Re: Plantations

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

>JOHN ----- you wrote ::
>
>""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. ""
>
>You have made my point exactly -- the usage of the word " Plantation "  was 
>never restricted to the South ( USA ) . It was a common< routine > land 
>description in the 1600-1700 Northeast USA e.g. Delaware , Pennsylvania , 
>etc. 

I agree with that point.

>Now we hear farm , ranch , etc, but vitually never Plantation in a generic 
>sense in those areas , unless someone is trying to add a " mystique " to the 
>endeavor !

I don't agree with that point.  Maybe in your experience where you live
it's true, but it's not true in my experience.

>I also agree that slaveholding was not restricted to the South i.e. some 
>Northern
> ( Union ) states had slaves, or almost as bad , " indentured servants " , 
>while many Southerners did not practice and / or actively opposed slavery .

Slavery in the Americas is a long and complicated subject.  The first
colony to legalize slavery was Massachusetts.  But we're getting far
afield from the topics of this list.

>However , I would have been remiss if I had not clearly stated that the " 
>plantations " of my Quaker ancestors were not slaveholding ; in fact 200 
>years later , many of their descendents even broke with their Orthodox 
>Brethern to fight for the freedom of everyone in the American Civil War as " 
>Progressive Quakers " or "Quaker Baptists".

Indeed.

>Incidentally , the " Plantations " in Hawaii may be just that !!

As Niven has pointed out, one major plantation in Hawaii was and is
owned by a Sinclair family.  One of them was on this list, although
he seems to not be on it right now.

>  Many of 
>these are and were large and old agricultural enterprises -- Castle and
>Cooke may still be one such Plantation ( pineapples ) ??

Now you're making my point. :-)

>Amelia Island Plantation may also have been a seacoast plantation or part of 
>one -- rice , hay , etc. were grown on some of the Florida , Georgia , etc. " 
>southern " plantations --many islands were owned by a single family .

The Quartermans were planters on the South Carolina and Georgia coast
for two centuries, so I'm aware of this.  Yes, rice was one of the main
crops.

The owner of a plantation was called a planter.  That term has mostly
fallen out of usage in the states.  Plantation, however, while rarer
than it used to be, is still a living word.

This is related to Sinclairs in that my Sinclairs emigrated from Thurso
to Georgia.  The first immigrant lived in Brooks County, Georgia, which
is far inland, but several of his sons and daughters moved around 1870
to Darien, Georgia, on the coast, where there was a longstanding (since
1733) Scots colony, which had extensive sailing ship commerce with
Thurso and other points.  One of his daughters was my great-grandmother.

That immigrant, Benjamin Waters Sinclair, and his family were opposed
to slaveholding, which partly explains why his daughter married a Quarterman.

John S. Quarterman <jsq@mids.org>
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