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Historical Background Of Tobacco - Early American Indians Essay

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Tobacco

1. Historical background to Tobacco – Early American Indians – Columbus – Introduction to the Western World.

It is evident that the use of tobacco (Nicotiana spp) ( Baud, 1991) as recreational activity is first recorded with the American Indians. This involved the use of both smoked and chewed across North America well before European contact (Adams, Johnson& Murphy, 2015). At this time there was predominantly two kinds of tobacco that were being cultivated, and there was also several varieties grew wild (Adair, 2000). Tobacco was started to be grown commercially in the 17th centry. This first happened in the southeast United States. And during the 18th Centry the French engineer Nicolas de Finiels (Finiels, 1989) in St. Louis 2000 pounds of tobacco were grown. . Indians inhabiting the plains increasingly used tabacum, at this time the Indians began to use not only for ceremonial purposes but also for recreation purposes (Stephen, 2016). As previously indicated tobacco was originally discovered by the Native peoples of the Americas, the transportation of tobacco to Europe is credited to the Europeans. This accured when Columbus, on October 15, 1492, sent sailors in to the interior of cuba where they found “… men with half-burned wood in their hands and certain herbs to take their smokes, which are some dry herbs put in a certain leaf, also dry, like those the boys make on the day of the Passover of the Holy Ghost; and having lighted one part of it, by the other

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