After the death of Pocahontas, John Rolfe came back to Virginia alone to
resume the work which he had begun there as early as 1610. Perhaps he
continued his work with tobacco which had already resulted in a plant
that could compete in taste and quality with that which had given the
Spanish a monopoly of the tobacco market.
[Illustration: _Monument to Pocahontas, by William Ordway Partridge,
near the entrance to Jamestown National Historic Site._]
In the first years of the settlement every effort had been made to find
products in the New World that would assure financial success for the
settlers and the company. Pitch, tar, timber, sassafras, cedar, and
other natural products were sent in the returning ships. Attempts to
produce glass on a paying scale proved futile, as did early efforts to
make silk, using the native mulberry trees growing in abundance. The
glass furnaces fell into disuse, and rats ate the silkworms. The native
tobacco plant, found growing wild was “... not of the best kind ... [but
was] poore and weake, and of a byting tast ...” and held little promise.
About 1610-11, the seed of a different species of the plant was imported
from Trinidad, then famous for the quality of its tobacco. Later some
came from Venezuela. These were planted and a process of selection and
crossbreeding began which resulted in the commercially valuable Virginia
leaf. John Rolfe, a smoker himself, has been credited as the pioneer
English colonist in this experimentation.
In addition to the improvement of the plant, Rolfe was one of the first
regularly to grow tobacco for export and as such was the father of the
Virginia tobacco trade and industry. The first experimental shipment of
the newly developed Virginia leaf came about 1613, and because of its
pleasant taste it was well received in some quarters. Production was
slow for several years. Dale restricted its cultivation until basic
commodities, such as corn, were well advanced. In the 1615-16 period
only 2,300 pounds reached London from Virginia. Capt. George Yeardley,
the next to govern, gave the new crop his whole-hearted support, with
the result that in 1617 exports reached the 20,000 pound total, and by
1619 this had been more than doubled. Thus, a new trade and industry
were born in the colony, which proved to be the economic salvation of
Virginia, and provided a means for making slavery profitable. Tobacco
and slavery together led to the development of important characteristics
of the whole social, political, and economic structure of the Old South.
One of the immediate effects of tobacco culture in Virginia was the
impetus it gave to the expansion of the area of settlement and to the
number of settlers coming to Virginia.
[Illustration: _Tobacco cultivation as practiced at Jamestown. (A
conjectural painting by Sidney E. King.)_]