most scholars consisder a "planatation" as a farm with 20 or more
slaves; otherwise the term becomes meaningless.  After call, Rhode
Island was known as "Prividence Plantation" but no one thinks of the
whole colony as a plantation.

Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
     and Public Policy
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, New York   12208-3494

518-445-3386 
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In most records before about 1800 the word plantation was used in
Virginia
wills to mean any property which was planted. Testators with no slaves
and
less than 50 acres referred to their property as their plantation. Some
referred to their "plantation and its crop of peas and corn," so
whatever
the actual definition, Virginians did not necessarily follow it.

Also, it was common for the courts to order the churchwardens to bind an
indigent child to become a "planter or sawyer." Early Registers of Free
Negroes referred to the bearer as being a "planter."

Starting about 1820 some testators referred to their property as their
farm
regardless of its size and how many slaves they owned, and it was common
for
the the courts to order the overseers of the poor to bind out an
indigent
child "to be a planter or farmer."
Paul

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