Tobacco Culture of the South Cerca 1700

The Colonial Influence

Look at a pack of cigarettes, you'll read on the side label; smoking causes lung cancer, lung disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy, showing the consumer the negative consequences of smoking cigarettes Yet tobacco is still one of the largely used drugs on the market. It has had a lasting impression on today's society. Researchers have notice that the nicotine, which is found in tobacco, has an impact on the human brain. This makes the substance desired by the entire body. Nicotine creates change in brain function that will occur as people smoke tobacco products. While cancer and even death are effects of using tobacco, do we know the history behind the formation of the tobacco culture?

The tobacco culture of the Southern colonies hastened the creation of the independent United States. When the first English ship landed upon Roanoke Island, in North Carolina it would have been the first colony of the New World. Instead, due to unforeseen circumstances Jamestown, Virginia was the foremost colony (Powell 15). This was England's first self sufficient settlement in the New World. With the cultivation of tobacco "Jamestown succeeded where Roanoke had failed" (Burney 33). The first colony had begun the formation of the tobacco culture in the South. New settlers upon arriving in this colony helped to establish a work force for the process of cultivating the land. The early southern settlements were home to men seeking economic freedom not religious freedom. They were lured to America by the promise of fertile land and the opportunity to upgrade their social mobility, something they could not achieve in the rigid social system in England. There was much more "fluidity of social classes" in the New World (Boorstin 100). Many immigrants generally migrated to the southern states because the colonies were producing ample cash crops to support themselves and also a surplus of their staple for exportation. Cash crops such as cotton or tobacco were used domestically and for economical purposes (Berlin 9). Many crops were produced but tobacco was a commercial crop raised for profit (Boorstin 108). The development of the milder strain of tobacco than the native variety led to tobacco trading from many of the Southern ports and began to expand the economy of the South. Fist you must understand the terrain of the south to understand where tobacco was grown.

The terrain along with its costal barriers constrained the south and created problems for the Southern farmer. Depending on the geography of the region (Berlin 4), an area was often unreliable for the foundation of plantations. From the Appalachian Mountains to the costal Outer Banks, the majority of the southern states have three distinct regions: costal plains, the piedmont, and the mountainous region (Powell 120). Conditions of the mountains which were commonly filled with rocks and sometimes marked with boulders were unyielding as regions for cultivation (Powell 7). Thus farmers relied on the savannah and the costal areas, for the growth of tobacco, since both were profitably and easily developed. These areas furnished the growing needs for the production of tobacco. A colony such as North Carolina was unable to trade efficiently. One aspect that created turbulence for North Carolinas "maritime commerce" was its costal positioning (Powell 8). North Carolina's coast, which was made shallow from lake deposits of sediment discouraged any large cargo vessels from entering beyond the Outer Banks. Small islands and inlets dotted the coast and formed sand bars. Only small ships could make the journey through the Outer Banks and into the sounds. "A rugged coast, outlined with deadly sandbars, permitted no great seaport cities" (Billings 4). This forced North Carolina to farm tobacco because they weren't able to make money through merchant shipping. North Carolinas lack of any deep water ports made it necessary for North Carolina to produce its cash crop: tobacco. Thus North Carolina developed a tobacco culture independent of Virginia's because it was unable to trade efficiently forcing its reliance on Virginia's seaports. Yet areas such as the costal plane and the piedmont, which encompassed Virginia and North Carolina, had enough land to cultivate tobacco. The landscape which allowed for farming of tobacco in the costal plain and the piedmont, created a culture that encourages tobacco production.

When the fields of the costal plains became exhausted, Virginian tobacco farmers traveled south to what is now North Carolina (Boorstin 47). This new land furnished plenty of land for the cultivation of tobacco. These settlers who traveled south began cultivating in what is now the piedmont. The piedmont is an area that encompasses two hundred miles composed of red clay (Powell 7). This highly rich land "[consisted] of clay soil, rough and course land, covered with oaks and hickory" (Kluger 9). William Byrd who was a land speculator during the colonial period gave much promise to the area he identified the piedmont as the "garden of Eden" (Boorstin 121). The southern climate which was hot and temperate and the fertile land of Virginia and North Carolina primed the South as an ideal place for the growing tobacco (Kerr-Ritchie 97). This area of land had "evolved into a land of small...independent farmers" (Kluger 9). These independent farmers took up anchorage in the piedmont and began to harvest tobacco. A farm house on the piedmont was far removed from ready markets. Brave people would live there and were rarely tempted to consume more land than "could be tilled by one man and his sons" (Powell 9). Typically after four tobacco growing seasons, the land was no longer profitable, and so the farmers moved on, to "virgin" lands where tobacco could thrive (Boorstin 105). The colonial period saw waste in agriculture. Most settlers in the south were not farmers by nature (Boorstin 260). Conditions surrounding the cultivation of tobacco in the piedmont yielded a more tolerant form of leaf. At this time it was the brown tobacco. This was grown along the costal plains and was the most desired. The tobacco grown in the piedmont, called Bright tobacco, eventually became the favorite of the tobacco manufacturers in the piedmont and (Kerr-Ritchie 15).

"The major feature of specialized tobacco production was the switch from dark leaf cultivation (quantity) to a yellow leaf production (quality)" (Kerr-Ritchie 195). Bright tobacco received its name because of the yellow hue of its leaf. This type of tobacco grew shallower, had a less heavy leaf and thrived in the red clay soil of the piedmont (Kluger 6) "Bright tobacco production thrived...and quickly spread southward throughout the North Carolina piedmont"