Taking Tobacco
Eaten raw, tobacco leaves are poisonous. But dried leaves were smoked in clay pipes, chewed, or sniffed as a powder. Inhaling powdered tobacco, or snuff, through the nose became fashionable in Spain, France, and the British Isles in the mid-1600s. Users ground their own powder with a small grater, or rasp, which they carried with a plug of tobacco in a small box. By the mid-1700s ready-made snuffs were available, and habitual snuff-takers were “taking a pinch” several times an hour. Snuff boxes, like these dating from 1750 to 1850, came in a variety of sizes and materials.
Ship Brilliant
Built in Virginia for British owners, 1775
Gift of the Tobacco Institute, Inc.
The Tobacco Ship Brilliant
The new Virginia-built ship Brilliant departed for Liverpool, England, in the summer of 1775. The vessel was part of the last tobacco fleet to sail before American exports stopped during the Revolutionary War. Tobacco was so valuable that Great Britain organized convoys to protect its tobacco ships from Dutch, Spanish, and French raiders. With convoy protection, tobacco ships did not need to sail fast, so shipbuilders gave them bigger holds and greater cargo capacity.
Miles of Rigging
This model contains 9/10 of a mile of scale rigging to mimic the 9-1/2 miles of rope rigged on the original ship. Seamen had to know the names and functions of all the ship’s lines.
Virginia Gazette, May 19, 1774
Courtesy of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Indentured servants arriving in Virginia
Slaves weren’t the only type of captive labor in the American colonies. A British ship also named Brilliant arrived in Virginia’s York River with a load of “choice, healthy” people who were to be sold for “money or tobacco.” They were English and African indentured servants—men and women who would work for a specified period of time, usually several years, before gaining their freedom.
