Summary of A.T.E.C

In the document American Tobacco and European Consumers, the author makes the point obvious that the largest reason England continued to ship people to American was the tobacco produced in Virginia. The original purpose for the venture into America was for gold, but settlers found that they could make a much better living growing the native tobacco and selling it to people in England for a tidy sum. Originally the tobacco shipped from Virginia cost so much that only the nobles and royalty of England could afford to indulge in it, but eventually plantations in America produced so much as to drive the price down enough to allow the common folk of England to be able to afford this drug. There were some who opposed the use of tobacco, such as King James I, but even more considered it a sort of miracle drug saying, “to seek to tell the virtues and greatness of this holy herb, the ailments which can by cured by it, and have been, the evils from which it has saved thousands would be to go on to infinity…This precious herb is so general a human need {that it is} not only for the sick but for the health.” The tobacco created many new jobs, such as pipe-making, which provided many people of England with jobs. Tobacco could be imbibed many ways, but the two most common were smoking and snuff.