Snuff is ground tobacco that people sniff or 'snuff' through the nose. In the 1700s , fashionable gentlemen carried snuff in an elegant box, or grated a twist of tobacco on a rasp as needed (tobacco was sold as a tightly twisted rope of cured or dried tobacco leaf). The tortoiseshell, gold and ivory of these items were all by-products of the slave trade. Ship's captains traded for gold and ivory alongside the main business of buying enslaved Africans. Their owners often ordered them to buy as much gold and ivory as possible, as neither was affected by the transatlantic crossing whilst the enslaved Africans might die, losing any profit on the transaction.