The Importance of the Tobacco Industry in the Survival of the Virginia Colony
This historical study will define why the tobacco industry saved the Virginia Colony from surviving during the 1610s. The expectations of discovering silver and gold and it left many of the colonists exposed to hunger due to a lack of supplies from England. A combination of poor agricultural standards, a lack of money (gold and silver), and poor relations with the Powhatan Confederacy created a hostile environment, which left many settlers with disease and starvation. The Jamestown Settlement was considered a great failure due to the lack of resources that James I expected to retrieve from the settlement. However, John Rolfe, a tradesman in the colony, found that …show more content…
Rolfe’s ventures into the tobacco industry made him extremely wealthy, as it did other members of a burgeoning plantation aristocracy that would begin to form throughout the late 1610s and into the 1620s. In this manner, the tobacco industry opened a doorway to a major export product, which allowed the influx of other trades goods, such as foods, clothing, and medicines, for the settlers. Without the lucrative tobacco industry, the settlers would have been at the mercy of Powhatan (chief of the Powhatans) in terms of trade agreements related to food and other necessities. The European imports now coming into the Jamestown colony could now be exchanged with European merchants for tobacco products. Certainly, the tobacco industry saved the Virginian colony by utilizing a valuable cash crop through the leadership of john Rolfe in the 1610s. This is the major part of the successful tobacco industry that saved the Virginia colony during the early stages of settlement in …show more content…
In some cases, the colonies would have eventually developed a successful local economy based on agricultural and trade, yet it was the tobacco crop that quickly reimbursed James I after a period of famine and starvation in Jamestown. Rolfe’s ability to illegally smuggle the seeds of the Nicotiana Rustica allowed the colony to grow a rare crop, which created a valuable export product to Europe and England. Certainly, the starving colonists of the early Jamestown settlement found a way to countermand the economic limitations of their environment, since no gold or silver in large amounts was discovered. Tobacco, in fact, became the new “gold” for the colonists, which enabled them to build a vast infrastructure of plantations to fuel the thriving economy in the 1620s. This is why the tobacco industry provided a surprisingly valuable asset for the Virginian colonists as a means of building an economy that would bring all of the necessities of life through trans-Atlantic trade. In this manner, Rolfe’s ingenious idea of growing Trinidadian tobacco as a valuable agricultural import made a great difference in the rapid development of the colony. Without tobacco, the colonies would have evolved at a much slower pace, or may have been ended altogether. Therefore, the tobacco saved the Virginian colony from failure due to the ingenuity of
This historical study will define why the tobacco industry saved the Virginia Colony from surviving during the 1610s. The expectations of discovering silver and gold and it left many of the colonists exposed to hunger due to a lack of supplies from England. A combination of poor agricultural standards, a lack of money (gold and silver), and poor relations with the Powhatan Confederacy created a hostile environment, which left many settlers with disease and starvation. The Jamestown Settlement was considered a great failure due to the lack of resources that James I expected to retrieve from the settlement. However, John Rolfe, a tradesman in the colony, found that …show more content…
Rolfe’s ventures into the tobacco industry made him extremely wealthy, as it did other members of a burgeoning plantation aristocracy that would begin to form throughout the late 1610s and into the 1620s. In this manner, the tobacco industry opened a doorway to a major export product, which allowed the influx of other trades goods, such as foods, clothing, and medicines, for the settlers. Without the lucrative tobacco industry, the settlers would have been at the mercy of Powhatan (chief of the Powhatans) in terms of trade agreements related to food and other necessities. The European imports now coming into the Jamestown colony could now be exchanged with European merchants for tobacco products. Certainly, the tobacco industry saved the Virginian colony by utilizing a valuable cash crop through the leadership of john Rolfe in the 1610s. This is the major part of the successful tobacco industry that saved the Virginia colony during the early stages of settlement in …show more content…
In some cases, the colonies would have eventually developed a successful local economy based on agricultural and trade, yet it was the tobacco crop that quickly reimbursed James I after a period of famine and starvation in Jamestown. Rolfe’s ability to illegally smuggle the seeds of the Nicotiana Rustica allowed the colony to grow a rare crop, which created a valuable export product to Europe and England. Certainly, the starving colonists of the early Jamestown settlement found a way to countermand the economic limitations of their environment, since no gold or silver in large amounts was discovered. Tobacco, in fact, became the new “gold” for the colonists, which enabled them to build a vast infrastructure of plantations to fuel the thriving economy in the 1620s. This is why the tobacco industry provided a surprisingly valuable asset for the Virginian colonists as a means of building an economy that would bring all of the necessities of life through trans-Atlantic trade. In this manner, Rolfe’s ingenious idea of growing Trinidadian tobacco as a valuable agricultural import made a great difference in the rapid development of the colony. Without tobacco, the colonies would have evolved at a much slower pace, or may have been ended altogether. Therefore, the tobacco saved the Virginian colony from failure due to the ingenuity of