In Maryland, notes based on tobacco served as currency for near- ly two centuries, longer by a considerable margin than the gold standard was to last.

A Short History of Financial Euphoria by John Kenneth Galbraith.  Page 55.

The commitment to monetary magic began in colonial times. Again, as so reliably in financial matters, those involved were persuaded of their own innovative genius; as before and as ever, they were reinventing the wheel. 

 

The Southern colonies - Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina as it then was called - issued notes against the security of tobacco and greatly deplored any demand for gold or silver as a means of payment, on occasion proscribing their use. In Maryland, notes based on tobacco served as currency for near- ly two centuries, longer by a considerable margin than the gold standard was to last. But it served prosaically as compared with the pa- per currency of New England.