When I read about the Tobacco plantations in the Chesapeake
colony and the amount of indentured servants and slaves it took to work there, I
wondered why tobacco? The British valued their Tea so why didn't they just
plant tea. When I looked further into the history of Virginia, it turned out
that tobacco was not the first plant they tried to grow and benefit from. King
James I granted a charter to the Virginia Company of London to bring settlers
into Virginia and return a profit. They first tried producing glass, Tar and
beer. However, these products required too much labor and work
ing in dangerous
conditions. Their safety standards at that time were not top notch to mention
they didn't even care about the workers lives anyway. As a result, to this,
they lost a huge number of workers and barely made a profit. that caused them to start farming crops
instead. They tried cotton, sugar cane, indigo, plantains, grapes and pomegranates.
The Spanish were already growing these crops and making huge profits in the West
Indies so it didn't turn out well for the British. Then Pocahontas's husband
came along and started growing tobacco imported from Venezuela. It had a better
flavor than the native Virginia's tobacco, which commanded a higher price in England.
It turned out; Chesapeake was environmentally perfect for growing this kid of
tobacco that got very popular in England. Therefore, the industry grew
tremendously. Growing tobacco wasn't
only hard on the workers, it was also hard on the land itself. On average, a
land is used to grow tobacco for three years then corn for the next three then
it had to stay fallow or un-planted for the next twenty. Tobacco plantation was
so rough that even the indentured servants eventually stopped working there
which caused the owners to bring more slaves.
 |
| A tobacco plantation |
No comments:
Post a Comment