Black Patch Tobacco Wars

The Black Patch Tobacco Wars was a period of violence in the dark tobacco region of the U.S. states of Kentucky and Tennessee at the turn of the 20th century circa 1904-1909.

The so-called "Black Patch" consists of about 30 counties in southwestern Kentucky and northwestern Tennessee; during that period this area was the leading worldwide supplier of Dark Fired Tobacco. Dark Fired Tobacco is so named due to the wood smoke and fire curing process which it undergoes after harvest. This type of tobacco is used primarily in snuff, chewing and pipe tobacco.

The primary antagonists were the American Tobacco Company (ATC) (owned by James B. Duke), historically one of the largest U.S. industrial monopolies, and the Dark Tobacco District Planters' Protective Association of Kentucky and Tennessee (PPA), an association of farmers formed September 24, 1904 in protest of the monopoly ATC practice of paying deflated prices for their product.

The initial idea of the PPA was to "pool" and withhold their tobacco until the ATC agreed to pay higher prices. When this plan was unsuccessful, many farmers resorted to violence and vigilante practices, which resulted in the destruction of crops, machinery, livestock, tobacco warehouses and even the capture of whole towns by the group known as the Silent Brigade or Night Riders.

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James Buchanan "Buck" Duke of North Carolina was an ambitious businessman and farmer who learned quickly the profit in tobacco was in the buying and selling, not producing it. In 1879, the W. Duke Sons and Company was established as a tobacco manufacturer and began producing cigarettes. Two years later, the commercial cigarette rolling machine was invented by James Bonsack. Duke quickly rented two of these machines; this allowed the company to produce 400 cigarettes per minute. In 1884 he struck a deal with its inventor to use his machines, exclusively, for all the cigarettes the company manufactured, in exchange for lower royalties. This not only lowered his manufacturing cost, it allowed him to cut his retail prices so low that his competitors couldn't compete. By 1890 Duke was able to compel his major competitors to consolidate with him as the American Tobacco Company (ATC).

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