By the end of the 1600's and the beginning of the 1700's, tobacco was becoming an important part of Virginia's economy. As more and more farmers began to grow tobacco, they needed more and more help with their plantations. Here's why: Tobacco is a very labor-intensive crop. That means that it took a lot of work to grow tobacco. It took about 15 months to plant, harvest , dry, and ship the tobacco to merchants in England. Seeds would be planted in January, and the dried tobacco would not be shipped until the following spring. Growing tobacco was very hard on the soil. Tobacco plants use up all of the nutrients in the soil after 2 or 3 years. Instead of fertilizing the soil or planting different crops, the farmers would plow a new field and rotate the fields every couple of years. This meant that they needed a lot of land. Tobacco prices began to drop in England. This meant that farmers would need to grow more tobacco if they wanted to make money. For these reasons, many plantation owners turned to slavery to furnish the labor on the plantation. Let's see why: 1. You and your group are slaves on a tobacco plantation. Your job is to harvest the tobacco, dry it, and pack it into barrels. 2. You have 10 minutes to load as many barrels as possible. These are the steps: a. "Pick" the tobacco. Cut the leaves off the picture of the tobacco plant. b. "Dry" the tobacco. Color each of the leaves brown. c. "Pack" the tobacco. Put the dried tobacco leaves in the barrel. After the 10 minutes is up, answer the following questions. 1. How many barrels of tobacco was your "plantation" able to pack? 2. Which teams were able to pack the most barrels? 3. Why were those teams able to pack more? 4. Why would owning slaves be helpful to a tobacco farmer? 5. Why would owning slaves be better than using indentured servants? Source: Ecomonic Aspects of Tobacco During the Colonial Period, 1612-1776. www.tobacco.org/History/colonialtobacco.html