Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and CommerceBillings, E. R.
History
Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce
Billings, E. R.
Tobacco -- History; Tobacco industry -- History; Tobacco use
From this time forward both colonies developed into strong and
flourishing plantations and with each succeeding year increased the
cultivation of tobacco which had now become more extensively
cultivated than all the other products combined. Its culture however
was looked upon with the same disapproval by Charles II. who confirmed
the old laws against its sale and cultivation. But notwithstanding the
remonstrances of the Stuarts the plant grew in use and favor and could
not be uprooted even by a kingly hand. The early cultivators of the
plant received a fresh impetus from the importation of a new species
of labor in the form of Negro slaves brought from the West India
islands. They arrived in the Ship Treasurer "being manned by the best
men of the colony who set out on roving in ye Spanish dominions in the
West Indies" and after a successful cruise against the Spaniards
returned with their spoils including a certain number of Negroes.
Rolfe in alluding to the importation of Negroes says:
"About the last of August came in, a Dutch man-of-warre that
sold us twenty negars."
Most writers are of the opinion that this was in 1620, one of whom
says "in the same year that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, slaves
landed in Virginia." Another writer says of the introduction of slave
labor into the Plantations,
"Is there not a probability that the
vessel was under control of Argall, if not the ship
Treasurer? If twenty negroes came in 1619, as alleged, their
increase was very slow, for according to a census of 16th of
February, 1624, there were but twenty-two then in the
colony, distributed as follows: eleven at Flourdiew Hundred,
three at James City, one at James Island, one at the
plantation opposite James City, four at Warisquoyok, and two
at Elizabeth City."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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