EL VIEJO CONTINENTE

Rodrigo de Jerez was one of the crew members who sailed to America on Christopher Columbus’s La Santa Maria in 1492. He is believed to have been the first European smoker. The crew first saw smoke on the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas. Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres first observed natives smoking palm leaf cigars. Rodrigo de Jerez acquired the habit of smoking. When he returned to El Viejo Continente, the smoke that surrounded him frightened his neighbors. The Spanish Inquisition imprisoned him for his “sinful and infernal habits” because “only the Devil could give a man the power to exhale smoke from his mouth.” By the time he was released seven years later, smoking had become a habit in El Viejo Continente.