ivelihood--tobacco.

From the first, tobacco had been their staple product. It was
Virginia's principal export crop. It was used as money. Salaries of
ministers and civil officers were paid with it. Bounty for wolves
and Indian scalps were offered in it and necessary equipment was
bought with it.

However, due to English navigation laws forbidding the colonists to
export to other countries, by 1682 England became over-supplied with
tobacco and the planters soon began to feel the effect of this
surplus. Growers began to go deeper and deeper into debt.

Major Robert Beverly and William Fitzhugh, young planter-lawyer from
this area, concluded along with other prominent men that the
solution lay in some type of crop control but England refused. She
did not want to lose the two shillings tax on each hogshead of
tobacco. She advised the colonists to wait until Thomas, Lord
Culpeper, the titular governor of the colony returned to Virginia.

Lord Culpeper had received the titular grant to all of this area
and a great deal more besides. He was happy in England, however, and
not at all anxious to come to Virginia. He was 47 years old at the
time and described as "able, lazy, unscrupulous".

While waiting for his return, the people became desperate. Taking
hoes and farm tools, they roamed the countryside pulling up and
cutting tobacco plants wherever they went. Some destroyed their own
crops. The county militia was called out and plant cutting was
brought under control but by this time 30,000 to 50,000 pounds of
tobacco had been destroyed.

A few months later the people again became impatient and the
government in Jamestown reacted by declaring the destruction of
tobacco "open and actual rebellion". It promised a reward of 2000
lbs. of tobacco for information and promised to pardon the
"squealer".

Finally, in December, Thomas, Lord Culpeper, departed from London
and the arms of his mistress. He was briefed by the Privy Council
before he left and as soon as he arrived in Virginia declared the
offense to be treason. He had several planters executed as examples
and granted amnesty to almost every plant cutter who would take the
oath of loyalty to the king. There were approximately twenty men
from this general area who took the oath.

In the meantime economic conditions improved for the colonists. The
English began dumping their surplus tobacco upon the continent of
Europe and the diminished colonial supply found a quick m