Plantation (settlement or colony)

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A plantation is a place where people plant things, usually botanics. In the 17th century, settlements and colonies involving active transfer of a colonizing population, without concern for the indigenous people were sometimes called 'plantations'.

1 Ireland
2 Scottish highlands
3 North America
- 3.1 Plantation colonies
4 References

[edit] Ireland

The Plantations of Ireland were an instrument of retribution and colonisation after several Irish rebellions against English rule throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The largest settlement, the Plantation of Ulster, was established following the rebellion of Hugh Roe O'Donnell and Hugh O'Neill in the Nine Years' War (1594-1603). The plantations were seen as part of process that would Anglicise Ireland, as well as a means of maintaining English political control in Ireland. Lands were seized from the native landowners both as punishment for rebellion and as punishment for remaining Catholic rather than conforming to the (Protestant) established church. These lands were given to English (and later, Scottish) Protestant settlers who would be loyal to the Crown and keep the native Irish under control.

[edit] Scottish highlands

During the Middle Ages the Scottish government planted Scots-speaking lowland merchant colonies in the Gaidhealtachd (the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland), for example at Campbeltown and Cromarty.

[edit] North America

[edit] Plantation colonies

Maryland, Virginia

During the 17h century, the Chesapeake bay area was immensely hospitable to tobacco cultivation. Ships annually hauled 1.5 million pounds (680,000 kilograms) of tobacco out to the Bay by the 1630s, and about 40 million pounds (18 million kilograms) by the end of the century. Farmers responded to the falling prices by growing even more tobacco. The labor supply from Africa (slaves) was expensive, and therefore they had to rely on much cheaper indentured servants.

European colonists didn't regard the land as belonging the Native Americans, so the Plantations of New England were seen as occupying virgin land. The first English settlement, the Plymouth Plantation, was to create a new beginning for English dissenters and so essentially utopian. Later plantations were more overtly entrepreneurial: European investors funded colonists in the expectation of good returns. Example include the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the New Haven Colony, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (now New York) and the French Nouvelle Caledonie in Canada.

In the state of Maine, the old meaning has been preserved in the name of local government jurisdictions. It is also preserved in the full name of Rhode Island, Rhode Island and Providence plantations.