Frederick William Fairholt’s 1859 book Tobacco: Its History and Associations is referred to in a vast number of tobacco books that came after it. Fairholt includes information about the tobacco plant, about tobacco in America and Europe, literary associations, pipes, cigars, paraphernalia, snuff, and the growing and manufacturing of tobacco. It’s an influential book with a lot of information packed into it.
Of tobacco history, Fairholt notes that Oviedo (Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes) was “the first author who gives a clear account of smoking among the Indians of Hispaniola” in his book Historia General de la Indias in 1526.1 From Oviedo’s account, we get one of the first possible etymologies of the word ‘tobacco’. “Their mode of using it among the caciques and chief men, is by inhalation through the nostrils by means of a hollow forked cane, in one piece,’ of which he gives an engraving: he describes it as ‘about a span long; and when used the forked ends are inserted in the nostrils, the other end being applied to the burning leaves of the herb. They thus inhale the smoke until they become stupefied. When forked canes are not procurable, a straight reed or hollow cane is used, and this implement is called tabaco by the Indians;’ and Oviedo is careful to observe that the name is not given to the herb, or to the stupor it produces, as some persons have erroneously supposed.”2
When Columbus landed in the Americas, he and his men saw people smoking large tubes of leaves. These were thought to be cigars. Fairholt gives “Lobel” credit for the first illustration of a cigar, described as, “a sort of small funnel formed of the palm leaf, in which the dried leaves of tobacco are placed; fire is applied to it, and the smoke inhaled.”3 (“Lobel” is Matthias de l’Obel). The proportions are off, but the illustration is pretty clearly a cigar.
Tobacco was introduced to Europe around 1560, and Jean Nicot presented tobacco plants to Queen Catharine de Medicis in 1561, giving us the name Nicotiana for the species of plants and the word nicotine. Physicians helped the plant spread by claiming it had healing properties. These tales and many more in the history of tobacco are told in Fairholt’s book. His history is well-researched and packed with facts and references.
His sections on cultivating and manufacturing tobacco are also well-researched and worth reading.
Fairholt also recounts Lionel Wafer’s 1699 writing about native uses of cigars in the Americas:
“He says that when the tobacco-leaves are properly dried and cured, the natives ‘laying two or three leaves upon one another, they roll up all together sideways into a long roll, yet leaving a little hollow. Round this they roll other leaves one after another, in the same manner, but close and hard, till the roll is as big as one’s wrist, and two or three feet in length.”4
This is a must-read book if you are interested in the history of tobacco, in my opinion.
Tobacco: Its History and Associations is in the public domain and can be read for free on Google Books. The copy on Google Books was printed in 1876, though the book was originally released in 1859.