Author: Brenda Payne, Woodmoor Elementary School; Corjie
Tarlton, Sparks Elementary School; Amy Vaillancourt, Carroll
Manor Elementary School, Baltimore County Public Schools Grade
Level: Upper Elementary Duration: 3-4 Days The unique
environment of the Chesapeake region had a profound impact on
the Europeans who settled there in the 1600s and 1700s. As
farming practices developed, tobacco cultivation became
increasingly important to English planters. To be profitable,
tobacco required vast quantities of land and careful tending.
The growth of tobacco as the primary cash crop in the region
affected the labor market, as well, as the system of indentured
servitude was supplanted by that of enslaved African labor. In
this History Lab, students will examine primary sources,
including wills, probate inventories, and other records, to
understand how tobacco transformed the Chesapeake region in the
colonial period. In the sixteenth century, Spanish and
Portuguese explorers to the New World regularly brought interest