Virginia tobacco trade in the 1650s

Virginia tobacco trade in the 1650s

Editorial history

31/10/12: CSG created page

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Purpose of this page

This week (W/C 29/10/12) Philip Hnatkovich and Colin Greenstreet are sponsoring a dedicated page on the Virginia tobacco trade in the 1650s. All project team members, whether associates, facilitators or advisors, are encouraged to contribute to this page.

For an example of how such a page can be developed see: C17th Arctic whaling

Many of you will have worked on depositions over the last nine weeks which have made mention of tobacco, the tobacco trade, and of Virginia, so now is your chance to dig back through your past transcriptions and to help pull together some themes.

We will put up a short summary of the historiography of the Virginia tobacco trade, so that you have some context in which to post your material, and to see if we are coming up with anything novel.

Let's look in our transcriptions to see, for example

• Where tobacco was being shipped to apart from London (Teneriff, Genoa, New England)?

• How it was packed and shipped?

• The timing of the tobacco ships' arrivals in the James River and their return across the Atlantic?

If you see a theme in the material, then create a new subheading on the Virginia tobacco page and set out the theme, your evidence, and most importantly the case name, deposition name, and folio numbers.

We will also post up a set of voyage accounts for a ship carrying tobacco from Virginia so that you can get a sense of the economics of shipping tobacco

Volunteers to help Philip and Colin would be greatly appreciated - please get in touch with us by email (Philip: pjh206@psu.edu; Colin: colin.greenstreet@gmail.com)

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HCA 13/71 cases mentioning tobacco

Case: ?Naphthalia White John Thomas and others marines of the shipp the delight of Plymouth against John Griddon master of the sayd shipp
Deposition: 1. Thomas Serjeant of Millbrooke in the County of Cornwall Boatswayne of the sayd shipp the Delight aged 35
Details: Barbadoes to Genoa (starting at Plymouth). Was originally meant to be trading trip from Plymouth to Barcelona to Majorca and back to Plymouth; In Barbadoes half the crew of the delight refused to go to Genoa as instructed by the Master
Commodities: Sugar; ginger, Tobacco; and other goods
Folio: HCA 13/71 f.27r

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Historiography

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