A. How did the tobacco trade shape the southern colonies?
The tobacco trade dramatically shaped the Southern Colonies because it was the first major cash crop in the colonies. Since the beginning, the colonies had struggled to survive and feed themselves but they had now found a crop that England and colonists wanted. The boom of tobacco led to the population and number of tobacco plantations to increase quickly and significantly. English settlers could make more off of tobacco in the Chesapeake region than they could make off anything in England. “...could expect to earn two or three times more in Virginia’s tobacco Fields than in England. Better still, in Virginia land was so abundant that it was extremely cheap compared with land in England.”(68) English settlers could buy acres of land for less than what they would make annually in England, and if they brought indentured slaves with them they would get labor and they would be granted headrights.
The tobacco trade also shaped the colonies through the blooming slave trade. While many tobacco plantations used indentured slaves and not captured slaves it still set a precedent for cheap or free human labor. “The overwhelming majority of indentured servants were white immigrants from England. To buy passage aboard a ship bound for the Chesapeake, an English servant or laborer had to come up with about a year's wages.”(67) Many want to be immigrants could not afford passage to the colonies so they would become indentured slaves. Becoming an indentured slave was meant to get free travel to the colonies in exchange for a few years of work and eventually freedom though many of them died before their contracts were over.
The tobacco trade boomed for the first years, but once more and more people came to farm it more and more was produced and the price plummeted in England. This plument meant that farmers individually made less money. It created an interesting dynamic in the South between the rich who had big plantations with many servants or slaves, those who had enough land and a big enough house for his family and a few indentured slaves, and those who had no land or servants. This dynamic created a lasting impact as it is still seen in the South today.
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