Motives of Honor, Pleasure, and Profit: Plantation Management in the Colonial...

This book by Lorena S. Walsh offers an enlightening history of plantation management in the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland, covering the period from the founding of Jamestown to the close of the Seven Years' War. It focuses on the operation of over thirty individual plantations and the decisions made by large planters regarding their farms. Walsh argues that Chesapeake planter elites deliberately chose to embrace slavery in the mid-seventeenth century. The narrative includes personal stories of planters and their relationships with enslaved workers, providing a personal dimension to the economic history of the region.