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.
In 1619, the Virginia Assembly decided to require farmers to grow hemp for these purposes, according to PBS. Hemp was also used as legal tender in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland around that time.