CHAPTER III. 
TOBACCO IN AMERICA. 
RYZE do not find in any accounts of the English 
voyagers made previous to 1584, any mention of the 
discovery of tobacco, or its use among the Indians. 
This may appear alittle strange, as Captains Amidas 
and Barlow, who sailed from England under the auspices of 
“Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, on returning from Virginia, had 
brought home with them pearls and tobacco among other 
curiosities. But while we have no account of those who 
returned from the voyage made in 1602 taking any tobacco 
with them, it is altogether probable that those who remained 
took a lively interest in the plant and the Indian mode of 
use; for we find that in nine years after they landed at 
Jamestown tobacco had become quite an article of culture 
and commerce. 
Hamo in alluding to the early cultivation of tobacco by 
the colony, says, that John Rolfe was the pioneer tobacco 
planter. In his words: 
“T may not forget the gentleman worthie of much com- 
mendations, which first took the pains to make triall thereof, 
his name Mr. Jobn Rolfe, Anno Domini 1612, partly for the 
love he hath a long time borne unto it, and partly to raise 
commodities to the adventurers, in whose behalfe I intercede 
and vouchsafe to hold my testimony in beleefe that during 
the time of his aboade there, which draweth neere sixe years 
