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 is related to garden vegetables, flowers, weeds, and poisonous herbs such as potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, petunias, jimson wood, ground cherries, and nightshade. The family of plants is Solanaceae; the genus Nicotiana contains about 100 species, only two of which have been extensively cultivated. Nicotiana tabacam is used in cigarettes and tobacco and is the predominant type of crop tobacco.
Originally, Native Americans in the eastern United States grew Nicotiana rustica, which was the first form of tobacco introduced in England and Portugal. N. Tabacam, first introduced to the Spanish, was obtained from Mexico and South America. It has been the preferred tobacco since settlers in Jamestown, Virginia, began growing it.
Because planters believed that tobacco had to be grown on virgin soil, tobacco gradually made its way to the eastern part of what is now North Carolina. Consumer preferences for tobacco products changed decidedly from the early 1700's.
Carl Linnaeus describes tobacco in this 1762 edition of Caroli Linnaei Species plantarum, exhibentes plantas rite cognitas, ad general relatas, cum differentiis specificis, nominibus trivialibus, synonymis selectis, locis natalibus, secundum system a sexuale digestas.
In 1839, bright leaf tobacco was discovered by a slave named Stephen (headman on the farm of Abisha Slade, a successful planter in Caswell County). Stephen fell asleep owing to the heat from the wood fires in the tobacco barn, and when he awoke the fire was almost out. He rushed to a charcoal pit and found some charred logs on the dying embers. He threw these on the fire, which created a sudden drying heat, which resulted in the brightest yellow tobacco ever seen.
The eighteenth century became the "Age of Snuff." Tobacco from North Carolina was used for snuff and pipe smoking, because the cigarette was not widely known outside of Spain. By the 1840's cigarettes had become popular with French women. Much to the chagrin of anti-tobacco societies, cigarettes caught on in the United States as well. Dr. Russell Thacher Trall, an anti- tobacco campaigner, said:
Some of the ladies of this refined and fashion-forming metropolis [New York] are aping the silly ways of some pseudo-accomplished foreigners, in smoking Tobacco through a weaker and more feminine article, which has been most delicately denominated cigarette. Despite such opposition to tobacco, the twentieth century saw a rise in its use.
Consumer demand established tobacco farming as an important part of North Carolina farm life. NC State, through its College of Agriculture and the Agricultural Extension program, researched tobacco and aided farmers around the world. Farmers received important information from NC State. Blue mold probably existed in the western United States for many years as a minor disease on wild species of tobacco. It came east in 1921 but disappeared for ten years before resurfacing in 1931. It is caused by a fungus that attacks tobacco.
The first recorded examples of tobacco smoking were from the Mexican Maya civilisation in about 500 AD. It was first brought to England in the second part of the 16th century by Sir Walter Raleigh. By the early 1600s it was sold in specialist tobacconist shops, grocers and drapers. Many Europeans made extravagant claims about the use of tobacco to cure a variety of diseases and ailments. Initially smoking tobacco for pleasure was confined to the wealthy classes but its use gradually spread.
In the early 1600s King James and the clergy came out strongly against smoking tobacco and regarded it as an a moral and health risk. Rather than attempting to completely ban it the King raised the duty on its importation. Other countries took a more draconian view. Tobacco smoking could be punished by death in Persia or China and by other less drastic, but nonetheless severe physical penalties in Russia and Turkey.
From the late 17th century to early 19th century snuff replaced pipe smoking as the main way tobacco was used in England. Cigar smoking also became more common.
Cigarettes were first introduced to England by troops returning from the Crimean War (1854-86) who had seen French and Turkish soldiers smoking them.
At this time cigarettes were of the roll-your-own variety. By the 1870s English companies started making ready rolled cigarettes but it was not till the 1880s, with the development of automatic machinery, that cigarettes as we know them today became more widely available. Filter tip cigarettes were first introduced in the 1950s.
It was not until the 1960s that tobacco smoking was associated with health problems. Until that time tobacco products were often seen as health enhancing and a good way or relaxing. Smoking was even advertised by famous sportsmen.
Health warnings led to a fall in tobacco consumption in developed countries, increased tax on tobacco products, controls on advertising, low tar varieties and bans on smoking in public places. It has also led to new products and schemes to help people stop smoking including smoking cessation groups, nicotine patches and chewing gums.
Also, it has been revealed that the tobacco companies knew for many years before it became public knowledge that regular smoking was closely linked to cancer. This has led to a number of court cases in the USA from those seeking compensation from the tobacco companies.
More info on tobacco ...
The history of smoking
Smoking clay pipes and a history of women smoking pipes
TOBACCO: Colonial Cultivation Methods