The cultivation of tobacco soon spread from John Rolfe's garden to
every available plot of ground within the fortified districts in
Jamestown. By 1617 the value of tobacco was well known in every
settlement or plantation in Virginia--Bermuda, Dale's Gift, Henrico,
Jamestown, Kecoughtan, and West and Shirley Hundreds--each under a
commander. Governor Dale allowed its culture to be gradually extended
until it absorbed the whole attention at West and Shirley Hundreds and
Jamestown.
[Illustration: _TOBACCO at Jamestown--1600's_
Courtesy of Sidney E. King]
The first general planting in the colony began at West and Shirley
Hundreds where twenty-five men, commanded by a Captain Madison, were
employed solely in planting and curing tobacco. In 1616 the tobacco
fever struck furiously in Jamestown. The following description
indicates the impact of the "fever": there were "but five or six
houses, the church downe, the palizado's broken, the bridge in pieces,
the well of fresh water spoiled; the storehouse used for the church...,
[and] the colony dispersed all about, planting tobacco." The "Noxious
weed" was even growing in the streets and in the market place.
By 1622 plantations extended at intervals from Point Comfort as far as
140 miles up the James River, and the planters were so absorbed in the
cultivation of tobacco that they gave the Indians firearms and employed
them to do their hunting. This boldness was shortlived, for the Indian
Massacre of 1622 tended to narrow the area under cultivation for that
year. Even so, the planters were able to produce 60,000 pounds of
tobacco.
Within a year after the massacre the settlers once again became very
bold and extended cultivated areas even farther than before. Prior to
the massacre, the planters had difficulty in clearing the ground of
timber; afterwards, they took over the fields cleared by the Indians
which were said to be among the best in the colony. Expansion was
further facilitated by the "head-right" system, introduced in 1618,
which gave fifty acres of land to any person who transported a settler
to the colony.
For the first twenty years after the landing at Jamestown, the settlers
restricted themselves to the valley of the James and to the Accomac
Peninsula. For the next thirty years there was a gradual expansion to
the north and west along the banks of the James, York, and the
Rappahannock rivers and their tributaries. By 1650 the frontiersmen had
reached the Potomac. From Jamestown, settlements gradually spread up
and down both banks of the James and its tributaries, the Elizabeth,
Nansemond, Appomattox, and the Chickahominy. Then came the settlements
along the York and its tributaries, the Mattapony and the Pamunkey; and
finally, along the banks of the Rappahannock and the Potomac. The
expansion into the interior did not take place until the Tidewater area
had become fairly well settled. The tidal creeks and rivers afforded a
safe and convenient means of communication while the country was
thickly forested and infested with unfriendly Indians. By settling on
the peninsulas, formed by the tidal creeks and rivers, it was easier to
protect the early settlements once the Indians had been driven out.
In 1629 there were from 4,000 to 5,000 English settlers, confined
almost exclusively to the James River valley and to the Accomac
Peninsula, where they cultivated about 2,000 acres of tobacco. By 1635
tobacco had almost disappeared in the immediate vicinity of Jamestown,
as many of the planters moved to new land along the south bank of the
York River. At this time there were settlements in the following eight
counties: Henrico, located on both sides of the James River, between
Arrahattock and Shirley Hundred; Charles City, also located on both
sides of the James from Shirley Hundred Island to Weyanoke; James City,
on both sides of the James from Chippoakes to Lawnes Creek, and from
the Chickahominy River on the north side to a point nearly opposite the
mouth of Lawnes Creek; Warrasquoke (Isle of Wight), contained the area
from the southern limit of James City to the Warrasquoke River; Warwick
and Elizabeth City, the rest of the remaining settlements on the James
River; Charles River (York), all of the plantations on the south bank
of the York River; and finally Accomac. The plantations were still more
thickly grouped in James City than in any other county.
By the late 1630's, attempts to reduce the amount of tobacco grown in
the colony, by limiting the number of plants each person could plant,
had caused many planters to leave their plantations in search of virgin
soil in which more tobacco per plant could be grown. They frequently
built temporary dwellings, as they expected to move on as soon as the
land under cultivation showed signs of exhaustion. In 1648 planters in
large numbers sought permission from Governor Berkeley and the Council
to move across the York River, to take up the virgin and unclaimed
land.
Spreading north the frontiersmen had reached the Rappahannock and the
Potomac by 1650, and settlers began moving into Lancaster County. In
1653 the first settlers established themselves in what is now King
William County. Just before the end of the seventeenth century the
tobacco industry had expanded into the lowlands all along the
Rappahannock and Potomac rivers below the Fall Line. In 1689 the York
River area produced the largest quantity of tobacco, the Rappahannock
River area was second, the Upper James third, and the Accomac Peninsula
last. While the production of tobacco continued to expand north and
west, it made little headway in the sandy counties of Princess Anne and
Norfolk.
All during the seventeenth century expansion tended to extend in a
northerly direction within the Tidewater region, but in the eighteenth
century the movement was to the west in search of virgin soil. Planters
began moving beyond the Fall Line soon after the turn of the century.
Robert Carter of Nomini Hall patented over 900 acres of land above the
Falls in 1707. It is generally agreed that the commercial production of
tobacco began to expand beyond the Fall Line about 1720. In 1723 a
traveler, who had just visited above the Falls, mentioned seeing many
fields of tobacco. In the following year Robert Carter had hundreds of
additional acres surveyed, in what is now Prince William County, as he
extended his holdings above the Fall Line. The tobacco industry seems
to have been fairly well established as far west as Spotsylvania,
Hanover, and Goochland counties as early as 1730.
In the year 1740 Elias and William Edmunds were among the first
settlers in Fauquier County. They settled near what is now Warrenton
and began producing tobacco of excellent quality, which soon came to be
known as "Edmonium Tobacco." Ten years later large quantities were
being produced in Albemarle (including present Nelson and Amherst
counties), Cumberland, Augusta, and Culpeper counties. During the
six-year period 1750-1755, tobacco production appears to have been
centered equally in three areas: the Upper James River district, the
York River district, and the Rappahannock River district. Each of the
three districts exported about 83,000 hogsheads of tobacco, while the
Lower James River district exported only about 10,000.
Just prior to the American Revolution the tobacco industry began to
expand rapidly south of the James River, especially to the south and
west of Petersburg. One observer declared in 1769 that the Petersburg
warehouses contained more tobacco than all the rest of the warehouses
on the James or the York River. It was estimated that 20,000 hogsheads
were being produced annually in that region alone. A considerable
amount of tobacco was also being grown in the lower region of the
Valley of Virginia.
As the tobacco industry continued to expand into Piedmont Virginia,
there was a gradual decline in the Tidewater area. The increase in
population naturally caused a continual expansion of the tobacco
industry from its meager beginnings at Jamestown, but this was not the
major cause. The primary cause was the wasteful cultivation methods
practiced by the planters. To obtain the greatest yield from his land
the planter raised three or four consecutive crops of tobacco in one
field, then moved on to virgin fields. This practice was begun on a
relatively large scale as early as 1632 when a planting restriction of
1,500 plants per person was enacted, causing many planters to leave
their estates in search of better land in an effort to increase the
quality of their tobacco. As cheap virgin soil became scarce, planters
left their lands in Tidewater to take up fresh acreage in the Piedmont,
or they stayed at home and grew grain, some corn but mostly wheat.
We can only generalize as to when and how extensive this substitution
of wheat for tobacco may have been. There are those who believe that a
permanent shift away from tobacco began as early as 1720 on the Eastern
Shore of Virginia, while others state that it did not start until about
ten years later. As early as 1759 all of the best lands in Virginia
were reported to have been taken, and by the time of the Revolution the
supply was said to have been completely exhausted. In 1771 there were
rumors that at least one hundred of the principal Virginia planters had
given up the tobacco culture entirely and converted their plantations
to something more profitable. However, it is generally agreed that
tobacco was not abandoned extensively in Tidewater before the
Revolution.
The first appreciable decline came during the Revolution and this trend
continued until the tobacco was almost completely abandoned in
Tidewater in the nineteenth century. The rise in demand for foodstuffs
during the war caused planters to shift from tobacco in increasing
numbers. Many of them only reduced their tobacco crop at first, but
later abandoned it completely. After the Revolution wheat was
substituted for tobacco quite extensively, but owing to the expansion
into the Piedmont, Virginia's post-war tobacco production soon equalled
that of the prewar years. Tobacco was still grown in Tidewater Virginia
and some beyond the western boundary of the Piedmont, but by this time
Tidewater had ceased to be the "tobacco country" of previous years.
The production of tobacco continued to increase in the Piedmont and
decrease in Tidewater, and Piedmont Virginia became more firmly
established as Virginia's tobacco belt. This change was due partly to
the fact that the virgin and fertile soils of the West kept tobacco
prices so low that it could not be profitably produced on the manured
worn out soils in the East. Tidewater was becoming full of old tobacco
fields covered with young pine trees and the industry became
concentrated largely in middle and southern Virginia. By 1800 Piedmont
Virginia had definitely become the major tobacco producing area.
[Illustration: Old Tobacco Warehouse, built 1680 at Urbanna, Virginia
Courtesy of Mrs. H. I. Worthington]
[Illustration: The mild species of tobacco which Rolfe imported from
the West Indies.
The harsh species of tobacco which Rolfe found the
Indians cultivating.