History of Tobacco

By Dr. Anson Elliott

Seeds one of smallest of

all plants!

History of Tobacco

c. 6000 BCE: Tobacco plant, as we know it today, begins growing in the Americas not in the rest of the world.
C.1 BC: Found throughout the Americas

Incas and Mayas smoked rolled leaves for celebrations. Smoked until they were they were in a stupor!
Reported to kill apatite and provide energy to warriors.
Modern Research of the effects of nicotine on the brain confirm these observations.
Delivers signals to the muscles, energy level, beating of the heart and breathe
Improves reaction time
Reward pathways of the brain - Endorphins

470-630: Mayas took it to the Mississippi Valley

1492:Columbus noted Native Americans taking snuff and smoking a Yshaped tube that was filled with tobacco and the two ends placed into
nostrils for inhaling smoke.
Smoking was spiritual event, through the mingling of the smoke with the
spirits of others and with the gods.
1499:
American Vespucci noted American Indians chewing
tobacco.
1500s
Tobacco carried to China, Africa, and Europe

Peace pipes" of the Sioux and other Plains tribes, which were made
by attaching a wooden stem to a bowl carved from catlinite or
"pipestone." (Pipestone is native to Minnesota, but due to intertribal
trade was available throughout NativeNorth America.) Pipe often
buried with the owner.
Pipe

a tool of communication with the devine, food

substitute, but became an indulgence and an addiction.

 1518: SPAIN: Fernando Cortez brings tobacco to Spain

Spain being Catholic viewed the smoking practice as
being from the devil because of it being a savage
practice.
1556 to 65 Tobacco is introduced to France and England
1571: SPAIN: MEDICINE: Monardes, a doctor in Seville,
reports on the latest craze lists 36 maladies tobacco
cures (snake bite, colds, etc.)
1573: ENGLAND: Sir Francis Drake returns from the
Americas with 'Nicotina tobacum'. (milder)

 1600: ENGLAND: Sir Walter Raleigh persuades

Queen Elizabeth to try smoking
1603: ENGLAND: Physicians, upset that tobacco
is being used by common people without a
physician's prescription
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.

 1610: ENGLAND: Sir Francis Bacon writes

that tobacco use is increasing and that it is
a custom hard to quit.
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

First and Second group to

Jamestown in 1607,1609 failed

1612: JAMESTOWN: John Rolfe raises Virginia's first commercial

crop of "tall tobacco." Brand Name Orinoco milder and sweet
smelling.

1613-06: ENGLAND: First shipment of Rolfe's tobacco arrives.

1618-48: ENGLAND: SIR WALTER RALEIGH, popularized tobacco

in England

 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."
They were needed for the booming
tobacco crop, but had been baptized, so-as Christians--they could not be enslaved
for life, but only indentured, just like many
of the English colonists, for 5-7 years

 1619: ECONOMY: Tobacco is being used

as currency. It will continue to be so used
for 200 years in Virginia, for 150 years in
Maryland
1619: JAMESTOWN: First shipment of
women--meant to become wives for the
settlers--arrives. A prospective husband
must pay for his chosen mate's passage
with 120 lbs. of tobacco.

Grapes, wine and Silk failed as was

dictated by the Virgina Company
John Rolfe married Pocahontas (the spirited one) a
teenager who had gotten Rolfes attention by doing
cartwheels naked through Jamestowns streets.
Exported to England
1618
1622
1627

20,000 lbs.
60,000
500,000

The discovery that tobacco could be

successfully grown and profitably sold was the
most momentous single fact in the first century of
settlement on the Chesapeake Bay Tobacco had
guaranteed that the Jamestown experiment would
not fail.

1620: ENGLAND: King James (despises

tobacco) proclaims rules of tobacco growing
and import: limits tobacco sales to 100 weight of
tobacco per man; restricts imports to Virginia
colony, and establishes stamps or seals. James
suggested colonists concentrate more on corn,
livestock and potash.

North opposed to Tobacco family values

South favored indentured slaves
1650: REGULATION: Colony of Connecticut General
Court orders -- no smoking by person under age of 21,
no smoking except with physicians order.
1665-66: HEALTH: EUROPE: THE GREAT PLAGUE
Smoking tobacco is thought to have a protective effect.
Smoking is made compulsory to ward off infection.
1676: TAXES: Heavy taxes levied in tobacco by Virginia
Governor BERKELEY lead to BACON'S REBELLION, a
foretaste of American Revolution.
1683: Massachusetts passes the nation's first nosmoking law.

 1701: HEALTH: MEDICINE: Nicholas Andryde

Boisregard warns that young people taking too
much tobacco have trembling, unsteady hands,
staggering feet and suffer a withering of "their noble
parts."
1705: VIRGINIA Assembly passes a law legalizing
lifelong slavery. . . . all servants imported and
brought into this country, by sea or land, who were
not Christians in their native country . . . shall
be . . . slaves, and as such be here bought and
sold notwithstanding a conversion to Christianity
afterwards."

 1759: GEORGE WASHINGTON, having

gained 17,000 acres of farmland and 286
slaves from his new wife, MARTHA (these
added to his own 30 slaves), harvests his
first tobacco crop.

 1761: SCIENCE: ENGLAND: Physician

John Hill publishes "Cautions against the
Immoderate Use of Snuff" -- perhaps the
first clinical study of tobacco effects. Hill
warns snuff users they are vulnerable to
cancers of the nose.

 1624: REGULATION: POPE URBAN VIII threatens

excommunication for snuff users; sneezing is thought too
close to sexual ecstasy
1624: ENGLAND establishes a royal tobacco monopoly.
1624: NEW YORK CITY is born. The town of New
Amsterdam was established on lower Manhattan At this
time, the western area of what is now Greenwich Village,
NY, is known to Native Americans as (var.)
Sapponckanican-- "tobacco fields," or "land where the
tobacco grows."
China banned (decapitation) then legalized with the
pipes becoming art forms.

Impact On the Revolutionary War

1776: AMERICAN REVOLUTION War was variously known as "The

Tobacco War."
Growers had found themselves perpetually in debt to British
merchants; by 1776, growers owed the mercantile houses millions of
pounds.
British tobacco taxes are a further grievance.
Tobacco helps finance the Revolution by serving as collateral for the
loan Benjamin Franklin won from France--the security was 5 million
pounds of Virginia tobacco.
George Washington once appealed to his countrymen for aid to the
army: "If you can't send money, send tobacco."
During the war, it was tobacco exports that the fledgling government
used to build up credits abroad.
When the war was over, Americans turned to tobacco taxes to help
repay the revolutionary war debt.

 1781: Thomas Jefferson suggests tobacco cultivation in

the "western country on the Mississippi."
1794: TAXES: The U.S Congress passes the first federal
excise tax on tobacco products. The tax of 8 cents
applies only to snuff, not chewing or smoking tobacco.
The tax is 60% of snuff's usual selling price. James
Madison opposed the tax, saying it deprive poorer
people of innocent gratification
1795: SCIENCE: Sammuel Thomas von Soemmering of
Maine reports on cancers of the lip in pipe smokers

 1804-06: LEWIS AND CLARK explore

Northwest, using gifts of tobacco as "life
insurance."
1806-03-07: LEWIS AND CLARK. Patrick
Gass, holed up with the expedition in Fort
Clatsup, OR, writes, "Among our other
difficulties, we now experience the want of
tobacco. We use crabtree bark as a
substitute."

 1828: SPAIN:The cigarette becomes popular

as a new way of smoking.They are sold
individually, and in "rolls."
1830s: TOBACCO CONTROL: First organized
anti-tobacco movement in US begins as
adjunct to the temperance movement.
Tobacco use is considered to dry out the
mouth, "creating a morbid or diseased thirst"
which only liquor could quench..

 1839: AGRICULTURE: NORTH CAROLINA:

SLADE "yallercure. Charcoal used in fluecuring results in the classic American "Bright
leaf" variety, which is so mild it virtually invites a
smoker to inhale it.
1846-1848: MEXICAN WAR US soldiers bring
back from the Southwest a taste for the darker,
richer tobacco favored in Latin countries-cigarros and cigareillos--leading to an explosive
increase in the use of the cigar.

 1849: CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH: One

commentator writes of this period: "I have seen
purer liquors, better seegars, finer tobacco, truer
guns and pistols, larger dirks and bowie knives,
and prettier cortezans, here in San Francisco
than in any place I have ever visited, and it is my
unbiased opinion that California can and does
furnish the best bad things that are obtainable
in America."

 1855: "Annual Report of the New York AntiTobacco Society for 1855" calls tobacco a
"fashionable poison," warns against addiction
and claims half of all deaths of smokers between
35 and 50 were caused by smoking.
1859: Reverend George Trask publishes tract
"Thoughts and stories for American Lads: Uncle
Toby's anti-tobacco advice to his nephew Billy
Bruce". He writes, "Physicians tell us that twenty
thousand or more in our own land are killed by
[tobacco] every year

Little Dixie 1/3 Pop were slaves

From Hurt

Little Dixie
Slaves who came from the interior of Africa had worked on
the Plantations of coastal peoples before being sold to
Europeans and may have grown tobacco, rice, and cotton
(Littlefield)
A Slave Could Produce 4 Acres of Tobacco also hemp
and corn
An Acre of tobacco could clear $350, enough to purchase
160 acres with $90 left.
A slave Could be purchased for $300 to $800
Excess (or trouble makers) were sold down the river to
Louisiana were conditions were considered worse in the
production of cotton.!
Cotton Gin raised demand for cotton and slaves; hemp to
tie cotton bales.

Shortage of Money/State Controls

and Inspections!
People bought land, the money was sent
back east for investment, leaving cash
short in the local economy resulted in
bartering and the use of tobacco as
currency.
Quality of tobacco was controlled by the
State in order to command higher prices
from Louisiana

Soil Preparation very finely

worked soil.

Modern World has

used fumigation
under plastic to kill
weed seeds in soil
before seeding.
Early times
seeded in burned
forest areas.

Stomping to firm seed in soil

Plants Developed
Ready for transplanting.

Transplanting into Larger

Field

Flowers Undesirable
Utilizes Plants Energy

Topping remove flower

Tobacco horn worm

Setting Poles for Harvest

Six Plants to a Pole

Harvesting Plants

Cutting and Spiking

Plants

Spiking
plants onto
the tobacco
sticks

Tobacco is dirty!

Loading wagon

Hauling spiked plants to the

barn

One Tobacco in US
Two Types Based upon Drying Process
Many Flavors based upon processing and
blending

Burley dried very slowly in Barns with no heat

Therefore cool burning but less flavor.
Virginia - dried quickly in barns with heat (hickory, etc.)
Therefore high sugar (turns to acid when burned with bite and flavor.

In the
Drying
Barn

Balance
is
needed!

Poles
having six
plants
spiked is
handed up
for hanging
to dry.

Six dried
plants
taken
down.

Adding Moisture so
leaves will be flexible.

Ready for Stripping leaves

from stalk.

Various Grades
Top to Bottom Leaves
V. High in Nicotine in top goes to
cigarettes

Sorting
and
Stacking

Bigger stacks!

A Bale
Tied
and
Ready
for
Sale!

Hand
of
Tobacco
for
storage
before
baling.

Pressing.

Products
Smoked
Rolled leaves
Pipes
Cigarettes

Snuff: finely ground smokeless tobacco product.

Dry Dust is sniffed up the nose
Dipped is placed between cheek and gum

Chewed
Plug: made by pressing together cured tobacco leaves
in a sweet (often molasses-based) syrup.
Twist: Leaves twisted for chewing

Rolled and twisted tobacco

for pipe or chewing
soaked in olive oil,
molasses, etc.

Tobacco Knife slightly curved

Congress Knife weak backbone

Plug Tobacco
for chewing

Greene County

Fayetteville Arkansas Sept 1859

Gent
Please send us, by first opportunityone bx No 1 Tobacco
and one box or your best Natural
Leaf.
We are almost out of tobacco of any
kind and sure would like to have it
soon as possible.
Please let us know if you our able to
send it. So that we can make other
arrangements.
Yours very Respectfully
Wm. MC Hoy??
Per I.H.Van House

Greene County: Offer to Sell or

question of the need to ship to
other markets.

Greene County Received of T.N.

Caynor, one box No2
Tobacco weighing
134 lbs at 221/2 cts pr
lb to be sold or
returned when called
for, this Sept 5, 1860
Wm Bishop
By R.A. Calwell

Urgent Message
Gents: Please send
us by Mr. Phillips one
box of tobacco as
soon as ---we are
entirely out of
tobacco---and it would
be an accomodation
to us if you would
sent it.
Very respectfully.

From: History of Greene County, Missouri 1883

Greene County Archives Bulletin - Number 42 p 256
J.H. Caynor and Co. had a tobacco
manufactory which employed thirty hands, and
invested $15,000. It had consumed 175,000
pounds of tobacco, and turned out 800 boxes of
the manufactured article.
Mr. Fagg was also engaged in tobacco
manufacauring.
In 1858
No of slaves, 1580 value $749,550
Lunatic Asylum, tax from property $664.40

 1862: THE CIVIL WAR: First federal USA tax on

tobacco; instituted to help pay for the Civil
War, yields about three million dollars.(TSW)
1871: TAXES: The federal income tax,
instituted in 1862, is repealed, replaced by
liquor and tobacco taxes to finance the
federal budget.

 1899: HEALTH: First edition of the Merck

Manual is published; it recommends
smoking tobacco to treat bronchitis and
asthma.
1912: HEALTH: Dr. Isaac Adler is the first
to strongly suggest that lung cancer is
related to smoking.

 1939: STATISTICS: Fortune magazine finds 53% of adult

American males smoke; 66% of males under 40 smoke.
1939-1945: WORLD WAR II
As part of the war effort, Roosevelt makes tobacco a
protected crop.
Cigarettes are included in GI's C-Rations.
Tobacco companies send millions of free cigs to GI's,
mostly the popular brands; the home front had to make
do with off-brands like Rameses or Pacayunes.
Tobacco consumption is so fierce a shortage develops.
By the end of the war, cigarette sales are at an all-time
high.

 1942: BUSINESS: "Lucky Strike Green Has Gone to

War."
Lucky Strike's green/gold pack turns all-white, with a red bull's
eye. The war effort needed titanium, contained in Lucky's green
ink, and bronze, contained in the gold.
ATC took this opportunity to change the color of the pack--hated
by women because it clashed with their dresses--to white.

Ad campaign coincides with US invasion of North Africa.

Sales increase 38%.

 1949: CONSUMPTION: 44-47% of all adult Americans

smoke; over 50% of men, and about 33% of women.
1957-07-12: First Surgeon General declares link
between smoking and lung cancer.
1971-01-02: REGULATION: TV:
Cigarette ads are taken off TV and radio as Cigarette Smoking Act
of 1969 takes effect.
Broadcast industry loses c. $220 Million in ads (Ad Age, "History
of TV Advertising").
The last commercial on US TV is a Virginia Slims ad, aired at 1
1:59 PM on the Johnny Carson Tonight show, Jan. 1, 1971.

Tobacco Production/Consumption
http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/26919-en.html

Collections Out of Control!

References

Tobacco A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant seduced Civilization

By Iain Gately, 2001

Agricllture and Slavery in Missouris Little Dixie

By R. Douglas Hurt, 1992

Slavery and Missosuri River Counties 1820-1865

By Robert W. Duffner, 1974

Insiders War- The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri during the American Civil
War
By Michael Fellman, 1989

Rice and Slaves Ethnicity and the Slave Trade In Colonial South Carolina
By Daniel C. Littlefield, 1981

A History of Missouri: Volume III 1860-1875

By William E. Parrish, 1973

Greene county Archives

History of Greene County, Missouri 1883
Greene County Archives Bulletin - Number 42 p 256

References
http://www.tobacco.org/resources/history/
http://www.native-languages.org/pipes.htm
http://www.rocksandminerals.com/specimens/pipestone.
htm
http://www.nps.gov/gew/gowden&history.htm
http://health.howstuffworks.com/nicotine4.htm
http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/26919en.html

Acknowledgement: Archivist
and Author

Thank you