Change in Policy
When Sir Thomas Dale left, in 1616, George Yeardley took over the management of the colony as Acting Governor. He lost no time in putting an end to the restrictions on tobacco culture. The next year, 1617, saw a remarkable transformation in the colonists' way of life. Inertia gave way to frantic activity. "The market-place and streets and all other spare places were set with the crop and the colonie dispersed all about planting tobacco." Nor is this surprising. Tobacco alone promised them surcease from poverty and want. Hope for a bountiful harvest spurred them on as it has spurred farmers in all generations.
Tobacco in England
Many fantastic tales have been written about the introduction of the use of tobacco in England. Some of the most authentic historical items follow: The Spaniards found the natives in the West Indies using the plant both for chewing and smoking. They took seed to Europe where its use soon spread to other countries around the Mediterranean Sea.
The first Englishman to report on the addiction of the American Indians to the use of tobacco appears to have been John Sparke who wrote the account of the voyage of Sir John Hawkins who, in the course of his travels, spent some months, in 1565, with an ill-fated French colony in Florida. Sparke reported "The Floridians when they travell, have a kinde of herbe dried, who with a cane and an earthen cup in the end, with fire, and the dried herbs put together, doe sucke thorow the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live foure or five dayes without meat or drinke, and this the Frenchmen used for this purpose." It is quite likely that the sailors under Hawkins command acquired the habit and took some of the "dried herbs" back to England.
Sir Walter Raleigh is often credited with the introduction of the use of tobacco in England. While he may not have been responsible for its introduction, he apparently played an important role in the spread of the tobacco habit among the English aristocracy. Raleigh's interest in tobacco was no doubt aroused by the report of his protégé, the famous sixteenth century mathematician, Thomas Hariot. Hariot spent a year, June, 1585-June, 1586, with the Raleigh Colony on Roanoke Island. On his return to England he reported on the Indians' farming operations in Eastern North Carolina. For tobacco he wrote in part "We ourselves, during the time we were there, used to sucke it after their manner, as also since our returne, and have found many rare and wonderful experiments of the virtues thereof, of which the relation would require a volume by itselfe: the use of it by so many, of late, men and women of great calling, as els, and some physicians also, is sufficient witnesse."
Raleigh later made a voyage to the Island of Trinidad and the Orinoco River in South America from whence had come the most desirable sorts. Spain and Portugal monopolized the European tobacco trade with these mild varieties since the tobacco grown by the Virginia Indians had a sharp, biting taste. Plantings of these better sorts were made in England. A violent controversy was soon raging. King James I who detested Raleigh and all his activities, issued a Counter Blaste against tobacco. This was a most bitter tirade as the following quotation shows:
A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.
Since the days of King James, millions of words have been written condemning the use of the "tawny weed."