`discovery' of the `New World' was accompanied by the discovery of tobacco by Portuguese sailors. This plant, treasured by the American `Indians' for its presumed medicinal and obvious stimulant properties, was eagerly embraced by the Portuguese who then moved it to the `Old World' of Europe.When the Portuguese eventually did land on India's shores, they brought in tobacco. They introduced it initially in the royal courts where it soon found favour. It became a valuable commodity of barter trade, being used by the Portuguese for purchasing Indian textiles. The taste for tobacco, first acquired by the Indian royals, soon spread to the commoners and, in the seventeenth century, tobacco began to take firm roots in India
The word nicotiana (as well as nicotine) was named in honor of Jean Nicot, French ambassador to Portugal, who in 1559 sent it as a medicine to the court of Catherine de Medici
North American tribes would carry large amounts of tobacco in pouches as a readily accepted trade item and would often smoke it in pipes, It was believed that tobacco was a gift from the Creator and that the exhaled tobacco smoke was capable of carrying one's thoughts and prayers to heaven.
(LOL- perhaps their souls too)
Tobacco was used as currency by the Virginia settlers for years,
The importation of tobacco into Europe was not without resistance and controversy in the 17th century. Stuart King James I wrote a famous polemic titled A Counterblaste to Tobacco in 1604, in which the king denounced tobacco use as "[a] custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse." In that same year, an English statute was enacted that placed a heavy protective tariff on every pound of tobacco brought into England[8].
Tobacco as a commercial product first arrived in the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th century.[11] By 1700, it had reached Asia, and the Middle East
> `discovery' of the `New World' was accompanied by the > discovery of tobacco by Portuguese sailors. This > plant, treasured by the American `Indians' for > its presumed medicinal and obvious stimulant > properties, was eagerly embraced by the > Portuguese who then moved it to the `Old World' > of Europe.When the Portuguese eventually did land on > India's shores, they brought in tobacco. They > introduced it initially in the royal courts where > it soon found favour. It became a valuable > commodity of barter trade, being used by the > Portuguese for purchasing Indian textiles. The > taste for tobacco, first acquired by the Indian > royals, soon spread to the commoners and, in > the seventeenth century, tobacco began to take > firm roots in India > > > http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:KXXDrwY7eFIJ:www.whoindia.org/ > LinkFiles/Tobacco_Free_Initiative_03Chapter- > 02.0.pdf+tobacco+in+india+portuguese&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=opera > > interestingly there is also a mention of a local breed of tobacco > before that. i am checking up. > > venketesh >
Hi Venkat, tobacco is still very sacred to native americans and is used as incense even in their rituals. It was to my astonishment to attend a sacred ritual with 'beedi' like incense only to be informed that it was a sacred plant to them!! What is sweet to the goose is sauce to the gander they say :))