Rolfe, John
May 1585
Norfolk, England
March 22, 1622
Jamestown, Virginia
Virginia colonist, tobacco planter
" . . . as pleasant, sweet, and strong . . . as any under the sunne."
John Rolfe.
John Rolfe is perhaps best known today as the Jamestown colonist who married Pocahontas (see entry), the Powhatan "princess," in order to seal an alliance between English settlers and the Powhatan tribe. Yet Rolfe had an even greater impact on Virginia. In 1612, two years after he arrived in the colony, he perfected a strain of tobacco for export to England. (Tobacco is a broad-leaf plant that is grown in warm climates. In the seventeenth century it was harvested, dried, and shredded for use in smoking in pipes. Native Americans had long been using tobacco in this manner. Today tobacco is also rolled in small, thin pieces of paper to make cigarettes.) Soon tobacco became a staple Virginia product as well as the first profitable crop to be grown on the mainland of North America. Rolfe's success resulted in a booming export business and laid the foundation for the trading policies of the British Crown (monarchy) in America. His experiments with tobacco crops also brought about profound economic and social changes that affected both the Virginia colonists and their Powhatan neighbors.
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