History Of Tobacco During The Colonial Period

Tobacco was introduced and imported by John Rolfe. This triggered huge waves of settlers in Jamestown to plant tobacco’s seeds as well. So the more of them growing tobacco, the better the economy improving due to high demand in consumptions. On the other hand, growing tobacco resulted in the Indians being kicked out of their lands, forced the African slaves brought to America and work in the tobacco fields.

Now for the economic reasons. The Chesapeake region developed a tobacco economy, everything they did was to grow or sell tobacco. Document H states that the poor were unhappy. In a society the poor are sometimes unhappy, but in this case the rich did nothing to make the poor feel any better. In New England the economy was not extremely important, but the average person here was wealthier than the average person in England.

This (the rebellion of the indentured servants) among the fact that more labor was needed than in the New England colonies added to the African Slave population.

Throughout the time of the Roanoke catastrophe and the hardships of Jamestown, tobacco made its grand introduction as America’s newest cash commodity that would allow success to flourish in Virginia, with a permanent English presence. Tobacco was formally popularized by a man named John Rolfe in the year 1610 and became the top resource that helped the future of this colony thrive. Tobacco did all of this by turning an

He states that tobacco started in Europe due to Portuguese sailors, and from there it spread and soon became was in high demand. Chinese people thought that tobacco had medicinal purposes, while Native Americans thought that tobacco connected you to a supernatural world.

To cultivate these tobacco crops the Chesapeake Bay colonist utilized slave labor, and the use of indentured servants. The use of indentured servants soon died out when Virginia, forbid the whipping of white servants. In the Chesapeake colonies, religion was not as strict as in New England. In these colonies there were a number of small optional religions, this was very different than the ways of the New England colonies.

Because the low-grade tobacco was being overproduced unceasingly, prices dropped over the years. Tobacco had been the colony’s sole way of income for many years. Berkeley attempted to improve conditions by introducing other industries and building new towns in several places. Unfortunately, the towns could not be maintained and other attempts only resulted in dissatisfaction and increased taxes. Taxes were also increased due to a need for defense against the Dutch and the Indians. The rising price of English manufactured goods and the increasingly limited English market created more problems for the Virginians.

From the time that Sir Walter Raleigh discovered tobacco growing in the colonies, the demand

In the 1600's, tobacco became the main source of income for most of the colonists. The economic prosperity of the colonies was primarily dependent on the amount of tobacco produced. The growing of tobacco needed large amount of land, with a large stable work force. The increased demand for a large, stable work force combined with the availability and low price of African slaves, led to the use of slavery in the colonies. To the planter, slavery was the ideal form of labor that would be most beneficial to productivity of his crop.#

The three main factors, ranked by most important to least important are the cultivation of tobacco in Virginia, the introduction of slavery to America, and the enclosure of croplands in England. The factor with the most important consequences is the cultivation of tobacco. There are three reasons that prove that tobacco cultivation had the most important consequences. The first reason is that cultivation of tobacco created a large profitable

Many colonies would not have survived if it wasn’t for the discovery and growing of tobacco, as this plant enabled the colonies to thrive, and even have a surplus of profit, therefore they could afford more servants, thus, creating a continuous travel of immigrants into the colony, overall creating stable colonies.

Cultivation of Tobacco was the basis of America’s early economy; shortly after, later economy weaved and meshed with the British Empire’s on heavily voluminous levels, and their relationship was strongly based on various Acts placed upon the Colonies.

Slavery was the main resource used in the Chesapeake tobacco plantations. The conditions in the Chesapeake region were difficult, which lead to malnutrition, disease, and even death. Slaves were a cheap and an abundant resource, which could be easily replaced at any time. The Chesapeake region’s tobacco industries grew and flourished on the intolerable acts of slavery.

The discovery of cigarettes date back to the times of Columbus when they were identified as 'certain dried leaves' that were presented as gifts but later on thrown away and this was in the 1490s as noted by Cigarettes Below Cost (2010). By 1560s tobacco had been introduced to England and even the queen was persuaded to try it.

With the economic system, the south had a very hard time producing their main source “cotton and tobacco”. “Cotton became commercially significant in the 1790’s after the invention of a new cotton gin by Eli Whitney. (PG 314)” Let