USA > Kentucky > History of Kentucky, Volume II > Part 83
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1 Kentucky Geological Survey, Vol. 2, p. 9, 1857.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
cast on the raging waters, would help somehow to still the tempest or make the fury of the storm less harmful. Whenever the Indians made a treaty or transacted other important business affecting the interests of their tribe, they smoked a pipe, and passed it, as a sort of loving cup, from hand to hand, treating the solemn and soothing act as a seal of confirmation.
The Spaniards early learned to smoke, and the French who visited the North American shores acquired the habit. The explorers carried small quantities of tobacco when they returned to their home ports, and by example and instruction initiated the use of the plant by smoking in Western Europe. Jules Nicot carried some of the dried leaves to France, and the plant became known to botanists as Nicot's plant, or Nicotiana tobacum. Its introduction into France was about the year 1561, and it was soon in great demand. People not only smoked it but chewed it, and ground it into dust and snuffed it.
Ralph Lane carried some tobacco to London in 1586, where it was used first as a medicine, but soon became a luxury and was made fashion- able by Sir Walter Raleigh. He and his friends often met at the Pied Bull and Mermaid Taverns to smoke their pipes. This social indulgence was at first called "drinking tobacco," since the smoke was swallowed or inhaled and then expelled through the nostrils.
Before 1607, the year of the Jamestown settlement, tobacco plants were growing extensively in European gardens from seed brought from America. It was early observed that the plant grew in different varieties in the Western Hemisphere. The Virginia plant, known to the Indians as "apooke" or "uppowoc," is described by Strachey 2 as being poor and weak in comparison with that of the West Indies. Its height was less than three feet, its bloom yellow, and the leaf short, thick and rounding at the upper end. The whole plant was dried over a fire, or sometimes in the sun, and leaves, stems and stalks were crumbled to powder. But under the cultivation of the colonists, the quality of the Virginia leaf rapidly improved, and it was soon preferred by English consumers above that of any other locality.
The first settlers of Virginia grew rich through the cultivation of the plant. It became their exclusive occupation. The colony was virtually founded upon it, and through tobacco its permanence was insured. Laws, habits, customs, social relations, the progress of the state, all were af- fected by it. Tobacco soon became the recognized currency of the col- ony ; all values were reckoned by it.
While the Spaniards were the first of the European discoverers of the plant, there has been much dispute as to which nation first began its culture, and whether the plant was cultivated first in the Old World or in the New. It seems to have been in use by man in the remotest an- tiquity, and its origin has been traced in China, Persia and the East Indies. But however this may be, it seems certain that from time imme- morial, in the Valley of the James, the red man was acquainted with the soothing qualities, the pleasing virtues of the "witching weed." Not- withstanding its early introduction and use in England, it is a singular circumstance that in all the works of Shakespeare there appears no allu- sion to it, although his contemporaries among the British dramatists, particularly Ben Johnson, not infrequently refer to the practice of smok- ing. Thomas Jefferson has called attention to the fact that the first colonists failed to record whether tobacco was of spontaneous growth in Virginia, or whether tillage was always necessary to its production. He ventured the surmise that it was of tropical origin and had been gradually transmitted from tribe to tribe until it reached the James River region of Virginia.3 Whether indigenous or not, and whether of
2 Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, pp. 121, 122.
$ Notes on Virginia, p. 41.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
spontaneous growth in the soil of the country, it is a significant fact that even today, when so much tobacco is produced in the United States and when it has been a staple crop for more than 300 years, one does not observe it springing up by the roadside as if it were an ordinary weed which spread without the intervention of the hand of man.4
It was not until 1612 that the cultivation of tobacco, even in patches of a few plants, began among the English settlers. That the consump- tion of tobacco in England was already very large may be inferred from the fact that it was supposed, only two years after the experiment of 1612, that the amount used entailed a national outlay of £200,000 sterling per annum.5
The first colonist who was led to make a trial of the weed which was to exercise such an enormous influence on the history of Virginia and the United States was the celebrated John Rolfe, the husband of Pocahontas. His attention is said to have been called to it by the fact that he was himself addicted to the habit of smoking. His Indian bride, the beautiful Princess Pocahontas, may also have had something to do with it. Like the squaws and Indian maidens of the tribe of the powerful chieftain, Powhatan, she was trained to the culture of tobacco and accounted it an accomplishment to be able to raise good tobacco. As the favorite daughter of The Powhatan she had a "sizable garden" assigned to her, and there worked industriously among her plants. Some months after the marriage of Pocahontas to Rolfe, Powhatan granted to his English son-in-law a tract of land on the James River. Included in this gift was the garden of Pocahontas, a cleared space having soil particularly favor- able to the growth of tobacco. This place, located on the banks of the James, afterwards acquired the name of "Varina," from the supposed resemblance of the tobacco produced there to the celebrated Spanish variety cultivated near Varina, in the Spanish Province of Columbis. in South America." Rolfe's success with the tobacco grown on his plan- tation was such that it greatly stimulated the industry in Virginia.
The finest tobacco was spoken of as the long sort, which the colonists were especially commanded to cultivate, all other kinds being strictly prohibited. The marketing of "seconds," "slips," "ground-leaves" and trash was expressly forbidden. The manner of curing the leaf for a long time was very defective. Knowledge acquired during a long course of time has shown that half the virtue of the plant lies in its handling after the leaves are gathered, but the Virginia planters were slow to recognize this fact. They even failed to profit by the experience of the Indians, which had demonstrated the expediency of redrying by means of artificial heat.
In order to improve the quality, laws and regulations were promul- gated, but seldom rigidly enforced, from the very beginning of the in- dustry in Colonial Virginia. The first statutory regulation, looking to the destruction of the lowest grades, was adopted in 1619, at the meet- ing of the first Legislative Assembly ever convened in America. All tobacco was required to be brought to a central depot or storehouse, known as the Cape Merchant, and there subjected to an examination or inspection by four viewers. The leaves found to be worse in quality than those appraised at 18d a pound were to be burnt on the spot. The authorities charged with the duty of enforcing this drastic provision, however, were inclined to be lenient, and it was rarely carried out with literal exactness. This penalty was one of the many that were periodi-
+ Bruce's Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. I, pp. 160, 165; 210-212.
5 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 211.
6 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 218, and Virginia Historical Register, Vol. I, No. IV, p. 161.
.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
cally imposed by the successive legislatures with the view of improving the quality of the product.7
It is of interest to note that this practice of burning the worthless or "refused" tobacco was carried into the first general tobacco inspection law adopted in Kentucky. By that law, approved February 6, 1798, it was provided that after the refused tobacco had been first picked over by specially authorized "pickers" employed at the inspection warehouse, and that part found merchantable set aside from the rest, "the inspectors shall cause the tobacco which shall by them be judged unfit to pass, to be burnt in the funnel erected or to be erected at such warehouse." 8 This heroic method of getting rid of low grade and unmerchantable tobacco remained in force for ten years and was not repealed until Feb- ruary 24, 1808, by an act of that date to take effect on the first of the following June. The language of this act was that "no tobacco hereafter refused by inspectors shall be by them burnt, but that the owner of all such refused tobacco may dispose of the same as he may deem proper." To this was added the proviso, however, that release from burning should not "authorize the repacking of any refused tobacco, after picking, in casks or hogsheads of crop or transfer tobacco." 9
In 1620, production in Virginia reached 55,000 pounds and, at $54.75 per 100 pounds, tobacco brought the colonists $30,112. As the popula- tion grew and new settlements were made, the crop increased propor- tionately, not only in Virginia but in Maryland and the Carolinas as well. From the James River Valley its cultivation was extended to the York, Rappahannock and Potomac River settlements, and then along the Chesa- peake clearings in Maryland, and southward into the Albemarle and Pamlico districts in Carolina. The supply grew so large that it outran the demand, quality was sacrificed to quantity, and the colonists fre- quently suffered from overproduction and consequent low prices. These recurring depressions got to be a serious matter, particularly in Vir- ginia and Maryland, where tobacco constituted the chief staple and formed the only important, if not exclusive, commercial crop. After 1620 the general downward trend of prices is indicated by the following table :
Year
Cents Per Pound 6.08
1639
6.08
1647
1688
3.08
1703
2.03
1730
1.52
1744
4.06
1790
3.40
Various means were employed by the colonists to check this down- ward course of prices and avert depressions. Unsuccessful attempts were made from time to time, particularly in the years 1666 and 1667, through the Colonial assemblies, to get the planters of Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina to cease planting altogether for a single season, but mutual jealousy and suspicion frustrated the plan. Another method re- sorted to was to limit by statute, not the acres but the maximum number of plants each planter might cultivate. What in modern times has come to be called a "cut-out" was then denominated a "cessation," and what would now be described as a limitation or restriction of the acreage of tobacco to be put in cultivation was then termed a "stint." But the trouble was that neither a "cessation" nor a "stint" seemed to work or to
7 Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I, pp. 303-307.
8 Bradford's Laws of Kentucky, Vol. I, pp. 128-152, and Littell's Laws of Ken- tucky, Vol. I, pp. 131-161.
9 Littell's Laws, Vol. III, p. 526.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
bring about higher prices or a better return-the result desired.10 There was continuous legislation designated to regulate the size and weight of casks or hogsheads, the places of. storage, the manner of inspection, and the methods of packing and shipping abroad.
Early in the year 1682 a considerable number of planters in three or four counties of Virginia, Robert Beverly, clerk of the Assembly and one of the first of Virginia historians, being foremost among them, petitioned the lieutenant and acting governor, Sir Henry Chicheley, to call a session of the General Assembly to pass an act "for a cessation of planting for one year." This Assembly met in April, 1682, "but, after some time spent in fruitless debates, were dissolved and another sum- moned." Thereupon many discontented persons in Gloucester, New Kent and Middlesex, three of the petitioning counties, fell to cutting up tobacco plants, to prevent which the deputy governor issued several proc- lamations. The ringleaders were arrested. Three were hanged, the rest pardoned, one on the peculiar condition that he build a bridge. For nearly two years, it is said, the chief public event in the colony was an undignified chase after Beverly, the clerk of the Assembly and one of the chief offenders in the tobacco-cutting riot, with varied episodes of escape and recapture. Finally, in May, 1684, after having been appre- hended, he was bound over to keep the peace and set at liberty.11
Fifty years later, in Maryland, there occurred a similar outbreak in Prince George's County, as is shown by the archives of that province. The trouble there seemed to be provoked by the persistent failure of the Maryland Assembly to adopt and put into execution a suitable inspection law, by means of which the quality of the crops exported might be con- trolled. The date of the outbreak is fixed by a stern proclamation issued by Governor Samuel Ogle on May 9, 1732, denouncing the rioters and offering a reward of £50 for the apprehension and conviction of any of the "principal offenders." 12 After an exchange of formal "Speeches" and responsive "Addresses" between the governor and the two Houses of the General Assembly of Maryland, that body, at its session of 1732, passed a law "To prevent cutting up Tobacco Plants, destroying of Tobacco and Tobacco Houses, and for ascertaining the Punishment of Criminals guilty of the said Offences." For the offense of cutting up or destroying any tobacco or tobacco plants belonging to another, the guilty party was subject to "forfeit and pay unto the Party grieved One Hundred Pounds Sterling, and suffer Six Months Imprisonment, with- out Bail or Mainprize," and made answerable in damages to the party aggrieved. To this it was added: "That any Person or Persons who shall wilfully burn any Tobacco belonging to any other Person, whether hang- ing, or in bulk, or packed, or any Tobacco House or Houses, having therein any Tobacco hanging, or in bulk, or packed, and ever Aider and Abettor of such Offender, shall suffer Death as a Felon, without Benefit of Clergy." This drastic enactment was continued in force until 1744.13
In North Carolina, as in Virginia and Maryland, tobacco was the staple in which payments were made. It was the basis of all bills of credit. But an export duty of a penny a pound was imposed on all tobacco sold in the inter-colonial trade. The enforcement of this duty (1672-1677) caused first murmuring and then open and armed resistance among the settlers.14
From these early instances of disorder in the three principal South-
10 Hening, Statutes at Large of Virginia, Vol. II, Preface, page v, and pp. 190, 221, 222, 224, 228, 229, 232, 251, 252.
11 Boyle's English Colonies in America, Vol. I, pp. 192-194, and 261-262; Hening's Statutes at Large of Virginia, Vol. II, pp. 561-562.
12 Maryland Archives, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 7-9.
13 Maryland Archives, Vol. XXXII, pp. 370-371 ; 372-373; 450-451; and 530-531.
14 Ashe, History of North Carolina, Vol. I, pp. 113, 115-117.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
ern colonies, it is easy to see that the so-called "night-riding," which transpired throughout the tobacco belt of Kentucky in 1907-1908, was not without ancient precedent.
After repeated and ineffectual attempts to secure unanimity of action on the part of the lord proprietary, his provincial governor and council and the General Assembly of Maryland, that province, in 1747, secured an inspection law modeled after an earlier enactment of Virginia, which had proved highly beneficial, and thenceforward down to the dawn of the Revolution the condition of the tobacco trade in Maryland was de- cidedly improved.15 Throughout the entire period preceding the Revo- lution it is interesting to note that reference may now and then be found to "the indisposition of the planters to cooperate," a weakness which has but recently been overcome to advantage by the tobacco growers of Ken- tucky and neighboring states.
In the legislative proceedings of Virginia of 1623, all contracts and dues are estimated in tobacco instead of money, and, notwithstanding this was found inconvenient, owing to the fluctuations in the market value, the lack of specie forced the inhabitants to resort to a system of barter, and tobacco, as the staple product of the country, became ulti- mately the recognized medium of exchange. Legal dues were commuted for tobacco at a fixed rate. The same thing happened in Maryland, and only to a less degree in the Carolinas.16
That this somewhat primitive system lasted until the separation of Kentucky from the parent State of Virginia is sharply indicated by a law which was passed at the very first meeting of the General Assembly of Kentucky, held at Lexington in the month of June, 1792. By that act, approved June 28, 1792, it was expressly provided "That all officers' fees which by the laws now in force are chargeable and receivable in tobacco shall in future be charged in money and collected in the currency of this state; and for every pound of tobacco allowed by any existing laws to any officers, witness, or other person, as a compensation for any serv- ices, they shall in lieu thereof be entitled to receive one penny current money of Kentucky ; that for all fines and forfeitures in tobacco, imposed by any law of Virginia in force in this state, suits may be instituted and recovered in money at the same rate." 17
England's colonial policy favored the cultivation of tobacco. To insure a monopoly to the American planter, tobacco cultivation was for- bidden in England and Ireland.
It has, indeed, been broadly stated that the history of the development of tobacco in the American colonies is the history of the progress of liberty among English-speaking peoples.
Originally tobacco was put up for the market in rolls of 100 pounds. Then the cask or hogshead was introduced. These ranged from 500 to 1,500 pounds in weight. Tobacco was brought to the licensed warehouses, usually by the river side or sea shore, where it was weighed, inspected, assorted and graded by the official inspectors, and the planter was given an "inspection receipt" or "crop note" or "transfer certificate," which were in most respects equivalent to an ordinary warehouse receipt of modern times. These "notes" or "receipts" were legal tender for public dues and officers' fees and served the uses of commercial paper, the planter either selling his notes or receipts to a tobacco merchant, exchang- ing them for other commodities, or using them to discharge his debts.
For a long time it was quite common throughout the tobacco-growing colonies to roll the tobacco in hogsheads from the plantation to the cen-
16 Maryland Archives, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 308-311; Maryland as a Proprietary Province, by Newton D. Mereness, Chap. IV, "Industrial Development."
16 Hening, Statutes at Large of Virginia, Vol. I, p. 122; Doyle, English Colonies in America, Vol. I, p. 193.
17 Littell's Laws of Kentucky, Vol. I, p. 88. Chapter XX.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
tral market or shipping port. For this purpose the hogsheads were made closer in the joints than if they were intended to be conveyed by wagon, and were plentifully hooped with strong hickory hoops. Two hickory saplings were then affixed to the butts of the hogshead to serve as shafts, and between these shafts a horse, or sometimes two or more in tandem, were then harnessed as if to a cart or wagon. The rough, meandering paths made across the open fields and through the primeval forests in the movements of these ponderous cylinders were commonly called "roll- ing-roads." 18
In course of time many species or varieties of tobacco came to be known to commerce, but in the North American colonies there were three prevailing types grown and marketed: (I) sweet-scented (light- weight); (2) Orinoco (heavyweight) ; and (3) Pryor (medium weight). The Orinoco took its name from the river of that name in Venezuela, the Pryor from the name of a specially successful Virginia planter. The sweet-scented and Orinoco were generally grown on river-bottom land, and it is of interest to observe how these two brands are specifically mentioned in the form of crop receipt prescribed by the first general inspection law enacted by the General Assembly of Kentucky in Feb- ruary, 1798.19 As appears from this early statute, Kentucky also in- herited from Old Virginia the custom of issuing "crop-notes" or "crop receipts" for tobacco deposited in the public warehouses.
The progress and expansion in the production of leaf tobacco in the American colonies may be exhibited by the following table :
Year
Pounds
Year
Pounds
1618
20,000
1688
29,147,000
1619
40,000
1691
36,000,000
1620
55,000
1706
28,858,000
1621
60,000
1745
38,230,000
1627
500,000
I753
48,263,000
1639
1,500,000
1765
75,482,000
1641
1,300,000
I774
101,828,617
1664
23.750,000
1790
I 30,000,000
At the end of the Colonial period, tobacco had reached the high water mark of its importance. In 1790 it ranked second in value on the list of exports and amounted to $4,349,567, or 211/2 per cent of the total ex- ports ($20,000,000) from the United States. It was exceeded only by flour, which was valned at $4,591,293, and in 1791 it exceeded flour as an export crop. At this time over one-half of the total Southern popu- lation was either engaged in or depended on the cultivation of tobacco for a livelihood.
The effects of the embargo and the War of 1812 were disastrous to the tobacco planters. In 1806 our tobacco exports were 83,186 hogs- heads. In 1808 they fell to 9.576 hogsheads. In 1810, 84,134 hogsheads were exported, but in 1814 only 3,125 hogsheads.
From 1790 to 1840 the tobacco industry was stationary. It was not until 1840 that our exports of the weed equalled those of 1790. Im- provements, however, in the curing of tobacco gave the industry new life. Prior to 1812 most tobacco was cured in the open air. Subsequently wood fires were used for curing, and in 1837 charcoal was introduced. A new type known as "yellow bright," a popular leaf which originated in North Carolina, created new markets in Europe. In a single decade, from 1850 to 1860, tobacco production increased 115 per cent.
In Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, during Colonial days, and
18 Tobacco, Its History, etc., by E. R. Billings, pp. 72-74; Old Times in the Colo- nies, by Chas. Carleton Coffin.
19 Littell's Laws of Kentucky, Vol. II, p. 146.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
later in Kentucky and Tennessee, tobacco was a barometer which mea- sured the prosperity of the people. Exports, which in 1790 amounted to $4,349,569, in 1840 reached $9,883,957, and in 1860 were $15,906,547. The per capita wealth in the South in 1790 was much greater than that of the North, being for the free population, $137.98 for New England, $14- 41 for the Middle States, and $217.07 for the Southern States. Th South was not only the largest tobacco producing section of this cou. try, but of the world, and its leadership in productive wealth stamped upon the South its chief economic features.
The history of exportation from 1790 to 1865 is summarized in the following table, taken from the Tenth Census, showing exports of tobacco by typical five-year periods :
Years
IIogsheads
1790-94
465,005
1819-23 . 402,403
1833-37
. 474,759
1843-47
.688,424
1857-61
811,454
The soil in the older states having become impoverished by the im- provident methods of cultivation in vogue, the unvarying pursuit of a single crop, with no fertilizer and no rotation of crops, by the close of the American Revolution there had developed an urgent need of taking up new land in the untilled wilderness of the West. The pressure of this necessity constituted one of the strongest stimulants to westward migration from Virginia over the Alleghanies into Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio.
Captain Christopher Gist, an agent for the "Ohio Company," came down the Ohio River and found tobacco being grown by a tribe of Indians at Shawneetown, the present site of Portsmouth, Ohio. During this same period, tobacco was being raised by the Shawnees at their Town of Es-Kippa-Ki-Thi-Ki, at the present site of Indian Old Fields, on the waters of Lulbegrud Creek, in Clark County, Kentucky. This locality was visited in the winter of 1752-53 by John Finley or Findlay, a trader of Pennsylvania, with three or four companions, and was revisited by Findlay, accompanied by Daniel Boone and others, in June, 1769 20
From the presence of pipes of stone, clay and other material in the mounds, earth-works and other monuments left by the mound builders, it is evident that tobacco was known in prehistoric times in the Ohio Valley and that its use in this region antedated the coming of the Indians.
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