The Tobacco War (1780–1781) occurred during the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
in Virginia when the British forces commanded by generals
Cornwallis
Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, (31 December 1738 – 5 October 1805), styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as the Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army general and official. In the United S ...
,
Phillips, and
Arnold, burned the colonists' tobacco. About 10,000
hogshead
A hogshead (abbreviated "hhd", plural "hhds") is a large cask of liquid (or, less often, of a food commodity). More specifically, it refers to a specified volume, measured in either imperial or US customary measures, primarily applied to alcoho ...
s of cured tobacco leaf were destroyed by the British. Each hogshead weighed about . The British wanted to win in the southern colonies by causing steep economic losses.
They also wished to entirely disrupt the tobacco industry because the colonists used the tobacco trade to fund their war effort against Britain. This complemented existing efforts by the British Royal Navy to seize shipments of tobacco leaving American ports.
General Benedict Arnold attempted to bargain with the colonists for their tobacco. Once in
Richmond, Virginia
(Thus do we reach the stars)
, image_map =
, mapsize = 250 px
, map_caption = Location within Virginia
, pushpin_map = Virginia#USA
, pushpin_label = Richmond
, pushpin_m ...
in January 1781, Benedict Arnold wrote a letter to Virginia governor
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
, asking him to surrender the city's tobacco supplies in exchange for British forces not destroying the city. Jefferson did not negotiate with Arnolds or turn over the tobacco. The troops led by Phillips burned about 8,000 hogsheads of tobacco in
Petersburg,
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, Blandford, and Osborne. In addition to burning the colonists'
curing barns and tobacco fields, British forces also freed the enslaved people held by the colonists. Some of the scorched tobacco fields and thirty of the enslaved people freed belonged to Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that it was a "useless and barbarous injury".
The Tobacco War represented the "last gasp of a floundering army", and did not significantly impact the trajectory of the Revolutionary War.
See also
*
Action at Osborne's
The action at Osborne's (sometimes spelled Osburn's or Osborns), Virginia was a minor naval–land engagement on April 27, 1781, in the James River during the American Revolutionary War. The battle resulted in the near-complete destruction of the ...
*
Black Patch Tobacco Wars
The Black Patch Tobacco Wars were a period of civil unrest and violence in the western counties of the U.S. states of Kentucky and Tennessee at the turn of the 20th century, circa 1904-1909. The so-called "Black Patch" consists of about 30 count ...
*
Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War
The Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War was the central theater of military operations in the second half of the American Revolutionary War, 1778–1781. It encompassed engagements primarily in Virginia, Georgia and South Carolina. ...
References
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Virginia in the American Revolution
Tobacco in the United States
History of Virginia