THE 169 years that elapsed between the establishment of the first successful English settlement in North America and the declaration by the American settlers of their independence from Great Britain witnessed many dramatic changes and momentous developments in the colonies that stretched from the Chesapeake Bay to the South. The harsh demographic regime of the early settlements, which caused negative rates of natural increase in the Chesapeake during much of the seventeenth century, was transformed over time, eventually producing rapid population growth in the southern colonies and life expectancies as great as those of the English population of the day. Material life in the early southern colonies was meager; even well-to-do planters in the mid-seventeenth century lived in crude wooden houses with plain furnishings and few luxuries. However, the next century was quite different; their counterparts in the late eighteenth century lived in elegant brick houses and enjoyed such luxuries as imported furniture and tableware. From a position of support for the English monarchy in the early colonial period, the elite of the southern colonies in the late eighteenth century produced a group of men – Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, and others – who became the leaders of the American republican movement that opposed the monarchy. And these were only a few of the more prominent elements of the process by which a few struggling colonial settlements evolved into the wealthiest region of what would be a powerful new nation.