by many of the best and ablest men of the time, which
determined the character of the life of the colony and shaped its
destinies for two and a half centuries. Tobacco was the chief factor in
bringing final and complete failure to the attempts to produce useful
raw materials, it was largely instrumental in moulding the social
classes and the political structure of the colony, it was almost
entirely responsible for the system of labor, it even exerted a powerful
influence upon religion and morals. In a word, one can understand almost
nothing of Virginia, its infancy, its development, its days of
misfortune, its era of prosperity, its peculiar civilization, the nature
of its relations to England, unless one knows the history of tobacco.

As though they had a prophetic vision of its future importance, the
Virginia Indians revered the plant. To them it was an especial gift
direct from the Great Spirit, and as such was endowed with unusual
properties for doing good. When the fields of maize were dried and
parched for lack of rain they powdered the tobacco and cast it to the
winds that the evil genii might be propitiated; their priests on great
occasions fed it to the sacrificial fires; when the usual catch of fish
failed it was scattered over the water.[2-1] Smoking was considered a
token of friendship and peace. When the white men first visited the
native villages they soon found that to reject the proffered pipe was to
offend their savage hosts and incur their hostility.

It was John Rolfe, celebrated as the husband of Pocahontas, who first
experimented with the native leaf. This gentleman was himself fond of
smoking, but he found the Virginia tobacco as it came from the hands of
the savages, decidedly inferior to that of the West Indies. The leaf
itself was small, and although the flavor was weak it was biting to the
tongue.[2-2] Rolfe's efforts proved entirely successful. In 1614, two
years after his first attempt, he had obtained a product which Ralph
Hamor declared to be as "strong, sweet and pleasant as any under the
sun."[2-3]

Thus, early in its history, Virginia had found a commodity for which she
was preeminently suited, in the production of which she could compete
successfully with any country in the world. And for her tobacco she had
a ready market. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the habit of smoking
had spread rapidly among the upper classes of English, until at the end
of the sixteenth century, it was a