Tobacco Culture

William Fitzhugh, an Englishman who migrated to the colony of Virginia in 1670, was quick to rise in the New World. Upon landing in the Americas, William acquired a large estate and began the construction of a dynasty. The Fitzhugh lineage has been called one of the first families of Virginia. While the virgin lands of America buried Spain in gold, and French in fur, the British were slow to get their new economy off the ground. After an Indian attack on the colony of Jamestown left the Virginia Company bankrupt and later dissolved, the surviving settlers discovered the cash crop they had been searching for. Tobacco exports climbed exponentially when the first cargo of Virginia-grown tobacco arrived in England and land became the most valuable commodity the New World had to offer. As the supply grew, the price per pound plummeted. Now fully dependent on this crop, the only solution was to grow even more, pushing exports over the limit. This new lifestyle became characteristic of the Southern settlements and tobacco would play a very central role in the development of Virginia society and American life. This thirsty demand for land left settlers scrambling for plantations in close proximity to water. Patterns of settlement moved away from the traditional compact communities more common in the North, and more towards dispersed plantations accessible by ship. Competition thrived but the new American labor force was insufficient. Planters turned to England for indentured servants, such as William Moraley, but were quick to exploit the African slave trade. The Southern style of plantation life was luxurious for few, but disastrous for many. Prominent men such as William Fitzhugh enjoyed the comforts that Virginia afforded, but the ways in which these comforts were afforded would spark uprisings and revolts in the centuries to come. Servants, Native Americans, and slaves died in alarming numbers from disease, and those who survived faced years of backbreaking