The word cigar originally derives from the Mayan word sikar which means to smoke rolled tobacco leaves. The Spanish adapted the word to “cigarro” and the English word “cigar” came into general use in 1730.
The spread of Cigar smoking came to Europe from the Americas thanks to the travels of Christopher Columbus, the famous Italian Explorer whose journeys highlighted the Americas and help shed light on the “unknown world”. Columbus and his followers discovered that the Indians in the Western regions (Brazil, Central America, and Mexico) “smoked a long thick bundle of twisted tobacco leaves wrapped in a dried palm leaf or corn (maize) husk.” Evidence of cigar smoking dates back to the 10th century where artefacts show a Mayan smoking “a string-tied roll of tobacco leaves.” The Mayans were also known to have made tobacco beverages, which highlights the prevalence of this substance. When they migrated to countries including Canada and Chile, they took tobacco along with them and this contributed to its spread throughout the America’s.
After the year 1815, tobacco chewing replaced pipe smoking and was a predominant way in which tobacco was used in the United States. The chewing of tobacco was preferred by many since it was viewed as convenient to chew the substance as compared to lighting it in a pipe.
After taking tobacco to Europe, the smoking of cigars became widespread. Cigar factories were established in Cuba by Spain and changes were made in the presentation of the cigar where it was wrapped, not in a corn husk or some other sort of leaf, but in tobacco leaves instead. The use of cigars epitomized wealth in Spain in the 1600s and thereafter its use spread to the other European countries.
Acts of resistance and uprisings against Spanish occupation in Cuba, and the resulting Cuban revolution where Fidel Castro overthrew the occupying Spanish forces contributed to the development of cigar production in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil. More recent cigar producing regions include the United States, Jamaica, and Cameroon.
The history of the tobacco cigar has indeed been an eventful one with among the latest developments being in 2014 when President Obama of the United States of America, loosened the restrictions on Americans’ ability to go to Cuba and return with previously embargoed Cuban cigars.
