Wednesday, October 1, 2008

American Tobacco Summary

King James 1 urged that English colonies in the Southeastern area (called the Chesapeake colonies) were,"wholly built upon smoke. Englishmen that moved to Chesapeake weren't there to gain religious freedom, farmland, or wives. They were there to grow tobacco. The abundance of tobacco that the colonists could grow was so high that the cost went f4rom a dollar to two and a half cents. This makes it a no brainer why so many people smoked, It was a luxury that all of sudden became affordable, just like if caviar suddenly dropped to two dollars a pound. Everyone would be all over it! This also caused the people who made smoking utensils very rich because how do you smoke without a pipe, or something to light the pipe you had to buy to hold the tobacco in order to smoke it?
Because of the calming and relaxing properties of tobacco, it was also seen as a wonder drug. Exonerated physicians praised tobacco as something that had saved thousands of lives, and had the ability to save infinite amounts of lives later. They also said that it not only saved the lives of the sickly but also the healthy. Physicians of the time thought that it was so healthy that you should not take it to gain health after sickness but also in order to not become sick in the first place. This firmly contradicted the thoughts and feelings of a few Englishmen, including King James 1, who blatantly opposed tobacco with the comment,"A custome loathssome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible...smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse." Though he opposed tobacco so strongly, he lost in the end and tobacco became the largest fad in English history.

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