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Annotations / Notes: Wickliff's Creek was an unusual community of freeholds in a colony of largely manorial landholdings. Due to the nature of freeholding, the early settlers were able to be economically successful and politically active, however, the nature of the community, which allowed the landowners to become successful with little, if any, initial backing, limited expansion, kept the community from growing and most settlers emigrated.

Annotations / Notes: Using archaeological records and spatial analysis from three Southern Maryland tobacco plantation sites, the authors provide an ethnographic look at life for seventeenth-century Maryland colonists in terms of gender and class roles. The article provides a brief overview of the economics of the Chesapeake region, the structure of living arrangements, and the gendered nature of tasks. The evidence suggests how gendered and class-based activities contributed to both household production and accrued wealth. The authors conclude that comparisons between the three sites provide the basis for understanding how household wealth was a direct corollary of the ability to secure a large work force and to develop a high degree of specialization.