17th–18th centuriesGeneral sourceWell documented
Tobacco, Labor, and Slavery
On the timeline · around 17th–18th centuries ·
What happened
Tobacco was enormously labor-intensive. Colonial Virginia and Maryland first relied on indentured servants, then increasingly on enslaved Africans, to plant, tend and cure the crop. Tobacco wealth became bound up with the growth of American slavery.
Why it matters
The tobacco economy was a major driver of the transatlantic slave trade and plantation slavery in the early American colonies.
Sources
- Encyclopedia Virginia. Tobacco in Colonial Virginia · General source