EBN- An old song says that the discoverer of America, Christopher Columbus, “taught the world to smoking tobacco,” but facts indicate that he threw the first tobacco leaves he was given into the sea.
Columbs first described “tobacco” on November 15, 1492, noting in his journal the strange custom of Native Americans of inhaling the smoke of the dried leaves of a local herb.
The famous explorer Columbus had sailed to Cuba in the fall of 1492 via the Caribbean Sea, which was then still unknown to Europeans.
The explorer sent two of his sailors into the interior of Cuba to explore the area. When they returned, they told the Spanish that they had seen primitive indigenous people burning the leaves of a plant and inhaling the resulting smoke with pleasure.
Out of curiosity, Europeans tried inhaling the smoke, and history recorded the names of the first two smokers, Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres.
The Spanish priest Bartolomeu Las Casas described the two sailors in the interior of Cuba: “These two Christians met many people on the way, both men and women. The men carried fire and dried plants intended for smoking, wrapped in a dry sheet like the paper musk that boys make to celebrate the Holy Spirit. They lit one side, and chewed or sucked the other, thus inhaling the smoke, which intoxicated them and, according to them, relieved hunger and removed fatigue.”
Columbus’s sailors were attracted to tobacco smoking
Not all of Columbus’s sailors were attracted to tobacco smoking. The first European smoker was the sailor Rodrigo de Jerez, who brought the habit to Spain. He was arrested by the Inquisition in 1501 and sentenced to prison. When the Spanish saw the smoke coming from Rodrigo’s mouth, they thought the devil had taken over his body. The sailor was released after seven years, by which time the Spanish had become better acquainted with smoking.
It is also said that Columbus brought samples of tobacco back to Spain and presented them to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. As supplies of dried leaves were so great, sailors began smoking on board ships. This habit proved so strong and controlling that those who tried tobacco soon found themselves unable to do without it and inhaled it greedily through a pipe or cigar.
Tobacco arrived in France through the adventurer Andre Thevet who brought the seeds of this plant to France in 1555, and thus began Europe’s addiction to tobacco.
