Black Patch Tobacco Wars

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The Black Patch Tobacco Wars were a period of civil unrest and violence in the western counties 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. It was so named for 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.^{[citation needed]}

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). This association of planters formed on September 24, 1904, in protest of the monopoly ATC practice of paying deflated prices for their product and with the intent to control their own product and pricing by banding together.^{[citation needed]}

The initial idea of the PPA was to "pool"^[1] 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, organizing as the Silent Brigade or Night Riders. They committed numerous acts of violence and destroyed crops, machinery, livestock, and tobacco warehouses, even capturing whole towns. They raided Princeton, Hopkinsville, and Russellville, Kentucky, destroying tobacco warehouses.^{[citation needed]}