Jamestown, Virginia: The Townsite and Its StoryHatch, Charles E., Jr.
History
Jamestown, Virginia: The Townsite and Its Story
Hatch, Charles E., Jr.
Jamestown (Va.)
In 1613, Pocahontas was well received at Jamestown, where she had not
been for some time; and when her father refused to pay the price asked
for her ransom, she was detained. Later, she preferred life with the
English and did not wish to return to her native village. She was placed
under the tutelage of Rev. Alexander Whitaker who instructed her in the
Christian faith. Eventually Pocahontas was baptized. In April 1614, in
the church at Jamestown, she married John Rolfe, one of the settlers.
This was a celebrated marriage that did much to improve relations with
the Indians. About 1616, the couple went to England where Pocahontas was
entertained at court. She died there as she was about to return to
Virginia, in 1617, and her body rests at Gravesend. She had one son,
Thomas Rolfe, who later came to Virginia. Through him many today can
trace their ancestry to Pocahontas.
TOBACCO.
After the death of Pocahontas, John Rolfe came back to Virginia alone to
resume the work which he had begun there as early as 1610. Perhaps he
continued his work with tobacco which had already resulted in a plant
that could compete in taste and quality with that which had given the
Spanish a monopoly of the tobacco market.
[Illustration: _Monument to Pocahontas, by William Ordway Partridge,
near the entrance to Jamestown National Historic Site._]
In the first years of the settlement every effort had been made to find
products in the New World that would assure financial success for the
settlers and the company. Pitch, tar, timber, sassafras, cedar, and
other natural products were sent in the returning ships. Attempts to
produce glass on a paying scale proved futile, as did early efforts to
make silk, using the native mulberry trees growing in abundance. The
glass furnaces fell into disuse, and rats ate the silkworms. The native
tobacco plant, found growing wild was “... not of the best kind ... [but
was] poore and weake, and of a byting tast ...” and held little promise.
About 1610-11, the seed of a different species of the plant was imported
from Trinidad, then famous for the quality of its tobacco. Later some
came from Venezuela. These were planted and a process of selection and
crossbreeding began which resulted in the commercially valuable Virginia
leaf. John Rolfe, a smoker himself, has been credited as the pioneer
English colonist in this experimentation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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