<P> European colonists did not regard the land as belonging to the tens of thousands of Native Americans who occupied it, because their patterns of use were so different . The Plantations of New England were considered to occupy "virgin" land or wilderness . The Plymouth Plantation, was settled to create a new beginning for English dissenters and, as such, was essentially utopian . Later plantations were more overtly entrepreneurial: European investors funded colonists in the expectation of good returns . Examples of the latter include the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the New Haven Colony, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (now New York), and the French in Canada, where they named their colony as New France . </P> <P> In the state of Maine, the old meaning has been preserved in the name of a type of local government jurisdiction . It is also preserved in the full name of Rhode Island: Rhode Island and Providence Plantations . </P>

Where did the early colonist establish their plantations