Deputy Governor Sir Thomas Gates returns to…
August 1611 CE
Deputy Governor Sir Thomas Gates returns to Virginia on August 2 with two hundred and eighty people, provisions and cattle on six ships and assumes control, ruling that the fort must be strengthened.
John Rolfe, a businessman from London, had planned to become a planter upon arrival in Virginia, and had some new ideas about exporting tobacco for profit.
He knows that the native tobacco from Virginia is not liked by the English settlers, nor does it appeal to the market in England.
However, he has brought with him some seeds for several new strains of tobacco to experiment with.
The native tobacco is Nicotiana rustica.
Rolfe, using the sweeter strains from the island of Trinidad, is credited with being the first to commercially cultivate Nicotiana tabacum tobacco plants in North America in 1611; the export of this sweeter tobacco beginning in 1612 will help turn the Virginia Colony into a profitable venture.
The commercialization of tobacco by Rolfe within a few years will secure the settlement's long-term economic prosperity.
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