The first cigar factory in America opens
1783
Cigars are being imported into Boston from the West Indies (Cuba and Jamaica).
1803
Napoleon Bonaparte of France invades Spain and his pillaging soldiers stumble upon Cuban cigars for the first time. Less than a decade later France, like Spain sets up a structure to try to monopolize the lucrative trade.
1776
US colonies declare independence from England. Tobacco growers were in perpetual debt to British merchants. Taxes were heavy. Tobacco helped finance the Revolution by serving as collateral for French loans.
1770
Cigar smoking begins to catch on in New England and major North American port cities. Cigars were cheap and almost entirely home made “paste cigars” so called because wrapper was glued to keep it from unwrapping. These were generally rolled by farm wives. Cigars were sold by their husbands or traded to local merchants or Yankee wagon peddlers.
1764
Spanish King re-establishes ban on selling Cuban tobacco or cigars to foreign powers.
1763
British Lt. Col. Israel Putnam returned to his farm in CT from occupation of Havana. He brought cigar tobacco seed and more than 30,000 cigars. How much seed? No one knows, but tobacco is one of the world’s tiniest seeds. Enough to plant 500 acres will fit inside a lipstick tube. It takes 300,000 of these dust-size seeds to weigh …
1763
The British occupation of Cuba lasted less than a year (It was given back to Spain as part of the Treaty of Paris which ended the French and Indian War (The Seven Years War as it was known to the rest of the world), but it was long enough for Cuba’s “golden weed” to find its way to the non-Spanish …
1762
England captures Havana for nine months, during which more international shipping went through Cuba than in two and a half centuries of Spanish control. The entire world got introduced to Cuban tobacco, exotic hardwoods, and fruits. Spain got Cuba back by treaty but learned that once a pleasure is known to the world, it is very difficult to hide or …
1761
Spanish King re-enacts ban on selling Cuban tobacco or cigars to foreign powers. After the brief British take-over of Havana in 1762, the ban was reestablished in 1764.