Research question: What was tobacco used during the 1500s to 1700s and how popular was it?
Introduction
Tobacco was a hugely popular thing to trade in the age of discovery. Many countries around the world used it. My essay explains how this marvelous product originating from the Americas changed the age of discovery and how it became a very important trade product around the world. Early History of tobacco
Tobacco was first discovered by the native peoples of America and South America then introduced to Europe and the rest of the world.
Tobacco had already been used for a long time in South America even before the European settlers came into the Americas (Wikipedia). It was only when the Europeans brought tobacco back to Europe for trade it got popular. The Native Americans used tobacco for smoking at ceremonies to amuse their gods.
European usage
When the Spanish came back from the new world, tobacco became one of the biggest trade products. The Spanish introduced tobacco to Europeans in about 1528, and by 1533, French ambassador in Lisbon Portugal called
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This was a big achievement at the time because tobacco was nicknamed (brown gold) and it was worth a lot of money and the tobacco plantations would make him very rich it would also bring him ego (world Book (T). Apparently ,he was especially lucky because tobacco was used as currency for the Virginia settlers. In result ,Rolfe was able to make a fortune of tobacco. When john had returned to England from Virginia, his wife Pocahontas died. But he still continued to improve the quality of commercial tobacco, and by 1620, 40,000 pounds 18,000 kg of tobacco where shipped to England (historic James town). By the time john passed away in 1622, James town was already a big tobacco trade center. Jamestown’s population went over 4,000 people, resulting in a demand for black
Europeans learned about tobacco from the Indians and things started to get better because of the farming of tobacco. Jamestown was ideal for growing tobacco. During the late 1600s, Africans were sold to the colonist so they could help with the farming of Tobacco. Since these happened things started to get better in Jamestown. In 1619, Jamestown had its first governor and the House of Burgesses where laws were made for the colony.
John Rolfe, the father of the tobacco industry, was the reason why tobacco made its way to America. Soon after tobacco was perfected in both raising and curing by Rolfe, it became a popular product that
have in the Old World. One of the major things that they discovered was tobacco, with the
Salvation came to the colony in the form of smoking tobacco, or what King James I called a when John Rolfe had to cultivated a variety of tobacco that sold well in England.
Over time, certain people helped cultivate Jamestown to be a thriving colony. One of the biggest assets that helped the Jamestown colony is the perfecting of tobacco. John Rolfe spent his time in the west indies perfecting tobacco. This eventually was brought over to Virginia where tobacco could finally be planted and not fail as a crop.(OI) This helped the English very much with their economics because the selling of the tobacco would mean they are making a profit and somewhat starting to rebuild the colony. Tobacco was becoming so popular and was the main crop of Virginia. People started advertising it to increase it’s popularity even more by saying, “Tobacco will thy life renew; then fear not death, nor killing care, Whil’ fl we have left Virginia here”(DOC 3). This advertising is just one of many, tobacco was such a popular production. They guaranteed that tobacco would keep you living and stay far from death as if it was a good thing to smoke a lot of tobacco, which means a lot of tobacco would have to be bought. This is an economic surplus. The more money they make on tobacco, the more money the English make in the old world. Mercantilism was a very big cause on why the new world was also discovered. If they could have profits from somewhere else they could make more money and use it on more stuff. Native American’s were trouble when the Jamestown colony was weak, but with the help of John,
The people of England then traded with the Dutch, increasing demand for tobacco (Pecquet 471). Sir Walter Raleigh also contributed to the introduction of smoking tobacco in America and to the English queen, Elizabeth I (Cotton 2-3). The settlers of Roanoke Island smoked tobacco and soon presented the idea of smoking tobacco in court which became a new trend (3). Later on, as the demand for tobacco rose, more labor was needed to supply enough to satisfy the tobacco requirement ("The Growth of the Tobacco " 3).
However, these colonists soon realized there was no gold, and they tried to find a new way to make a profit. This led to the emergence of the Tobacco industry. John Rolfe was the father of this industry, and ultimately this crop became an economic savior to the Virginia Colony. Tobacco was a way for the colonists to begin making a profit, and it began to sweep across Europe nearly being insatiable. This created a greed for land in order to plant more tobacco.
Regarding the economic sphere, the tobacco plant was important for helping for establishing an economic hierarchy early in Virginia’s colonial history. Tobacco brought a significant amount of wealth to a small number of people in the Chesapeake region. Because there was a high demand for it in Europe (Foner 61), it was an ideal opportunity for those who were unable to become wealthy landowners in England to do so in the Americas. This resulted in immigration of two types. The smaller of these immigration
Throughout the rich history in the United States tobacco, timber, and alcohol have been very important to the culture in America. Each of these products contributed economically to the colonies. Some have contributed to the shaping of governments and laws. There has recently been a debate about which colonial product was most important to the colonist. Each product has served an important role in building each one of the colonies. Evidence shows that tobacco played the most critical influence on many colonies in early America.
(Doc. 7). George talks of the patterns of growing, and how they shaped this community, and also how the trading works. As he explains, between November and January the colony is booming with merchants who have goods to sell and because of the high price of the tobacco and the effort to both grow, and travel to North America from Europe to purchase, the trades are fair. While the churches did succeed in bringing people together, the tobacco, and money involved with it kept the colonies alive, and made them into booming trade ports. Tobacco has always been around but it was discovered that the America's soil and climate was perfect for the growing of the crop, so servants, land owners, farmers, and merchants, came flocking into the new world in search of the profit at hand, rather than the ability to be free from
In addition to the American Indians’ discovery of the tobacco plant, the farmers of the Virginia Colony undoubtedly changed tobacco forever. In 1660, English factories were stocked to the brim with tobacco which caused the product’s price to drop immensely. The colonists
In 1616 John Rolfe was on a deadline to invest in the Virginia Company. The English Colony’s survival relied upon the success of Rolfe’s tobacco, which has previously been unsuccessful. When John Smith first met Wahunsenaca he mentioned that he and his men had been trying to escape from the Spaniards. The English tried to find gold, but that was also unsuccessful; they eventually moved onto glassmaking and timber harvesting. The Spaniards had been successful in growing tobacco and in mining gold and silver. The Virginia Company of London made arrangements with Rolfe to pursue such an endeavor. When Rolfe and his English wife arrived in Jamestown he immediately focused on growing tobacco. During Rolfe’s tobacco intrigued period his wife died of unknown, undocumented
Throughout the time of the Roanoke catastrophe and the hardships of Jamestown, tobacco made its grand introduction as America’s newest cash commodity that would allow success to flourish in Virginia, with a permanent English presence. Tobacco was formally popularized by a man named John Rolfe in the year 1610 and became the top resource that helped the future of this colony thrive. Tobacco did all of this by turning an
From the time that Sir Walter Raleigh discovered tobacco growing in the colonies, the demand
He states that tobacco started in Europe due to Portuguese sailors, and from there it spread and soon became was in high demand. Chinese people thought that tobacco had medicinal purposes, while Native Americans thought that tobacco connected you to a supernatural world.