Middle and Southern colonies. Other European colonial powers used the plantation method of colonization as well, though not to the extent of English settlers. A typical example of a colonial plantation was Providence Plantations, the first permanent European settlement in Rhode Island. Providence Plantations was established along the Providence River by Puritan minister Roger Williams and a small band of followers, who were fleeing religious persecution in Massachusetts Bay. Upon arriving in Rhode Island, Williams and his followers received a land grant from two Narragansett sachems, Canonicus and Miantonomi. The settlers in Providence Plantations adopted a covenant which stressed the separation of religious and civil affairs. That plantation was part a larger series of English plantations in New England. These plantations played a large role in developing the Northern economy in opposing lines from the plantation-based economy of the American South. Compared to the large-scale cash crop plantations which underpinned the Southern economy, plantations in New England were small-scale, and meant mainly for subsistence purposes rather than profit making. References Albert Galloway Keller, 1908, Colonization: A Study of the Founding of New Societies, Bastion: Ginn & Company