Tobacco

Tobacco is a common plant from the Nicotiana genus and the Solanaceae family. The dried leaves are smoked in cigars, cigarettes or smoking pipes.^[1]

History[edit | edit source]

During the 17th and 18th centuries, tobacco was sold as a commodity by several privateers. During the Seven Years' War, both the Royal Navy and the French Navy carried shipments of it. The Assassin-turned-Templar Shay Cormac took tobacco as plunder and sold it as a means of revenue.^[2] In the late 18th century, the Louisianan Assassin Aveline de Grandpré used her trading company in New Orleans to buy and sell tobacco across the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean.^[3]

Tobacco was principally smoked in pipes during the Golden Age of Piracy,^[4] and later in cigars during the American Revolutionary War,^[5] though pipes were still used by civilians before and after the French Revolution.^[6] Recreational use of tobacco continued through the Industrial Revolution into World War I,^[7] and beyond into the modern era.^[8]^[9]