Tobacco is related to garden vegetables,
flowers, weeds, and poisonous herbs such as potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, petunias, jimson wood, ground cherries, and nightshade. The
family of plants is Solanaceae; the genus Nicotiana contains about 100 species, only two of which have been extensively cultivated.
Nicotiana tabacam is used in cigarettes and tobacco and is the predominant type of crop tobacco.
Originally, Native Americans in the
eastern United States grew Nicotiana rustica, which was the first form of tobacco introduced in England and Portugal. N. Tabacam,
first introduced to the Spanish, was obtained from Mexico and South America. It has been the preferred tobacco since settlers in
Jamestown, Virginia, began growing it.
Because planters believed that tobacco had to be grown on
virgin soil, tobacco gradually made its way to the eastern part of what is now North Carolina. Consumer preferences for tobacco products
changed decidedly from the early 1700's.
Carl Linnaeus describes tobacco in this
1762 edition of Caroli Linnaei Species plantarum, exhibentes plantas rite cognitas, ad general relatas, cum differentiis specificis,
nominibus trivialibus, synonymis selectis, locis natalibus, secundum system a sexuale digestas.
In 1839, bright leaf tobacco was
discovered by a slave named Stephen (headman on the farm of Abisha Slade, a successful planter in Caswell County). Stephen fell asleep
owing to the heat from the wood fires in the tobacco barn, and when he awoke the fire was almost out. He rushed to a charcoal pit and
found some charred logs on the dying embers. He threw these on the fire, which created a sudden drying heat, which resulted in the
brightest yellow tobacco ever seen.
The eighteenth century became the "Age of Snuff".
Tobacco from North Carolina was used for snuff and pipe smoking, because the cigarette was not widely known outside of Spain. By the
1840's cigarettes had become popular with French women. Much to the chagrin of anti-tobacco societies, cigarettes caught on in the
United States as well. Despite such opposition to tobacco, the twentieth century saw a rise in its use and engendered a popularity
which continues today.
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