By Anna Belfrage
"Peek-a-boo" says the shy tobacco flower. How can something so dainty have caused so much suffering, so many deaths? |
When the
first English colony was established in Virginia (and I don’t count the Roanoke
debacle) in 1609, the eager participants came with dreams and hopes of easy
riches, something akin to what the Spanish had discovered down in South
America.
Sadly,
Virginia had no mountains of almost pure silver like PotosÃ, nor was gold
abundant in any way. Rather the reverse, actually. And those stories of rivers
full of sturgeon, of woodlands crammed with mulberry trees (and the
accompanying silk worms) proved as false as the myth of El Dorado, leaving the
colonists in the rather unfamiliar situation of having to work – and work hard
– to survive.
One would
assume anyone intrepid enough to set off towards an unknown continent would be
expecting to have to labour hard to achieve some sort of foothold. Unfortunately,
more than half of the first 105 settlers were gentlemen – or their servants –
and as such most reluctant to set their hands to farming. No, they wanted to
explore and look for gold, all of them hoping to return home extremely wealthy
men. Most of them died during the first year.
During the
first few decades of its existence, the Colony of Virginia was something of a
death machine, with mortality rates so high it became difficult to attract new
settlers. Food was constantly scarce, and to stop people from stealing from the
communal warehouses, theft was punished by death. One poor man was caught
stealing oatmeal and was therefore chained to a tree and left to starve to
death…
Things
changed fast when tobacco was introduced to the colony. This addictive golden
weed thrived in Virginia’s fertile soil, and with a huge – and growing – demand
for tobacco in Europe, the colonists had at last struck gold.
In actual
fact, tobacco was already growing in Virginia when the first English settlers
landed, but this was a rougher, less tasty variant than the one the Spanish
were importing to Europe. The Spanish cultivated the tobacco on huge
plantations in the Caribbean, and it wasn’t until someone decided to fetch
(steal?) some seeds from these islands that the tobacco industry in Virginia
was born.
It is
impossible to talk about tobacco in Virginia without mentioning John Rolfe –
the man who procured those Caribbean seeds. John set off for Virginia in 1609,
was shipwrecked on Bermuda, lost his new-born daughter and wife along the way,
and landed in Virginia in May 1610.
In 1614 he married Pocahontas, daughter of the Powhatan chief, and from what can be gleaned from the few historical documents left to us, it seems he was in love with this new wife of his, despite her heathen background. One hopes Pocahontas – or Rebecca as she was called after her christening – was in love with him. (No, Pocahontas was never, as far as we know, in love with dashing John Smith.) Pocahontas gave birth to a son, accompanied her husband to England and sickened and died, whereupon John left his son in the care of relatives and returned to Virginia.
In 1614 he married Pocahontas, daughter of the Powhatan chief, and from what can be gleaned from the few historical documents left to us, it seems he was in love with this new wife of his, despite her heathen background. One hopes Pocahontas – or Rebecca as she was called after her christening – was in love with him. (No, Pocahontas was never, as far as we know, in love with dashing John Smith.) Pocahontas gave birth to a son, accompanied her husband to England and sickened and died, whereupon John left his son in the care of relatives and returned to Virginia.
It seems
John dedicated the rest of his life to improve the quality and quantity of the
Virginia Tobacco. He must have reaped quite some success, as twenty thousand
pounds of tobacco in 1617 had become half a million pounds in 1630.
By then, John Rolfe was long dead. He died in 1622, a year in which a third of the colonists in Virginia were massacred by the Native Americans. In a desperate attempt to rid themselves of the intruders, the Powhatan attacked the colonists in one well-planned nightly raid, destroying most of the settlements outside of Jamestown. Whether John was one of their victims is uncertain.
By then, John Rolfe was long dead. He died in 1622, a year in which a third of the colonists in Virginia were massacred by the Native Americans. In a desperate attempt to rid themselves of the intruders, the Powhatan attacked the colonists in one well-planned nightly raid, destroying most of the settlements outside of Jamestown. Whether John was one of their victims is uncertain.
Tobacco is a
labour intensive crop. With ever more acreage being put under cultivation, the
Colony of Virginia screamed for people to work the expanding fields, and so the
age-old system of indentured servants was transplanted from England to the
colony – in a somewhat reworked form.
The
indenture system set in place in Virginia meant that the planters carried the
cost for transporting over the servants, who paid nothing for their passage and
were placed under contract for four to seven years to work off the debt of
transportation. The life that awaited the newly arrived labourers was harsh: Acres
to be cleared, planted and harvested, day after gruelling day in a hot and
unfamiliar climate, and all to produce hogshead after hogshead of fragrant
tobacco leaf, thereby enriching the plantation owners further. Conditions were
so severe that forty per cent of the indentures died before the contract ended.
Most
indentured servants came over voluntarily. Quite a few indentured servants went
anything but willingly, being deported by the powers that were for various
reasons. Some were criminals, others were outspoken defenders of their faith,
yet others simply protested against the system in general. As early as 1620
King James decided that shipping out these unwanted elements to the colonies
was a smart way of reducing their presence in his kingdom while furnishing much
needed labour to the plantations. Over the coming decades both Oliver Cromwell
and the latter Stuarts would continue doing so.
Tobacco
built a lot of wealth in colonial Virginia. A man cultivating a few fields of
tobacco by himself would on average earn five – seven times more than a skilled
craftsman in England. Add some more land, five or six field hands, and the
annual income would be close to that of a wealthy gentleman. Without the
tobacco, it is questionable whether Virginia would ever have achieved the
importance it came to have at the birth of the American nation. Actually,
without tobacco Virginia might have become yet one more failed colonial
attempt.
But for the people who were forced to participate in the production of the golden weed, the tobacco was nothing but a cruel and demanding taskmaster.
But for the people who were forced to participate in the production of the golden weed, the tobacco was nothing but a cruel and demanding taskmaster.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my book Like Chaff in the Wind, my main character Matthew Graham is abducted, indentured, and carried over the sea to Virginia, living in close to inhuman conditions on a tobacco plantation. If nothing else, this very degrading experience cures him of any desire to smoke. It also leaves him scarred for life. Whether or not he survives his ordeal … well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?
Anna Belfrage is the author of two published books, A
Rip in the Veil and Like
Chaff in the Wind. The third book in The Graham Saga, The Prodigal Son, will be published in
the summer of 2013.
Fascinating stuff, Anna, especially as The Plantation of Co Down in Ulster - where I come from was thought to be the forerunner of the Virginian Plantation.
ReplyDelete...but I guess without the tobacco, right? It's interesting to note that while social mobility (upwards) was very high for the first few decades of Virginia's "existence" (I mean, it did exist before), once the plantation and indenture system had properly taken root things reverted to "normal", i.e. the rich got richer, the poor remained poor and social mobility became a dream only very few were able to realise.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely brilliant post Anna and I intend reading the book. Carol mcgrath
ReplyDeleteI think I passed on an opportunity to review your book and now I wish I hadn't :( Sounds like such an interesting tale! :)
ReplyDelete