Tobacco Cultivation in the 17th Century ChesapeakeAPUSH – Unit 1

Significance of Tobacco

As a cash crop, tobacco made the Virginia colony an economic success

Tobacco’s cultivation in the 17th century set the foundation for the economic, social, and political structure of the agrarian South in the British colonies and, later, the United States

How tobacco arrived in Virginia Thank you, John Rolfe.

"I may not forget the gentleman worthie of

much commendations, which first tooke the pains to make triall [of tobacco] thereof, his name Mr. John Rolfe, Anno Domini 1612, partly for the love he hath a long time borne unto it,

and partly to raise commodity to the adventurers....”

-Ralph Hamor,Secretary of Virginia

Pocahontas, wife of John Rolfe

• Tobacco was first planted as an experiment in 1612

• In 1617, the Virginia colony exported 20,000 pounds of tobacco to England

• In 1629, Virginia exported half a million pounds of tobacco to England.

• By the 1640s, over 1.5 million pounds of tobacco were shipped to England from the Chesapeake region annually

Tobacco guaranteed Virginia’s success as a colony.

Tobacco:A labor-intensive crop

Seeds and Seedlings

• February: Plant seedlings in flats; protect from weather

• May: Move seedlings to fields; plant individual seedlings in hills

Daily Plant Maintenance

• Topping

• Suckering

• Weeding (with hoe)

Daily Pest Control

Remove and destroy pests by hand:

• Plant-by-plant

• Leaf-by-leaf

Manduca sexta:The tobacco horn worm

Daily Pest Control

• Ideally, eggs were found and destroyed before the worms hatched …

HarvestingAugust-September: Tobacco plants fully matured

• Plants were ready for harvest when the leaves were blotchy, dry-feeling, and curling on the edges

• Plants were split, allowed to wilt, then cut and set on sticks

Curing• Harvested tobacco was stored in specially built tobacco barns; typically, the average barn could hold five acres’ worth of tobacco

• Tobacco cured for 6-8 weeks, until it was chestnut brown

• Pests did not trouble drying tobacco, but mold and mildew could destroy an entire crop

Preparing tobacco for

market• Leaves were stripped and sorted according to size and quality

• After sorting, sound leaves were tied into “hands” and packed (“prized”) into barrels

Hogsheads• Hogsheads, the barrels used for transporting tobacco, were of standard size and shape

• A packed hogshead weighed around 1,000 pounds

• Hogsheads were constructed by skilled coopers

• To ensure the highest price possible, the Tobacco Inspection Act was passed by Virginia’s legislature in 1730

Tobacco and the

mercantile system

Life is a smoke! -- If this be true,

Tobacco will thy Life renew;

Then fear not Death, nor killing care

Whilst we have best Virginia here.

-From a 17th or 18th c. tobacco shipping label

Tobacco’s overall impact …

Tobacco: A mixed legacy