Tobacco in Colonial Virginia

Tobacco in Colonial Virginia, by G. Melvin Herndon, says John Rolfe became the first colonist to successfully grow tobacco, the plant that was to wield such a tremendous influence on the history of Virginia. The book says that in 1611 Rolfe decided to experiment with seed of the mild Spanish variety, and persuaded a shipmaster to bring him some tobacco seed from the Island of Trinidad and Caracas, Venezuela. The book says Nicotiana rustica, the native tobacco of North America, was found to be inferior to that grown in the Spanish Colonies.

The first general inspection law in Virginia was passed in 1619 and provided that all tobacco offered for exchange at the magazine, the general storehouse in Jamestown, found to be very mean in quality by the magazine custodian was to be burnt. An act of 1630 prohibited the sale or acceptance of inferior tobacco in payment of debts. The conclusion says the history of tobacco is the history of Jamestown and of Virginia, and that without tobacco the development of Virginia might have been retarded 200 years.