American
settlers soon found tobacco to be a profitable export crop. It was
popular in Europe where tobacco-smoking and snuff-taking had become
fashionable. In Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, vast areas
were given over to tobacco.
Plantation owners imported large numbers of slaves to cultivate it,
dry its leaves and pack it to be transported to market. When prices
fell in the middle of the 17th century, some planters turned to producing
rice and sugar
cane.
(1) William
Box Brown, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown (1851)
My father and mother were left on the plantation; but I was taken
to the city of Richmond, to work in a tobacco manufactory, owned by
my old master's son William, who had received a special charge from
his father to take good care of me, and which charge my new master
endeavoured to perform. He told me if I would behave well he would
take good care of me and give me money to spend; he talked so kindly
to me that I determined I would exert myself to the utmost to please
him, and do just as he wished me in every respect. He furnished me
with a new suit of clothes, and gave me money to buy things to send
to my mother. One day I overheard him telling the overseer that his
father had raised me - that I was a smart boy and that he must never
whip me. I tried exceedingly hard to perform what I thought was my
duty, and escaped the lash almost entirely, although I often thought
the overseer would have liked to have given me a whipping, but my
master's orders, which he dared not altogether to set aside, were
my defence; so under these circumstances my lot was comparatively
easy.
Our overseer at that time was a coloured
man, whose name was Wilson Gregory; he was generally considered a
shrewd and sensible man, and, after the orders which my master gave
him concerning me, he used to treat me very kindly indeed, and gave
me board and lodgings in his own house. Gregory acted as book-keeper
also to my master, and was much in favour with the merchants of the
city and all who knew him; he instructed me how to judge of the qualities
of tobacco, and with the view of making me a more proficient judge
of that article, he advised me to learn to chew and to smoke which
I therefore did.
(2) Henry
Clay Bruce, Twenty-Nine Years a Slave (1895)
In January, 1846, with my older brothers I was hired to Judge Applegate,
who conducted a tobacco factory at Keytesville, Missouri. I was then
about ten years old. At Judge Applegate's I was kept busy every minute
from sunrise to sunset, without being allowed to speak a word to anyone.
I was too young then to be kept in such close confinement. It was
so prison-like to be compelled to sit during the entire year under
a large bench or table filled with tobacco, and tie lugs all day long
except during the thirty minutes allowed for breakfast and the same
time allowed for dinner. I often fell asleep. I could not keep awake
even by putting tobacco in my eyes. I was punished by the overseer,
a Mr. Blankenship, every time he caught me napping, which was quite
often during the first few months.
(3)
Francis
Fredric, Fifty Years of Slavery (1863)
My master had about 100 slaves, engaged chiefly
in the cultivation of tobacco, this and wheat being the staple produce
of Virginia at that time. The slaves had to work very hard in digging
the ground with what is termed a grub hoe. The slaves leave their
huts quite early in the morning, and work until late at night, especially
in the spring and fall. I have known them very often, when my master
has been away drinking, work all night long, husking Indian corn to
put into cribs.
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