Tobacco Country The area surrounding Chesapeake Bay, often shortened to simply 'The Chesapeake,' is still almost purely a land of tobacco plantations. Barrels and casks of tobacco are shipped directly from wharves and loading docks maintained by plantations along the many tidal inlets. The GREEN circles are larger shipping sites, while the RED circles are shipbuilders.

	Rice Country The coastline further south is called the Lowcountry, because it includes a wide stretch of very low-lying land, extending from Virginia all the way down into Florida. This zone is so close to sea level that the soil remains saturated with water much of the year. Shoreline areas in BRIGHTER BLUE are wetlands that seldom dry out. Rice thrives in the hot, wet climate, but malaria makes it unhealthy during mid-summer, when many owners flee inland. They leave overseers to manage their plantations.
	First Federal Agency Congress establishes the Post Office Department as the first federal agency, and within four years there are new mail routes reaching into existing settlements in the brand-new state of Kentucky (left). The Postal Service then takes on the much broader role of promoting settlement in the entire semi-virgin wilderness west of the mountains. Within ten years, new mail routes crisscross barely-settled western territory, including the new state of Ohio (right).