JL he "tobacco wars" 



In the last years of the war, thousands of British 

 troops swept through the Chesapeake area in an at- 

 tempt to paralyze the economy. In Virginia alone, 

 10,000 hogsheads of tobacco were destroyed by British 

 soldiers. Said one Virginia tobacco planter: "Again 

 Lord Cornwallis encamped ten days on an estate of 

 mine at Elk Island, having his headquarters in my 

 house he burned all the tobacco houses and barns on 

 the farm ... he killed or carried oflF every living animal." 

 But the British path of destruction in the so-called 

 "Tobacco Wars" soon gave way to colonial victories. 

 With the help of French armies, the colonists success- 

 fully defeated the British who recognized their inde- 

 pendence in March of 1782. 



But the war and the poor trade caused a tremendous 

 slowdown of tobacco cultivation in Maryland. As in 

 other tobacco areas, the growers of Southern Maryland 

 found themselves in irreparable debt. When the Conti- 

 nental Congress met in Annapolis in 1783-84, it ratified 

 the Treaty of Paris calling for an end to the war. But 

 most important to the tobacco growers, the Treaty also 

 recognized all debts to the British merchants that had 

 remained unpaid before and during the war. During 

 the war, Marylanders had disquahfied themselves of all 

 debts owed to the British merchants. The new recogni- 

 tion meant instant, and possibly permanent destruction 

 to many fanners. At the time of the Treaty, Thomas 

 Jefferson said that the debts owed to Britain by Vir- 

 ginians alone amounted to more than three times all the 



26 



