Tobacco, the legacy of Columbus
How long people have been smoking is a question that will probably never be answered. We know for sure that the Maya were smoking around the year 300 AD. Further back in time, 500 years BC, smoking was common in a number of Asian countries. Researchers doubt however whether tobacco was used for this. We do know that the smoking of tobacco did not originate in Europe. After an in-depth survey in 1930 Jerome Brooks in his academic work 'The Mighty Leaf' observed that the tobacco plant had to be American in origin.
Columbus was a considerable mover on the world stage. With his fearless adventuring he proved that the world was round and not flat, he discovered America and, if that was not enough, he also introduced tobacco to Europe. 12 October 1492 is an important date in the history of tobacco. Having landed on Watling island (a little to the north east of Cuba) Columbus was presented with dried leaves by the local population as a gift of friendship. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with them. It was a few weeks later when two of Columbus's company, Xeres and Torres, discovered the answer. Columbus recorded in his diary on 2 November 1492: "They saw a lot of men, who had some sort of grass in their hands and they were taking up this smoke by putting the grass in a dry leaf, in the way of a roll and lighting it at one end". This roll was called ' tobago' by the population in the West Indies. It explains where the word tobacco comes from. The tobago can be regarded as the precursor of the cigar.
But the discoverers also encountered other forms of tobacco consumption. Ramon Pane, who was one of the members of Columbus' expedition, discovered in 1496 that the population of Tahiti used a tobacco-like substance as snuff.
In 1499 Amerigo Vespucci discovered that the local population of the part of South America that would come to be called Venezuela, were already chewing tobacco, while in the year 1500 the Portuguese discoverer Cabral, having landed on the coast of Brazil, reported that tobacco was smoked there in pipes. An exhibition to Mexico, lead by Juan de Gryalva, discovered in 1518 the use of the precursor of the cigarette, a small hollow cane filled with a mixture of aromatic substances and tobacco.
The Spaniards, who went and conquered the New World after Columbus, thought that the indigenous populations were wild. As we now know, that was just one of their many misconceptions. And in the field of cultivating tobacco the original inhabitants of this part of the world frequently had a highly refined pattern of cultivation and preparation. The locals used tobacco as a recreational drug but they also attributed medicinal properties to it as well. The Spanish explorers and sailors returned to their country with tales of distant countries, as well as tobacco leaves and tobacco seeds. And from Spain the sailors brought the habit of smoking with them to other European ports. Perhaps this is why for a long time smoking was the sole preserve of men. And the cultivation of tobacco as well really took root in the early sixteenth century starting in Spain. Europe also adopted the idea of the original tobacco users that tobacco had medicinal properties. The tale of Jean Nicot de Villemain (1530-1600), a French diplomat in Portugal is a familiar one. His queen, Catharine de Medici, suffered unbearable migraine attacks until Jean Nicot heard that crushed tobacco leaves had medicinal power. He decided to send Her Majesty a small quantity. And what happened? It worked; Catherine de Medici's migraine was alleviated by using tobacco as snuff. Jean Nicot did a great deal more to propagate the aromatic crop. It is to him that we owe its botanical name, for in 1828 physicists gave his name to one of the components of tobacco, namely nicotine.
Holland
Whether the brave Dutch sailors who were partially responsible for tobacco becoming universally known, also introduced the 'herb' into the Netherlands, is highly debatable. The first facts about the use of tobacco in the Netherlands date from around 1590. Smoking was probably introduced by young people from England who came to study in Delft. But the enterprising Dutch knew a good thing when they saw it. By 1610 there was already a lively trade in tobacco from Venezuela, the West Indies and Virginia. Their trading spirit, their voyages all over the world and their deep-seated quality consciousness will undoubtedly have been among the main reasons why the Netherlands came to occupy such a crucial role in processing and trading tobacco.
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