This chapter examines the early development of the white settler tobacco economy in Southern Rhodesia from the establishment of the colony by the British South Africa Company in the early 1890s to the end of the Second World War in 1945. It discusses pioneer land settlement, cultural practices and labour regimes of settler tobacco farmers and how these impacted on the environment and African bodies. The chapter analyses the shifting production contexts prompted by global forces and how the state responded to the ecological pressures caused by overproduction during the 1930s.