Colonial American Agriculture
Early Beginnings in Virginia

Traveling to the Colonies

Colonists traveled from many European nations. Once in America, some farmers were able to own their own land for the first time. The colonists also had the chance to grow the crops that they wanted to. They believed that by colonizing North America they would have a better chance with growing warm weather crops. These warm weather crops included tobacco.

Joint stock companies bought land in the new colonies and used their ships to send people and supplied to the land. The only way that the new colonists would survive on the land was if they were able to adapt to new agrarian techniques. Colonists were mainly craftsmen and tradesmen while they were living in Europe, but their move to the New World meant that they would have to adapt in many ways to their new agrarian lifestyle.

Wolstenholme Towne

"Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds."

- Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, August 23, 1785

Tobacco

Tobacco was profitable for merchants in England, Scotland and Ireland. The colonists farmed the tobacco, which was a very labor-intensive crop. The raw material was then sold to the merchants for transportation, labor and processing. Tobacco was rarely used in it raw form and was often used after it had been processed. Thus a colonist successfully employed sailors, processors and tradesmen through his single crop.