European ‘voyages of discovery’ and tobacco.

In 1492 Christopher Columbus, an Italian acting for the Spanish monarch King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, found a sea route to the Americas whilst trying to reach India. Columbus encounters tobacco use for the first time. 

In 1498, 6 Years later, Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese, found a sea route to India and reached Mumbai (Bombay). This started the sea trade in spices and silk between Europe and South Asia. 

In 1501 slavery starts in the Americas as the Spanish bring African slaves for land clearance in South America for agriculture. This then extends to using them in tobacco farming. Tobacco was still a rare and exotic plant presented to a few in the European Courts. 

In 1527 the first large-scale tobacco production begins as the first  ‘plantation’ is started in Haiti by the Spanish using slave labour.  In 1531 Santo Domingo comes under tobacco cultivation. South American tobacco industry starts.

1566 Jean Nicot, French Ambassador to the Portugese Court, send tobacco seeds to France. His name is used to give a scientific name to the plant: Nicotiana. Later people will name the main addictive substance in tobacco as Nicotine.

1573 Sir Francis Drake brings back some tobacco to Queen Elizabeth’s court

1584 Sir Walter Raleigh starts the British North American ‘colony’ of Virginia. Virginian climate is good for growing tobacco and it  would later become a leading producer of tobacco. Virginian Tobacco becomes a very sought after trading commodity.

1600s Tobacco starts arriving in large scale into the Mediterranean ports of Europe from both South and North America.  British East India Trading Company and the Dutch East Indies company founded and tobacco exports from Europe to South Asia begin.

Early tobacco trade in South Asia

Tobacco entered South Asia under the Mughal rulers (Central Asian Turks). It may have come in during emperor Shah Jahan's reign, the builder of the Taj Mahal, around 1600.

This early tobacco came from the South American plantations and was first purchased in the Eastern Mediterranean ports by traders from Portugal, Persia and South Asia.  It was then taken over to South Asia along the return leg of the great Silk Road and supplied to the Persian, Mughal and Chinese courts along the route. Goa (a Portugese Colony) also supplied some Tobacco directly to its hinterland that had come via the sea.

Mass Tobacco Use- The Raj and the Virginian tobacco farmers

Mass tobacco sales and use in South Asia began with the Raj from 1700-1800. British merchants connected with the Virginian Tobacco farmers in the United States started large scale and mass export drive into new emerging markets in South Asia.

When American sources got threatened by the American war of independence in 1776, production and growing of tobacco shifted to farms in other colonies in Americas, Africa and Asia.

By 1800’s South Asia had its own tobacco plantations and tobacco prices had now fallen with a World glut. This made it more accessible to the masses.

Evolution of Tobacco Products in South Asia

Early tobacco came in as smoking tobacco and this was changed into chewing tobacco. This was then incorporated into the local habit of chewing betel nut leaf (Paan) and entered many social and religious functions under the Mughal courts.

Smoking Tobacco began with the advent of  European clay/china pipes. These pipes then evolved into the quintessential Persian and Turkish water cooled smokeware: The Hookah.

Tobacco was associated with luxury and elitism. The ornate jewel encrusted paan boxes, hookahs, smokeware and paraphernalia were created by craftsmen in engraved silver, rare rock crystals, tortoise shells and in dark African ebony hardwoods.

Paintings show both men and women smoking hookahs. Smoking Tobacco became an important upper class status symbol. When the local Hindu rajas took over the habit, only the male courtiers smoked Hookah in the open. Women smoked in private. However, women chewed tobacco paan openly.

Tobacco slowly began to be ‘indigenised’ as it was incorporated with local spices and additives and subjected to various processes to yield products like:

Gutka- A composite of betel nut shreds, chalk lime paste, spices and tobacco ground together and sundried/ mildly heat treated. It is available in ready mixed sachets or is freshly mixed at the Paan shop to the users specification.

Zarda- Tobacco flakes with silver leaf shreds used as additive to paans. Some use it as a ‘lozenge’ ball placed on the side of the mouth with a smear of chalk lime paste.

Qimam- A mixture of glycerine, sugar syrup, gold and silver leaf, saffron and tobacco extract. Used as an additive to Paans.

Snuff mixtures- Tobacco is cured, treated and mixed with various other local ingredients to yield several unique snuff products across South Asia.

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Last modified: Wednesday August 19, 2009.