Smoking quickly became the rage among the young court dandies, who loitered around in St. Another legend depicts Ralegh introducing the habit of tobacco-drinking to his sovereign Elizabeth I. Tradition tells the tale of Sir Walter's own servant coming upon his master with a smoking pipe, thinking he was on fire and drenching him with a bucket of water. In addition to sponsoring this expedition, Sir Walter also is credited with the introduction of pipe smoking in court circles, where it was at first perceived as a strange and even alarming habit. We ourselves during the time we were there used to suck it after their manner, as also since our return, and have found many rare and wonderful experiments of the virtues thereof, of which the relation would require a volume of itself: the use of it by so many of late, men and women of great calling as else, and some learned Physicians also, is sufficient witness. Hariot remarks in his account of 1588 that: Settlers rescued from his Roanoke Island expedition in 1586 had picked up the habit of tobacco smoking (or "drinking" as it came to be called). Probably the most famous Englishman associated with the introduction of tobacco is Sir Walter Ralegh.
The general English population was most likely first introduced to tobacco by Sir John Hawkins, who displayed it with the riches he accrued from a voyage to Florida in 1565.
tobacco inspires feelings, honor and virtue in all those who take it.Īlthough it is likely that both Nicotiana rustica and Nicotiana tabacum, the two major species of tobacco, were grown as curiosities in the gardens of English botanists and apothecaries, smoking the herb for recreation was virtually unknown until mid-sixteenth century. Haven't you noticed how well one treats another after taking it.
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Not only does it purge the human brain, but it also instructs the soul in virtue and one learns from it how to be a virtuous man. It's the passion of the virtuous man and whoever lives without tobacco isn't worthy of living. As the opening speech of Moliere's Don Juan explains: By 1565, the plant was known as nicotaine, the basis of its genus name today.īy this time, Europeans were discovering recreational uses of tobacco as well as its medicinal ones. The French became enthusiastic about tobacco, calling it the herbe a tous les maux, the plant against evil, pains and other bad things. When he returned to France, he used the New World herb to cure the migraine headaches of Catherine de Medicis. In 1560, Jean Nicot, a French ambassador, learned about the curative properties of tobacco when he was on assignment in Portugal. As one counsel had it, "Anything that harms a man inwardly from his girdle upward might be removed by a moderate use of the herb." Over a dozen books published around the middle of the sixteenth century mention tobacco as a cure for everything from pains in the joints to epilepsy to plague. The Christians that do now inhabit there are become very desirous of this herb.Įarly on, the medicinal properties of tobacco were of great interest to Europe. which they most commonly bear about them, for that they esteem it marvellous profitable for many things.
A few days later, a party from Columbus' ship docked off the coast of Cuba and witnessed local peoples there smoking tobacco through Y-shaped tubes which they inserted in their noses, inhaling smoke until they lost consciousness.īy 1558, Frere Andre Thevet, who had traveled in Brazil, published a description of tobacco which was included in Thomas Hacket's The New Found World a decade later: The Arawaks offered him some dried leaves as a token of friendship. Believing himself to be off the coast of Asia, the Admiral dressed in his best to meet the local inhabitants. On the morning of October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus set foot on a small island in the Bahamas. The Old World encountered tobacco at the dawn of the European Age of Exploration. However, it was perceived, by the end of the seventeenth century tobacco had become the economic staple of Virginia, easily making her the wealthiest of the 13 colonies by the time of the American Revolution. It spends the brain, and spoiles the seedeĪs these two verses show, tobacco use has long been a controversial subject, considered by turns a vice, a panacea, an economic salvation and a foolish and dangerous habit. Thou friend of wisdom and thou source of health. Well might thy worth engage two nations' strife Įxhaustless fountain of Britannia's wealth Hail thou inspiring plant! Thou balm of life, TOBACCO: The Early History of a New World Crop
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