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Tobacco advertisement from 18th century London. Tobacco cultivation and exports formed an essential component of the American colonial economy. It was distinct from rice, wheat, cotton and other cash crops in terms of agricultural demands, trade, slave labor, and plantation culture.
Tobacco cultivation near Jamestown, Virgina Colony, in 1610 was the beginning of the plant's development as a cash crop with a strong demand in England. By the beginning of the 18th century, tobacco became a significant economic force in the American colonies, especially in Virginia's tidewater region surrounding Chesapeake Bay. Vast ...
The strain of tobacco cultivated by Rolfe was the export cash crop that helped make the Virginia Colony profitable. It was the mainstay of the farming plantations for generations. Huge warehouses, such as those on Richmond's Tobacco Row, attest to its popularity. Even almost 400 years later, tobacco figures prominently in Virginia's economy.
By the time John Rolfe died in 1622, Jamestown was thriving as a producer of tobacco, and its population had topped 4,000. Tobacco led to the importation of the colony's first Black slaves in 1619. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, tobacco continued to be the cash crop of the Virginia Colony, as well as The Carolinas.
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Through the descendants of Rolfe, many of the First Families of Virginia almost 400 years later trace their lineage to both the Native Americans of the Powhatan Confederacy and the English-born settlers of Jamestown. With tobacco as a successful export crop, the financial future and permanency of the Virginia Colony was secured.
By 1612, Rolfe's strains of tobacco had been successfully cultivated and exported, establishing a first cash crop for export. Plantations and new outposts sprung up starting with Henricus , initially both upriver and downriver along the navigable portion of the James and thereafter along the other rivers and waterways of the area.