Strong, Sweet and Pleasant...

John Rolfe of the Jamestown colony, discovered a plant in 1613 that he called "strong, sweet and pleasant as any other under the sun." He discovered that Virginia's good bottom land would produce 500 pounds of tobacco to the acre, worth 5 shillings a pound to the British motherland - a  source of wealth to rival that of Spain.

Soon the desire for more land to plant in tobacco required expansion of the colony - that meant incursion into Indian lands and the beginning of the problems with the Native Americans.  In 1622 a massacre killed 357 Englishmen.  In retaliation Indians were virtually wiped out from the coastal lowlands.

With the obstacles eliminated, migration began again - a pattern of colonization of the continent had begun.  Westward migration to the rivers, to the first waterfalls from the sea, then spreading out over the interior.  The colony of Maryland had been settled to the north and in 1634, joined the colonists from Jamestown.  By 1670s the tidewater of  Virginia and Maryland were well-settled.

Next time... South to the "Carolinas"
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Today in Pioneer History:  On August 17, 1785 Jonathan Trumbull, governor of both the colony and state of Connecticut, dies in Lebanon, Connecticut, where he is buried. The Trumbulls’ son John, earned fame as the “Painter of the American Revolution,” with a series of patriotic-themed paintings, including a rendering of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.