A brief history of tobacco

Tobacco, Latin name: Nicotiana tabacum. Tobacco belongs to the order Tubulariaceae, Solanaceae, annual or limited perennial herb, slightly woody at the base. Inflorescence terminal, conical, multi-flowered; capsule ovoid or rectangular, about the same length as the persistent calyx. Flowering and fruiting in summer and autumn. Mainly distributed in South America and China, native to South America, it is said to have a planting history of more than 7,000 years.

Just like the first person to eat crabs, there is always the first person to smoke tobacco, or the first person to smoke it. This thing is native to South America, so the first person to smoke must be a local. It is impossible to verify who it is, but this guy is also a cowhide, leading the history of smoking for thousands of years.

In the primitive period, Indians worshipped gods by blowing smoke and dancing

It is said that Indians are the first people in the world to grow tobacco, starting 7,000 years ago. Their understanding of tobacco is not limited to smoking but also worship, which is expressed in totems. It is estimated that they think smoking can communicate with gods and achieve the state of unity between man and nature.

Some archaeological analysis also found that the inhabitants of the Americas had the habit of smoking 3,500 years ago. With the further excavation of American history, the history of tobacco may extend to an earlier period of Indian history.

Archaeologists believe that the earliest evidence of human tobacco use found so far is a relief in a temple built in 432 AD in Belenque, Chiapas State, southern Mexico. It is a semi-relief painting, which depicts a Mayan man holding a long pipe pipe, blowing and smoking with a pipe during an ancestor worship ceremony, and his head is wrapped with tobacco leaves.

Archaeologists also found leftover tobacco and ashes from pipes in caves where Indians lived in northern Arizona, USA. According to research, these relics are about 650 AD. It is recorded that humans smoked tobacco in San Salvador in the 14th century. As for the name San Salvador, it was also given by Columbus. Who made him the first to discover and have the first right to name it? Or, at that time, he didn't know what this place was called in the local language, but he just followed the Western rules.

In October 1492, Columbus discovered the New World. Soon after landing, his fleet sailors saw American Indians "holding a burning stick in one hand and a long tube made of corn leaves or palm leaves in the other, with wisps of thick smoke coming out of their mouths and nostrils."

Columbus Fleet

The earliest record of Indians being the first human to smoke tobacco was in "Personal Experience" written by the Spaniard Pan. Pan recounted his experience of following Columbus's second voyage to the West Indies in 1497, in which he described the scene of him discovering Indians smoking tobacco.

Spanish missionary Bartholomew de las Casas participated in Columbus's second voyage to the American continent. He wrote in "History of the Indians": "Along the way, we can see locals, both men and women, holding a burning charcoal and some grass-like plants in their hands. They light the grass leaves while walking and enjoy the fragrance they emit."

In addition, in May 1536, an explorer named Jiadi returned to America after a long expedition to witness the Indians' use of tobacco. He made a more detailed account than Columbus's record: "They put the tobacco in the sun to dry, and then hang a small bag made of calfskin, a hollow stone or wood around their necks, which looks like a pipe; when they are happy, they will crush the tobacco into powder and put it at one end of the pipe, light it, and breathe deeply with their mouths at the other end, so that the body is completely filled with smoke, until it comes out of their mouths and nostrils. Stop, like the smoke from a chimney. They say that this keeps them warm and healthy. We have also tried this kind of smoke, put it in our mouths, and the hot taste is like pepper. "

There is also the "General History of the Indians" written by the nautical historian Penantis Oweito and published in 1535. It is recorded as follows: "Among other evil habits, the Indians have a particularly harmful hobby of smoking a certain kind of tobacco... in order to produce an anesthetic state of unconsciousness. Their chiefs use a kind of pipe shaped like a fork, insert the two ends of the fork into the nostrils, and put burning weeds at one end of the pipe. They use this method to smoke until they lose consciousness and lie on the ground with their limbs stretched out like a drunken sleeper... It is difficult for me to imagine what kind of pleasure they get from this habit, unless they have already drunk alcohol before smoking. "

It is said that the editor is very refreshing when smoking one cigarette, and I start to feel dizzy after smoking two, and I want to vomit after three.

Smoking Indians

When Columbus left, he received dried tobacco leaves from the Indians, and his fleet also brought tobacco seeds, a precious gift from the locals. From then on, these seeds sailed across the oceans along the routes of the Age of Discovery, taking root and growing leaves all over the world.

In the middle of the 16th century, the Spanish began to grow tobacco, and then tobacco grew in botanical gardens in France, Portugal, Britain, Italy and other countries. In the early 17th century, a small town in the Netherlands began to grow tobacco for commercial purposes on a large scale. Since then, tobacco has begun to be grown and traded on a large scale in Europe. In 1612, John Rolfe, a British colonial official, planted tobacco on a large scale in Jamestown, Virginia, and began to trade in tobacco.

The cultivation of tobacco changed the isolation of the world. Tobacco that left its homeland was not successfully planted in Europe due to climate reasons. As a result, the tobacco produced in the American colonies was exchanged for real money from Britain, which also laid the foundation for the development of the United States. "Without tobacco, there would be no America." American historians even have such a perception.

Tobacco trade

Another factor that promoted the spread of tobacco was the invention of cigarettes. In the early days, people who smoked dry tobacco would make a pipe, put tobacco in it, and start smoking it, or just roll the tobacco leaves into a roll and smoke it, which was stimulating.

It is said that in the war between Turkey and Egypt in 1832, a gunner invented a method of wrapping gunpowder with paper, which greatly enhanced the power of the artillery. So his superior rewarded him with a pound of tobacco, but forgot to give him a pipe. The soldier had an idea and wrapped the tobacco with paper and smoked it. A convenient, fast and easy-to-carry smoking method was born. In 1847, Philip Morris was established, and the company initially sold Turkish hand-rolled cigarettes.

At the same time, another major event in the history of tobacco appeared - the invention of flue-cured tobacco. In 1839, tobacco farmers in North Carolina, USA, used charcoal to bake tobacco leaves for the first time, and obtained tobacco leaves with golden color and better taste. A softer tobacco then became popular.

However, the cigarettes people smoked at that time were still hand-rolled.

In 1880, American J.A. Bonsack invented a continuous forming cigarette machine that could produce 250 cigarettes per minute. This major invention marked the beginning of the era of large-scale machine-made cigarettes. Since then, machine-made cigarettes have been welcomed by consumers for their low price, convenience in smoking and carrying, and other advantages. Cigarette production has developed rapidly and gradually rose to a dominant position in the tobacco industry.