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Tobacco Cultivation in the 17 th Century Chesapeake. APUSH – Unit 1. Significance of Tobacco. As a cash crop, tobacco made the Virginia colony an economic success - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Tobacco Cultivation in the 17th Century ChesapeakeAPUSH – Unit 1
Significance of Tobacco
As a cash crop, tobacco made the Virginia colony an economic success
Tobacco’s cultivation in the 17th century set the foundation for the economic, social, and political structure of the agrarian South in the British colonies and, later, the United States
How tobacco arrived in Virginia Thank you, John Rolfe.
"I may not forget the gentleman worthie of
much commendations, which first tooke the pains to make triall [of tobacco] thereof, his name Mr. John Rolfe, Anno Domini 1612, partly for the love he hath a long time borne unto it,
and partly to raise commodity to the adventurers....”
-Ralph Hamor,Secretary of Virginia
Pocahontas, wife of John Rolfe
• Tobacco was first planted as an experiment in 1612
• In 1617, the Virginia colony exported 20,000 pounds of tobacco to England
• In 1629, Virginia exported half a million pounds of tobacco to England.
• By the 1640s, over 1.5 million pounds of tobacco were shipped to England from the Chesapeake region annually
Tobacco guaranteed Virginia’s success as a colony.
Tobacco:A labor-intensive crop
Seeds and Seedlings
• February: Plant seedlings in flats; protect from weather
• May: Move seedlings to fields; plant individual seedlings in hills
Daily Plant Maintenance
• Topping
• Suckering
• Weeding (with hoe)
Daily Pest Control
Remove and destroy pests by hand:
• Plant-by-plant
• Leaf-by-leaf
Manduca sexta:The tobacco horn worm
Daily Pest Control
• Ideally, eggs were found and destroyed before the worms hatched …
HarvestingAugust-September: Tobacco plants fully matured
• Plants were ready for harvest when the leaves were blotchy, dry-feeling, and curling on the edges
• Plants were split, allowed to wilt, then cut and set on sticks
Curing• Harvested tobacco was stored in specially built tobacco barns; typically, the average barn could hold five acres’ worth of tobacco
• Tobacco cured for 6-8 weeks, until it was chestnut brown
• Pests did not trouble drying tobacco, but mold and mildew could destroy an entire crop
Preparing tobacco for
market• Leaves were stripped and sorted according to size and quality
• After sorting, sound leaves were tied into “hands” and packed (“prized”) into barrels
Hogsheads• Hogsheads, the barrels used for transporting tobacco, were of standard size and shape
• A packed hogshead weighed around 1,000 pounds
• Hogsheads were constructed by skilled coopers
• To ensure the highest price possible, the Tobacco Inspection Act was passed by Virginia’s legislature in 1730
Tobacco and the
mercantile system
Life is a smoke! -- If this be true,
Tobacco will thy Life renew;
Then fear not Death, nor killing care
Whilst we have best Virginia here.
-From a 17th or 18th c. tobacco shipping label
Tobacco’s overall impact …
Tobacco: A mixed legacy