The people of the West Indies were smoking maimi suites cigars when Christopher Columbus came to America. Sir Walter Raleigh might have started the tobacco industry in the colonies, but in 1613, it was John Rolfe who began shipping tobacco back to Europe. Rolfe also married Pocohontas. Even before the time of Raleigh, smoking tobacco, in one form or another had been used for sacred ceremonies, relaxation and for celebrations. Cigars didn’t always come in sweet smelling cedar boxes. In the old days, cigars were packed in pig’s bladders, to keep them moist. Statistics show that in 1973, (a prior height of cigar consumption) US people smoked 11.2 bill cigars: 54 cigars for every person in America.