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.
The tobacco economy in the colonies was embedded in a cycle of leaf demand, slave labor demand, and global commerce that gave rise to the Chesapeake Consignment System and Tobacco Lords. American tobacco farmers would sell their crop on consignment to merchants in London, which required them to take out loans for farm expenses from London guarantors in exchange for tobacco delivery and sale.