Re: Plantations

["John S. Quarterman" <jsq@mids.org>]

>Plantation has vanished from current USA usage except to describe the anti 
>-bellum ( pre american civil war ) slave -holding " plantations " that remain 
>from that period .

Well, no, it hasn't.  If you drive near for example Thomasville, Georgia,
you will find several places with Plantation in their name, for growing
pine trees, pecans, and other crops.

There's a vacation resort in Florida called Amelia Island Plantation.

I even see on the web a golf plantation in Michigan.  And another one
in Hawaii.  So the traditional usage of the word is not restricted to
the south.

Nor were all plantations in the antebellum south slaveholding.  My direct
Quarterman ancestors had a plantation but did not own slaves (although
other Quarterman branches did own slaves).

In current usage in sub-Saharan Africa, plantation also means a place
where crops are planted, and secondarily an estate.

John Sinclair Quarterman <jsq@mids.org>
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