Tobacco, Slaves and Independence
The economic development of America started with introduction of plantation economy.
Especially the main staple that brought wealth to early white Americans was tobacco. It began in Virginia. So, use of slaves started in Virginia.
Plantation owners embraced the use of slaves mainly because indentured labor became expensive. Some indentured servants were also leaving to start their own farms as land was widely available. Colonists tried to use Native Americansfor labor, but they were susceptible to European diseases and died in large numbers. The plantation owners then turned to enslaved Africans for labor. In 1665, there were less than 500 Africans in Virginia but by 1750, 85 percent of the 235,000 slaves lived in the Southern colonies, Virginia included. Africans made up 50 percent of the South’s population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation_economy#SlaveryIt is so interesting that the combination of tobacco and slaves set foundation of economic growth and future great prosperity of America.
The History of slavery in Virginia can be traced back to the very founding of Virginia as an English colony by the London Virginia Company. The headright system tried to solve the labor shortage by providing colonists with land for each indentured servant they transported to Virginia.[1] African workers were first imported in 1619, and laws regarding their slavery were codified into Virginia's first slave code in 1705.Wealth tobacco sales generated was so huge that it became a main factor of a war between Americans and Englishmen.
Increasingly toward the end of the 17th century, large numbers of slaves from Africa were brought by Dutch and English ships to the Virginia Colony, as well as Maryland and other southern colonies. On the large tobacco plantations, as chattel (owned property), they replaced indentured servants (who were only obligated to work for an agreed period of time) as field labor, as well as serving as household and skilled workers. As slaves, they were not working by mutual agreement, nor for a limited period of time. In time the practice of slavery became an economic factor for the labor-intensive tobacco and cotton plantations of the South.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Virginia
Tobacco cultivation and exports formed an essential component of the American colonial economy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Tobacco plantations were distinct from other cash crops in terms of agricultural demands, trade, slave labor, and plantation culture. Many influential American revolutionaries, including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, owned tobacco plantations, and were financially devastated by debt to British tobacco merchants shortly before the American Revolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_in_the_American_Colonies
So, tobacco triggered the American Revolution, leading to America's independence. But tobacco farming needed slave labor. In this context, the habit of smoking and existence of African Americas in the US today are two symbolic vestiges of the glorious American Revolution.
Without tobacco, originally from native Americans, and slaves from Africa, there might not have been independent America.
So, whenever you smoke a cigarette, you must be thankful to African Americans.
But, it is truly amazing that tobaccos only consumed by native Americans before the arrival of Columbus at the American Continent have so widely penetrated into the whole world over centuries.
Global Tobacco Industry
Published on December 14th, 2010 11:35
Global Tobacco Industry sells approximately 6 trillion cigarettes annually.
Last year the total value of global tobacco market was approximately $614 billion.
Excluding China, about a half of the international tobacco market is operated by the four largest public tobacco corporations, in accordance with British American Tobacco report.
The BAT’s report provides the following numbers concerning the market share for the last year:
Phillip Morris International (PMI) -16%
British American Tobacco (BAT) - 13%
Japan Tobacco International (JTI) - 11%
Imperial Tobacco - 6%
http://www.tobaccopub.net/articles/global-tobacco-industry
In addition, it is said that tobaccos were brought into Japan in the late 16th century or the early 17th century by Portuguese or Spaniards who sailed to Japan for trade or Christian missions.
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Mat 10:19 But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.
Mat 10:20 For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.