The first permanent English settlement in the America’s was Jamestown, Virginia. The English settlers hoped to establish a thriving community close to the water. The Virginia Company of London was the first joint-stock company to begin a long-lasting undertaking in the New World. Investors in this company wanted only one thing: gold. They hoped they would be as successful as the conquistadors in South America. In 1607, 144 English men and boys established the Jamestown colony. The colonists were told if they were not successful, the company would pull their financial support and they would return home.

As a result, the colonists spent most of their time looking for gold instead of farming and finding food. After the first year of harsh conditions and disease, only 38 of the original 144 had survived. That would have probably been the end for the colony had it not been for the leadership of John Smith. He imposed strict rules and discipline on the colonists. "Work or starve" was his motto, and each colonist was required to spend four hours per day farming.

An accidental gunpowder burn forced Smith to return to England in 1609. After he left, the colony suffered even more troubles. A new boatload of colonists and supplies sank off the coast of Bermuda on its way to help the hungry settlement. The winter of 1609-10, known as the "starving time," may have been the worst of all.

Disease and hunger ravaged Jamestown. Two desperate colonists were tied to posts and left to starve as punishment for raiding the colonies' stores. One colonist even took to cannibalism, eating his own wife. Yet still more colonists arrived including women.

Despite the introduction of tobacco farming, the colony was a failure as a financial venture. The king declared the Virginia Company bankrupt in 1624. About 200,000 pounds were lost among the investors. The charter was soon canceled, and Virginia became a royal colony, the first in America to be ruled by the king.

Virginia would not be successful due to gold. There was too little gold to be found there. Looking for new ways to make a profit, the Virginia Company of London began encouraging many endeavors by 1618. Jamestown settlers experimented with glassblowing, vineyard cultivation, and even silkworm farming. Despite efforts to diversify Virginia's economy, by the end of the 1620s, only one Virginia crop was drawing a fair market price in England: tobacco

Tobacco soon became immensely popular among Europeans who had learned to smoke it from the Native Americans. John Rolfe thought that Virginia might be the perfect site for growing tobacco. Early on the settlers found it difficult to sell Virginian tobacco. Smokers felt that the tobacco of the Caribbean was much less harsh than Virginian tobacco.

Rolfe reacted by importing seed from the West Indies and cultivating the plant in the Jamestown colony. Those tobacco seeds became the seeds of a huge economic empire. By 1630, over a million and a half pounds of tobacco were being exported from Jamestown every year.

The tobacco cash crop began to take shape, and the Virginian colony grew rapidly. Because tobacco drained the soil of its nutrients, only about three successful growing seasons could occur on a plot of land. Then the land had to lie fallow for three years before the soil could be used again. This created a huge drive for new farmland.

Tobacco cultivation was demanding work. Settlers grew tobacco in the streets of Jamestown. The yellow-leafed crop even covered cemeteries. Because tobacco cultivation is labor intensive, more settlers were needed.