How did John Rolfe help Jamestown become a profitable colony?
First, John Rolfe married the Christianized Pocahontas, fostering better relations with the Native Americans. This helped increase profits for Jamestown in that the residents didn’t have to spend time warring with the indians. More importantly, though, he adapted a strain of tobacco to the warm Virginia climate. This newly developed tobacco was spread throughout the colony and the areas around it, and it grew so well that England was quickly able to exploit the crop and make a large profit. For some time, tobacco was such an important commodity that women would come to the colonies as “tobacco brides,” women who came to be wives to tobacco farmers not just as a wife, but as free labor.
