Levi FoxPage 111/04/2018

But WHY was Virginia a Tobacco Colony?

Introduction:

Few would argue with the notion that tobacco cultivation was vitally important to the growth and development, and maybe even the survival, of the colony of Virginia. But why it became so important in Virginia during the 1610’s and after, is another story entirely. Intricately tied to the development of Virginia as a tobacco colony are events and trends stretching all across the globe and across multiple centuries. Additionally, the study of tobacco in Virginia is an excellent example of the importance of utilizing the tools and techniques of multiple disciplines in the quest to understand past events. The peculiarities of tobacco cultivation and trade themselves dictate which disciplines and schools within disciplines must be consulted. To this end I have examined works of social and economic history, anthropology, and historical archeology in order to attempt to answer related questions centering on the origin of tobacco growing in the Virginia colony. These questions, which I will attempt to answer in this paper, include why a demand for tobacco existed at all, why it was large enough to sustain the growth of Virginia as a largely monocultural colony and why Virginia, rather than some other area, became the predominant tobacco growing region of the world?

Why Tobacco, the Question of Demand:

By the time the first settlers arrived at Jamestown, tobacco from the Spanish West Indies was well known in England, and was selling at a rate of 18 shillings a pound (Morgan 1975; 90). There thus existed a ready market, and, following John Rolfe’s well publicized introduction and adaptation in 1612 of tobacco from Trinidad, Virginians were willing and able to supply that market (Hatch 1942: 102; Morgan 1975: 90; Goodman 1993: 134). But before looking at how Virginia responded to that market in the years after 1612, it is important to look at why there existed a British and a larger European market for tobacco at this point at all. To understand this, one must look at both how tobacco (a plant native to the New World) was originally introduced into Europe and why so many people (enough to create sufficient demand for tobacco to be a viable crop in Virginia) desired it. It appears that tobacco made its first appearance in Europe at the Portuguese court in about 1540 (Goodman 1993: 37). While it existed for a time only among the rich, the weed was soon “transformed from a rare upper-class luxury into a working-class necessity” (Mintz 1985: 36). It was this transformation that would lead to the great stores of demand which, in turn, would both lead to Virginia adopting a single-crop economy (Deetz 1996: 146) and enable the colony to prosper under such an economic system.

A number of explanations have been offered to explain why the market for tobacco, that is to say why public demand, spread so quickly and widely throughout all levels of European society. Sidney Mintz, quoting a 1954 article by Davis on English trade in the latter half of the Seventeenth Century, argues that the “vast new sources of demand” were created widespread cultivation that led to a “sudden cheapness” and subsequent availability to the middle and lower classes to “novel habits of consumption” (Quoted in Mintz 1985: 63). The major problem with this argument is that it makes little economic sense, misapplying a sometimes valid economic principle (Say’s law which states that “supply creates its own demand). This principle works in cases where the producers and consumers of a product exist in the same local marketplace (and where the wages paid to people as producers are in turn used by them to make purchases as consumers) but becomes invalid in the case of tobacco where producers and consumers were literally oceans apart. In this case (as I intend to show) tobacco production, in Virginia at least, was begun with the knowledge that a dependable and expandable market already existed in Europe, and was thus driven by demand. As such an alternate argument must be advanced to explain this demand.

Mintz himself actually provides a far better explanation for this demand in his detailing of the reasons why sugar (the subject of his book) would become so popular at about the same time. He cites multiple reasons why sugar was “transformed from a luxury of kings into the kingly luxury of commoners” (Mintz 1985: 96), which can be smoothly grafted onto explanations for the growth of tobacco demand. His arguments include the functioning of sugar as “a spurious leveler of status” (Mintz 1985: 96), and as a sweetener of tea which served as a welcome dietary supplement due to the diet of the lower classes and the weather of England (Mintz 1985: 110). He also argues for a process of ritualization whereby tea taking took on a social function (Mintz 1985: 110), as well for the usefulness of sugar and tobacco in “positively affecting the worker’s energy output and productivity” (Mintz 1985: 148). Indeed, though largely speaking about the perceived virtues sugar, it would seem that tobacco would have served many of the same functions and thus the demand for it can be explained by many of the same reasons. Mintz himself often groups tobacco and sugar (or sugar sweetened tea) together in his discussions, referring to both as “low-cost food substitutes” (Mintz 1985: 148), that “provide stimulus to greater effort without providing nutrition… provide a respite from reality, and deaden hunger pangs” (Mintz 1985: 186) all of which would be valuable functions in Seventeenth Century lower class English society, and would thus serve to explain why a demand existed for both products.

Other scholars are less concerned with the possible social functions which tobacco may have served, and concentrate more on its addictive qualities and its propensity for being consumed during the pursuit of various vices. V.G. Keirnan argues that Sir Walter Raleigh was the first to bring tobacco ‘drinking’ into fashion in England, but explains the larger scale demand for tobacco by stating simply that it “was habit-forming, and so had a boundless market” (Kiernan 1991: 12-13). Edmund Morgan argues that, while the initial acceptance of tobacco as a medicine produced some demand, “what gave it [(tobacco)]) its high price [(of 18 shillings a pound)] was the fact that people had started smoking it for fun” in “ taverns and brothels” leading to its role as the new vice of choice among many Englishmen (Morgan 1975: 90-91). There are positive and negative elements to both explanations. Keirnan’s, while no doubt containing an element of undeniable truth, seems to me to be too simplistic and to place too much weight on the addictive aspects of tobacco without looking at social factors. Morgan’s explanation too no doubt explains a part of the demand for tobacco. However, I am not comfortable with his as an explanation for the demand of the lower classes, since these groups would have little time or money to spend in the pursuit of vice at this juncture of history. He must be given credit, though, for pointing out the possible use of tobacco as a deliberate social vice, a use which no doubt increased in frequency and spread as time went on and larger elements of society had increasing leisure time.

Jordan Goodman provides an explanation that relies heavily upon the role of tobacco (as alluded to already by Morgan) early on as a panacea, as well as the social and cultural conditions of Sixteenth and Seventeenth century Europe that might help to create a demand for a product like tobacco. One such socio-cultural function which he cites is the functioning of tobacco as an appetite suppressant that fails to cause violent hallucinatory side effects, as other plants which had previously been available had (Goodman 1993: 42). But perhaps more important than what tobacco actually did, at least from Goodman's perspective, was the fact that its positive attributes were repeatedly cited in the medical literature of the time (Goodman 1993: 42). To him, this was indicative of the fact that “tobacco was becoming accepted as a herbal therapy capable of curing an increasingly large number of ailments” (Goodman 1993: 42). Indeed, during this period tobacco was being called a “panacea, holy herb, and sacred weed” because of its supposed “wondrous curative powers” (Goodman 1993: 48). Goodman also argues that “one must take account of the fact that tobacco was being hailed as a miracle plant in the seats of European power.” Thus Goodman’s arguments largely supplement and reinforce, rather than contradict, those advanced by other scholars, especially Morgan and Mintz.

Given the available evidence, which explanation or combination of explanations best accounts for a large enough European demand to allow Virginia to prosper as a single crop colony beginning in the early 1600’s? I believe that a combination of the arguments of Goodman and Mintz (which concerned sugar but which I believe does an equally good job with regard to tobacco) along with a significant nod to Morgan largely encompass the reasons for this demand. I would argue that while the medicinal virtues of tobacco which Morgan cites did a good deal to promote smoking early on and especially among the upper classes, they do not sufficiently explain why demand had become so widespread among all classes by about 1600. In this respect Morgan and especially Mintz provide the fullest explanation. In my mind Morgan correctly cites the shift from medicinal to social uses, though he wrongly views the social uses as being largely recreational. Indeed, it seems to me that the social uses which Mintz cites for sugar and tea (and which I have already argued tobacco could also serve) provide the best explanation for why its use spread as quickly and broadly as it did. Indeed, while all of the scholars who have been referred to provide arguments which explain certain minor contributing reasons why demand became so large, their arguments largely serve only to explain why demand grew up among certain small segments of the population (such as the aristocracy). The spread of demand to the lower classes, by far the largest segment of society at the time, is, to me, best explained by Mintz who cites specific, personal, and very real functions which tobacco likely served for these groups. Thus, because these groups accounted for the largest part of the demand market, his explanation does the best job of explaining, on a whole, why tobacco demand was so large during the 1610’s. This, in turn, explains how Virginia was able to prosper as a largely single crop economy, providing the supply to service this massive and extent demand.

Why Virginia, the Question of Supply:

It has already been established in this paper that there existed a large demand for tobacco among Europeans of all classes by about 1600. Yet the archeological evidence exists to suggest that there was insufficient supply to meet this demand. Early pipes, which were already being produced in large numbers by 1607, had acorn shaped bowls which could hold only minimal amounts of tobacco (Deetz 1993: 4). Deetz cites the high price of tobacco (which Morgan has told us could be up to 18 shillings per pound) as being responsible for this fact, while basic economic theory tells us that a high price is generally the result of demand outstripping supply. Indeed, as has already been alluded to, it was this excess demand which would make it profitable for Virginians to grow tobacco beginning in the 1610’s.

These high prices for tobacco were not wholly a function of the market, however. Before the Virginia colony began growing tobacco, “England received its consignments of tobacco from Spanish America” and therefore had to pay a bounty for its importation (Goodman 1993: 147). England had tried to grow tobacco itself as early as 1563, yet they could not produce nearly enough domestically to satisfy demand and lower prices (Hatch 1942: 107). They therefore turned toward the New World, encouraging tobacco production both in the Chesapeake region and the English West Indies (Goodman 1993: 134, 138-39). Indeed, given the ill favor accorded native Virginian tobacco, which was described as “poore and weake, and of a byting tast [sic],” (quoted in Goodman 1993: 134) one might have expected the tobacco of Spanish America and the English West Indies to achieve prominence. Yet we know that this was not the case, that it was Virginia rather than areas of the Spanish and British Caribbean that became the predominant tobacco growing region of the world. The remainder of this section shall be devoted to explaining how the (tobacco) past that we know likely came about.

One major reason why Virginia, rather than the West Indies, became the major tobacco producing area of the New World, was that during the first half of the Seventeenth Century it became more profitable for West Indian planters to “shift from tobacco to sugar” (Mintz 1985: 53). As Mintz clearly shows there existed a demand for sugar for many of the same reasons why there existed a demand for tobacco at this time. (Indeed, as you will recall, my argument for why tobacco demand existed is actually a corruption of Mintz’s views on sugar.) As sugar prices rose and tobacco prices fell, it simply became more profitable for Caribbean planters to switch to growing sugar (Mintz 1985: 52). Indeed, on an individual level, tobacco had “a smaller profit margin than sugar” (Wallerstein 1980: 164). Why then did Virginia planters not also switch to sugar growing at this time? Indeed some may have wanted to, but, as had been proven in 1619, sugar “cane would not grow” in Virginia (Mintz 1985: 37). But, even if they could have switched to sugar, most probably would not have wanted to. Tobacco growing had always been more profitable on a per capita basis in Virginia than in the islands (Goodman 1993: 141). This was because, just as unique Caribbean conditions made sugar cultivation more profitable on the islands, analogous conditions existed in Virginia that made tobacco growing profitable in that area.

To this end, Wallerstein points out that Tobacco “murdered the soil” and could therefore only be profitably grown “in areas with expanding hinterlands like Virginia and Maryland” that would allow planters to find new productive fields “every 25 years or so”(Wallerstein 1980:164). Allan Kulikoff puts a somewhat more positive spin on this when he cites “a temperate climate and an abundant supply of land” as the reasons why tobacco cultivation became so widespread, and so profitable, in Virginia (Kulikoff 1979: 518). Indeed, one of the major reasons why tobacco prices had fallen was the expansion of production in Virginia, which had reached half a million pounds by 1630 and 7 million by 1663 (Morgan 1975: 185). The problem of inferior Virginian tobacco had, of course, been taken care of by Rolfe’s introduction of Caribbean tobacco, which was soon nearly as highly prized as that grown by the Spanish (Goodman 1993: 149-50). This left the Virginians free to exploit their econo-environmental advantage, which they clearly did. Thus the reasons why Virginia rather than the West Indian islands became the predominant tobacco-growing region of the British world appear clear. Yet Spain had large Caribbean islands and (along with Portugal) mainland colonies in South America that had been successfully producing tobacco for years. Thus, in order to completely explain why Virginia became the major tobacco-growing region of the New World, the decline of the large island and mainland tobacco farms (which would have enjoyed the same benefits of space for relocation upon soil exhaustion that Virginia did) must be explained.

Mintz stresses the Spanish “and, to a lesser extent, the Portuguese” concentration upon “the extraction of precious metals” as accounting for this lack of success in tobacco farming (Mintz 1985: 34). Additionally the Spanish government actually forbade tobacco growing in Venezuela (which had previously been one of the worlds leading producers) in 1606 and in Trinidad and the Orinoco River Valley in 1612 (Goodman 1993: 135-136). When one adds to these two factors the fact that, unlike in Virginia, the more profitable sugar cane could be grown in the Spanish mainland and major island colonies, the comparable success of the Virginians over the Spanish needs no further explanation.

But what of the Portuguese in Brazil? In fact, as Goodman demonstrates, throughout the Seventeenth century Brazil was “the other major player in the tobacco enterprise,” growing nearly as much of the weed as did the Chesapeake colonies (Goodman 1993: 140). However, sugar could also be grown profitably in Brazil (and had since the first settlement of the area) and, as the price of that good rose relative to the price of tobacco, many of the same pressures that led the larger Caribbean islands to switch from tobacco to sugar production also led Brazil to make such a move (Goodman 1993: 140).

Goodman also discusses an alternate explanation, put forth by von Gernet, for Virginia becoming a tobacco colony. According to von Gernet, “the settlers were also heavy consumers of tobacco… in much the same way as their counterparts in Europe” and, therefore, “the addiction of the colonists to tobacco” serves as a likely “factor in [their] choosing tobacco as a staple crop” (Goodman 1993: 141). I cannot agree with this explanation however. In my mind it simplifies the relationship between the settlers and tobacco in much the same way that Keirnan’s argument for addiction as the major creator of demand did.