Leaf, Land, and People

Worldwide demand for tobacco led European colonists to grow it almost exclusively in colonial Prince George’s County, where planters sold the crop to Europe and exchanged it for goods, and life revolved around its planting, cultivation, cutting, and curing. Tobacco brought opportunity for some because planters saw promise in the area’s abundant, fertile land, but its labor-intensive cultivation depended on enslaved Africans and African Americans whom planters forced to produce the cash crop. On small farms, everyone—free and enslaved, men and women, young and old—worked year round according to tobacco’s growing cycle, and although large plantations might hold dozens or hundreds of enslaved people, small farmers typically owned one or two, with masters and slaves often working side by side, especially during the long hours of harvest. Social life on these farms involved frequent contact with nearby people, as planter men socialized while doing business, women regularly visited neighbors, and enslaved people, though their movement was restricted, ran errands for their masters and sometimes visited friends and family. By 1775, generations of subdivision had left many family farms unable to be divided further and remain profitable, fertile land had become scarce and expensive, white farmers starting out looked elsewhere, and after decades of growth Prince George’s County began to lose population. As the county’s dominant industry, tobacco’s success or failure could bring prosperity or ruin, its leaves served as money, and planters were required to sell their crop to Britain for manufactured British goods in good years, while in bad years taxation, tobacco inspection laws, low demand, weather, and pests could reduce profits or damage crops.

Fort Hunt, Virginia · United States