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MODULE 2.3a The Regions of British Colonies 69

Tobacco Fuels Growth in Virginia
These sample pages are distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
It was not military aggression, however, but the discovery of a viable cash crop that cash crop
saved the colony. Tobacco, grown in the West Indies and South America, had sold well A crop produced for profit
in England and in other European markets addicted since the sixteenth-century Colum- rather than for subsistence.
bian Exchange. Virginia colonist John Rolfe began to experiment with its growth in 1612, Tobacco was the main cash
Copyright (c) 2024 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
just as the drought lifted. Production of the leaf soared as eager investors poured tobacco crop in the Chesapeake
region in the 1600s and
seeds, supplies, and labor into Jamestown. Exports multiplied rapidly, from 2,000 pounds 1700s, and sugar was most
Strictly for use with its products. NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION.
in 1615 to 40,000 pounds five years later, and an incredible 1.5 million pounds by 1629. commonly grown in the
Tobacco cultivation worsened tensions between the English and the American Indi- Caribbean colonies.
ans. As production increased and prices declined, farmers could increase their profits only
by obtaining more land and more laborers. That is why the Virginia Company was willing
to offer land to indentured laborers who spent seven years clearing new fields and creating
more plantations. In 1618, the Virginia Company developed a headright system (later headright system
used in other colonies) that rewarded those who imported laborers — at first indentured Created in Virginia in 1618,
servants, and later enslaved Africans — with land. Wealthy Englishmen were generally it rewarded those who
granted fifty acres of land for each laborer they imported to Virginia. Yet in most cases, imported indentured laborers
the land the Virginia Company granted was already settled by members of the Powhatan and settlers with land.
Confederacy. Thus, the rapid increase in tobacco cultivation intensified competition and
hostility between English colonists and American Indians.
In 1614, Chief Powhatan tried one last time to create an alliance between his con-
federacy and the English settlers. Perhaps, encouraged by the return of rain in 1612,
he believed that increased productivity would ensure better trade relations with the
English. In 1614, he agreed to allow his daughter Pocahontas to marry John Rolfe.
Pocahontas converted to Christianity and traveled to England with Rolfe and their
infant son in 1617. While there, she fell ill and died, and Rolfe returned to Virginia just
as relations with the Powhatan Confederacy began to change.
Powhatan died in 1618, and his younger brother Opechancanough became chief.
During this time, the Virginia Company, even using its new headright system, struggled

Pocahontas (1616) Simon
van de Passe created this
portrait of Pocahontas
during her visit to England
in 1616. The engraving
was commissioned by the
Virginia Company to promote
settlement in Jamestown.
While van de Passe clothes
her in English aristocratic
style, he retains her dark
complexion and direct gaze.
Her name is listed both as
Library of Congress, Rare Book Division [LC-USZ62-8104] baptized).
Matoaka (her birth name)
and Rebecca (the name she
was given when she was
What does this portrayal

of Pocahontas reveal about
how the English viewed
American Indians?

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