Paul Finkelman wrote:

> 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.
> 

Before there were any significant number of North American "planters" growing staple crops and using bound labor, there were numerous "plantations"--meaning settlements planted overseas (and "planters" who established such settlements). The diverse definitions of the terms can be traced partly in the indispensable Oxford English Dictionary, and with more attention to place and change over time in chapter 3 ("The Languages of Class in Rural America") of Allan Kulikoff's The Agrarian Origins of American Capitalism.

Doug Deal
History/SUNY Oswego

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