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Tobacco Penetrates into the Civilized World

Published on July 10, 2008 10:21 AM

Native Americans cultivated the tobacco leaves and smoked them in pipes for ceremonial and medicinal purposes. The aromatic plant was first tasted by the peoples of the pre-Columbian Americas.

Chewing and smoking the dried leaves of tobacco were to Columbus and his men’s taste. The Indians smoked through a special pipe called a tobaga, by the name of the plant. Christopher Columbus brought some tobacco seeds and leaves with him back to Europe. However, most Europeans did not enjoy the first taste of tobacco. Only in the XVI century adventurer and diplomat, France's Jean Nicot, began to popularize its use. Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Lisbon, sent seeds of the plant to Catherine de Medicis, then Queen of France. Then the addictive alkaloid was called nicotine.

Tobacco was introduced to England in 1565, Spain in 1559, Portugal in 1558 and France in 1556. In 1612 John Rolfe from England cultivated the first successful commercial crop in Virginia.

Firstly, tobacco was produced for chewing, pipe-smoking and snuffs. Cigars became popular only in the early 1800s. In the United States cigarettes became widely popular after the Civil War. At first, smoking was a male habit and most smokers choose cigars. Today this habit is socially acceptable for women.

In the XIX century James E. Bonsack invented the automatized cigarette-making machine. It increased cigarette production (200 cigarettes per minute). But if a tobacco product causes health hazard, the company must inform buyers, even if it was not aware of the real danger!