Expanding inland
As Rolfe’s tobacco operations expanded and competitors joined him in producing the crop, lands were claimed and cleared for planting along the James River, navigable well inland. The tobacco planters built docks which allowed ships to moor along their plantations, rather than transport the tobacco in barrels known as hogsheads to the settlement at James Fort. The original settlement began to dwindle in importance to the Virginia colony, though it remained the colony’s center for government. Following Rolfe’s marriage to Pocahontas, Powhatan granted him thousands of acres of land west of the James River, though Rolfe did not occupy it.
Rolfe achieved sufficient wealth to return to England with his wife and their young son in 1615, where Pocahontas became ill and died in 1617. At the time of his visit to England the legend of Pocahontas saving the life of John Smith had not yet been written by John Smith, and she was received as the regal daughter of a native American chieftain, rather than as the mythical heroine she became after her death. The death of Pocahontas removed a stabilizing factor in the relations between the colonists and the Powhatan confederacy, which soon became strained yet again due to the insatiable need for more land upon which to grow tobacco.