History of tobacco facts for kids
Tobacco was used for a very long time in the early Americas. When Spain arrived, they introduced tobacco to Europeans. It quickly became a very valuable product that was traded a lot because many people enjoyed smoking it. After the Industrial Revolution, cigarettes became extremely popular all over the world.
In the mid-1900s, scientists did research that showed serious bad health effects of tobacco smoking like lung and throat cancer. This led governments to create rules to make fewer people use tobacco.
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Early History of Tobacco
Tobacco in Ancient America
Native people in Mesoamerica (like Mexico and Central America) and South America first discovered tobacco. Later, it was brought to Europe and the rest of the world.
Old discoveries show that people in the Americas started using tobacco as far back as 12,300 years ago. This is thousands of years earlier than people first thought!
By the time European settlers arrived, tobacco was already widely used in the Americas. The Europeans then took the practice to Europe, where it became very popular. Native American tribes in Eastern North America often carried tobacco in small bags. It was a common item for trading. They also smoked it in pipe ceremonies for sacred events or to make agreements.
Besides its use in spiritual and religious ceremonies, tobacco was also used as medicine. It helped with pain, like earaches and toothaches. Sometimes, it was used as a poultice (a soft, moist cloth put on the body to reduce pain). Some Native American groups in California mixed tobacco with other plants to treat colds.
From the 1620s, tobacco was also grown a lot in the Chesapeake Colonies area. There, it was even used as a type of money.
According to a story from the Iroquois mythology, tobacco first grew from the head of a goddess named Atahensic after she died giving birth to her twin sons.
Ceremonial Use of Tobacco
Many indigenous peoples, especially in the Americas, still use tobacco for religious purposes. For example, the Cree and Ojibwe people in Canada and the United States offer tobacco to the Creator with prayers. They also use it in sweat lodges and pipe ceremonies. Giving tobacco is a traditional gift when asking an Ojibwe elder a spiritual question.
Tobacco Comes to Europe
Before Europeans explored the New World, they did not know about tobacco.
After Europeans arrived in the Americas, tobacco became a main product that helped colonization grow. It also led to the start of the African slave trade. The Spanish introduced tobacco to Europeans around 1528. By 1533, people were already talking about tobacco merchants, showing how fast the trade grew. The French, Spanish, and Portuguese first called the plant the "sacred herb" because they thought it had valuable healing powers.
Jean Nicot, who was the French ambassador in Lisbon, sent tobacco samples to Paris in 1559. Nicot sent leaves and seeds to the French King Francis II and his mother, Catherine de Medici. He told them to use tobacco as snuff (a type of powdered tobacco inhaled through the nose). The king's headaches were reportedly "wonderfully cured" by the snuff. French people started growing tobacco in 1560. By 1570, scientists called the plant Nicotiana.
In 1571, a Spanish doctor named Nicolas Monardes wrote a book about medicinal plants from the New World. He claimed that tobacco could cure 36 health problems. He also said that the plant was first brought to Spain for its flowers, but "Now we use it more for its good qualities than for its beauty."
John Hawkins was the first to bring tobacco seeds to England. People were smoking tobacco in England by 1573. Later, Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first "Virginia" tobacco to Europe from the Roanoke Colony around 1578.
Bringing tobacco into England faced some challenges. King James I put a very high tax on tobacco imports. The tax increased a lot, but people in England still wanted tobacco. Because the economies of the Virginia and Bermuda colonies were affected by the high tax, James created a royal monopoly in 1624. This meant only tobacco from Virginia could be imported. To sell it, people needed a royal license that cost 15 pounds per year. To help the colonies, Charles II banned growing tobacco in England, but allowed small gardens for medicinal uses.
Tobacco was introduced more easily in other parts of Europe. In Italy, people started growing it in gardens around 1561. Pope Urban VIII even threatened to remove people from the church if they smoked inside a church.
In Russia, tobacco use was banned in 1634. However, Peter the Great became the ruler in 1689. He had learned about smoking and royal monopolies in England. He removed all bans and allowed a company to import a lot of tobacco each year.
Tobacco in Asia
Japanese people learned about tobacco from Portuguese sailors starting in 1542.
Tobacco first arrived in the Ottoman Empire in the late 1500s from the Spanish. Doctors there became interested in it and often prescribed it as a medicine for many sicknesses. However, later studies suggested that smoking caused dizziness, tiredness, dulling of the senses, and a bad taste in the mouth.
Sultan Murad IV banned smoking in the Ottoman Empire in 1633. When his successor, Ibrahim the Mad, lifted the ban, tobacco was taxed instead.
Tobacco in Australia
Even though a type of tobacco plant called Nicotiana suaveolens is native to Australia, tobacco smoking first came to the continent in the early 1700s. Indonesian fishermen visiting northern Indigenous communities introduced it.
British ways of using tobacco came to Australia with new settlers in 1788. After colonization, Indigenous people quickly started adopting British smoking habits. By the early 1800s, tobacco was a very important item. It was regularly given to servants, prisoners, and convicts as a reward for working. Or, it was taken away as a punishment.
Tobacco in the United States
Tobacco's Economic Impact in the Colonies
In the Thirteen Colonies, where gold and silver were rare, tobacco was used as money to trade with Native Americans. It was sometimes used for official payments, like fines, taxes, and even marriage license fees.
The high demand and profit from tobacco led to a big change in the colonies: a shift to a slave-based workforce. This fueled the slave trade. Tobacco is a crop that needs a lot of work to grow, harvest, and prepare. As the land became more profitable, it was no longer good for the economy to bring in indentured servants (people who worked for a set time to pay off a debt) who were promised land later. By bringing in African slaves instead, plantation owners got workers for long hours in the hot sun without paying them. They only provided basic food and shelter to workers who could not leave or use the law to help them.
The soil in Virginia was very rich, which was not good for traditional European crops like barley. Tobacco "broke down the fields" and made it easier to grow food crops by using up the soil's nutrients.
Tobacco's Role in Early American History
Growing tobacco in America caused many changes. In the 1700s, tobacco was a very profitable crop because Europeans wanted it so much. The weather in the Chesapeake area of America was perfect for growing tobacco. The high European demand for tobacco made its value go up. This rise in value helped America's economy grow faster. Growing tobacco as a cash crop (a crop grown to sell for profit) marked a change from an economy where people grew only what they needed to an economy based on farming for trade.
Tobacco's popularity and value led to it being used as money in the colonies. Tobacco was also linked to the gold standard, meaning there was a set exchange rate between tobacco and gold.
The growing importance of tobacco as a cash crop led to a change in the workforce. This change would shape life and politics in the American South until the Civil War. To make the most money, tobacco plantation owners stopped using indentured servants. Instead, they turned to slavery to get cheap workers. This allowed them to grow more tobacco while spending less money on production.
How Tobacco Was Grown Early On
In the first few years of growing tobacco in the colonies, plants were simply covered with hay and left in the field to dry. This method stopped after 1618 because hay was needed for animal food. Also, a better way to dry tobacco was found. In this new method, the wilted leaves were hung on lines or sticks, first outside on fences. By the 1620s, special tobacco barns were used to store the crop.
During the drying period, which lasted about four to six weeks, the tobacco's color changed from greenish-yellow to light tan. Mold was a huge danger during this time. Farmers relied on their experience to know when the tobacco was ready to be taken down from the sticks.
Finally, when the tobacco was ready, workers took it down and laid the leaves on the barn floor to "sweat" for one or two weeks. Logs could be used to press the tobacco and make it warmer, but this was risky. The heat could become too strong and spoil the crop with mold.
After sweating, the next step was sorting. All the tobacco needed to be "in case." This meant it had absorbed just the right amount of moisture. It could be stretched like leather and was shiny and moist. If tobacco was too wet, it would rot during shipping. If it was too dry, it would crumble and could not be sold.
In the early days at Jamestown, settlers did not pay much attention to quality. But this changed because of the market and new rules. Over time, settlers began to separate tobacco into groups of equal quality. The leaves were then tied into "hands," which were bunches of five to fourteen leaves. The hands were put back on platforms to sweat again. When they were "in case" again, the crop could be inspected and prepared for export.
At first, preparing tobacco for shipping was very simple. The tobacco leaves were twisted and rolled into a rope, which was then wound into balls weighing up to 100 pounds (45 kilograms). These balls were protected in canvas or barrels and then shipped to Europe. Even though shipping loose tobacco was not banned until 1730, a large barrel called a "hogshead" soon became the most common container. A hogshead barrel usually held about 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) of tobacco.
These barrels were moved in different ways to the ships that would carry them to England. At first, ship captains simply went from one plantation dock to the next, loading barrels of tobacco as they moved along the river.
Tobacco Farms in the American South
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In 1609, an English colonist named John Rolfe arrived at Jamestown, Virginia. He became the first settler to successfully grow tobacco (often called "brown gold" back then) for selling. Tobacco was used as currency by the Virginia settlers for years. Rolfe became rich by farming it for export at Varina Farms Plantation.
When he left for England with his wife Pocahontas, he was wealthy. After Pocahontas died in England, Rolfe returned to Jamestown. He kept working to make commercial tobacco better. By 1620, 40,000 pounds (18,144 kg) of tobacco were shipped to England. By the time John Rolfe died in 1622, Jamestown was doing very well as a tobacco producer, and its population was over 4,000. Tobacco led to the arrival of the colony's first Black slaves in 1619.
Throughout the 1600s and 1700s, tobacco remained the main cash crop of the Virginia Colony and The Carolinas. Large tobacco warehouses filled areas near the docks of new, busy towns like Dumfries on the Potomac, Richmond and Manchester on the James, and Petersburg on the Appomattox.
There were also tobacco farms in Tennessee, like Wessyngton.
Tobacco in the 1800s
The 1800s saw several big changes in the history of tobacco. It became more and more popular, and people used it all over the world. Here are some main trends from that time:
- Global Spread: Growing and using tobacco spread quickly to many parts of the world through trade and colonization. This led to more tobacco use and production everywhere.
- Mass Production: New technologies, especially steam-powered machines, allowed tobacco products to be made in huge amounts. This made them easier to get and cheaper.
- Early Health Concerns: People started to realize some possible health risks from tobacco use in the late 1800s. A few doctors began to worry about how smoking affected health. Still, tobacco use kept increasing.
- Social Acceptance: Smoking became more accepted in society and was part of many social events. Smoking rooms and special areas in public places became common.
- Advertising: As the tobacco industry grew, so did its advertising. Tobacco companies used many ways to attract customers and make them loyal to their brands.
- Regulation and Taxation: Governments started putting taxes on tobacco products, which brought in a lot of money for the government. There were also some early attempts to control tobacco, mainly because of public health worries. By 1883, tobacco taxes made up one-third of the money the United States government collected.
- In Culture: Tobacco use appeared in books, art, and popular culture. It became a symbol of relaxation, style, and even rebellion, which made it even more popular.
- Anti-Tobacco Movements: As people learned more about tobacco's health problems, groups started to form that were against tobacco. They wanted to control tobacco and encourage people to stop using it.
These trends show how tobacco's role changed in the 1800s, setting the stage for what happened in the 1900s and beyond.
Tobacco in the United States (1800s)
A historian writing in the late 1860s described how people typically used tobacco in the American South:
Chewing tobacco was very common. This habit was widespread among farmers in America, both North and South, before the war. Soldiers found chewing tobacco comforting in the field and continued to do so when they returned home. Outdoors, where they spent most of their lives, chewers spat on the ground without bothering others. Homes and public buildings had spittoons (containers for spitting). People would spit brown and yellow streams towards these containers, but often they missed.
In 1881, James Bonsack, a skilled inventor, created a machine that changed how cigarettes were made. The machine chopped tobacco, then put a certain amount into a long paper tube. The machine would then roll the tube and push it out, where it was sliced into individual cigarettes. This machine worked 13 times faster than a person rolling cigarettes. This led to huge growth in the tobacco industry that lasted until the late 1900s.
Tobacco Since 1900
After 1910, cigarette smoking became the most common way to use tobacco.
Between 1910 and 1930, cultural attitudes slowly changed. More women began smoking, which challenged old ideas about what women should do. This also started debates about whether it was proper for women to smoke.
Health Concerns About Tobacco
Nazi Germany had the first modern anti-smoking campaign. The National Socialist government spoke out against tobacco use. They paid for research against it, put higher taxes on it, and in 1941, banned tobacco in some public places because it was a health risk.
In the UK and the US, lung cancer rates started to increase in the 1930s. However, the reason for this increase was not clear and was debated.
A big discovery happened in 1948 when the British scientist Richard Doll published the first major studies that proved smoking could cause serious health problems. In 1950, he published research that showed a strong link between smoking and lung cancer. Four years later, in 1954, the British Doctors Study confirmed this. This study followed about 40,000 doctors for 20 years. Based on this, the government advised that smoking and lung cancer were related. The British Doctors Study continued until 2001.
In 1964, the United States Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health also began to suggest a link between smoking and cancer. This was confirmed 20 years later in the 1980s.
In the United States, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act became law in 2009. This law gave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the power to control how tobacco products are made, sold, and advertised to protect public health.
Later, many developed countries put in place some controls and rules. These included partial bans on advertising, minimum age requirements for buying tobacco, and basic health warnings on tobacco packages. However, smoking rates and related health problems continued to rise in developed countries for the first 30 years after Richard Doll's discovery. Governments were sometimes slow to stop a habit seen as popular. Also, the tobacco industry and its helpers spread misleading information.
People slowly realized that the health effects of smoking and tobacco use could only be reduced by a plan with many parts. This plan needed to combine positive health messages with medical help to stop tobacco use and strong limits on marketing. This idea was first suggested in a 1962 report by the British Royal College of Physicians and the 1964 report of the U.S. Surgeon General.
In the 1950s, tobacco companies had an advertising war about the tar content in cigarettes. This was known as the tar derby. Companies changed their brands to highlight low tar, filter technology, and nicotine levels. This period ended in 1959 after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and several cigarette company presidents agreed to stop using tar or nicotine levels in advertisements.
To reduce the harm from tobacco, the World Health Organization (WHO) successfully got 168 countries to sign the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2003. This agreement aims to push for effective laws and their enforcement in all countries to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco.
Tobacco in Science
Tobacco has been studied a lot in biology and genetics. The economic problem caused by Tobacco Mosaic disease led to finding the Tobacco mosaic virus. This was the first virus ever identified. Luckily, it is one of the simplest viruses and can put itself together from pure nucleic acid and protein. This helped the field of virology (the study of viruses) grow very quickly. The 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was shared by Wendell Meredith Stanley for his work in 1935, where he made the virus into crystals and showed that it was still active.
See also
In Spanish: Historia del tabaco para niños
