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 Virginia colony lacked a legal framework for slavery until 40 years after that date, and the great increase in the slave population did not start until 1700. Tobacco was a labor-intensive crop. Each slave or indentured servant working on a tobacco plantation may have processed 10,000 plants a year.