| Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution Subjects: Virginia -- History -- Colonial period ca. 1600–1775; Plantation owners -- Virginia -- History -- 18th century; Plantation life -- Virginia -- History -- 18th century; Tobacco industry -- Virginia -- History -- 18th century; Virginia -- History -- Revolu; The great Tidewater planters of mid-eighteenth-century Virginia were fathers of the American Revolution. Perhaps first and foremost, they were also anxious tobacco farmers, harried by a demanding planting cycle, trans-Atlantic shipping risks, and their uneasy relations with English agents. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and their contemporaries lived in a world that was dominated by questions of debt from across an ocean but also one that stressed personal autonomy. |