Tobacco, Slavery, and Nzinga

      The colonies in North America were all in the control of the English, now. They were prospering, and had made their mother country prosperous, too. One of the main products of the colonies was "green gold," or tobacco. John Rolfe, the man who was said to have married Pocahontas, knew that the Indians grew their own kind of tobacco, but the colonists who had tried it did not like it. They said that it was weak and bitter. Rolfe had a few tobacco seeds from Europe and he  planted them in a fertile patch of land. When it was ready to be tried, it smoked wonderfully. Rolfe sent some tobacco over to England, and it was instantly popular, because, up until this point, the English had had to buy their tobacco from the Spanish, who they were at war with. Although there were many smokers of tobacco in England, King James did not approve of it. He wrote an essay about the harmful effect of smoking. As might have been expected, no one listened.
      The tobacco was a valuable crop for the colonies, but it took a lot of work to raise. First, the seeds had to be planted, pruned, and weeded by hand. Caterpillars, worms, and slugs had to be picked off the leaves. Then, when the plants were fully grown, the leaves had to be picked and hung to dry for a long time. Next, the stems had to be taken off and thrown away. The leaves needed to be packed into barrels and shipped to Europe. All the work was done by hand.
       In the beginning, the farmers used indentured servants to work in the tobacco fields. Indentured servants were people who had their voyage to America paid for by a company in Europe. Then, when they were in the New World, they had to work for the company for a certain amount of time for the company. After that,  they would be free to start a life of their own. But as the tobacco became an increasingly important export, plantation owners needed more workers. They started making their war prisoners  slaves. They also got slaves from other African countries which sold them their prisoners.
      Soon, however, the colonies wanted more slaves, and so the country of Portugal invaded a small country of Africa called Ndomba. The king of this country fought a war against the Portugese. Soon, his son became king in his place. Nzinga, the prince's sister, fought in the war. But then the prince refused to fight any longer. Soon after, he mysteriously died. Nzinga became queen. She made a treaty with the Portugese king to leave the African kingdom alone as long as they returned all the Portugese captives, but it was not kept for very long. They forced her out of her country. When this happened, Nzinga simply invaded the nearby country of Matamba. Her soldiers would not let the Portugese take slaves from any other West African kingdom, either. The Portugese finally gave up. They told the queen she could rule in peace. When Nzinga died, she was remembered as the queen who saved her country from slavery, but the country of Portugal was not impressed. After she died, they invaded Ndomba and two other African countries. These remained under their rule until 1975.