USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Those tobacco seeds became the seeds of a huge economic empire. By 1630, over a million and a half pounds of tobacco were being exported from Jamestown every year. The tobacco economy rapidly began to shape the society and development of the colony.

Detailed explanation-2: -Tobacco was also tended by enslaved Africans, who were forcibly brought in significant numbers to Virginia starting in 1619. The need for fertile soil on which to grow the year’s crop required that the planter own large tracts of land, which had to be arduously cleared and prepared as field.

Detailed explanation-3: -The Jamestown colonists found a new way to make money for The Virginia Company: tobacco. The demand for tobacco eventually became so great, that the colonists turned to enslaved Africans as a cheap source of labor for their plantations.

Detailed explanation-4: -Tobacco became so important, that it was used as currency, to pay taxes, and even to purchase slaves and indentured servants. Because of its burgeoning tobacco industry, African slaves were brought to Jamestown in 1619 to work the plantations.

Detailed explanation-5: -“A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, ” was King James I’s view of smoking tobacco but this small seed saved Virginia. Colonist John Rolfe brought the seeds of sweeter tobacco to Jamestown in 1610, and from this microscopic item came the first major crop of the English Atlantic trade.