“One must differentiate oneself a little”: Planter Gentility, Economy, Dynasty, and Politics

Abstract

In 1816, the English traveler, writer, and diplomat David Baile Warden wrote in his Chorographical and Statistical Description of the District of Columbia that,

The establishment of George Calvert, Esq. attracts attention. His mansion, consisting of two stories, seventy feet in length, and thirty-six in breadth, is admirably adapted to the American climate. On each side there is a large portico, which shelters from the sun, rain, or snow. The hall is ornamented with lemon-trees, geraniums, polianthusses [sic], heliotropes, and other plants, which in the summer evenings, invite the hummingbirds to taste of their sweetness; and afterwards struggling to escape, they fly incessantly backwards and forwards near the cieling [sic], until from fatigue they perch on a stick or rod, when they are easily taken by the hand.¹