The phenomenon of the centralized plantation in the structure of early colonial economic systems

This article critically examines the traditional historiographic approach, which focuses on the differences in the political and economic structures of some early American colonies and the evolution of these social structures. It is argued that such an emphasis on the uniqueness of each colonial experience creates difficulties in understanding the general constitutional foundations of colonial development, failing to fully clarify the overall picture. As an alternative, a methodological approach is proposed that aims to identify common, similar institutions and conditions among the earliest settlements, such as Virginia, the colonies of New England, and New Netherland. The goal of the study is to identify an initial type of colonial community that can be used as a conceptual model for analysis and comparison at the initial stage of North American colonial history. A further goal of the study is to demonstrate that this initial type, even while undergoing changes, was reproduced throughout the colonial period. Thus, the proposed typology becomes a universal conceptual tool that allows us to systematize and group the entire diversity of early colonial forms for a deeper understanding of their subsequent development, which opens up new perspectives for the comparative analysis of colonial societies in the British Atlantic.