Yes, the Founding Fathers of this American republic really did embrace hemp as an early symbol of independence. There\u2019s no doubt that the Virginia aristocrats among them, at least, cultivated the plant. A certain mythology about this has emerged among the contemporary \u201chempsters\u201d\u2014zealous advocates of industrial hemp, who also tend to enjoy the mood-altering effects of cannabis.<\/p>\n
However, not all the legends that have grown up around these wigged and vaunted progenitors of liberty (for some) actually stand up to scrutiny. Let\u2019s check the historical record and parse the facts.<\/p>\n
Mount Vernon, George Washington\u2019s historic estate in Virginia\u2019s Fairfax County, is maintained today by a private foundation as a tourist destination as well as a working farm. And in 2018, it began to produce hemp again\u2014most likely for the first time in some two centuries. The estate partnered with the University of Virginia to sow and harvest a hemp crop that year. \u201cTo bring this crop back it just really helps complete our agricultural story,\u201d Mount Vernon horticulture director Dean Norton told\u00a0National Public Radio<\/a>.<\/p>\n As NPR reported, the impetus to bring hemp back to Mount Vernon came from a campaign launched by a Charlottesville farmer and self-declared \u201chemp patriot,\u201d Brian Walden. Walden said the return of hemp to the honored plantation could get \u201cthe message across that this is an innocuous plant that has real benefits and our Founding Fathers knew that and they planted it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A\u00a0page on the official Mount Vernon website<\/a>\u00a0coyly states: \u201cYes, George Washington did grow hemp\u2026 but not the kind you\u2019re thinking of.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThroughout his lifetime, George Washington cultivated hemp at Mount Vernon for industrial uses,\u201d the page states. \u201cThe fibers from hemp held excellent properties for making rope and sail canvas. In addition, hemp fibers could be spun into thread for clothing or as indicated in Mount Vernon records, used in repairing the large seine nets Washington used in his fishing operation along the Potomac.\u201d<\/p>\n In his letters and diaries, Washington mentioned hemp no fewer than 90 times. A section of the plantation dubbed\u00a0Muddy Hole Farm<\/a>\u00a0was dedicated to hemp, as well as other crops as he experimented and rotated over the years. In addition to looking to hemp as a source of fiber for the plantation\u2019s own use, he hoped to develop it as an alternative to his principal cash crop of tobacco\u2014not, apparently, to any great success. But this did give him the impetus to research and import new varieties of seed, with his writing especially mentioning East Indian hemp.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a Jan. 16, 1793\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0to his estate manager Anthony Whitting, the father of our country wrote: \u201cI intend putting the Spinners to Spining some hemp\u2026soon\u2026 as it has been my intention of trying to Manefacture some Sein twine.\u201d (Sic)\u00a0<\/p>\n Seine twine<\/a>, as it\u2019s rendered today, is a very tightly twisted yarn, then widely used in fishing nets.\u00a0<\/p>\n It should be noted that some of those spinners were almost certainly enslaved African Americans. The\u00a0Mount Vernon website states<\/a>: \u201cMount Vernon was the home of George Washington. It was also home to hundreds of enslaved men, women and children who lived here under Washington\u2019s control.\u201d This slave labor was supplemented by hundreds of indentured servants as well as \u201cfree labor\u201d employees. The website page on the\u00a0Spinning House<\/a>\u00a0states: \u201cEnslaved and itinerant weavers worked in the Spinning House to produce basic textiles for use at Mount Vernon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In that same letter to Anthony Whitting, Washington notes that he gave a \u201cWhiping\u201d (sic) to an \u201cimpudent\u201d enslaved woman named Charlotte.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those are some facts. Now let\u2019s take a skeptical look at some of the myths.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMake the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere,\u201d Washington is widely claimed to have said. The apocryphal quote can be found on many\u00a0hempster websites<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Close\u2014but not quite.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The Mount Vernon site lists this on its page of\u00a0Spurious Quotations<\/a>\u2014along with \u201cI cannot tell a lie, Pa,\u201d from the legend about the cherry tree.\u00a0<\/p>\n The page suggests that the apocryphal quote derives from an authentic one, in a letter<\/a>\u00a0 Washington wrote to one his hired farm managers, William Pearce, on Feb. 24, 1794: \u201cI am very glad to hear that the Gardener has saved so much of the St. foin seed, and that of the India Hemp. Make the most you can of both, by sowing them again in drills\u2026 Let the ground be well prepared, and the Seed (St. loin) be sown in April. The Hemp may be sown any where.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n St. Foin is a reference to\u00a0sainfoin<\/a>\u00a0(Onobrychis<\/em><\/a>, by its Latin name), a legume then widely grown the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the inevitable question: Did George Washington toke?\u00a0<\/p>\n In defense of this unlikely thesis, hempsters point to Washington\u2019s\u00a0diary entry<\/a>\u00a0from Aug. 7, 1765, in which he wrote: \u201cBegan to separate the Male from the Female hemp\u2026 rather too late.\u201d (Sic)\u00a0<\/p>\n As every marijuana cultivator knows, the male and female plants should be separated so that the females keep excreting THC-laden resin to catch pollen and become more potent. But there can be reasons to separate males and females in industrial hemp, too. A 2016 article on the controversy in the\u00a0Journal of the American Revolution<\/a>\u00a0states that in the methods of the day, \u201cthe male plants (with the pollen) are distanced from female plants at a proper time in the cultivation cycle for the controlled breeding of seeds needed for the next year\u2019s crop.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In his\u00a0diary entry<\/a>\u00a0for Aug. 9, just two days later, Washington wrote: \u201cAbt. 6 Oclock put some Hemp in the Rivr. to Rot.\u201d (Sic) Then, in an\u00a0entry<\/a>\u00a0from that September, without a specific date, he wrote: \u201cBegan to Pull the Seed Hemp but it was not sufficiently ripe.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n What does this indicate? Again, by the methods of the day, the male plants, which produced stronger fiber, were soaked in the local river to start to separate the fiber from the hurds. George did this on Aug. 9, while harvesting seeds from the females that had remained planted the following month. Use of the term \u201cSeed Hemp\u201d indicates that the females had indeed been pollinated.\u00a0<\/p>\n In other words, this was about rope, not dope. Sorry, hempsters.<\/p>\n On to the next honored member of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson.<\/p>\n On his estate at Monticello, outside Charlottesville, Thomas Jefferson was also growing hemp.\u00a0<\/p>\n In his\u00a0Farm Book<\/a>, where Jefferson recorded his agricultural activities for 50 years starting in 1774, he\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in an\u00a0undated entry<\/a>: \u201cHemp. plough the ground for it early in the fall & very deep, if possible plough it again in Feb. before you sow it, which should be in March. a hand can tend 3. acres of hemp a year. tolerable ground yields 500. lb to the acre.\u201d (Again, the \u201chands\u201d were likely to have been enslaved.)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The entry continues: \u201cTo make hemp seed, make hills of the form & size of cucumber hills, from 4. to 6. f. apart\u2026 when they come up thin them to two. as soon as the male plants have shed their farina, cut them up that the whole nourishment may go to the female plants. every plant thus ended will yield a quart of seed. a bushel of good brown seed is enough for an acre.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFarina\u201d meant pollen in the argot the day. This again indicates separating the plants\u00a0after<\/em>\u00a0pollination to\u00a0maximize<\/em>\u00a0seed production\u2014exactly the opposite of what is done to produce\u00a0sinsemilla<\/em>. The hemp was apparently used in the estate\u2019s own internal economy, rather than being sold commercially.<\/p>\n In a Dec. 29, 1815\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0to a local miller, George Fleming, Jefferson noted both the advantages and disadvantages of hemp as compared to flax: \u201cThe shirting for our laborers has been an object of some difficulty. flax is so injurious to our lands, and of so scanty produce, that I have never attempted it. hemp, on the other hand, is abundantly productive and will grow for ever on the same spot. but the breaking and beating it, which has been always done by hand, is so slow, so laborious, and so much complained of by our laborers, that I had given it up, and purchased & manufactured cotton for their shirting.\u201d (Sic)<\/p>\n And who were these laborers? The\u00a0Monticello website<\/a>\u00a0states: \u201cIn addition to about 130 enslaved African Americans, many laborers from different ethnic groups with varying degrees of autonomy lived and worked at Monticello between the 1770s and the sale of Monticello in 1831.\u201d<\/p>\n And, once more, let\u2019s examine the myths.<\/p>\n A quote\u00a0widely attributed<\/a>\u00a0to the USA\u2019s third president states: \u201cHemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country.\u201d But\u00a0PolitiFact<\/a>, which is in a fact-checking partnership with Facebook, couldn\u2019t verify the quote with any original source.<\/p>\n PolitiFact similarly rated as \u201cFalse<\/a>\u201d the\u00a0oft<\/a>-heard claim<\/a>\u00a0that Jefferson\u2019s first draft of the Constitution was written on hemp paper.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Monticello website<\/a>\u00a0has this to say on the matter: \u201cThomas Jefferson\u2019s original \u2018Rough Draft of the Declaration\u2019 is now in the Jefferson Papers collection at the Library of Congress. According to sources at the Library of Congress, analysis by paper conservators has determined that the paper is mostly likely Dutch in origin. While hemp was commonly used to make paper in Southern Europe during this time, the Dutch were much more likely to use flax or linen rags.\u201d<\/p>\n And does anything indicate Jefferson smoked the stuff? A quote widely attributed to him goes: \u201cSome of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.\u201d<\/p>\n The Monticello website\u00a0devotes a page to it<\/a>, finding: \u201cThis statement hasn\u2019t been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It appears to be of extremely recent vintage (first noticed online in 2008), and only made its way into print sources as of 2013.\u201d<\/p>\n It adds: \u201cThomas Jefferson did grow hemp, but there\u2019s no evidence to suggest that Jefferson was a habitual smoker of hemp, tobacco or any other substance.\u201d<\/p>\n Hemp was certainly an important crop in colonial America, and especially Virginia. The\u00a0frequent claim<\/a>\u00a0that in 1619 the Virginia Assembly passed legislation requiring every farmer to grow hemp is true.<\/p>\n The\u00a0text of the law<\/a>\u00a0read: \u201cFor hemp also, both English and Indian, and for English flax and aniseeds, we do require and enjoin all householders of this colony, that have any of those seeds, to make trial thereof the next season.\u201d<\/p>\n An article entitled \u201cHemp & Flax in Colonial America\u201d on the\u00a0Colonial Williamsburg<\/a>\u00a0website again douses any notion of recreational imbibing: \u201cMany 18th-century Americans enjoyed recreational intoxication now and again, but they consumed alcohol for that, not THC. Neither was hemp used all that much for medicine; the seeds (which contain no appreciable amounts of THC) were boiled in milk to treat coughs, but if ailing colonists needed a potent painkiller, heavier ammunition, notably opium, was available without much effort.\u201d<\/p>\n But the article does note how widespread the crop was: \u201cIn Virginia\u2019s Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley regions, where tobacco didn\u2019t grow so well, hemp became a staple. By the middle of the 18th century, Virginians had 12,000 acres cultivated in hemp, more than a quarter of the 45,000 acres they had in tobacco.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Virginians were allowed to pay their taxes in hemp, as well as other cash crops. Both the Virginia Assembly and the British Parliament provided bounties for growing hemp throughout the 17th and 18th centuries in an effort to cut reliance on foreign imports, especially from Russia. The Virginia Gazette<\/em> in April 1767 printed instructions for hemp cultivation on its front page.\u00a0<\/p>\n And the crop that was once ordered by colonial authorities would become a symbol of freedom and independence: \u201cAs the relationship between Britain and the American colonies soured, hemp gained favor to compensate for shortages caused by boycotts of British imports. Homespun clothing, including that made out of hemp, became a hallmark of the American cause.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1774, various counties in Virginia and North Carolina passed a\u00a0resolution<\/a>\u00a0stating \u201cthat the raising of Sheep, Hemp and Flax ought to be encouraged,\u201d and \u201cthat to be clothed in Manufactures fabricated in the Colony ought to be considered as a Badge of Distinction and Respect, and true Patriotism.\u201d<\/p>\n With the outbreak of fighting in 1775, the need for hemp became pressing. \u201cWhile hemp products were useful for ground troops, naval forces were paralyzed without them. There were 11 state-sponsored fleets during the American Revolution, as well as the Continental Navy, and every single ship needed ropes and sails.\u201d<\/p>\n The surge in demand caused hemp prices to soar, as did the amount of acreage under hemp cultivation. Wartime Virginia had at least 18 \u201crope walks,\u201d where cordage was manufactured. Three of these were run by the rebel government, staffed by commissioners authorized to purchase hemp from farmers with public funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n This was an early harbinger of the famous USDA slogan from World War II: \u201cHemp for Victory<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Hempster embellishment of the real history aside, hemp really was critical to American independence and our Founding Fathers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The post Our Founding Fathers\u2019 History With Hemp<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Yes, the Founding Fathers of this American republic really did embrace hemp as an early symbol of independence. There\u2019s no doubt that the Virginia aristocrats among them, at least, cultivated the plant. A certain mythology about this has emerged among the contemporary \u201chempsters\u201d\u2014zealous advocates of industrial hemp, who also tendContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,16309,4810,16310,296,16311,16312],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55643,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55642\/revisions\/55643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Separating the Males from Females\u2019<\/h4>\n
Thomas Jefferson: \u2018Hemp is Abundantly Productive\u2019<\/h4>\n
Symbol of Patriotism\u00a0\u00a0<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Our Founding Fathers\u2019 History With Hemp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"