American Tobacco and European Consumers

The huge European craving for tobacco was why seventeenth-century Chesapeake colonies prospered. As the Europeans continued to demand greater amounts of tobacco, the Chesapeake colonies continued to supply more from their ever-increasing crops of tobacco. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, tobacco was an expensive habit, because it was scarce. In 1603, England had only imported about 25,000 pounds of tobacco, but by 1700, England had imported nearly 40 million pounds. This huge increase in the supply of tobacco caused the price of tobacco to become much cheaper. A quantity of tobacco that had been sold for a dollar in 1600 now cost less than two and a half cents by 1700.

Many Europeans became addicted to the intoxicating nature of tobacco, but there were a few who loathed it. One of these few was England's King James I. He delcared that smoking was, "A custome loathsomme to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resmebling the horrible...smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse." James did everything he could to stop smoking, but it was a lost cause. Ironically, when the Spaniards first brought tobacco to Europe, physicians praised it as a wonder drug, saying “This precious herb is so general a human need not only for the sick but for the healthy.”