Making "pure Havanas"
Making "pure Havanas," the world's most famous cigars,
largest factory in Havana, Cuba. c. 1880
Stereograph by an unknown photographer.
African peoples raised tobacco in Cuba and the United States during and after slavery. They also worked in tobacco factories producing cigars and cigarettes. Enslaved Africans in Haiti and Cuba introduced tobacco, a native American product, to European sailors as early as the sixteenth century. By the late 1600s, tobacco had become a major export crop in Cuba, Virginia, Maryland, and later, North Carolina.