Building, Dwelling, Thinking: A social geography of a late 17th century plantation.

Summary

In 1712 Richard Jenkins devised his personal estate, located on the Patuxent River near Benedict, Maryland, to three orphans and a woman that he wasn’t married to. Valued at just over 96 pounds sterling, Richard Jenkins’ plantation, was excavated in 2013 by staff from the Ottery Group and the Maryland State Highway Administration. This paper details the archaeological investigation of the c.1680 through 1713 Jenkins plantation, and seeks to emplace the plantation within a multi-scalar narrative inspired by recent scholarly work in social geography. Specific topics to be addressed within this paper include: the geographical and material setting of a late 17th century plantation likely associated with commercial trade; the role of a small scale plantation in a developing 17th century social and commercial economy; and lastly, the role of the Patuxent trade within the broader English colonial economy.    

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Along the Patuxent River: The Discontiguous History of a Transportation Landscape   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 509