Tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
was long used in the early
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
. The
arrival of Spain introduced tobacco to the
Europeans
Europeans are the focus of European ethnology, the field of anthropology related to the various ethnic groups that reside in the states of Europe. Groups may be defined by common genetic ancestry, common language, or both. Pan and Pfeil (2004) ...
, and it became a lucrative, heavily traded commodity to support the popular habit of smoking. Following the
industrial revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
,
cigarette
A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opp ...
s became hugely popular worldwide. In the mid-20th century, medical research demonstrated severe negative
health effects of tobacco smoking
Tobacco use has predominantly negative effects on human health and concern about health effects of tobacco has a long history. Research has focused primarily on cigarette smoking.
Tobacco smoke contains more than 70 chemicals that cause ca ...
including
lung
The lungs are the primary organs of the respiratory system in humans and most other animals, including some snails and a small number of fish. In mammals and most other vertebrates, two lungs are located near the backbone on either side of t ...
and
throat cancer
Head and neck cancer develops from tissues in the lip and oral cavity (mouth), larynx (throat), salivary glands, nose, sinuses or the skin of the face. The most common types of head and neck cancers occur in the lip, mouth, and larynx. Symptoms ...
, which led to a sharp decline in tobacco use.
Early history
Pre-Columbian America
Tobacco was first discovered by the native people of
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...
and South America and later introduced to Europe and the rest of the world.
Archeological finds indicate that humans in the Americas began using tobacco as far back as 12,300 years ago, thousands of years earlier than previously documented.
Tobacco had already long been used in the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
by the time European settlers arrived and took the practice to Europe, where it became popular. Eastern North American tribes have historically carried tobacco in pouches as a readily accepted trade item, as well as smoking it in
pipe ceremonies, whether for sacred ceremonies or those to seal a treaty or agreement.
In addition to its use in spiritual and religious ceremonies, tobacco is also used for medical treatment of physical conditions. As a pain killer it has been used for earache and toothache and occasionally as a
poultice
A poultice, also called a cataplasm, is a soft moist mass, often heated and medicated, that is spread on cloth and placed over the skin to treat an aching, inflamed, or painful part of the body. It can be used on wounds, such as cuts.
'Poultice' ...
. Some
indigenous peoples in California have used tobacco as one ingredient in smoking mixtures for treating colds; usually it is mixed with the leaves of the small desert sage, ''
Salvia dorrii
''Salvia dorrii'', the purple sage, Dorr's sage, fleshy sage, mint sage, or tobacco sage, is a perennial spreading shrub in the family Lamiaceae. It is native to mountain areas in the western United States and northwestern Arizona, found mainly ...
'', or the root of Indian balsam or
cough root
''Lomatium'' is a genus in the family Apiaceae. It consists of about 100 species native to western Northern America and northern Mexico. Its common names include biscuitroot, Indian parsley, and desert parsley. It is in the family Apiaceae and t ...
, ''
Leptotaenia multifida'' (the addition of which was thought to be particularly good for asthma and tuberculosis).
[California Natural History Guides: 10. Early Uses of California Plant, By Edward K. Balls University of California Press, 1962 University of California Pres]
In addition to its traditional medicinal uses, tobacco was also used as a form of currency between Native Americans and Colonists from the 1620s on.
Religious use of tobacco is still common among many
indigenous people
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
s, particularly in
the Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America, North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. ...
. Among the
Cree
The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...
and
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
of Canada and the north-central United States, it is offered to the
Creator, with
prayer
Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deified a ...
s, and is used in
sweat lodge
A sweat lodge is a low profile hut, typically dome-shaped or oblong, and made with natural materials. The structure is the ''lodge'', and the ceremony performed within the structure may be called by some cultures a purification ceremony or simply ...
s,
pipe ceremonies, and is presented as a gift. A gift of tobacco is traditional when asking an Ojibwe elder a question of a spiritual nature.
European usage
![Chute tobacco](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Chute_tobacco.JPG)
Greek and Roman accounts exist of smoking
hemp seed
Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial or medicinal use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest growing plants o ...
s, and a Spanish poem mentions the energetic effects of
lavender
''Lavandula'' (common name lavender) is a genus of 47 known species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is native to the Old World and is found in Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, and from Europe across to northern and easte ...
smoke, but tobacco was completely unfamiliar to Europeans before the
discovery of the New World
During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization of the Americas took place between about 1492 and 1800. Although the Norse had explored and colonized areas of the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short ter ...
.
Bartolomé de las Casas
Bartolomé de las Casas, OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman then became a Dominican friar ...
described how the first scouts sent by
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
into the interior of
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
found:
Following the arrival of Europeans, tobacco became one of the primary products fueling colonization, and also became a driving factor in the introduction of
African slave labour. The Spanish introduced tobacco to Europeans in about 1528, and by 1533,
Diego Columbus
Diego Columbus ( pt, Diogo Colombo; es, Diego Colón; it, Diego Colombo; 1479/1480 – February 23, 1526) was a navigator and explorer under the Kings of Castile and Aragón. He served as the 2nd Admiral of the Indies, 2nd Viceroy of the Indie ...
mentioned a tobacco merchant of Lisbon in his will, showing how quickly the traffic had sprung up. The French, Spanish, and Portuguese initially referred to the plant as the "sacred herb" because of its valuable medicinal properties.
Jean Nicot
Jean Nicot de Villemain (; 1530 – May 4, 1604) was a French diplomat and scholar. He is famous for being the first to bring tobacco to France, including snuff tobacco. Nicotine is named after the tobacco plant ''Nicotiana tabacum,'' which in tur ...
, French ambassador in
Lisbon
Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...
, sent samples to Paris in 1559. Nicot sent leaves and seeds to
Francis II and the King's mother,
Catherine of Medici
Catherine de' Medici ( it, Caterina de' Medici, ; french: Catherine de Médicis, ; 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was an Florentine noblewoman born into the Medici family. She was Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King ...
, with instructions to use tobacco as snuff. The king's recurring headaches (perhaps sinus trouble) were reportedly "marvellously cured" by snuff. (Francis II nevertheless died at seventeen years of age on 5 December 1560, after a reign of less than two years). French cultivation of ''herbe de la Reine'' (the queen's herb) began in 1560. By 1570 botanists referred to tobacco as ''
Nicotiana
''Nicotiana'' () is a genus of herbaceous plants and shrubs in the Family (biology), family Solanaceae, that is Native plant, indigenous to the Americas, Australia, Southwestern Africa and the South Pacific. Various ''Nicotiana'' species, common ...
'', although
André Thevet
André Thevet (; ; 1516 – 23 November 1590) was a French Franciscan priest, explorer, cosmographer and writer who travelled to the Near East and to South America in the 16th century. His most significant book was ''The New Found World, or A ...
claimed that he, not Nicot, had introduced tobacco to France; historians believe this unlikely, but Thevet was the first Frenchman to write about it.
Swiss doctor
Conrad Gesner
Conrad Gessner (; la, Conradus Gesnerus 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) was a Swiss physician, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly realised his tale ...
in 1563 reported that chewing or smoking a tobacco leaf "has a wonderful power of producing a kind of peaceful drunkenness".
In 1571, Spanish doctor
Nicolas Monardes
Nicolas or Nicolás may refer to:
People Given name
* Nicolas (given name)
Mononym
* Nicolas (footballer, born 1999), Brazilian footballer
* Nicolas (footballer, born 2000), Brazilian footballer
Surname Nicolas
* Dafydd Nicolas (c.1705–1774), ...
wrote a book about the history of medicinal plants of the new world. In this he claimed that tobacco could cure 36 health problems, and reported that the plant was first brought to Spain for its flowers, but "Now we use it to a greater extent for the sake of its virtues than for its beauty".
John Hawkins
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second ...
was the first to bring tobacco seeds to England.
William Harrison's ''English Chronology'' mentions tobacco smoking in the country as of 1573, before
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellion ...
brought the first "Virginia" tobacco to Europe from the
Roanoke Colony
The establishment of the Roanoke Colony ( ) was an attempt by Sir Walter Raleigh to found the first permanent English settlement in North America. The English, led by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had briefly claimed St. John's, Newfoundland, in 15 ...
, referring to it as ''tobah'' as early as 1578. In 1595
Anthony Chute published ''Tabaco'', which repeated earlier arguments about the benefits of the plant and emphasised the health-giving properties of pipe-smoking. A popular song of the early 1600s by
Tobias Hume
Tobias Hume (possibly 1579 – 16 April 1645) was a Scottish composer, viol player and soldier.
Little is known of his life. Some have suggested that he was born in 1579 because he was admitted to the London Charterhouse in 1629, a prerequisit ...
proclaimed that "Tobacco is Like Love
The importation of tobacco into England was not without resistance and controversy.
House of Stuart, Stuart King
James I James I may refer to:
People
*James I of Aragon (1208–1276)
*James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327)
*James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu
*James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347)
*James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...
wrote a famous
polemic
Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...
titled ''
A Counterblaste to Tobacco
''A Counterblaste to Tobacco'' is a treatise written by King James VI of Scotland and I of England in 1604, in which he expresses his distaste for tobacco, particularly tobacco smoking.Steve Luck, ''The Complete Guide to Cigars: An Illustrated Gu ...
'' in 1604, in which the king denounced tobacco use as "
''custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible
Stigian smoke of the
pit that is bottomelesse''." That year, an English statute was enacted that placed a heavy protective
tariff
A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and poli ...
on tobacco imports. The duty rose from 2p per pound to 6s 10p, a 40-fold increase, but English demand remained strong despite the high price; Barnabee Rych reported that 7,000 stores in London sold tobacco and calculated that at least 319,375 pounds sterling were spent on tobacco annually. Because the Virginia and Bermuda colonies' economies were affected by the high duty, James in 1624 instead created a royal monopoly. No tobacco could be imported except from Virginia, and a royal license that cost 15 pounds per year was required to sell it. To help the colonies,
Charles II banned tobacco cultivation in England, but allowed herb gardens for medicinal purposes.
Tobacco was introduced elsewhere in continental Europe more easily. Iberia exported "ropes" of dry leaves in baskets to the Netherlands and southern Germany; for a while tobacco was in Spanish called ''canaster'' after the word for basket (''canastro)'', and influenced the German ''Knaster''. In Italy,
Prospero Santacroce in 1561 and Nicolo Torbabuoni in 1570 introduced it to gardens after seeing the plant on diplomatic missions. Cardinal Crescenzio introduced smoking to the country in about 1610 after learning about it in England. The Roman Catholic Church did not condemn tobacco as James I did, but Pope
Urban VIII
Pope Urban VIII ( la, Urbanus VIII; it, Urbano VIII; baptised 5 April 1568 – 29 July 1644), born Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 August 1623 to his death in July 1644. As po ...
threatened excommunication for smoking in a church.
In Russia, tobacco use was banned in 1634 except for foreigners in Moscow.
Peter the Great
Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
—who in England had learned of smoking and the royal monopoly—became the monarch in 1689, however. Revoking all bans, he licensed the
Muscovy Company
The Muscovy Company (also called the Russia Company or the Muscovy Trading Company russian: Московская компания, Moskovskaya kompaniya) was an English trading company chartered in 1555. It was the first major chartered joint s ...
to import 1.5 million pounds of tobacco per year, with the Russian Crown receiving 28,000 pounds sterling annually.
Asia
The
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese were introduced to tobacco by Portuguese sailors from 1542.
Tobacco first arrived in the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
in the late 16th century, where it attracted the attention of doctors
[Grehan, p.2] and became a commonly prescribed
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
for many ailments. Although tobacco was initially prescribed as medicine, further study led to claims that smoking caused
dizziness
Dizziness is an imprecise term that can refer to a sense of disorientation in space, vertigo, or lightheadedness. It can also refer to disequilibrium or a non-specific feeling, such as giddiness or foolishness.
Dizziness is a common medical c ...
,
fatigue
Fatigue describes a state of tiredness that does not resolve with rest or sleep. In general usage, fatigue is synonymous with extreme tiredness or exhaustion that normally follows prolonged physical or mental activity. When it does not resolve ...
, dulling of the senses, and a foul taste/odour in the mouth.
![Queensland State Archives 4238 Tobacco plants before topping 1933](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Queensland_State_Archives_4238_Tobacco_plants_before_topping_1933.png)
Sultan
Murad IV
Murad IV ( ota, مراد رابع, ''Murād-ı Rābiʿ''; tr, IV. Murad, was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1623 to 1640, known both for restoring the authority of the state and for the brutality of his methods. Murad IV was born in Cons ...
banned smoking in the Ottoman Empire in 1633. When the ban was lifted by his successor,
Ibrahim the Mad
Ibrahim (; ota, ابراهيم; tr, İbrahim; 5 November 1615 – 18 August 1648) was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1640 until 1648. He was born in Constantinople, the son of Sultan Ahmed I by Kösem Sultan, an ethnic Greek originally n ...
, it was instead taxed. In 1682, Damascene jurist Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi declared: "Tobacco has now become extremely famous in all the countries of Islam ... People of all kinds have used it and devoted themselves to it ... I have even seen young children of about five years applying themselves to it." In 1750, a Damascene townsmen observed "a number of women greater than the men, sitting along the bank of the Barada River. They were eating and drinking, and drinking coffee and smoking tobacco just as the men were doing."
[Grehan, p.3]
Australia
Although ''
Nicotiana suaveolens
''Nicotiana suaveolens'', the Australian tobacco, is a herb to 1.5 metres tall. Growing in New South Wales and Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Col ...
'' is native to Australia, tobacco smoking first reached that continent shores when it was introduced to northern-dwelling Indigenous communities by
visiting Indonesian fishermen in the early 18th century. British patterns of tobacco use were transported to Australia along with the new settlers in 1788; and in the years following colonisation, British smoking behaviour was rapidly adopted by Indigenous people as well. By the early 19th century tobacco was an essential commodity routinely issued to servants, prisoners and ticket-of-leave men (conditionally released convicts) as an inducement to work, or conversely, withheld as a means of punishment.
United States
Economic history in the American colonies
In
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of Kingdom of Great Britain, British Colony, colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Fo ...
, where gold and
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
were scarce, tobacco was used as a currency to trade with
Native Americans,
and sometimes for official purposes such as paying fines, taxes, and even marriage license fees.
The demand and profitability of tobacco led to the shift in the colonies to a
slave
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
-based labor force, fueling the
slave trade
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
. Tobacco is a labor-intensive crop, requiring much work for its cultivation, harvest, and curing. With the profitability of the land rapidly increasing, it was no longer economically viable to bring in indentured servants with the promise of land benefits at the end of their tenure. By bringing African slaves instead, plantation owners acquired workers for long hours in the hot sun without paying them, providing only a bare subsistence to workers who could not leave or appeal to laws.
The uncultivated Virginia soil was reportedly too rich for traditional European crops, especially cereals like barley. Tobacco "broke down the fields and made food crops more productive" by depleting the soil of nutrients.
Tobacco's impact on early American history
The cultivation of tobacco in America led to many changes. During the 1700s tobacco was a very lucrative crop due to its high demand in Europe. The climate of the Chesapeake area in America lent itself very nicely to the cultivation of tobacco. The high European demand for tobacco led to a rise in the value of tobacco. The rise of value of tobacco accelerated the economic growth in America. The cultivation of tobacco as a cash crop in America marks the shift from a subsistence economy to an agrarian economy. Tobacco's desirability and value led to it being used as a currency in colonies. Tobacco was also backed by the gold standard, with an established conversion rate from tobacco to gold.
The increasing role of tobacco as a cash crop led to a shift in the labor force that would shape American life and politics up through the
Civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
. In order to keep up with demand tobacco plantation owners had to abandon the traditional practice of
indentured servitude in the Americas
Indentured servitude in British America was the prominent system of labor in the British American colonies until it was eventually supplanted by slavery. During its time, the system was so prominent that more than half of all immigrants to Britis ...
. In order to pursue maximum profits, the plantation owners turned to slavery to supply them with the cheap,
fungible
In economics, fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable, and each of whose parts is indistinguishable from any other part. Fungible tokens can be exchanged or replaced; for exam ...
labor that they needed to keep up with increasing production.
Early cultivation of tobacco
In the first few years of tobacco cultivation in the colonies, the plants were simply covered with hay and left in the field to cure or "sweat." This method was abandoned after 1618, when regulations prohibited the use of valuable potential animal food for such purposes. It was also abandoned because a better method of curing tobacco had been developed. In this new method the wilted leaves were hung on lines or sticks, at first outside on fence rails. Tobacco barns for housing the crop were in use by the 1620s.
During the curing period, which lasted about four to six weeks, the color of the tobacco changed from a greenish yellow to a light tan. Mold was an immense danger during this time. Once again, a planter relied on his experience to know when the tobacco was ready to be removed from the sticks on which it hung, a process known as "striking."
At last, when the tobacco was ready, and preferably during a period of damp weather, workers struck the tobacco and laid the leaves on the floor of the tobacco barn to sweat for somewhere between a week or two. Logs could be used to press the tobacco and increase its temperature, but with that there came a danger. The heat might become too intense and mold spoil the crop.
After sweating, the next step was sorting. Ideally, all the tobacco should be in a condition described by cropmasters as "in case". This meant that the tobacco had absorbed just the right amount of moisture; it could be stretched like leather, and was glossy and moist. If tobacco were too damp, it would rot in transit; if too dry, it would crumble and be unsalable.
In the early years at
Jamestown the settlers paid little heed to quality control, this attitude soon changed due to both the market and to regulations. Over time, the settlers began to separate the tobacco into sections of equal quality. The leaves were then tied together in Hands, bunches of five to fourteen. The Hands were returned to platforms to sweat. When they were once again "in case", the inspection of the crop could take place and the final processing for export begin.
Early on, the preparation of tobacco for shipping was very simple. The tobacco leaves were twisted and rolled, then spun into rope, which was wound into balls weighing as much as a hundred pounds ( 45 kilograms ). These balls were protected in canvas or barrels, which would then be shipped to Europe. Although the export of bulk tobacco was not outlawed until 1730, a large barrel called a "
hogshead
A hogshead (abbreviated "hhd", plural "hhds") is a large cask of liquid (or, less often, of a food commodity). More specifically, it refers to a specified volume, measured in either imperial or US customary measures, primarily applied to alcoho ...
" soon became the favored container throughout the colonial period. Even though its capacity varied slightly, governed by the regulations of the day, the average weight of the tobacco stored in a hogshead barrel was about a thousand pounds ( 450 kilograms ).
These barrels were transported in a variety of ways to the ships on which they would be carried to England. At first, captains of merchant vessels simply traveled from one plantation dock to the next, loading up with barrels of tobacco as they moved along the river. Other ways included employing northern smugglers to ferry tobacco to England.
Plantations in the American South
![Tobacco cultivation (Virginia, ca](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Tobacco_cultivation_%28Virginia%2C_ca._1670%29.jpg)
In 1609, English colonist
John Rolfe
John Rolfe (1585 – March 1622) was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia in 1611.
Biography
John Rolfe is believed ...
arrived at
Jamestown, Virginia
The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the James (Powhatan) River about southwest of the center of modern Williamsburg. It was ...
, and became the first settler to successfully raise tobacco (commonly referred to at that time as "brown gold") for commercial use. Tobacco was used as
currency
A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins.
A more general def ...
by the Virginia settlers for years, and Rolfe was able to make his fortune in farming it for export at
Varina Farms Plantation.
When he left for
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
with his wife
Pocahontas
Pocahontas (, ; born Amonute, known as Matoaka, 1596 – March 1617) was a Native American woman, belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of ...
, a daughter of Chief
Powhatan
The Powhatan people (; also spelled Powatan) may refer to any of the indigenous Algonquian people that are traditionally from eastern Virginia. All of the Powhatan groups descend from the Powhatan Confederacy. In some instances, The Powhatan ...
, he had become wealthy. Returning to Jamestown, following Pocahontas' death in England, Rolfe continued in his efforts to improve the quality of commercial tobacco, and, by 1620, of tobacco were shipped to England. By the time John Rolfe died in 1622, Jamestown was thriving as a producer of tobacco, and its population had topped 4,000. Tobacco led to the importation of the colony's
first Black slaves in 1619.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, tobacco continued to be the
cash crop
A cash crop or profit crop is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from staple crop (or "subsistence crop") ...
of
the Virginia Colony, as well as
The Carolinas
The Carolinas are the U.S. states of North Carolina and South Carolina, considered collectively. They are bordered by Virginia to the north, Tennessee to the west, and Georgia to the southwest. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east.
Combining Nort ...
. Large tobacco warehouses filled the areas near the wharves of new, thriving towns such as
Dumfries
Dumfries ( ; sco, Dumfries; from gd, Dùn Phris ) is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is located near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth about by road from the ...
on the
Potomac,
Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
and
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
at the
Fall Line
A fall line (or fall zone) is the area where an upland region and a coastal plain meet and is typically prominent where rivers cross it, with resulting rapids or waterfalls. The uplands are relatively hard crystalline basement rock, and the coa ...
(
head of navigation
The head of navigation is the farthest point above the mouth of a river that can be navigated by ships. Determining the head of navigation can be subjective on many streams, as the point may vary greatly with the size or the draft of the ship be ...
) on the
James
James is a common English language surname and given name:
*James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambiguat ...
, and
Petersburg on the
Appomattox.
There were also tobacco plantations in Tennessee, like
Wessyngton in
Cedar Hill, Tennessee
Cedar Hill is a city in Robertson County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 301 at the 2020 census.
History
Jo Byrns, who became Speaker of the House of Representatives, was born in Cedar Hill on July 28, 1869. The local elementar ...
.
Modern history
A historian of the
American South
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
in the late 1860s reported on typical usage in the region where it was grown:
Until 1883, tobacco excise tax accounted for one third of internal revenue collected by the United States government. Internal Revenue Service data for 1879-80 show total tobacco tax receipts of $38.9 million, out of total receipts of $116.8 million. Following the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, the tobacco industry struggled as it attempted to adapt. Not only did the labor force change from slavery to sharecropping, but a change in demand also occurred. As in Europe, there was a desire for not only snuff, pipes and cigars, but cigarettes as well.
With a change in demand and a change in labor force,
James Bonsack
__NOTOC__
James Albert Bonsack (October 9, 1859,
. URL last accessed 2006-10-11. , an avid craftsman, in 1881 created a machine that revolutionized cigarette production. The machine chopped the tobacco, then dropped a certain amount of the tobacco into a long tube of paper, which the machine would then roll and push out the end where it would be sliced by the machine into individual cigarettes. This machine operated at thirteen times the speed of a human cigarette roller.
This caused an enormous growth in the tobacco industry that lasted well into the 20th century, until the scientific revelations discovering health consequences of smoking
[Burns, pp. 134–135.] and tobacco companies' usage of chemical additives was revealed.
In the United States, The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) became law in 2009. It gave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products to protect public health.
Health concerns
![Cancer smoking lung cancer correlation from NIH](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Cancer_smoking_lung_cancer_correlation_from_NIH.svg)
Nazi Germany saw the
first modern anti-smoking campaign,
the
National Socialist
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
government condemning tobacco use,
funding research against it,
levying increasing
sin tax
A sin tax is an excise tax specifically levied on certain goods deemed harmful to society and individuals, such as alcohol, tobacco, drugs, candies, soft drinks, fast foods, coffee, sugar, gambling, and pornography. In contrast to Pigovian tax ...
es on it,
and in 1941 banning tobacco in various public places as a health hazard.
In the UK and the USA, an increase in lung cancer rates was being picked up by the 1930s, but the cause for this increase remained debated and unclear.
A true breakthrough came in 1948, when the British physiologist
Richard Doll
Sir William Richard Shaboe Doll (28 October 1912 – 24 July 2005) was a British physician who became an epidemiologist in the mid-20th century and made important contributions to that discipline. He was a pioneer in research linking smoking ...
published the first major studies that proved that smoking could cause serious health damage. In 1950, he published research in the
British Medical Journal
''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...
that showed a close link between smoking and lung cancer. Four years later, in 1954 the
British Doctors Study, a study of some 40 thousand doctors over 20 years, confirmed the suggestion, based on which the government issued advice that smoking and lung cancer rates were related. The British Doctors Study lasted till 2001, with result published every ten years and final results published in 2004 by Doll and
Richard Peto
Sir Richard Peto (born 14 May 1943) is an English statistician and epidemiologist who is Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford, England.
Education
He attended Taunton's School in Southampton and subsequ ...
.
Much early research was also done by Dr. Ochsner.
Reader's Digest
''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...
magazine for many years published frequent anti-smoking articles.
In 1964 the United States
Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health likewise began suggesting the relationship between smoking and cancer, which confirmed its suggestions 20 years later in the 1980s.
Partial controls and regulatory measures eventually followed in much of the developed world, including partial advertising bans, minimum age of sale requirements, and basic health warnings on tobacco packaging. However, smoking prevalence and associated ill health continued to rise in the developed world in the first three decades following Richard Doll's discovery, with governments sometimes reluctant to curtail a habit seen as popular as a result - and increasingly organised disinformation efforts by the tobacco industry and their proxies (covered in more detail below). Realisation dawned gradually that the health effects of smoking and tobacco use were susceptible only to a multi-pronged policy response which combined positive health messages with medical assistance to cease tobacco use and effective marketing restrictions, as initially indicated in a 1962 overview by the British
Royal College of Physicians
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of physicians by examination. Founded by royal charter from King Henry VIII in 1 ...
and the
1964 report of the U.S. Surgeon General.
In the 1950s tobacco companies engaged in a
cigarette advertising
Nicotine marketing is the marketing of nicotine-containing products or use. Traditionally, the tobacco industry markets cigarette smoking, but it is increasingly marketing other products, such as electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco produ ...
war surrounding the
tar
Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black bit ...
content in cigarettes that came to be known as the
tar derby. The companies repositioned their brands to emphasize low tar content,
filter
Filter, filtering or filters may refer to:
Science and technology
Computing
* Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming
* Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream
* Filter (video), a software component tha ...
technology and nicotine levels. The period ended in 1959 after the
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
(FTC) Chairman and several cigarette company presidents agreed to discontinue usage of tar or
nicotine
Nicotine is a natural product, naturally produced alkaloid in the nightshade family of plants (most predominantly in tobacco and ''Duboisia hopwoodii'') and is widely used recreational drug use, recreationally as a stimulant and anxiolytic. As ...
levels in advertisements.
In order to reduce the potential burden of disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) successfully rallied 168 countries to sign the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2003.
WHO , WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC)
/ref> The Convention is designed to push for effective legislation and its enforcement in all countries to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco.
In science
The tobacco smoke enema
The tobacco smoke enema, an insufflation of tobacco smoke into the rectum by enema, was a medical treatment employed by European physicians for a range of ailments.
Tobacco was recognised as a medicine soon after it was first imported from the N ...
was the principal medical method to resuscitate victims of drowning
Drowning is a type of suffocation induced by the submersion of the mouth and nose in a liquid. Most instances of fatal drowning occur alone or in situations where others present are either unaware of the victim's situation or unable to offer a ...
in the 18th century.
As a lucrative crop, tobacco has been the subject of a great deal of biological and genetic research. The economic impact of Tobacco Mosaic disease was the impetus that led to the isolation of Tobacco mosaic virus
''Tobacco mosaic virus'' (TMV) is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus species in the genus ''Tobamovirus'' that infects a wide range of plants, especially tobacco and other members of the family Solanaceae. The infection causes characteri ...
, the first virus to be identified; the fortunate coincidence that it is one of the simplest viruses and can self-assemble from purified nucleic acid
Nucleic acids are biopolymers, macromolecules, essential to all known forms of life. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomers made of three components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. The two main cl ...
and protein
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...
led, in turn, to the rapid advancement of the field of virology
Virology is the Scientific method, scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host (biology), ...
. The 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...
was shared by Wendell Meredith Stanley
Wendell Meredith Stanley (16 August 1904 – 15 June 1971) was an American biochemist, virologist and Nobel laureate.
Biography
Stanley was born in Ridgeville, Indiana, and earned a BSc in Chemistry at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. ...
for his 1935 work crystallizing the virus and showing that it remains active.
References
Bibliography
* Benedict, Carol (2011). ''Golden-Silk Smoke: A History of Tobacco in China, 1550-2010''.
* Brandt, Allan (2007). ''The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America''.
* Breen, T. H. (1985). ''Tobacco Culture''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. . ''Source on tobacco culture in 18th-century Virginia pp. 46–55''
* Burns, Eric (2007). ''The Smoke of the Gods: A Social History of Tobacco''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
* Collins, W.K., and S.N. Hawks (1993). ''Principles of Flue-Cured Tobacco Production''.
* Cosner, Charlotte (2015). ''The Golden Leaf: How Tobacco Shaped Cuba and the Atlantic World''. Vanderbilt University Press.
* Fuller, R. Reese (Spring 2003). Perique, the Native Crop. ''Louisiana Life''.
* Gately, Iain (2003). ''Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization.'' Grove Press. .
* Goodman, Jordan (1993). ''Tobacco in History: The Cultures of Dependence''.
* Graves, John. "Tobacco That Is not Smoked" in ''From a Limestone Ledge'' (the sections on snuff and chewing tobacco)
* Grehan, James (2006). Smoking and "Early Modern" Sociability: The Great Tobacco Debate in the Ottoman Middle East (Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries). ''The American Historical Review'' 3#
online
* Hahn, Barbara (2011). ''Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617-1937''. Johns Hopkins University Press. 248 pages; examines how marketing, technology, and demand figured in the rise of Bright Flue-Cured Tobacco, a variety first grown in the inland Piedmont region of the Virginia-North Carolina border.
* Killebrew, J. B. and Myrick, Herbert (1909). ''Tobacco Leaf: Its Culture and Cure, Marketing and Manufacture.'' Orange Judd Company. ''Source for flea beetle typology (p. 243)''
* Kluger, Richard (1996). ''Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War''.
* Murphey, Rhoads (2007). ''Studies on Ottoman Society and Culture: 16th-18th Centuries''. Burlington, VT: Ashgate: Variorum.
* Poche, L. Aristee (2002). ''Perique Tobacco: Mystery and history''.
* Price, Jacob M. (1954). "The rise of Glasgow in the Chesapeake tobacco trade, 1707-1775." ''William and Mary Quarterly'' pp: 179-199
in JSTOR
* Tilley, Nannie May ''The Bright Tobacco Industry 1860–1929'' .
* Schoolcraft, Henry R. (1851–57). ''Historical and Statistical Information respecting the Indian Tribes of the United States''. Philadelphia.
* Shechter, Relli (2006). ''Smoking, Culture and Economy in the Middle East: The Egyptian Tobacco Market 1850–2000''. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd.
External links
History of tobacco article from Big Site of Amazing Facts
History of Tobacco from License To Vape
information on tobacco and cigarettes
Modern History of Smoking
{{DEFAULTSORT:History of Tobacco