History
Historically, tobacco has played a key role in the world. The impact of tobacco in history can most clearly be emphasized by its importance in early America. Crops such as tobacco and cotton proved to be the backbone of colonial America. The decision to grow tobacco in places such as Jamestown, Virginia, boosted America’s economy and is a main reason for its modern success. Virginia’s economic future depended on tobacco in the 1620’s. Slowly, Jamestown started to thrive due to their success with tobacco cultivation. In Jamestown, tobacco was being grown everywhere there was open space. By 1630, over a million and a half pounds of tobacco were being exported from Jamestown every year. This is a remarkable growth of total cultivation, and shows how much the economy of early Chesapeake colonies relied on tobacco. A majority of the tobacco being grown in Virginia and other colonies was exported straight to England. Imports of tobacco into England increased from 60,000 pounds in 1622 to 500,000 pounds in 1628, and to 1,500,000 pounds in 1639. By the end of the seventeenth century, England was importing more than 20,000,000 pounds of colonial tobacco per year.
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John Rolfe
This drastic rise in tobacco cultivation in Virginia is largely credited to John Rolfe, an early English settler. He settled in Jamestown and tried to cultivate tobacco. Many tobacco product users did not like his harsh Virginia tobacco. John Rolfe reacted to consumer demand by importing seed from the West Indies and cultivating the plant in the Jamestown colony. Those tobacco seeds became the seeds of a huge economic empire.
The Slave Trade
Tobacco was beginning to shape America, and the increase in demand for tobacco increased the need for more plantations, and slaves in colonial America. The new demand for slaves connected tobacco with the whole world by exposing it to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. This slave trade is the cause of millions of deaths or Africans, and imprisoned millions more into slavery.