Perhaps after reading this follow-up to Tidbits of Cigar History (Part I), you’ll be left with one lingering question: Who in the world goes around reading Columbus’ travel journal? Well, I guess we all have our idiosyncrasies, but I assure you that were it not for my interest in cigars, I would have never known that it even existed. I’ve come to think of it as his personal “blog”, and, as such, I suppose I was interested in his “posts” concerning his encounter with tobacco.

As far as the European discovery of the plant, it makes sense that since tobacco was widely smoked and carried around by natives throughout the entire continent, the Spanish would have encountered it on the first island they hit on their voyage. Sure enough, a quick search through Columbus’ travel journal confirms that the first sight of tobacco was on October 13th, 1492, after his arrival on the island of Guanahani; soon renamed San Salvador by the Spanish sailors, who had been “saved” by the island from their growing despair.

Regarding his first encounter with the leaf, Columbus writes: “[the man] was carrying a little of their bread, as big as one’s fist, a calabash of water and a piece of red earth made into dust… and some dry leaves, which must be a thing much valued among them, since at San Salvador they brought them to me as a present.” It turns out that he remained on the island until the 28th of October. On that day he set sail for Cuba, after being told of the existence of a larger island by the natives of San Salvador.

It was, in fact, while on the island of Cuba, on November 3rd, 1492, that the Spanish saw the use of a cigar to smoke the “valued” leaves. On that day’s entry Columbus writes of men and women who “carried live coals, so as to draw into their mouths the smoke of burning herbs”. Another traveler later wrote that “they lighted one end of the little stick thus formed, and sucked in or absorbed the smoke by the other, with which” he continues, “they put their flesh to sleep, and it nearly intoxicates them, and thus they say that they feel no fatigue. These muskets, as we should call them, they call tobaccos.”

Of course, there are many other directions in which one might continue a cigar history lesson, from Queen Isabela and the Spanish court, to Jean Nicot, to Sir Walter Reilly and the advent of English grown tobacco, and so on… but as for me, I’m perfectly happy with the little facts.