TOBACCO IN THE UNITED STATES 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



Tobacco is one of the products given to the world by the natives of the 

 Americas. At the time of the discovery of America, Columbus found the na- 

 tives using tobacco in the forms common today--smoking , chewing, and snuff. 

 Early records show that they also understood the essential features of modern 

 production, topping and suckering the plants, and the distinctive drying proc- 

 esses, now known as air-curing, sun-curing, and fire-curing. Facts regarding 

 the introduction of tobacco to the Europeans by the Indians, the attention 

 given it in the literature of history, poetry, and romance, and its pervasive 

 influence in the social and economic affairs of mankind have made this crop 

 unique among the products of the soil. 



The rapidity of the expansion of tobacco production over the world was 

 phenomenal. By 1531, less than 40 years after the discovery of America, Span- 

 iards were cultivating the crop commercially in the West Indies; by 1560, it 

 was being grown in Europe as an ornamental plant and for its medicinal qual- 

 ities; by 1580, its commercial culture had extended to Cuba and Venezuela, and 

 by about 1600, to Brazil. By 1600 or 1605, mariners and traders had intro- 

 duced it into China, Japan, South Africa, and many other countries. 



History records that John Rolfe in 1612 began the commercial culture of 

 tobacco in the English colonies at Jamestown, and that in 1613, a small ship- 

 ment was made to England. But tobacco from the Spanish settlements was used 

 in Europe and the British Isles at least 20 years before the Virginia colony 

 was founded. This meant that at the outset the tobacco produced by the colo- 

 nists was forced to meet the competition of the Spanish product in the export 

 market. In spite of this, however, the growing of tobacco soon became gener- 

 al in the Virginia colony and production increased rapidly. It became the 

 leading item of commerce with the mother country, for it was about the only 

 commodity the settlers could produce to exchange for the many essential manu- 

 factured products needed from England. 



From historical records of the era, we learn that tobacco was such a ma- 

 jor factor in the economy of the colony at one time that John Rolfe was grow- 

 ing it in the streets of Jamestown, and that wives were bought and ministers 

 paid with specified quantities of it. 



In colonial days, the only market for tobacco was, of course, the export 

 trade. In the seventeenth century, the usual method of marketing was to con- 

 sign the tobacco, packed in hogsheads, to an English merchant, who sold it on 

 a commission basis and supplied needed manufactured goods in return. This 

 system proved generally unsatisfactory to the planter, both because of the de- 

 lay involved in the transaction and the risk encountered in dealing with the 

 often unscrupulous English merchants. During the course of the eighteenth 

 century, another method of marketing came into general use, by which the crop 

 was sold at the farm to a local British agent, who maintained a "store," where 

 the planter might secure the manufactured items he needed. This system proved 

 to be more satisfactory and became the most popular way of marketing. 



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