| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
Figure 1.1. Three study regions.
farther away from the county seat than a convenient day's round-trip by horse. These townships persist to this day. See figure 1.2.
The Southern states employed in the analysis include Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. These are three of the original 13 colonies that were settled under the British system, and they share very similar geographic and political considerations in their local governments’ structure, with their counties modeled loosely on those in Great Britain. Interestingly, there is evidence that the township form of government that was established in the Northwest Territory was developed to provide more local governance than was available in the original colonies.
We did not include Florida, due to its Spanish influence, or Alabama, due to its having been settled by English colonists at a later date. Virginia, which would have been a natural choice for this sample, inconveniently