlers of European descent, consisted of individuals who owned or were financially connected to plantations, large-scale farms devoted to the production of cash crops in high demand across Euro-American markets. These plantations were operated by the forced labor of slaves and indentured servants and typically existed in subtropical, tropical, and somewhat more temperate climates, where the soil was fertile enough to handle the intensity of plantation agriculture. Cash crops produced on plantations owned by the planter class included tobacco, sugarcane, cotton, indigo, coffee, tea, cocoa, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, hemp, rubber trees, and fruits. In North America, the planter class formed part of the American gentry.