Barbanegra
Member
Von Hanf ist die Rede by the late Hans-Georg Behr -> I encourage anyone of you, who can read German, to get this fantastic book! It's a great read and very erudite.
Even if there was hemp growing in Americas prior to Spanish conquest, there is no doubt that the Europeans brought their own seeds and cultivated hemp for rope on a grand scale over centuries.
Behr mentions in his book a Spanish edict from 1545 that orders the cultivation of hemp in Chile, Peru and Colombia. Government reports remark that the Colombian harvests of 1607, 1610 and 1632 were very bad. In 1789 Antonio Silvestre was consulted, a hemp specialist from south-eastern Spain, and excerpts from his report survived. The crop failure in highland Colombia was so bad that there wasn't even stock for next planting. Silvestre suggested Cartagena as a new cultivation area and the import of fresh stock from Spain.
Against the idea that there was no smoking prior to the 1500s speak the finds of ancient Roman and Egyptian pipes.
Edit: It's a controversial topic. Some say the iron pipes found in the Roman farm and exhibited in Salzburgs Carolinum Augusteum come in fact from the 18/19th century. The book by Behr I mentioned depicts a gallo-roman bronze pipe from around 180 AD from Macon, in the collection of Museum in Nimes. He writes also about many pipe and chilum finds in ancient graves from Egypt to Turkey, the pipes were never used. That is where I got it from.
Even if there was hemp growing in Americas prior to Spanish conquest, there is no doubt that the Europeans brought their own seeds and cultivated hemp for rope on a grand scale over centuries.
Behr mentions in his book a Spanish edict from 1545 that orders the cultivation of hemp in Chile, Peru and Colombia. Government reports remark that the Colombian harvests of 1607, 1610 and 1632 were very bad. In 1789 Antonio Silvestre was consulted, a hemp specialist from south-eastern Spain, and excerpts from his report survived. The crop failure in highland Colombia was so bad that there wasn't even stock for next planting. Silvestre suggested Cartagena as a new cultivation area and the import of fresh stock from Spain.
Against the idea that there was no smoking prior to the 1500s speak the finds of ancient Roman and Egyptian pipes.
Edit: It's a controversial topic. Some say the iron pipes found in the Roman farm and exhibited in Salzburgs Carolinum Augusteum come in fact from the 18/19th century. The book by Behr I mentioned depicts a gallo-roman bronze pipe from around 180 AD from Macon, in the collection of Museum in Nimes. He writes also about many pipe and chilum finds in ancient graves from Egypt to Turkey, the pipes were never used. That is where I got it from.