Smoking Hazards: Tobacco Cultivation in Colonial America

Tobacco was a main crop in colonial America that helped stabilize the economy (Cotton 1). Despite the fact that tobacco took the place of the other crops in Virginia, as well as replacing the hunt for gold with tobacco cultivation. It proved to be a major cash crop, especially in Virginia and Maryland (Weeks 3). Tobacco left many people financially troubled because other occupations were disregarded or not as profitable as tobacco farmers (Randel 128). The unemployment that tobacco brought about made many colonists poor and homeless (128). After the tobacco boom started, many men signed themselves to indentured servitude hoping to be freed and given land along with other promised goods (Tunis 79). Three hundred and fifty thousand African slaves were also imported to labor on large tobacco plantations in the South (Weeks 1). The tobacco industry had a profound effect on colonial America, socially and economically. Tobacco did not just appear in colonial America. The tobacco plant was introduced by John Rolfe to the people of Jamestown (Nobleman 12). John Rolfe also taught the colonists how to farm tobacco (Tunis 77). Though tobacco cultivation seemed to be flourishing, consumers were still getting their tobacco from the Spanish Indies, as the Spanish Indies grew milder tobacco than America (Weeks 1). This motivated John Rolfe to sail to the Spanish Indies and confiscate some of their tobacco seeds ("The Growth of the Tobacco…" 2). The tobacco from the Spanish Indies boosted the economic growth of colonial America (2). However, John Rolfe was not the first person to have tobacco in the new world. The Native Americans were the first people to cultivate and smoke tobacco and taught their trade to the Spanish (1). The Native Americans believed tobacco had a medical and religious purpose (Weeks 1). The Spanish farmed tobacco and sold it to the people of England. The people of England then traded with the Dutch, increasing demand for tobacco (Pecquet

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