History which is normally obscured

Posted by Jim McNeill on 17th Jan 2011

As I am a co-author of this short pamphlet, it's not realy for me to write a review but if you bare this in mind then perhaps what I have to say will be of interest.
The pamphlet covers the early years of 17th Century tobacco cultivation along the English banks of the River Severn. It shows how the English State (both Royalist and Puritan Republican) continually tried to suppress this agricultural endeavour by poor people with little or no alternative employment ~ and certainly no agricultural employment which could give them shuch a high cash return on a crop. This activity by rural peoples was subject to stringent laws and military action but nevertheless it continued for many years as armed local people faced down troops sent to destroy crops and arrest the main planters.
It's a snip at £3.50 and is one in a series of publications by the Bristol Radical History Group.