Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution., Revised Edition

The great Tidewater planters of mid-eighteenth-century Virginia were fathers of the American Revolution. Perhaps first and foremost, they were also anxious tobacco farmers, harried by a demanding planting cycle, trans-Atlantic shipping risks, and their uneasy relations with English agents. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and their contemporaries lived in a world that was dominated by questions of debt from across an ocean but also one that stressed personal autonomy. T. H. Breen's study of this tobacco culture focuses on how elite planters gave meaning to existence. He examines the value-laden relationships—found in both the fields and marketplaces—that led from tobacco to politics, from agrarian experience to political protest, and finally to a break with the political and economic system that they believed threatened both personal independence and honor. A rich history into the lives of the great tobacco planters of colonial Virginia. The great Tidewater planters of mid-eighteenth-century Virginia were fathers of the American Revolution. Perhaps first and foremost, they were also anxious tobacco farmers, harried by a demanding planting cycle, trans-Atlantic shipping risks, and their uneasy relations with English agents. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and their contemporaries lived in a world that was dominated by questions of debt from across an ocean but also one that stressed personal autonomy.T.H. Breen's study of this tobacco culture focuses on how elite planters gave meaning to existence. He examines the value-laden relationships -- found in both the fields and marketplaces -- that led from tobacco to politics, from agrarian experience to political protest, and finally to a break with the political and economic system that they believed threatened both personal independence and honor. Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 8 List of Illustrations......Page 10 Preface to the Second Paperback Edition......Page 12 Preface......Page 26 Acknowledgments......Page 30 I. An Agrarian Context for Radical Ideas......Page 34 II. Tobacco Mentality......Page 71 III. Planters and Merchants: A Kind of Friendship......Page 115 IV. Loss of Independence......Page 155 V. Politicizing the Discourse: Tobacco, Debt and the Coming of Revolution......Page 191 Epilogue: A New Beginning......Page 235 C......Page 242 G......Page 243 L......Page 244 R......Page 245 V......Page 246 Y......Page 247