Tobacco in the New World essays

Tobacco in the New World essays When tobacco was first introduced to the New World in the early 1600s, nobody could have imagined the significant impact that it would soon have on the Virginia colony by the 1660s. In fact, Virginia thrived around tobacco, as it soon became the colonys means of making money. Virginia not only became dependent on tobacco, it became too dependent (Morgan 185). Without a doubt, Virginia was a money hungry colony that wanted to get rich fast. At the beginning with tobacco, this was possible because they would ship the tobacco to London, where they would receive a large return. Virginians began to make larger tobacco plantations, believing that they would make more money. Instead the amount of tobacco that was produced by the colony was so large that the planter had to sell for half or less (Morgan 185) of what he received in the past because of the large supply. Until Virginia would begin to plant different crops and make the most out of the land available, it would fail. This was a problem for Virginia because instead of producing more crops in the land, tobacco remained to be their only form of income until the 1660s when William Berkeley came into the picture. Until then tobacco was used as money for some, and even used to purchase indentured servants, another outcome of the vast amount of tobacco in the land. The first indentured servants were brought to Virginia in 1619, because of tobacco. After seeing how much more tobacco Virginia could produce with the indentured servants, a very large amount of blacks were brought into Virginia. A problem that arose because of indentured servants was that the servants became free men after seven years of work, and then became fierce competition in the tobacco market for the white planters. Colonists decided that it would be cheaper to do away with indentured servants, and instead get slaves who would not require payments, and also be t...