History of commercial tobacco in the United States

The history of commercial tobacco production in the United States dates back to the 17th century when the first commercial crop was planted. The industry originated in the production of tobacco

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

for pipes and snuff

Snuff

Snuff is a product made from ground or pulverised tobacco leaves. It is an example of smokeless tobacco. It originated in the Americas and was in common use in Europe by the 17th century...

. Different war efforts in the world created a shift in demand and production of tobacco in the world and the American colonies. With the advent of the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

trade with the colonies

Thirteen Colonies

The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...

was interrupted which shifted trade to other countries in the world. During this shift there was an increase in demand for tobacco in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, where the demand for tobacco in the form of cigar

Cigar

A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, and the Eastern...

s and chewing tobacco

Chewing tobacco

Chewing tobacco Chewing tobacco Chewing tobacco (also known colloquially as hoobastank, backy, tobac, doogooos,Hogleg, chewpoos, chits, chewsky, chawsky, dip, flab, chowers, guy, or a wad, as well as referred to as dipsky, snuff, a pinch, a yopper, a Packing a bomb, a tobbackey or packing a...

increased. Other wars, such as the War of 1812

War of 1812

The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

would introduce the Andalusia

Andalusia

Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...

n cigarette

Cigarette

A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...

to the rest of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. This, accompanied with the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

changed the production of tobacco in America to the manufactured cigarette.

Pre-American Revolution

During the 17th century, Europe had a growing demand for tobacco. However, in areas of the American south, where tobacco grew well, capital was needed in order to grow this highly demanding crop. These farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

s saw tobacco as merely a temporary crop to get them started until they could plant something else. Their reasoning behind the temporary status given to tobacco had to do with low prices. During the 17th century in Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, tobacco was selling for pennies

Cent (United States coin)

The United States one-cent coin, commonly known as a penny, is a unit of currency equaling one one-hundredth of a United States dollar. The cent's symbol is ¢. Its obverse has featured the profile of President Abraham Lincoln since 1909, the centennial of his birth. From 1959 to 2008, the reverse...

per pound. Solutions to this problem came with slavery

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

. Slavery had already existed in the colonies, but a new influx would greatly expand tobacco production.

The need for slaves was a response to low birth rates of the European

European ethnic groups

The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....

settlers in America. Slavery would help keep costs down and profits higher. Slavery would mark a change from small tobacco farms, to larger farms, which necessitated large labor forces provided by the slaves. This large tobacco farms, accounted for a small part of the overall production of agriculture in the colonies leading into the later part of the 17th century, as tobacco had already begun to fail in less fertile regions of the country. This failure was due to lack of crop rotation

Crop rotation

Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of crops in the same area in sequential seasons.Crop rotation confers various benefits to the soil. A traditional element of crop rotation is the replenishment of nitrogen through the use of green manure in sequence with cereals...

, which depleted the soil of the nutrients needed by the tobacco plants. Those who created large plantation

Plantation

A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

s in the more fertile regions, however, saw great prosperity, even at the low price per pound of tobacco. This prosperity in turn helped to make them richer and able to purchase even more slaves which helped these large farms to continuously expand.

Into the late 17th century, however, farmers in the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

islands had the same ideas of creating large farms with the use of slaves. The major difference between American slavery and Caribbean slavery however, was how the slaves were treated. Caribbean slave owners believed in working their slaves as animals. If a slave died, so be it. Another could easily replace it. In comparison however, even in the Caribbean, the slaves working on tobacco were treated somewhat more fairly than those on sugar plantations were as the slaves growing tobacco on the islands had often come from regions in Africa that grew tobacco and as such had an appreciated knowledge for the planting and harvesting of tobacco. However, this is not to say they were treated well.

Slavery was an important part of the process of growing tobacco, especially in the American colonies. The use of slaves kept the cost down in general. But with successive generations of slaves born to past generations, slave masters gained new employees at little or no cost. This fact is proven by a trend toward low immigration of African slaves, while there was still an increase in African population in the colonies. However, issues still ensued with taxation by Britain

Kingdom of Great Britain

The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...

. In the mid 1770s taxes blossomed to 300,000 pounds sterling per year for exportation of tobacco alone.

In 1735, John Cockburn

John Cockburn

John Cockburn may refer to:* John Cockburn * John Cockburn * Jack Cockburn, Australian Rules footballer-See also:*John Coburn...

published an excerpt on the use of ceegars (cigars) in Spanish colonies. This publication helped support the sale of tobacco goods. Although for a time in Britain and other European countries like Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, “smoking” tobacco was frowned upon, it would find its favor eventually amongst society who, up to this time, took tobacco mainly as “snuff.” Although tobacco began to find favor amongst certain societies, the American Revolution would become a temporary setback for some, and a permanent one for others.

American Revolution

The American Revolution would have profound effects upon the social and economic stability of the colonies. With a temporary lapse in tobacco exports to Europe, even more small farmers found themselves switching over to crops other than tobacco. In South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

, there was a shift toward rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

plantations; while in other areas other sorts of much needed vegetation was grown for sustenance of the nation. Another issue arose with the blockade of tobacco from the American colonies was a shift toward British use of Turkish

Turkish tobacco

Turkish tobacco or Oriental tobacco is a highly aromatic, small-leafed variety of tobacco which is sun-cured. Historically, it was cultivated primarily in Thrace and Macedonia, now divided among Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, and Turkey, but it is now also grown on the Black Sea...

and Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian tobacco. As part of the British disdain for American independence, the British seized and destroyed over 10,000 hogshead

Hogshead

A hogshead is a large cask of liquid . More specifically, it refers to a specified volume, measured in either Imperial units or U.S. customary units, primarily applied to alcoholic beverages such as wine, ale, or cider....

s of tobacco in 1780–1781. Led by generals Phillips, Arnold and Cornwallis, this attack on the American tobacco industry is sometimes entitled the “Tobacco War” by historians.

Many other countries were blockaded from trading with the American colonies during the American Revolution and, as such, turned to other resources for their tobacco. Many of these other countries never resumed trade with the newly formed United States so this portion of trade was permanently lost. What did grow, however, was the consumption of tobacco in the United States and a new desire for tobacco grew in Germany and Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

post Revolution. American tobacco customs began to switch from the earlier pipe smoke to the cigar as mentioned earlier, as well as the great American western icon of the spittoon

Spittoon

A spittoon is a receptacle made for spitting into, especially by users of chewing and dipping tobacco. It is also known as a cuspidor , although that term is also used for a type of spitting sink used in dentistry."Spittoon" can also be slang American English...

, which was linked to chewing tobacco. These latter two were considered a more coarse form of taking tobacco and, as such, were deemed very “American” in nature by Europeans as spitting was a trait attributed to their usage. Americans also enjoyed the flavor of island tobacco more, but since many smokers in the USA were not wealthy, working farmers took to smoking tobacco grown from their own land. This may also have come more from the American desire to be independent, not only in a legal sense by being a free-nation, but economically as well.

Introduction of the cigarette

The lower class French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

men that served in the French military gained a liking for tobacco during the War of 1812

War of 1812

. Having occupied Andalusia (Spain) they even got to see what would become the future of the American tobacco industry. Known in Andalusia as “tobacco picado,” (minced tobacco), this style of tobacco was relegated to the poor class in the conquered region, so the French did not take up to smoking it in mass at this time. Eventually it would prove popular even in France. The rural poor smoked the minced tobacco, wrapped in maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

husks, but the upper class of Andalusia urban areas would wrap the tobacco in paper. The paper-wrapping trend was short-lived at the time however, because the Spanish government outlawed “white tobacco” in 1801 as some were smuggling tobacco illegally, labeling the contents as different substances that did not require taxation.

By the end of the 18th century, a renewed interest in tobacco took hold. In turn, this meant more demand for tobacco from America again, and this meant a boom in increased slavery in the southern United States where tobacco was grown. Post American Revolution, tobacco skyrocketed in price. Wartime had a huge influence over the price of tobacco because, just prior to the Revolution, there was a small peak in price during the Seven Years War when different cultures gained a desire for tobacco after fighting opponents who had been smoking it.

The demand had increased so much after 1776, that many farmers were unable to meet the demands for exports, which increased the prices of tobacco even further. With a desire to increase the amount of tobacco available, many American farmers took out credit loans from the British to increase the size of their landholdings as well as increase the number of slaves they owned. Much of this credit went to gentleman farmers, but the desire for tobacco was so strong that even middling class farmers found it easy to receive loans to increase their farm production. Many of these farmers opted not to pay back these loans however, and many in turn found themselves jailed toward the end of the century for not paying their debts. Many of these debtors were small farmers, causing a further consolidation of smaller farms into larger ones.

Cigarettes go mainstream

A significant change began in the establishment of Victorian

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

society in Europe. In an attempt to civilize anything that seemed coarse or uncivil, much of Victorian society would adapt cultural items to suit their tastes. Ironically the British adopted the paper wrapped minced tobacco. Such an item originally relegated to the poor in Spain, seemed on face value a contradiction. However, one must consider the need for human manipulation of tobacco, including, chopping it up, wrapping it in a man-made piece of paper, and then inserting it into a piece of cane for a mouth piece. One can then see that this was just another way of civilizing part of the coarser aspects of the British Empire. A feministic culture dominated smoking at this time as well as lots of tobacco, and this gave further rise to this “dainty” cigarette

Cigarette

, bearing a feminine name.

An African slave named Stephan changed the process of curing

Curing (food preservation)

Curing refers to various food preservation and flavoring processes, especially of meat or fish, by the addition of a combination of salt, nitrates, nitrite or sugar. Many curing processes also involve smoking, the process of flavoring, or cooking...

the Bright Leaf tobacco variety (a lighter flavored tobacco leaf) by curing it with charcoal

Charcoal

Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...

taken from a local blacksmith

Blacksmith

A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...

’s fire rather than the usual logwood

Logwood

Haematoxylum campechianum is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is native to southern Mexico and northern Central America. It has been and to a lesser extent remains of great economic importance. The modern nation of Belize grew from 17th century English logwood...

. This fire burned hotter and faster and accelerated the curing process. The process was refined further to include a furnace in which heat from the charcoal was applied through flues, so that dark soot and off flavors did not come in contact with the tobacco. This changed the curing process of a lighter leaf and produced a new, lighter tobacco which was able to be inhaled. This, linked together with the British Victorian desire for cigarettes, along with the aforementioned French and other European countries, gave way to an emerging market to minced tobacco. This trend had not yet hit America for its export market.

The American Civil War

American Civil War

and the Emancipation Proclamation

Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...

freed the entire slave workforce of the American South. Although some slaves stayed on for pay with their prior slave owners, many left entirely to make their own lives in other parts of the country. Tobacco farmers needed to adapt. Not only had they lost their workforce, but also a shift in demand had occurred. In Europe, there was a desire for not only snuff, pipes and cigars, but cigarettes appeared as well. Cigar rolling and even the creation of pipe tobacco at the time was labor intensive and, without slave labor, innovation needed to occur.

Those farmers, that did not go out of business again, consolidated their holdings from other farmers who could not keep their lands as they had no “employees” to farm their fields. The answer to the labor problem came from the cigarette. The quality of the tobacco, although still considered, did not have to be perfect as it would be minced to be wrapped into paper. The next step to limiting labor was the process of creating the cigarette. During the 1870s a machine was invented by Albert Pease of Dayton, Ohio, which chopped up the tobacco for cigarettes. Up until the 1880s, cigarettes were still made by hand and were high in price. In 1881, James Bonsack, an avid craftsman, created a machine that revolutionized cigarette production. The machine chopped the tobacco, then dropped a certain amount of the tobacco into a long tube of paper, which the machine would then roll and push out the end where it would be sliced by the machine into individual cigarettes. This machine operated at thirteen times the speed of a human cigarette roller.

Companies

Tobacco industry

The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any warm, moist environment, which means it can be farmed on all...

began advertising the now inexpensive cigarettes to Europe and United States citizens. Many other forms of tobacco quickly dropped from production in the United States in favor of this easy to produce, easy to inhale tobacco product. Sales of cigarettes grew astronomically. In one example, American Tobacco Co., listed on the American Stock Exchange

American Stock Exchange

NYSE Amex Equities, formerly known as the American Stock Exchange is an American stock exchange situated in New York. AMEX was a mutual organization, owned by its members. Until 1953, it was known as the New York Curb Exchange. On January 17, 2008, NYSE Euronext announced it would acquire the...

, with sales of $25,000,000 in 1890, increased its sales to $316,000,000 in 1903. After the Civil War debts were paid off, taxes were almost completely removed from cigarettes. It was at this point, that the cigarette became an integral part of American culture, which lasted until scientific revelations discovered the health consequences of smoking.