Tobacco and Cotton: Crops of Supremacy and Guilt

When I think about tobacco and cotton, I can clearly remember the smell of the student who used to sit next to me in math class in high school, and the softness of my favorite dress. Tobacco and cotton are such prominent crops in our society that it is hard to imagine life without them. It is therefore easy to understand why, when they were first introduced in Europe, they had such a great success. Their discoveries however had a particularly strong impact on the new world. Indeed, tobacco and cotton were some of the most influential factors in the foundation of the United States of America.

The Cotton Crop

(http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/non-toxiccotton/)

The Tobacco Crop

(http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/infopays/photos/aff1.php3?fichier=Andorre_tabac&CP=AND)

Tobacco is the reason why colonialism really took off in Northern America. Until John Rolfe first planted tobacco seeds in Virginia in 1610, the first British settlements on the American territory had been a disaster.  Colonizers had died, either starved or chased by the surrounding indigenous populations.  However when the first commercial crop was cultivated in 1612, the future of America drifted; it was now possible to cultivate, live and rapidly earn a lot of money in northern America. With the increasingly high demand for tobacco in Europe, more and more settlers came to this new land to cultivate the crop. The first plantations appeared and soon after, in 1619, so did the first slaves.

A Tobacco Plantation: Its History and Association, 1859

( http://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box/2013/05/22/tobacco-census-fixing-the-frauds-and-mischiefs-of-the-tobacco-trade/)

Slavery gave enormous profits to the settlers as well as a sense of prosperity and independence. However in the 18^th century, after the Seven Years War against the French on the American territory, the British tried to make the colonizers pay for the cost of the war. They established different acts such as the Stamp Act in 1765, creating a direct tax to be paid by the colonizers. This led to an American uprising and in 1776, the settlers obtained their independence, officially forming the United States of America. However, slave labor was still prominent and even George Washington produced tobacco in a plantation with 316 slaves.

Slavery unmistakably played a very important role in the history of the United States of America. Both tobacco and cotton were grown on slave plantations. And when by the end of the 18^th century, tobacco was becoming less and less profitable, cotton took over the USA’s economy and the southern land soon became covered by cotton plantations. In the following century, the cotton business took a giant step forward; indeed, in England, the textile revolution was raging, providing ways to manufacture cotton much faster and for much cheaper. This also meant that Britain would now need tons of raw cotton to be imported for its manufacture, which is an opportunity that the United States immediately seized. Cotton, indirectly through slavery, later caused the American Civil War (1861-1865) that forever changed the future of the USA. 

A Cotton Plantation 

(http://www.federalobserver.com/2012/02/26/cleaveland-why-the-civil-war-didn%E2%80%99t-end-slavery/)

Cotton and tobacco were very powerful crops and are certainly not guilt free. They will forever carry the weight of slavery, but it is also safe to say, that without them, the United States of America would not be the powerful nation that it is today. 

Relevant website: 

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/slavery.html