e so long done, in setting forth
the adventures of this great man or that, in dwelling upon the details
of political struggles or recounting the horrors of war. All these are
but surface indications of the deeper movements underneath, movements in
every case brought about by economic developments.

But this interpretation of history is by no means universally accepted.
While admitting readily that the conditions surrounding the production
and exchange of useful commodities have affected profoundly the course
of events, many historians deny that they give the key to every
important movement. We must study also the progress of human thought, of
religion, of politics, or our conception of history will be warped and
imperfect. How is it possible to explain the French religious wars of
the Sixteenth century by the theory of economic causes? In what way does
it account for the rebellion of Virginia and North Carolina and Maryland
against the British government in 1775? How can one deny that the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln affected profoundly the course of
American history?

These efforts to simplify the meaning of human events have often led to
error, have stressed certain events too strongly, have minimized others.
The complexity of history is self-evident; we must for the present at
least content ourselves with complex interpretations of it. If there be
any great underlying principles which explain all, they have yet to be
discovered.

Thus it would be folly in the study of colonial Virginia to blind
ourselves to the importance of various non-economic factors, the love of
freedom which the settlers brought with them from England, their
affection for the mother country, the influence of the Anglican church.
Yet it is obvious that we cannot understand the colony, its social
structure, its history, its development unless we have a clear insight
into the economic forces which operated upon it. These Englishmen,
finding themselves in a new country, surrounded by conditions
fundamentally different from those to which they had been accustomed,
worked out a new and unique society, were themselves moulded into
something different.

And in colonial Virginia history there is a key, which though it may not
explain all, opens the door to much that is fundamental. This key is
tobacco. The old saying that the story of Virginia is but the story of
tobacco is by no means a gross exaggeration. It was this Indian plant,
so despised