Tobacco has a surprising history with twists, turns and a strong independent streak. Early stone pipes dating to 5000 B.C. point to an established tobacco use among the earliest American peoples.

Native American Uses for Tobacco
Native Americans enjoyed tobacco for social, ritual and diplomatic needs, and were skilled harvesters of the plant. Among a varied agriculture, including maize, squash, potatoes, tomatoes, and yams, Indians domesticated tobacco for a variety of purposes.

Besides smoking tobacco in pipes, Native peoples employed tobacco as a cure for colic, digestion and breathing problems, as an aid for toothache, to clean cuts and bruises and as a poultice for colds and other infections. Our forefathers in early America learned some of these same uses for tobacco, and handed them down through farming families.

Tobacco and Early America
Tobacco among the settlers had a buccaneer start -- John Rolfe smuggled a particular, good-smoking strain of tobacco out of Spanish-controlled Cuba.

If the colonies could grow tobacco, they could be the sole supplier to England, providing a strong economic base for the colonial farmers. Tobacco flourished in Virginia and soon it was being sold as strongly in the colonies as it was in England.

Tobacco warehouses became some of the first industry buildings, and early warehouse receipts (for a "hogshead" of tobacco) could be considered the first American currency. Fines, taxes and debts were settled in terms of tobacco. The considerable taxation on crops like tobacco was a catalyst for a little skirmish called the Revolutionary War.

Tobacco in Kentucky History
Tobacco played a pivotal role in Kentucky’s direction as a Commonwealth. Some early Kentucky tobacco growers even proposed annexation by the then Spanish-held Louisiana Territory, for New Orleans held one of the few ports to sell tobacco to the Old World.

Tobacco Economy of Kentucky
Tobacco remains one of Kentucky’s biggest industries today, bringing in approximately $500 million in revenue to the state each year and is the number one crop providing a livelihood for farm families in Kentucky.