The History of Tobacco Part I
by Gene Borio
IN THE BEGINNING . . .
Huron Indian myth has it that in ancient times, when the land was
barren and the people were starving, the Great Spirit sent forth
a woman to save humanity. As she traveled over the world,
everywhere her right hand touched the soil, there grew potatoes.
And everywhere her left hand touched the soil, there grew corn.
And when the world was rich and fertile, she sat down and rested.
When she arose, there grew tobacco . . .
TOBACCO TIMELINE
Last major update: 04/22/97
Thanks to tobacco researcher Larry Breed (LB) for his
contributions. He recently found a little tome called "This
Smoking World" (1927), and shared some of its events (TSW).
I am also beginning to incorporate events referenced in Richard
Kluger's monumental Ashes to Ashes (RK) and The American Tobacco
Story (ATS). Another important source is Bill Drake's wonderful
The European Experience With Native American Tobacco (BD)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
• The sacred origin of tobacco and the first pipe
(Schoolcraft)
• c. 6000 BC: Experts believe the tobacco plant, as we know
it today, begins growing in the Americas.
• c. 1 BCE: Experts believe American inhabitants begin
finding ways to use tobacco, including smoking (via a number of
variations) and in enemas.
• c. 1 CE: Tobacco was "nearly everywhere" in the
Americas. (American Heritage Book of Indians, p.41).
• 600-1000 CE: UAXACTUN, GUATEMALA. First pictorial record
of smoking: A pottery vessel found here dates from before the
11th century. On it a Maya is depicted smoking a roll of tobacco
leaves tied with a string. The Mayan term for smoking was sik'ar
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction:
The Chiapas Gift, or The Indians' Revenge?
• 1492-10-15: Columbus Discovers Smoking
• 1497: Robert Pane, who accompanied Christopher Columbus on
his second voyage in 1493, writes the first report of native
tobacco use to appear in Europe.
• 1518: MEXICO: JUAN DE GRIJALVA lands in Yucatan, observes
cigarette smoking by natives (ATS)
• 1519: MEXICO: CORTEZ conquers AZTEC capitol, finds Mexican
natives smoking perfumed reed cigarettes.(ATS)
• 1530: MEXICO: BERNARDINO DE SAHAGUN, missionary in Mexico,
distinguishes between sweet commercial tobacco (Nicotiana
tabacum) and coarse Nicotiana rustica.(ATS)
• 1531: SANTO DOMINGO: European cultivation of tobacco
begins
• 1534: CUBA, SANTO DOMINGO: "Tall
tobacco"Ñsweet, broadleaved Nicotiana tabacumÑtransplanted
from Central American mainland to Cuba and Santo Domingo.(ATS)
• 1548: BRAZIL: Portuguese cultivate tobacco for commercial
export.
• 1554: ANTWERP: 'Cruydeboeck' presents first illustration
of tobacco. (LB)
• 1535: CANADA: Jacques Cartier encounters natives on the
island of Montreal who use tobacco.
• 1556: FRANCE: Tobacco is introduced. Thevet transplants
Nicotiana tabacum from Brazil, describes tobacco as a creature
comfort. (ATS)
• 1558: PORTUGAL: Tobacco is introduced.
• 1559: SPAIN: Tobacco is introduced.
• 1560: PORTUGAL, FRANCE: Jean Nicot de Villemain, France's
ambassador to Portugal, writes of tobacco's medicinal properties,
describing it as a panacea. Nicot sends rustica plants to French
court.
• 1564 or 1565: ENGLAND: Tobacco is introduced by Sir John
Hawkins and/or his crew. For the next twenty years in England,
tobacco is used cheifly by sailors, including those employed by
Sir Francis Drake.
• 1566: FRANCE: Nicot sends snuff to Catherine de Medici,
Queen of France, to treat her migraine headaches. She later
decrees tobacco be termed Herba Regina
• 1568: FRANCE: Andre Thevet provides first description of
tobacco use. In Brazil, he wrote, the people smoke it and it
cleans the "superfluous humours of the brain". Thevet
smoked it himself. (LB)
• 1570: Claimed first botanical book on tobacco written by
Pena and Lobel of London.(TSW)
• 1571: SPAIN: MEDICINE: Monardes, a doctor in Seville,
reports on the latest craze among Spanish doctors--the wonders of
the tobacco plant, which herbalists are growing all over Spain.
Monardes lists 36 maladies tobacco cures.
• 1573: ENGLAND: Sir Francis Drake returns from Americas
with 'Nicotina tobacum'. (LB)
• 1575: MEXICO: LEGISLATION: Roman Catholic Church passes a
law against smoking in any place of worship in the Spanish
Colonies
• 1577: ENGLAND: MEDICINE: Frampton translates Monardes into
English. European doctors look for new cures--tobacco is
recommended for toothache, falling fingernails, worms, halitosis,
lockjaw & cancer
• 1580: CUBA: European cultivation of tobacco begins
• 1585: ENGLAND: Sir Francis Drake introduces smoking to Sir
Walter Raleigh (BD)
• 1586: Ralph Lane, first governor of Virginia, teaches Sir
Walter Raleigh to smoke the long-stemmed clay pipe Lane is
credited with inventing (BD).(TSW)
• 1586: GERMANY: 'De plantis epitome utilissima' offers one
of first cautions to use of tobacco, calling it a "violent
herb". (LB)
• 1586: ENGLAND: Tobacco Arrives in English Society. In July
1586, some of the Virginia colonists returned to England and
disembarked at Plymouth smoking tobacco from pipes, which caused
a sensation. William Camden (1551-1623) a contemporary witness,
reports that "These men who were thus brought back were the
first that I know of that brought into England that Indian plant
which they call Tabacca and Nicotia, or Tobacco" Tobacco in
the Elizabethan age was known as "sotweed." (BD)
• 1587: ANTWERP: First published work totally on tobacco,
'De herbe panacea', with numerous recipies and claims of cures.
(LB)
• 1588: Hariot writes about tobacco in Virginia
• 1590: LITERATURE: Spenser's Fairy Queen: earliest poetical
allusion to tobacco in English literature. (Book III, Canto VI,
32).
• 1595: ENGLAND: Tabacco, the first book in the English
language devoted to the subject of tobacco, is published
• 1595: Matoaka is born to Chief Powhatan. She is given the
nickname Pocahontas--"Frisky," "Playful One"
or "Mischief"
• 1596: LITERATURE: Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humor is
acted on the 25th of November, 1596, and printed in 1601. In Act
III, Scene 2, Bobadilla (pro) and Cob (con) argue about tobacco.
(BD)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seventeenth Century--"The Great Age of the Pipe"
When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers therefore are
the founders of human civilization. -- Daniel Webster. 1782-1852.
Tobacco comes into use as "Country Money" or
"Country Pay" in the colonies. Tobacco continues to be
used as a monetary standard--literally a "cash crop"--
throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, lasting twice as long as
the gold standard.
So prominent is the place that tobacco occupies in the early
records of the middle Southern States, that its cultivation and
commercial associations may be said to form the basis of their
history. It was the direct source of their wealth, and became for
a while the representative of gold and silver; the standard value
of other merchantable products; and this tradition was further
preserved by the stamping of a tobacco-leaf upon the old
continental money used in the Revolution. --19th century
historian (DB)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
• 1600s: Popes ban smoking in holy places. Pope Urban VIII
(1623-44) threatens excommunication for those who smoke or take
snuff in holy places.
• 1600: BRAZIL: European cultivation of tobacco begins
• 1600: ENGLAND: Sir Walter Raleigh persuades Queen
Elizabeth to try smoking
• 1601: TURKEY: Smoking is introduced, and rapidly takes
hold while clerics denounce it. "Puffing in each other's
faces, they made the streets and markets stink," writes
historian Ibrahim Pecevi.
• 1602: ENGLAND: Publication of Worke of Chimney Sweepers by
anonymous author identified as 'Philaretes' states that illness
of chimney sweepers is caused by soot and that tobacco may have
similar effects. (LB)
• 1602: ENGLAND: Roger Markecke writes A Defense of Tobacco,
in response to Chimneysweeps (LB)
• 1603: ENGLAND: Physicians are upset that tobacco used by
people without physician prescription; complain to King James
I.(TSW)
• 1604: ENGLAND: King James I writes "A Counterblaste
to Tobacco"
• 1604: ENGLAND: King James I increases import tax on
tobacco 4,000%
• 1605: ENGLAND: Debate between King James I and Dr.
Cheynell.(TSW)
• 1606: SPAIN: King Philip Ill decrees that tobacco may only
be grown in specific locations--including Cuba, Santo Domingo,
Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Sale of tobacco to foreigners is
punishable by death.
• 1606+: ADVERTISING: ENGLAND: America and advertising begin
to grow together. One of the first products heavily marketed is
America itself. Richard Hofstadter called the Virginia Company's
recruitment effort for its new colony, "one of the first
concerted and sustained advertising campaigns in the history of
the modern world." The out-of-place, out-of-work
"gentlemen" in an overpopulated England were sold quite
a bill of goods about the bountiful land and riches to be had in
the New World. Daniel J. Boorstin has mused whether "there
was a kind of natural selection here of those people who were
willing to believe in advertising."
• 1607: JAMESTOWN saga begins
• 1610: ENGLAND: Sir Francis Bacon writes that tobacco use
is increasing and that it is a custom hard to quit. (LB)
• 1610: ENGLAND: Edmond Gardiner publishes William Barclay's
The Trial of Tobacco and provides a text of recipies and
medicinal preparations. BArclay defends tobacco as a medicine but
condemns casual use(LB)
• 1612: CHINA: Imperial edict forbidding the planting and
use tobacco.(TSW)
• 1612: JAMESTOWN: John Rolfe raises Virginia's first
commercial crop of "tall tobacco."
• 1614: SPAIN: King Philip III establishes Seville as
tobacco center of the world. Attempting to prevent a tobacco
glut, Philip requires all tobacco grown in the Spanish New World
to be shipped to a central location, Seville, Spain. Seville
becomes the world center for the production of cigars. European
cigarette use begins here, as beggars patch together tobacco from
used cigars, and roll them in paper(papeletes). Spanish and
Portuguese sailors spread the practice to Russia and the Levant.
• 1614-04: JAMESTOWN: John Rolfe and Pocahontas (Rebecca)
are married
• 1614: ENGLAND: First sale of native Virginia tobacco in
England; Virginia colony enters world tobacco market, under
English protection
• 1614: ENGLAND: "[T]here be 7000 shops, in and about
London, that doth vent Tobacco" -- The Honestie of this Age,
Prooving by good circumstance that the world was never honest
till now, by Barnabee Rych Gentleman (BD)
• 1614: LITERATURE: Nepenthes, or the Vertues of Tabacco, by
William Barclay; Edinburgh, 1614. Recommends exclusively tobacco
of American origin (BD)
• 1616-06-03: JAMESTOWN: John Rolfe and Pocahontas arrive in
London
• 1617: Dr. William Vaughn writes:
Tobacco that outlandish weede
It spends the braine and spoiles the seede
It dulls the spirite, it dims the sight
It robs a woman of her right
• 1617: MONGOLIA: Emperor places dealth penalty on using
tobacco.(TSW)
• 1619: ENGLAND: An unhappy King James I incorporates
British pipe makers.(TSW)
• 1619: JAMESTOWN: First Africans brought into Virginia.
John Rolfe writes in his diary, About the last of August came in
a dutch man of warre that sold us twenty negars.
• 1619: JAMESTOWN: First shipment of wives for settlers
arrives. Future husbands had to pay for his prospective mate's
passage (120 lbs. of tobacco).
• 1620: ENGLAND: 40,000 lbs of tobacco imported from
Virginia. (LB)
• 1620: Trade agreement between the Crown & Virginia
Company bans commercial tobacco growing in England, in return for
a 1 shilling/lb. duty on Virginia tobacco.
• 1621: Sixty future wives arrive in Virginia and sell for
150 pounds of tobacco each. Price up since 1619.(TSW)
• 1621: ENGLAND: Tobias Venner publishes "A briefe and
accurate treatise, comcerning....tobacco" claiming medicinal
properties, but condeming use for pleasure. (LB)
• 1624: Pope threatens excommunication for snuff users;
sneezing is thought too close to sexual ecstasy
• 1628: Shah Sefi punishes two merchants for selling tobacco
by pouring hot lead down their throat.(TSW)
• 1631: European cultivation of tobacco begins in Maryland
• 1632: MASSACHUSETTS forbids public smoking
• 1633: CONNECTICUT Settled; first tobacco crop raised in
Windsor
• 1633: TURKEY: Sultan Murad IV orders tobacco users
executed as infidels. As many as 18 a day were executed. Some
historians consider the ban an anti-plague measure, some a
fire-prevention measure.
• 1634: RUSSIA: Czar Alexis creates penalties for smoking:
1st offense is whipping, a slit nose, and trasportation to
Siberia. 2nd offense is execution.(TSW) (BD)
• 1634: EUROPE: Greek Church claims that it was tobacco
smoke that intoxicated Noah and so bans tobacco use.(TSW)
• 1635: FRANCE: King allows sale of tobaccco only following
prescription by physician.(TSW)
• 1637: FRANCE: King Louis XIII enjoys snuff and repeals
restricions on its use.(TSW)
• 1638: CHINA: Use or distribution of tobacco is made a
crime punishable by decapitation.
• 1639: NEW YORK CITY: Governor Kieft bans smoking in New
Amsterdam
• 1640: Greenwich Village, NY is known to Native Americans
as (var.) Sapponckanican-- "tobacco fields," or
"land where the tobacco grows."
•In 1629, Niewu Amsterdam's Gov. Wouter Van Twiller
appropriated a farm belonging to the Dutch West India Company in
the Bossen Bouwery ("Farm in the woods") area of
Manhattan island, and began growing tobacco. The first Dutch
references to the Indians' name for the area appear around 1640.
• 1647: TURKEY: Tobacco ban is lifted. Pecevi writes that
tobaco has now joined coffee, wine and opium as one of the four
"cushions on the sofa of pleasure."
• 1647: Colony of Connecticut bans public smoking: citizens
may smoke only once a day, "and then not in company with any
other."
• 1650: Colony of Connecticut General Court orders -- no
smoking by person under age of 21, no smoking except with
physicians order.(TSW)
• 1660: ENGLAND: THE RESTORATION OF THE MONARCHY The court
of Charles II returns to London from exile in Paris, bringing the
French court's snuffing practice with them; snuff becomes an
aristocratic form of tobacco use. During Charles' reign
(1660-1685), the growing of tobacco in England, except for small
lots in physic gardens, is forbidden so as to preserve the taxes
coming in from Virginian imports..
• 1661: VIRGINIA Assembly begins institutionalizing slavery,
making it de jure.
• 1665: EUROPE: THE GREAT PLAGUE Smoking tobacco is thought
to have a protective effect.
• 1665: HEALTH: ENGLAND: Samuel Pepys describes a Royal
Society experiment in which a cat quickly dies when fed "a
drop of distilled oil of tobacco."
• 1666: Maryland faces oversupply; bans production of
tobacco for one year.
• 1675: SWITZERLAND: The Berne town council establishes a
special Chambres de Tabac to deal with smokers, who face the same
dire penalties as adulterers.
• 1676: Heavy taxes levied in tobacco by Virginia Governor
BERKELEY lead to BACON'S REBELLION, a foretaste of American
Revolution. (ATS)
This page was written and donated to
History Net by Gene Borio ©1997, the Tobacco BBS 212-982-4645.
WebPage: http://www.tobacco.org
•Original Tobacco BBS material may be reprinted in any
non-commercial venue if accompanied by this credit