Robert Cole's World: Agriculture and Society in Early Maryland (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press) - Hardcover

Carr, Lois Green; Menard, Russell R.; Walsh, Lorena S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807819859 ISBN 13: 9780807819852

Publisher: Omohundro Institute and University of North Carolina Press, 1991

Synopsis

In 1652 Robert Cole, an English Catholic, moved with his family and servants to St. Mary's County, Maryland. Using this family's story as a case study, the authors of Robert Cole's World provide an intimate portrait of the social and economic life of a middling planter in the seveneenth-century Chesapeake, including work routines and agricultural techniques, the upbringing of children, neighborhood relationships and community formation, and the role of religion.

The Cole Plantation account, a record that details what the plantation produced, consumed, purchased, and sold over a twelve-year period, is the only known surviving document of its kind for seventeenth-century British America. Along with Cole's will, it serves as the framework around which the authors build their analysis. Drawing on these and other records, they present Cole as an exemplar of the ordinary planter whose success created the capital base for the slave-based plantation society of the eighteenth century.

About this title

Book Description:

" Robert Cole's World is a stunning achievement that establishes, once and for all, the nature of Chesapeake economy and society on the eve of its transformation to a stratified, slave-based society. . . . It is an indispensable guide through the dark ages of Chesapeake history."--Carville Earle, Louisiana State University

About the Author:

Lois Green Carr, a historian with the Historic St. Mary's City Commission, is coeditor of Colonial Chesapeake Society.

Russell R. Menard, professor of history at the University of Minnesota, is coauthor of The Economy of British America, 1607-1789.

Lorena S. Walsh is a historian with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

About this edition

• Publisher: Omohundro Institute and University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0807819859
• ISBN 13: 9780807819852
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384