Planting an Empire explores the social and economic history of the Chesapeake region, revealing a story of two similar but distinct colonies in early America.

Linked by the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia and Maryland formed a prosperous and politically important region in British North America before the American Revolution. Yet these -sister- colonies--alike in climate and soil, emphasis on tobacco farming, and use of enslaved labor--eventually followed divergent social and economic paths. Jean B. Russo and J. Elliott Russo review the shared history of these two colonies,...