TL;DR: Cigars trace back to ancient Mayan civilization, arrived in Europe through Christopher Columbus's voyages in the 1490s, and became a global commodity controlled for centuries by Spanish trade monopolies built around Cuban tobacco. In 1887, Heraclio Farias of Jalisco, Mexico patented a novel manufacturing process for cigars using nicotine-free tobacco, one of the earliest American patents in the category. Original patent prints are available framed or unframed.
The night before John F. Kennedy signed the executive order imposing a trade embargo on Cuba in February 1962, he sent his press secretary Pierre Salinger on an urgent errand: buy as many Cuban cigars as possible. Salinger returned the next morning with 1,200 Petit Upmanns. Kennedy signed the embargo and lit a cigar. The story, related by Salinger himself, captures something essential about the cigar's place in American culture: even as a matter of national policy, the personal attachment was strong enough to warrant a midnight procurement run.
That attachment did not begin in the mid-20th century. It began in the Western Hemisphere more than a thousand years earlier, traveled to Europe through the same voyages that transformed the global economy, and spent centuries being shaped by colonial trade policy, agricultural geography, and the preferences of the powerful men who smoked them.
The Ancient Mayan Origins of Tobacco Smoking
Archaeologists have traced the practice of smoking tobacco in a form recognizable as a cigar to the ancient Maya of Central America. A ceramic pot excavated from a Mayan site and dated to approximately the 10th century CE depicts a figure smoking a bundle of tobacco leaves tied with string -- the earliest known representation of what would eventually become the cigar.
Tobacco was not simply a recreational substance in Mayan culture. It carried religious and ceremonial significance, used in rituals, offered to deities, and consumed by priests and rulers in contexts that marked it as a substance with spiritual properties. The Mayan word for smoking, "sikar," is the etymological root of the word "cigar" in European languages, a linguistic trace of the origin still visible in the modern term.
Other pre-Columbian cultures throughout the Americas also smoked tobacco in various forms, including pipes, rolled leaves, and mixtures with other plants. The Maya were likely not the first people to smoke tobacco, but they are the earliest for whom the specific practice of wrapping tobacco leaves into a roll for smoking has been archaeologically documented.
Columbus, the New World, and Tobacco's Arrival in Europe
When Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean in October 1492, he encountered indigenous people who offered him dried tobacco leaves as a gift. Columbus and his crew did not initially understand what the leaves were for. A second expedition member, Rodrigo de Jerez, is credited by some historians as the first European to smoke tobacco, having observed indigenous people smoking on Cuba and adopted the practice. Jerez reportedly returned to Spain smoking, was reported to the Inquisition by neighbors who found the smoke emerging from a man's mouth alarming, and spent several years imprisoned before tobacco became fashionable enough to vindicate him.
The spread of tobacco through Europe after Columbus was rapid and comprehensive. Spanish and Portuguese sailors and traders carried it across the continent. By the mid-16th century, tobacco was being cultivated in Spain, Portugal, and France. The French ambassador to Portugal, Jean Nicot, promoted tobacco's use so enthusiastically in the French court that the active chemical compound in tobacco was eventually named after him: nicotine.
The initial reception in Europe framed tobacco as a medicinal plant as much as a recreational one. Physicians prescribed it for headaches, wounds, colds, and a variety of other conditions. This medical framing coexisted with purely recreational use, and the two traditions reinforced each other in driving adoption. By 1600, tobacco smoking in pipes and cigars was widespread across Europe and had begun spreading through European colonial networks to Asia and Africa.
Cuba and the Spanish Trade Monopoly
Cuba's tobacco industry became the center of the global cigar trade, and the Spanish colonial government was determined to control it. The combination of Cuba's climate, soil chemistry, and agricultural expertise produced tobacco leaf widely considered superior to any grown elsewhere, and the Spanish Crown moved quickly to establish exclusive control over its cultivation and distribution.
The Royal Factory in Seville, established in the 18th century, became the world's largest building at the time of its construction. All tobacco from Cuba was required to flow through Seville for processing, and the factory employed thousands of workers -- famously immortalized in Georges Bizet's opera Carmen, set among the cigarette rollers of the Seville factory. The Spanish tobacco monopoly was an industrial operation designed to concentrate the profits of a global commodity in a single location under royal control.
This monopoly structure created a geography of the cigar trade that persisted long after Spanish colonial power declined. Cuban tobacco remained the prestige standard by which other tobaccos were measured, and the knowledge of how to grow, cure, and roll premium tobacco was concentrated among Cuban agricultural workers and cigar makers who eventually carried their skills to other countries.
The American Cigar Industry and Tampa's Cuban Connection
By the middle of the 19th century, the United States had become one of the world's largest cigar markets. American cigar consumption reached 300 million cigars annually by mid-century and continued growing. Domestic tobacco growing expanded in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and other states, but imported leaf -- especially Cuban filler tobacco -- remained central to premium products.
The American cigar industry found its geographic center in Tampa, Florida, for reasons directly connected to Cuban immigration. As political instability in Cuba intensified during the Ten Years' War (1868 to 1878) and the subsequent independence movements, skilled cigar workers began leaving the island. Tampa, with its warm climate, proximity to Cuba, and port access, attracted Cuban cigar makers who transplanted both their craft and their seed stock.
Ybor City, the neighborhood of Tampa developed specifically around cigar manufacturing, became one of the most distinctive immigrant industrial communities in American history. At its peak in the early 20th century, it employed thousands of workers hand-rolling cigars in multi-story factories. The workers paid a lector from their own wages -- a reader who sat at an elevated platform and read aloud from newspapers, novels, and political texts while they rolled, a tradition that made cigar factory workers among the best-informed industrial laborers in the country.
When Kennedy signed the Cuba embargo in 1962, he was affecting an industry with deep roots in both countries and a century of cultural exchange between them. The embargo made Cuban cigars illegal to purchase in the United States, a restriction that remains in effect, though limited personal exemptions have varied by administration.
Heraclio Farias's 1887 Manufacturing Patent
In 1887, Heraclio Farias of Jalisco, Mexico received a U.S. patent for a novel cigar manufacturing process. Farias's patent covered a production method that created cigars using tobacco treated to remove nicotine, producing a lighter, drier, and more porous product than conventional cigars of the period.
The patent is notable for several reasons. It came from Mexico rather than the United States or Cuba, reflecting the broader geographic distribution of cigar manufacturing in the Americas by the late 19th century. It focused on the manufacturing process rather than the cigar's shape or blend, indicating that industrial efficiency and product consistency were becoming priorities as the American market grew. And its focus on nicotine reduction was unusual for its time -- most cigar patents of the period dealt with mechanical rolling, wrapper design, or leaf processing, not with the chemical properties of the tobacco itself.
Farias was working at the moment when cigar manufacturing was beginning its transition from a purely artisanal craft to a partially mechanized industry. Hand-rolling by skilled workers remained the standard for premium cigars, but manufacturers were exploring ways to increase output and consistency. Farias's process patent represents one line of that investigation -- an attempt to engineer the tobacco itself rather than simply the process of shaping it.
The patent connects a story that began with Mayan craftsmen binding tobacco leaves with string to the emerging industrial economy of late 19th-century North America. The cigar's journey from ceremonial Mesoamerican object to global commodity to subject of a U.S. patent filed by a Mexican inventor reflects the full sweep of the historical forces that shaped it.
Shop Cigar Patent Art Prints
The original U.S. Patent Office drawing that defined Farias's cigar manufacturing process. Starting at $49.99 unframed.
Cigar (1887), Heraclio Farias
Farias's 1887 patent is the engineering document behind one of the earliest recorded cigar manufacturing processes in the U.S. Patent Office, filed by a Mexican inventor at the moment when artisanal cigar-making was beginning to meet industrial production methods. The drawing makes a strong statement piece for a home bar, office, or study -- clean lines, deep history, and a story most cigar enthusiasts have never heard.
Best for: Cigar enthusiasts, home bar or study decor, gift buyers looking for something unexpected
Frequently Asked Questions
Who invented cigars?
Cigars were not invented by a single person but evolved from the tobacco-smoking practices of ancient Mesoamerican civilizations, particularly the Maya. A Mayan ceramic vessel dated to approximately the 10th century CE depicts a figure smoking bundled tobacco leaves, the earliest known representation of cigar-like smoking. The word "cigar" itself derives from the Mayan word "sikar," meaning to smoke.
How did cigars come to Europe?
Christopher Columbus and his crew encountered tobacco in the Caribbean during the 1492 voyage, and the practice of smoking spread rapidly through Europe in the decades following. Spanish and Portuguese traders carried tobacco across the continent, and by the mid-16th century, it was being cultivated in Spain, Portugal, and France. The French ambassador Jean Nicot promoted tobacco so aggressively in the French court that the compound nicotine was named after him.
Why is Cuban tobacco considered the best?
Cuba's specific combination of climate, soil chemistry, and centuries of accumulated agricultural expertise produces tobacco leaf with flavor characteristics widely considered superior to tobacco grown elsewhere. The Spanish colonial trade monopoly in the 16th through 18th centuries concentrated all Cuban tobacco through Seville, establishing Cuban leaf as the global prestige standard. That reputation has persisted even as Cuban cigars have been unavailable in the United States since Kennedy's 1962 embargo.
What was Heraclio Farias's cigar patent about?
Heraclio Farias of Jalisco, Mexico received a U.S. patent in 1887 for a cigar manufacturing process that treated tobacco to remove nicotine, producing a lighter and drier product. The patent focused on the chemical treatment of the tobacco rather than the mechanical process of rolling or shaping cigars, making it an unusual entry in the cigar patent record for its time.
Can you legally buy Cuban cigars in the United States?
No. President Kennedy imposed a trade embargo on Cuba in 1962, and Cuban cigars remain illegal to purchase in the United States under that embargo. American travelers returning from Cuba are permitted to bring back a limited personal supply under certain circumstances, but the embargo prohibits commercial sales. Cuban cigars remain legal and widely available in most other countries, including the United Kingdom.
Written by Rider Tuff, founder of Timeless Patents. Timeless Patents makes museum-quality patent art prints from original U.S. Patent Office documents, celebrating the inventors behind your favorite sports, hobbies, and passions. Every print is available framed or unframed, starting at $49.99. Shop the full collection →
