Plantation (settlement or colony)

Today, a plantation is a place where people plant things, usually botanics. In the 17th century, the word meant active transfer of a colonising population, without concern for the indigenous people. This sense of plantation is more generally known today as a settlement or a colony.

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The Plantations of Ireland were an instrument of retribution and political control. Lands were seized through act of war and given to English (and later, Scottish) settlers who would be loyal to the Crown and keep the disloyal Irish under control.

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The Plantations of New England were seen as occupying virgin land. European colonists regarded the land there as belonging to no-one (since, in their world-view, the native Americans had no rights). 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 Niue Amsterdam (now New York) and the French Nouvelle Caledonie in Canada.

Related Topics:
Plantations of New England - Plymouth plantation - Dissenter - Utopian - Massachusetts Bay Colony - New Haven Colony - Niue Amsterdam - Nouvelle Caledonie

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In the state of Maine, the old meaning has been preserved in the name of local government jurisdictions.

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