What Role Does Tobacco Play In The Columbian Exchange

John Rolfe is best known for his marriage to Pocahontas, but his greatest contribution to the new world would be introducing tobacco as a commercial crop to Virginia colonists. Although the Indians had already cultivated tobacco, Rolfe introduced a sweeter form in Virginia that he imported from Trinidad, whose tobacco was considered superior to the Indian variety (Horn, 2011). His marriage to Pocahontas in 1614 led to eight years of relative peace with the Indians allowing time for increased land holdings tobacco to take root, grow, and gather markets. The production of this valuable commodity played a major role in the formation of the transatlantic slave trade, a trading market that capitalized on slave labor and exploitation. The cash crop
In 1625, Charles I succeeded his father as king and continued the policy of maintaining a colonial tobacco monopoly. Recognizing the colonial dependency on tobacco, he encouraged the diversification into pitch and tar, and planting vines (Gray & Wyckoff, 1940). In 1630, Charles issued a proclamation forbidding mainland Britain from growing tobacco and again gave Virginia the monopoly on British tobacco imports. Virginia then agreed to only sell their tobacco to England and in return England provided all goods to Virginia. Tobacco soon become another form of currency in both England and Virginia. Goods and wives were to be purchased via tobacco, even fines could be handled by trading in tobacco. Tobacco replaced currency in the colonies until the end of the colonial period when America became an independent nation (Gray & Wyckoff,
This method of labor revolutionized America’s production of tobacco and maximized England’s profits. Gloria Sesso described the move to a slave system as “the product of an extensive plantation system” and “the sheer availability of African slaves and the lack of alternatives (Sesso, 2008). Indentured servants became the first means to meet this need for labor. In return for free passage to Virginia, a laborer worked for four to five years in the fields before being granted freedom. England rewarded planters with 50 acres of land for every inhabitant they brought to the New World. However, over time, indentured servitude was no longer profitable, and America would have to continue looking across the Atlantic Ocean for their labor source for tobacco fields and other crops (Sesso,