Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce

by E. R. Billings

"Various kinds of tobacco are planted, mostly that with the short, dingy, yellow blossoms, which has a very large, strong leaf. But there is little doubt that the sorts would be more carefully selected, if the trade were not fettered by the monopoly. Most of the government planters enter into an arrangement with the small farmers and peasants who have to grow a certain number of plants, on conditions of handing over the harvest at a low figure—six to eight dollars per crop. These aviados receive something in advance, and their chief profit consists in securing the sand leaf and the greater part of the after-harvest, which they sell to the contrabandists. It is indeed allowed to export whatever remains; but it is attended with so many annoyances from the authorities, that it is never attempted. The many ships which enter the Mexican harbor of the east coast with European manufactures, find no return freight except gold and silver, cochineal, vanilla, a few drugs and goat skins, all of which take up very little room in the ships (money is usually sent off in the English government steamers); consequently they must either proceed to Laguna to buy log-wood, or they must take in sugar, coffee, or tobacco, in a Cuban or Haytian port. As soon as tobacco becomes an export article, its cultivation must increase immensely in the Coast States, the Mexican being very partial to this branch of agriculture, which occupies him part of the year only."

Mayer also alludes as follows to the same subject:—

"A large portion of the tobacco sold in the republic is contraband; for the ridiculous and greedy restrictions and exactions with which a plant of such universal consumption is surrounded, necessarily disposes the people to violate laws which they feel were only made to impair their rights of production and trade under a constitution professing to be free."

The government planters in the State of Vera Cruz have large, fine plantations, and the plants are carefully tended and cultivated as in all countries where tobacco is a government monopoly. On each plant a certain number of leaves are taken off, including the sand leaf, which is thrown away, and everything in the way of topping and suckering performed as carefully as on the tobacco farms in Cuba. The small farmers who raise only a few thousand plants are not as careful as the large planters, and are sometimes guilty of planting more than the number agreed upon, while the mountain passes towards the table-land are carefully guarded to prevent smuggling of the crop, which is far more remunerative than selling to the government.

We will now take the reader to the primitive tobacco plantations of America about the middle of the Sixteenth Century. The plantations were not located in Cuba as many have supposed but what has been variously named Hispaniola, Hayti, and St. Domingo. It was in this island that the Spaniards first began the cultivation of tobacco and inaugurated (under the guise of Christianity) that career of monstrous cruelty, with which their insatiable appetite for the burning of heretics and for the baiting of bulls so well accords. In 1509, Diego Columbus, the eldest son of the great discoverer, assumed in St. Domingo, or as it was then called, Hispaniola, the vice-regal powers which had been intrusted to him. Diego as portrayed by the historian "was a man as noble as his father, and almost as gifted; and he had his father's fate. Like his father, he had to bear all that Spanish envy and Spanish malignity could inflict. In 1511, Diego Columbus sent Diego Velasquez to conquer Cuba." From historians Velasquez gets a better character than most of the Conquistadores, who in general were as ferocious as they were audacious and fortunate. No serious opposition was or could be offered. With the name of Velasquez the prosperity of Cuba is inseparably identified. As Governor of Cuba he was a vigorous colonizer and civilizer. He founded Havana, which he called the Key of the New World, and which is said to rank as the eighth place in the hierarchy of commercial cities. Havana, however had long been flourishing before the seat of Government had been transferred to it from Santiago. It was Velasquez who introduced slavery into Cuba; and it was during his vice-royalty and under his sanction that those memorable exploratory and conquering expeditions began, the most astonishing of which was that to Mexico, led by Cortez, the insubordinate lieutenant of Velasquez, whose death is said to have been hastened by the rebellious and ungrateful conduct of Cortez, and perhaps by the spectacle of such immense and rapid success. The agricultural, commercial, and general growth of the West India islands at this period would have been much more rapid if the Spaniards had not annihilated the native population, and if they had not been exposed to incessant piratical attacks. These were often of the most desolating kind. In 1688, the city of Puerto Principe was plundered and destroyed. From its strongly fortified position Havana set the buccaneers at defiance, and sometimes saved the whole island from ruin.

St. Domingo Tobacco Field, 1535.

The exact period of the first cultivation of tobacco in St. Domingo is not known, but we find that as early as 1535 the negroes had habituated themselves to the use of it in the plantations of their master. Soon however its cultivation increased, and during the latter part of the Sixteenth Century the Spaniards shipped vast quantities to Europe, a very large amount of which found its way to England, where it brought fabulous prices. The Spaniards, by the application of the lash and other cruelties, extorted from the negroes an amount of labor never equaled by any other task masters in the world. Forcing these slaves to labor on the plantations from morning until night, with the fierce rays of a tropical sun shining full upon their uncovered backs, and goaded on to the performance of the severest toil, is it any wonder that the haughty cavaliers of Spain grew rich from their industry, and feasted on the products of the Indies. Cultivated on the rich soil of this fertile island, the tobacco of St. Domingo had no competitor, until the Spaniards began its culture a little later on the island of Trinidad, the product of which in time stood at the head of all the tobaccos of the Indies and of South America. The tobacco trade at this time was wholly controlled by the Spaniards, who, though successful in this direction, made but slow progress in colonization. Compared in the British colonies in the New World, the Spanish possessions were weak and incompetent, and for all their advantages in their great product, it was ultimately rivaled by the English Colonial tobacco. In the conquest of the New World, Spanish energy and enterprise seem to have exhausted themselves; and as Spain was declining, its colonies could not be expected rapidly to advance. The history of the Spanish conquest in America is a record of cruelty and of blood, while that of English colonization is marked by English rigor and enterprise, and is one of successful daring and ultimate triumph.

The West India plantations, however, were still worked, and for more than a century St. Domingo yielded a vast amount of tobacco, until the soil of Cuba was found to be better adapted for its production than any other of the West India islands, not excepting even the island of Trinidad.