coursework. n. 1. (Education) written or oral work completed by a student within a given period, which is assessed as an integral part of an educational course.
More than the infusion of population, colonist John Rolfe's discovery of a profitable cash crop-tobacco-sealed the fate of the Virginia colony. Economically, tobacco became to the Chesapeake what sugar was to West Indies and silver was to Mexico. However, tobacco required a great deal of labor to cultivate.
Agriculture has played a dominant role in the Commonwealth of Virginia's development since the establishment of the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown in 1607. John Rolfe, a 17th-century colonist and husband of Pocahontas, introduced tobacco to England via the Virginia Colony in 1614. Thereafter, tobacco was king in the Tidewater area colony throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Colonists only grew corn and wheat for use by their families. Other crops were grown, but mostly for individual consumption. As Virginia's Piedmont became more populated during the 19th century, the area became a major tobacco producer. Lynchburg, Blackstone, and Danville were tobacco centers, with Lynchburg being one of the largest in the world in the early 19th century.