00:05Gold is the most excellent. Gold is a treasure.
00:10He who possesses it does all he wishes to in this world, and he succeeds in helping souls into paradise.
00:19But in truth, should I meet with gold or spices in great quantity, I shall remain till I collect as much as possible.
00:27For this purpose, I am proceeding solely in quest of them.
00:32The Writings of Christopher Columbus, 1492-1503
00:44At the dawn of the 17th century, the Kingdom of Spain held a virtual monopoly on the lucrative tobacco trade.
00:53Spaniards colonized much of the southern territory in the New World, where the climate was more favorable to tobacco growth.
01:01Great Britain's colonies, which were located in the Mid-Atlantic and New England area, had failed to produce a successful crop, which negatively affected the balance of trade between England and Spain.
01:15As consumption of tobacco increased, a number of English businessmen seized upon the opportunity to undercut Spanish imports by growing tobacco in the colony of Virginia.
01:28A popular strain of tobacco, which contained high nicotine, was being grown in Trinidad, but Spain had outlawed the sale of the plant's seeds to non-Spaniards.
01:41An Englishman named John Rolfe had somehow obtained a batch of the seeds, and in 1613, he established the Verena Farms plantation in Virginia.
01:54Later, his plantation successfully produced four barrels of Orinco brand tobacco leaf.
02:01Rolfe, whose English-born wife and child died in a shipwreck, later married the Native American woman, Pocahontas.
02:10New plantations quickly sprang up along the James River, and soon the Virginia colony was exporting vast quantities of tobacco to England.
02:23New plantations quickly sprang up along the James River, and soon the new plant is being grown in the world.
02:25New plantations quickly sprang up along the James River.
02:26New plantations quickly sprang up along the James River.
02:27New plantations quickly sprang up along the James River.
02:28Loving and kind father and mother, this is to let you understand that I, your child, am in a most heavy case by reason of this country.
02:43It is such that it causeth much sickness, as the scurvy and the bloody flux,
02:51which maketh the body very poor and weak.
02:56There is nothing to comfort us.
03:00A mouthful of bread for a penny loaf must serve four men, which is most pitiful.
03:08We live in fear of the enemy every hour, for we are in great danger.
03:16We came but twenty for the merchants.
03:19They are half dead now, and we look every hour, when two more should go.
