Plantation economy

Examples of Plantation economy in the following topics:

• The Plantation Economy and the Planter Class

  • A plantation economy is based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few staple products grown on large plantations such as tobacco.
  • A plantation economy is based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few staple products grown on large farms called plantations.
  • Plantation economies rely on the export of cash crops as a source of income.
  • Scale economies are also achieved by long distances to markets and reduction in the crop's size.
  • Over the years, tobacco became important to Virginia's economy, even acting as currency at times.

• Agriculture

  • Plantation economy in the Old South was based on agricultural mass production of crops such as cotton, rice, indigo, and tobacco.
  • Plantation economy in the Old South was based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few staple products grown on large farms called plantations.
  • In the American South, antebellum plantations were centered on a "plantation house," the residence of the owner, where important business was conducted.
  • The expansion of cotton cultivation required more slave labor, and the institution became even more deeply an integral part of the South's economy.
  • Plantation economy in the Old South was based on agricultural mass production, usually of cotton, rice, or indigo.

• Slave Culture

  • In all of these instances, slave culture enabled a significant amount of resistance to the plantation economy and created a relatively cohesive slave identity that shaped southern life and relationships between slaves and whites in the colonial era.
  • Although the treatment of slaves varied depending on the plantation, more often than not it was characterized by brutality.
  • Some states denied slaves the right to carry firearms, drink liquor, or leave the plantation without their master's written consent.
  • Many white masters allowed the "kitchen garden economy" to thrive, letting some slaves leave the plantation on Sundays to sell their wares.
  • Slaves who ran away were often fed and sheltered by slaves on neighboring plantations, which enabled them to evade their masters.

• Slavery in the South

  • The rise of large-scale plantations in the South led to the widespread use of slavery to support the colonial economy.
  • Every colony had slaves, from the southern rice plantations in Charles Town, South Carolina, to the northern wharves of Boston.
  • However, it was in the large agricultural plantations in the South where slavery took hold the strongest.
  • Early on, enslaved people in the South worked primarily in agriculture—on farms and plantations growing indigo, rice, and tobacco.
  • The rapid expansion of large-scale plantations and single-crop agriculture in the Deep South greatly increased demand for slave labor, and slavery became the backbone of the British colonies.

• Cotton in the South

  • The cotton gin made cotton a cornerstone of the Southern economy and one of the ultimate causes of the American Civil War.
  • At the time of the American Civil War, Southern plantations generated 75% of the world's cotton supply.
  • The ability of these factories to produce unprecedented amounts of cotton cloth revolutionized the world economy and the demand for raw cotton.
  • As a result, the South became increasingly dependent on plantations and slavery; plantation agriculture was the largest sector of the Southern economy.
  • The slogan was successful in mobilizing support: by February 1861, the seven states whose economies were based on cotton plantations had seceded and formed the Confederacy.

• White Society in the South

  • Antebellum society in the South consisted of a class of wealthy plantation-owners, a middle class of yeomans, poor whites, and slaves.
  • The largest slaveholders, generally owners of large plantations, represented the top stratum of Southern society.
  • They benefited from economies of scale and needed large numbers of slaves on big plantations to produce profitable labor-intensive crops like cotton.
  • Third, many small farmers with a few slaves and yeomen were linked to elite planters through the market economy.
  • Only a small minority of free white Southerners owned plantations in the antebellum era.

• Slavery in the Rice Kingdom

  • South Carolina was the first colony founded deliberately on slave labor to support its growing rice economy.
  • Rice plantations were larger than their tobacco counterparts in the Chesapeake, and planters expected slaves to cultivate up to five acres of rice a year, in addition to growing their own vegetables to feed themselves and their families.

• A Growing Population and Expanding Economy in British North America

  • By the late 17th century, Virginia's export economy was largely based on tobacco, and new, richer settlers came in to take up large portions of land, build large plantations, and import indentured servants and slaves.
  • Unlike the cash crop-oriented plantations of the Chesapeake region, the Puritan economy was based on the efforts of self-supporting farmsteads who traded only for goods they could not produce themselves.
  • Barbados, as a wealthy sugarcane plantation island, was one of the early English colonies to use large numbers of Africans in plantation-style agriculture.
  • Over 90% of people were farmers, with several small cities that were also seaports linking the colonial economy to the larger British Empire.

• African-American Culture

  • Although the treatment of slaves varied depending on plantation norms, overseers, and masters, more often than not it was characterized by brutality.
  • Some states denied slaves the right to carry firearms, drink liquor, or leave the plantation without their master's written consent.
  • When slaves were brought to American plantations, they were slowly stripped of their African religions and converted to Christianity.
  • Many white masters allowed the "kitchen garden economy" to thrive, letting some slaves leave the plantation on Sundays to sell their wares.
  • Slaves on a South Carolina plantation (The Old Plantation, c. 1790)

• Rhode Island

  • Fleeing from religious persecution, Williams went on to found Providence Plantation in 1636 on land gifted by the Narragansett and Pequot tribes.
  • In 1644, Roger Williams secured a land patent establishing the Incorporation of Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay.
  • The bedrock of the economy was agriculture, especially dairy farming and fishing.
  • He granted the request with the Royal Charter of 1663, giving the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations an elected governor and legislature.
  • Discuss the founding of the Rhode Island Colony and Providence Plantations