Packaging, tobacco label, trade card

This tobacco wrapper was also used as marketing for Gaitskell's tobacco business located at Fountain stairs a very busy landing place along the banks of the River Thames at Rotherhithe. The imagery roots the origin of the tobacco trade in English domination of Virginia, America and is an adaption of Robert Vaughan's engraving of John Smith's capture of the King of Paspahegh, which accompanied an edition of Smith's 'Generall Historie of Virginia'. On the right is a Christian mission on top of a hill, alluding to the idea that British colonisation was a means to save the souls of African and Native American people. Between the Native American's legs is a ship, in reference to the tobacco trade. His feathers have been altered to resemble horns, perhaps to show him as devil-like and 'savage' or they are cuckhold's horns, symbolising his emasculation and dominance by the English.The engraver has created a figure that is an amalgamation of an African and Native American man, showing the origins of tobacco as an Indigenous drug, farmed by enslaved Africans.