Keywords
Chocolate
Transpacific
America
Asia
How to Cite
Abstract
In the course of the second half of the 16th century, chocolate and cacao became increasingly popular among many Europeans. By the 1630s, if not earlier, not only the Spanish but also the Dutch, the French and even the English were consuming a good deal of cacao. However, despite being a truly global product, its history of distribution in East Asia has hardly been studied. This article seeks to bring this information to light. The first part of this research deals with how cacao and chocolate first arrived in the Philippines, China and Japan, and the impacts that the new product had on local societies. In the second part, it is
investigated in more detail the various uses of cacao and chocolate and their emergence as a global product, with a special focus on the journey westward from the Americas to Asia.
References
See also Nadia Fernández-de-Pinedo, “Global Commodities in Early Modern Spain”, in Manuel Perez Garcia · Lucio De Sousa (eds.), Global History and New Polycentric Approaches Europe, Asia and the Americas in a World Network System [Palgrave Studies in Comparative Global History] (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 293-318.
Julia García Paris, Intercambio y Difusión de Plantas de Consumo entre el Nuevo y el Viejo Mundo (Madrid: Servicio de Extensión Agraria, Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca, y Alimentación), 58-59.
José L. Gasch-Tomás, The Atlantic World and the Manila Galleons. Circulation, Market, and Consumption of Asian Goods in the Spanish Empire, 1565–1650 [The Atlantic World. Europe, Africa, and the Americas, 1500–1830, 37] (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2019), 30 (with reference to AGI, Contratación, 1866, 651-654), 41-42 (with reference to AGI, Contratación, 1880, 221-231).
“Correspondence Relevant to Military Operations in China” (p. 26), in Despatches, Offices and Individuals: 1842. Manuscript Number: CO 129/1 in The National Archives (Kew, United Kingdom), Archive: Hong Kong, Britain and China, 1841–1951, Collection “War and Colonial Department and Colonial Office: Hong Kong, Original Correspondence”, electronic resource.
The National Archives (Kew), November 3-December 6, 1856, Correspondence Archive Imperial China and the West part I, 1815–1881, Collection: FO 17 Foreign Office: Political and Other Departments: General Correspondence, China, document no. FO 17/252.
For an article analysing the specific developments and changes in the China-Philippine trade, due to European competition and political-economic decisions in China, see Antoni Picazo Muntaner, “El comercio de Filipinas en el tránsito al siglo XVIII: la política comercial china”, Vegueta. Anuario de la Facultad de Geografía e Historia 20 (2020), 253-272.
Guillermo Ruiz-Stovel, Chinese Shipping and Merchant Networks at the Edge of the Spanish Pacific: The Minnan-Manila Trade, 1680–1840, PhD dissertation (University of California, Los Angeles, 2019), 456.
Pesach Lubinsky, Historical and Evolutionary Origins of Cultivated Vanilla, PhD dissertation, University of California Riverside, 2007, 19.
Henry Bruman, “The Culture History of Mexican Vanilla”, The Hispanic American Historical Review 28:3 (1948), 360-376, 362, with reference to Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Historia chichimeca (Mexico City: 1892), 168.
Ibid., with reference to Juan de Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana (Madrid: 1723), 3 vols., vol. I, 47.
See William Gates, An Aztec Herbal. The Classic Codex of 1552 (first published in Baltimore: The Maya Society, 1939; Dover edition, Bruce Byland: 2000), 317, with reference to *p. 68, 8-1.
William Gates, An Aztec Herbal, 74: Theobroma cacao L., Myrodia funebris Benth.
William Gates, An Aztec Herbal, 276.
Henry Bruman, “The Culture History of Mexican Vanilla”, 364.
This, according to Henry Bruman, can be deduced primarily from the following developments: first, a salary cut by order of the viceroy dated January 11, 1576 stated that henceforth the common labourers of Acatlin, near Atotonilco, were to be paid thirty cacao beans per day, instead of twenty; second, a shift from payment in cacao to payment in silver – an order by the viceroy dated August 1, 1580, states that the Indians tending the cacao orchards of Colima should in the future be paid in silver and not in cacao. See Henry Bruman, “The Culture History of Mexican Vanilla”, 365, footnote 21, with reference to AGNM, Ramo General de Parte, I, 108; and AGNM, Ramo General de Parte, II, 216 v.
As the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún (1505?–1590) records, the cacao beans were originally so valuable that people began to produce counterfeit seeds to pass as money. The counterfeiters used items, such as “amaranth seed dough, wax, (and) avocado pits” to falsify cacao beans. See Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, que en doce libros y dos volúmenes escribió, el R. P. Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, con notas y suplementos por Carlos Maria de Bustamente (México: Imprenta del Ciudadano Alejandro Valdés, 1830), Capitulo XVIII, “De los que venden cacao, maíz y frisóles Cacahuateros”, tomo III, 44, digital versión http://cdigital.dgb.uanl.mx/la/1080012524_C/1080012525_T3/1080012525_MA.PDF.
“Cacao: Food of the Gods and their People”, in https://chocolateclass.wordpress.com/2016/02/19/cacao-food-of-the-gods-and-their-people/ (accessed March 17, 2021).
As liquid as we drink chocolate today, 1 pound of chocolate requires 3,170 gallons of water. Courtesy of Gene Anderson, “Water: Sacred Trust or Resource to Waste”, in ‘Developing Mexican Food: Globalization Early On’, Krazy Kioto, The Gene Anderson Webpage, October 10, 2016, http://www.krazykioti.com/2016/10/.
Bernardino de Sahaghún, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Mexico City: 1938), 5 vols., vol. III, 237.
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478–1557), Historia General y Natural de las Indias, islas y tierre-firme del mar océano (1851), Tomo l, libro VIII. Cap. XXX, 318-319; electronic version provided by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/title/BV020799958
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Historia general y natural de las Indias, 318.
Annatto has been introduced over time to a large number of tropical areas around the world, including Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Philippines.
Entry “Bixa orellana”, Missouri Botanical Garden, https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=e852 (accessed March 24, 2021).
José de Acosta, (1540–1600), Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, en que se tratan las cosas notables del cielo, y elementos, metales, plantas y animales dellas y los ritos, y ceremonias, leyes y gobierno, y guerras de los indios. Compuesta por el Padre Ioseph de Acosta Religiose de la Compañía de Iesus. Dirigida a la Serenissima Infanta Doña Isabella Clara Eugenia de Austria (Impresso en Sevilla en casa Juan de Leon, 1590), Cap. 22, “Del Cacao, y de la Coca”, 251.
Sabine Anagnostou, Jesuiten in Spanisch-Amerika als Übermittler von heilkundlichem Wissen (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2000), 135.
Sabine Anagnostou, Jesuiten in Spanisch-Amerika, 134.
Henry Bruman, “The Culture History of Mexican Vanilla”, 366.
José Pardo-Tomás, “Natural knowledge and medical remedies in the book of secrets: uses and appropriations in Juan de Cárdenas’ Problemas y secretos maravillosos de las Indias (Mexico, 1591)”, in Sabine Anagnostou, Florike Egmond, and Christoph Friedrich (eds.), A Passion for Plants: Materia Medica and Botany in Scientific Networks from the 16th to 18th Centuries (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2011), 93-108, 105.
Juan de Cárdenas, Problemas y secretos maravillosos de las Indias (2nd ed., Mexico City, 1913).
“Does one break the law of fasting by drinking chocolate? No; for according to the common opinion of theologians, chocolate (if not compounded with corn flour or similar solid foods) is a liquid, and liquids do not break the fast”. H. de la Costa, S.J., Jesuits in the Philippines (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), 356.
H. de la Costa, S.J., Jesuits in the Philippines, 248-249.
Archivo General de la Nación (AGNM, Mexico City), Inquisición, Tomo 384, 353r-354r.
AGNM, Inquisición, Tomo 442, 379r. I want to thank David Max Findley from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History for bringing these sources from the Inquisition to my attention.
The whole story is in detail recorded over various pages, providing the entire discussion in the Inquisition. AGNM, Inquisición Tomo 442, 379r et seq. GD61 Inquisición, vol. 369, exp. 17, fol. 25, Zacatecas (“por tomar chocolate antes de promulgar”), that is for taking chocolate before receiving the communion.
AGNM, Inquisición, Tomo 355, microfiche, no pagination available. She also reported that about eight years ago, when she was in Mexico in the house of her father, she asked a mulatta named Francisca to provide her with some ‘poyomate’ herbs which served to want well” (que la diessa unas hierbas poyomate que servían para querer bien) that she then carried around her neck, other herbs she had to drink. The information that such practices originally stemmed obviously from a Mexican mulatta may attest to the general idea that mulattas played a major role in premodern sorcery and esoterism.
Most cases I could find stem from the AGNM and are related to cases in Mexico. GD61 Inquisición, vol. 339, exp. 89, fol. 8 (1621), Guadalajara (“Contra Isabel, esclava, por usar un dedo ahorcado y echar menstruación en el chocolate para darla a beber”); GD61 Inquisición, vol. 339, exp. 89, fol. 59 (1621), Guadalajara (“por dar beber en el chocolate la sangre de su periodo a sus amigos”); GD61 Inquisición, vol. 356, exp. 46, fol. 78 (1626), Tehuacán (“por usar de unos polvos y echar menstruo en el chocolate de su marido”); GD61 Inquisición, vol. 356, exp. 78, fol. 115 (1626), Tepeaca (“por haber dado el menstruo en chocolate a su marido”); GD61 Inquisición, vol. 363, exp. 30, fol. 15 (1629), Zacatecas (“daba a beber menstruo en chocolate”).
Martin Gimm, „Henkama, ‚Väterchen Heng‘: Ein Mediator zwischen Kaiser Kangxi und den Jesuitenmissionaren in der Epoche des ‚Ritenstreites‘ im 18. Jahrhundert“, Monumenta Serica 64:1 (2016), 101-136, 116, with reference to Jacques Mercier, La tentation du chocolat, German translation, Die Versuchung der Schokolade (Brüssel: Racine, o.J.), 107-109.
Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century (Cleveland, Ohio: The A. H. Clark company, 1903-09), vol. 47, 218-219.
H. de la Costa, S.J., Jesuits in the Philippines, 249, with reference to Antonio Astraín, Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en la asistencia de España (Madrid: 1912-1925), 7 vols., vol. 5, 319-320.
H. de la Costa, S.J., Jesuits in the Philippines, 512, with reference to Archivum romanum Societatis Iesu, Section Philippinarum, vol. 12, 136.
José Maria González O. P., Misiones Dominicanas en China (1700–1750), 2 vols. [Biblioteca «Missionalia Hispanica» Publicada por el Instituto Santo Toribo de Mogrovejo], vol. IX (Madrid :1958), vol. 2, 432.
José Maria González O. P., Misiones Dominicanas en China, vol. 2, 145. The interest in the fertility of women appears as a global phenomenon of the time that we observe as well in other world regions.
José Maria González O. P., Misiones Dominicanas en China, vol. 2, 327, 399. I will discuss this aspect in more detail in a forthcoming article.
Girolamo Benzoni (1519–1570), La Historia del Mondo Nuevo (Venice: Appresso Francesco Rampazetto, 1565), 103, quoted by Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America. A Socioeconomic History, 1520–1720 [Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies] (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008), 70. “Porcorum ea verius colluvies quam hominum potio”.
This new recipe of adding sugar, vanilla, cinnamon or anis to the chocolate drink is traced back to the invention of nuns from the Convent of Guanaca, located in either Guatemala or Colombia. See José García Payón, Julio Monreal, Amaxocoatl: o Libro del chocolate (Toluca, México: Tip. Escuela de Artes, 1936), 42.
Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America, 252.
“Los registros históricos nos cuentan que la vainilla (que no es nativa de Filipinas) fue introducida con anterioridad en esa región mediante el comercio de los galeones de Manila, desde América, y específicamente desde Guatemala.” See Botánica La Famosa Vainilla Tahitiana Procede de Guatemala 22 de septiembre de 2008, https://www.amazings.com/ciencia/noticias/220908e.html (accessed on February 27, 2021).
Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America, 241.
Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America, 241-242.
Henry Bruman, “The Culture History of Mexican Vanilla”, 367, with reference to Pierre Pomet, Le marchand sincere, ou trait general des drogues simples et composes (Paris: 1695), 206-208. Bruman also stresses that Pomet speaks of both cinnamon and vanilla and that the idea of using either cinnamon or vanilla, of chocolate ‘a la española’ vs. chocolate ‘a la francesa’, in other words, may have been a development of the eighteenth century.
Mariano de Cárcer y Disdier, Apuntes para la historia de la transculturación indo-española (Segunda edición, México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1995), Libro II, 352, with reference to Fr. Tomás Gage, Los Viajes de Tomás Gage a la Nueva España, sus diversas aventuras y su vuelta por la provincia de Nicaragua hasta La Habana, con la descripción de la Ciudad de México. Prólogo de Artemio de Valle-Arizpe (Ediciones Xóchitl México: 1947).
Woodrow Borah, “Early Colonial Trade and Navigation Between Mexico and Peru”, Ibero-Americana 38 (1954), 1-170, 24.
Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803, The Philippine islands, vol. 47, 274.
Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803, The Philippine islands, vol. 47, 273-274.
Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803, The Philippine islands, vol. 47, 269.
Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803, vol. 47, 264.
“Commerce of the Philipinas Islands; the benefit and advantages which the said islands ought to yield to his Majesty (whom may God preserve)”, in The Philippine Islands, vol. 47, 254-281, here 261-262.
Reyna María Pacheco Olivera, Análisis del intercambio de plantas, 23. Cinnamon from Ceylon was shipped to the Philippines and New Spain. In 1785, the galleon San Carlos, voyaging from Acapulco to Manila, carried cinnamon water (aguas de canela). The galleons La Sacra Familia (1719), Nuestra Señora de la Portería (1758), Galeón Santísima Trinidad (1761), Nuestra Señor del Rosario (1762), carried cinnamon as cargo on board. The San Joseph (1768) had cinnamon syrup, two other not identified galleons (1780) carried cinnamon water and powder, another galleon (1782) cinnamon oil, and the galleon San Andrés (1787) cinnamon water. See Pacheco Olivera, Análisis del intercambio de plantas, 63. In 1724 the San Francisco de Paula, proceeding from Mexico to Paita, had ‘Chinese cinnamon’ on board (canela de China), in 1748 the San José y San Antonio, proceeding from Mexico to Realajo-El Callao in Peru, carried pepper, cinnamon, estoraque and Chinese clothes. See Mariano A. Bonialian, El Pacífico hispanoamericano, 302-303.
This is mentioned in a letter from Legazpi (dated 1 July 1569), cited in Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803, vol. 3, 6, online https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13616/pg13616-images.html. See also vol. 3, 35, 42, 43, 147, 148, 170, 175, 271.
In July 1568, the capitana San Pablo, for example, caried “than four hundred quintals of cinnamon for your Majesty”, Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803, vol. 3, 18, see also p. 22, 162 (shoots of cinnamon and pepper trees were sent), 171, 191, 222, 251, 258.
Guillermo Ruiz-Stovel, Chinese Shipping and Merchant Networks, 455.
Maria Lourdes Diaz-Trechuelo, “Philippine Economic Development Plans, Philippine Studies 12:2 (1964), 203-231, 211.
Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America, provides excellent surveys on what is happening in different central American regions.
Henry Bruman, “The Culture History of Mexican Vanilla”, 363.
Julio Castellanos Cambranes, Introducción a la Historia Agraria de Guatemala – 1500–1900 – (Guatemala: Serviprensa Centroamericana, 1986), 126.
Josef de Acosta, Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias. Edición crítica de Fermín del Pino-Díaz [De Acá y de Allá. Fuentes Etnográficas] (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2008), libro V, cap. 22, 125: El árbol donde se da esta fruta es mediano y bien hecho, y tiene hermosa copa: es tan delicado que para guardarle del sol – no le queme – ponen junto a él otro árbol grande que sólo sirve de hacelle* sombra, y a éste llaman «la madre del cacao». Hay beneficio de cacaotales donde se crían, como viñas u olivares en España, por el trato y mercancía: la provincia que más abunda es la de Guatemala. Paulina Machuca also draws our attention to the binom of ‘cacao-coco’, Theobroma cacao and Cocos nucifera. Paulina Machuca, El Vino de Cocos en la Nueva España: Historia de una Transculturación en el Siglo XVII (Zamora, Michoacán: El Colegio de Michoacán, 2018), 98.
Julio Castellanos Cambranes, Introducción a la Historia Agraria de Guatemala, 127.
Julio Castellanos Cambranes, Introducción a la Historia Agraria de Guatemala, 126.
The “understaffed and aging cacao groves of Soconusco were particularly susceptible to the effects of natural disasters. Hurricanes in 1641 and in 1659 further reduced many of the surviving plantations, and if it had not been for the rising demands for high quality cacao among the upper classes in both New Spain and Europe during the second half of the seventeenth century, there is no doubt that the cacaotales in Soconusco would have disappeared”. Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America, 238.
Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America, 237-238.
With increasing exploitation of the Indios by the Spanish, as the former could no longer invest enough time the cultivation of cacao, many passed away through exploitation, and, in addition, the Indios had to pay incredibly high tributes. Julio Castellanos Cambranes, Introducción a la Historia Agraria de Guatemala, 126-127. The mayor of Suchitepéquez in 1602/03 is said to have extorted 15,000 ‘silver pennies’ (tostones; 1 tostón was a coin with a value of half a peso) from the province of Zapotitlán to buy 1,000 cargas of cacao, each carga having a value of 50 to 60 silver pennies, which he finally sent to Mexico, making a big fortune. Op.cit., 240, with reference to “Cartas del Obispo de Guatemala Fray Juan Ramírez de Arellano O.P., al Rey de España”, Guatemala 3.II.1603, included in the appendix to his book, Documentos Para la Historia Agraria de Guatemala. While an Indio who hires another person, provides him with two meals and cacao beverage per day, the Spanish, the bishop records, do not provide the Indios they hire with any food or drinks at all. Op.cit., 227.
Julio Castellanos Cambranes, Introducción a la Historia Agraria de Guatemala, 127.
Manuel Rubio Sánchez, “El Cacao”, Anales de la Sociedad de Geografía e Historia (Guatemala) 31 (1958), 81-129, 88-90, 102-103.
Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America, 241-242.
Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America, 242.
Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America, 244.
Domingo Juarros and John Bailey, A statistical and commercial history of the Kingdom of Guatemala in Spanish America... : with an account of its conquest by the Spaniards and a narrative of the principal events down to the present time translated by J. Baily (London: J. Hearne, 1823), 22.
A Buccaneer’s Atlas: Basil Ringrose’s South Sea Waggoner. A Sea Atlas and Sailing Directions of the Pacific Coast of the Americas 1682. Edited by Derek Howse and Norman J. W. Thrower. With special contribution by Tony A. Cimolino. Foreword by David B. Quinn (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1992), 88.
A Buccaneer’s Atlas: Basil Ringrose’s South Sea Waggoner, 92.
A Buccaneer’s Atlas: Basil Ringrose’s South Sea Waggoner, 50.
A Buccaneer’s Atlas: Basil Ringrose’s South Sea Waggoner, 50, note 4, 60. Also Isla del Caño, off the Western coast of modern Costa Rica, is described as having a great number of cacao trees (see p. 109).
A Buccaneer’s Atlas: Basil Ringrose’s South Sea Waggoner, 60.
Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803, vol. 47, 274.
Woodes Rogers (1679–1732), Nieuwe reize naa de Zuidzee, vandaar naar Oost-Indien, en verder rondom de Wereld. Begonnen in 1708, en geëyndigd in 1711. Inhoudende een Dagregister van zeer aanmerkenswaardige voorvallen, waaronder het veroveren van de Steden Puna en Gujaquil, en het schip van Acapulco, en andere pryzen, enz. Gedaan onder het bestier van William Dampier. In ’t Engels beschreven door Woodes Rogers, Kommandeur en Chef van de schepen de Hertog en Hertoginne van Bristol. Vertaald door P. C. met naauwkeruige Kaarten en Konstplaten verciert (Amsterdam: Oosterwyk en van de Gaete, 1715), 166; online version of the Digital Library Münchener Digitalisierungszentrum, https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb11298435?page=200,201&q=cacao (accessed on 19 March, 2022).
Monsieur Simon de De La Loubère (1642–1729), A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam; done out of French, by A.P. Gen. R.S.S. La Loubère, Simon de, 1642–1729., A. P, Chapter IX, “Of the Gardens of the Siameses, and occasionally of their Liquors”, 23, online https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A48403.0001.001/1:4.9rgn=div2;submit=Go;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=chocolate (accessed on 8 May 2023).
“Testimonio del cuaderno general del recibo de dependencias del galeón Nuestra Señora de Begoña que ejecutó su tornaviaje el 31 de marzo para las islas Filipinas a cargo del general Juan Pablo de Orduña” (México, 11 de agosto de 1714), AGI, Filipinas, 206, N.1, fols. 119r-188r, 165v.
See “Expediente sobre el comercio entre Filipinas y Nueva España” (1712-06-25, Manila, Luzón, Filipinas), AGI, Filipinas, 206, N. 1, fol. 165v; a zoomable image of the reference is also available on the digital adaptation of “Flavors that Sailed Across the Seas. How the Manila galleon helped to enrich the world's cuisine”, exhibition organised by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, via the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport, via the Sub-directorate General of Spanish State Archives, under the responsible curator Antonio Sánchez de Mora, https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/summary-of-the-cargo-of-the-galleon-nuestra-se%C3%B1ora-de-bego%C3%B1a/8gFa2qpU51828Q?hl=en (accessed on April 10, 2022). The full exhibition is available under
Reyna María Pacheco Olivera, Análisis del intercambio de plantas entre México y Asia de los siglos XVI al XIX (Master thesis, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2006), 138.
Reyna María Pacheco Olivera, Análisis del intercambio de plantas, 137-138.
William Lytle Schurz, The Manila Galleon. The romantic history of the Spanish galleons trading between Manila and Acapulco (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1959), 275.
Thomas Bennett, Shipwrecks of the Philippines (E-book. last edited version 2012), 12. See also the entry “Nuestra Señora de la Covadonga” in Thomas Bennett, Treasure Ships of the Philippines (E-Book, printed in the Philippines, 2016).
“Registro de la Carga que lleva el Patache Capitána de Philipinas Nra Señora de Cobadonga Año de 1743”, Manuscript held by the National Archives, Kew, Prize Papers, 11°1, 2r. “Expediente sobre la presa del patache Nuestra Señora de Covadonga” (1754-02-14, Madrid), AGI, Filipinas, 257, N. 1.
Table 6.7. ‘Gastos en comestibles, utensilios culinarios y otros géneros de consumo pertenecientes a la misión de Marianas (1751–1756)’, in Verónica Peña Filiu, Alimentación y colonialismo en las islas Marianas (Pacífico occidental) Introducciones, adaptaciones y transformaciones alimentarias durante la misión jesuita (1668-1769), Doctoral dissertation, Barcelona, Universidad Pompeu Fabra, 2019, 236.
Verónica Peña Filiu, Alimentación y colonialismo en las islas Marianas, 237, table 6.9.
Verónica Peña Filiu, Alimentación y colonialismo en las islas Marianas, 230.
Eduardo Rubio Aliaga, La Disputa de Guayaquil y Caracas por el Comercio del Cacao en Nueva España en el Siglo XVIII, Master thesis, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2016, 68.
Alexander von Humboldt, Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, Volume 2: A Critical Edition. Edited with an introduction by Vera M. Kutzinski and Ottmar Ette. Translated by J. Ryan Poynter, Kenneth Berri, and Vera M. Kutzinski. With annotations by Giorleny Altamirano Rayo, Tobias Kraft, and Vera M. Kutzinski (Chicago-London: The University of Chicago Press, 2019), 2 vols., vol. 2, 357 (IV.103).
“Real Cédula al presidente y oidores de la Audiencia de Lima, reiterando la orden dada por despacho de 6 de marzo de 1700 para la averiguación de los cómplices en el extravío de los azogues de la mina de Huancavelica, que salieron de los puertos de Cañete y de Lurinchincha en dos embarcaciones, una llamada ‘San Telmo’ con destino al puerto de Chametla, en el distrito de la Audiencia de Guadalajara, donde se aprehendió encontrándose en ella 550 quintales de azogue entre zurrones de cacao…”; see “Extravío de azogue de las minas de Huancavelica” (1701-03-27, Madrid), AGI, Guadalajara, 232, L. 9, F. 29r-30v.
See also “Pleitos de la Audiencia de México”, Escribanía, 187A (1700): El fiscal con Luis de Rozas [Meléndez] y Pedro de Ampuero, y José de Rozas [Meléndez], corregidor de Jauja, como cómplice, sobre el extravío de 600 quintales de azogue, cacao y otros que condujo la fragata ‘San Telmo’ del reino del Perú al puerto de Chamela en Nueva España. Fenecido en 1702.
Mariano Bonialian, La América Española: Entre el Pacífico y el Atlántico. Globalización mercantil y economía política, 1580–1840 (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico, 2019), 229, https://ri.conicet.gov.ar/bitstream/handle/11336/126987/CONICET_Digital_Nro.04fdc845-c2d2-4542-84bd-b5e79e3c7958_A.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y. Between the 1770s and early 1790s, the amount of cacao imported through the port of Acapulco increased steadily. In 1774, Acapulco absorbed 18.55% of the total of exported cacao; in 1779, 43.66%, and in 1791, 62.55%. Between 1779 and 1783, Acapulco received 63.71% of the cacao later sold from Guayaquil (“unas 212 579 cargas de cacao por Acapulco”), most of the cacao in the later eighteenth century was, thus, of lower quality.
Benito J. Legarda, Jr., After the Galleons Foreign Trade, Economic Change, and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines (Madison: University of Wisconsin, Center for Southeats Asian Studies, and Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1999), 33.
This prohibition was issued by the Kangxi Emperor who considered Southeast Asia to be the place of origin of Chinese renegades and pirates (jinzhi Nanyang yuan’an 禁止南洋原案).
Guillermo Ruiz-Stovel, Chinese Shipping and Merchant Networks, 32.
Guillermo Ruiz-Stovel, Chinese Shipping and Merchant Networks, 382.
“Consulta sobre proyecto para mejorar el comercio de Filipinas”, AGI, Filipinas, 97, N. 14, image 53.
“Expediente de comercio de Filipinas con Nueva España” (1722–1733), AGI, Filipinas, 208, N. 1, 293v, 295v-296r; 312; see also Antoni Picazo Muntaner, “El comercio de Filipinas en el tránsito al siglo XVIII”.
“Expediente de comercio de Filipinas con Nueva España”, AGI, Filipinas, 208, N.1, fol. 323v. This story is actually confirmed by another Armenian who was interrogated, Don Carlos de Viago, also Armenian from ‘Ispahán’, 52 years old, and resident of Extramuros in Manila, fols. 308v and 213r.
AGI, Filipinas, 208, N.1, 300v, but see also 63v (26)-64r (17), 293r-296r.
See, for example, Tina S. Clemente, “Spanish Colonial Policy toward Chinese Merchants in Eighteenth-Century Philippines”, in Lin Yu-Ju, Madeleine Zelin (eds.), Merchant Communities in Asia, 1600–1980 (London: Routledge, 2015), 123-139.
“Carta de Casimiro Gómez Ortega” (12 de Marzo de 1788), fols. 1a-b, AGI, Filipinas, 723, N. 2, 8. He suggested the cultivation of black pepper, coffee, cacao, indigo, and tea, in addition to mulberry tres for silk production in the Philippines (“plantas de pimienta negra, Café, Cacao, Añil, y Thé, me parece digno del aprecio y protección del Gobierno”). Juan de Cuéllar (ca. 1739–1801), the botanist and naturalist of the Real Compañia de Filipinas (1785–1795), made similar suggestions, although he mostly omits tea, see “Sobre el cultivo de la canela, nuez moscada, pimienta” (1770-1792), AGI, Filipinas, 723, N. 2, 8 (carta de Casimiro Gómez Ortega) and Filipinas, 723, N. 2, 11, 14, and 17 (cartas de Juan de Cuéllar).
Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803, vol. 47, 261-262.
Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803, vol. 47, 255 and 257: “The commodities that I have mentioned are exported to the places that are enumerated as follows, and sell at prices that are very profitable, although commerce has, as in all regions, its ups and downs [sus altos y bajos]. To various ports of China: rice, sugar, cotton, indigo, bichuca or rattan, balate, pepper, tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl, brazil-wood, ebony, tapa, the sinews of cattle, birds’-nests, and lead when they have it. To the Malabar coast and Persia: sugar in large quantities, which is sold for money.”
“Expediente sobre proyecto de Ricardo Bagge” (1757-07-24, Manila; Luzón, Filipinas), AGI, Filipinas, 160, N. 23, passim.
He had amassed lots of debts with his trade, as a consequence of which he needed money and thus suggested this plan which he hoped the local Spanish authorities would like. The background of why an Irish trader came to suggest such a plan to the Spanish-Philippine authorities will be discussed in detail by Wim De Winter as a part of our project. Bagge’s project, dated Manila, 27 February 1746, is to be found in AGI, Filipinas, 228.
“Consulta sobre proyecto para mejorar el comercio de Filipinas”, AGI, Filipinas, 97, N. 14, passim, for example, images 2-3, 5, 16-17, 72-73. Maria Lourdes Diaz-Trechuelo, “Philippine Economic Development Plans”, 205.
“Consulta sobre proyecto para mejorar el comercio de Filipinas”, AGI, Filipinas, 97, N. 14, passim, no pagination, for example, images 18-19, 27, 65-68, esp. 27. “Expediente sobre proyecto de Ricardo Bagge”, AGI, Filipinas, 160, N. 23; see also Maria Lourdes Diaz-Trechuelo, “Philippine Economic Development Plans”, 205.
AGI, Filipinas, 97, N. 14, image 5; see also image 7. There he mentions that the local population had been obliged to the plant cotton for the production of textiles like ‘elefantes’ or ‘lampotes’, and introduce silkworms for silk production (image 10), especially in the province of Cagayan.
Maria Lourdes Diaz-Trechuelo, “Philippine Economic Development Plans”, 205, with reference to AGI, Filipinas, 228; AGI, Filipinas, 160, N. 23, image 64; AGI, Filipinas, 97, N. 14, image 18 speaks only of ‘the other mentioned goods’ (los demás generos expresados), which would include cacao. Image 27 states that the local population could easily obtain from the enemies’ provinces goods like, among others, cacao, goods that are all abandoned (los havitantes de las Islas pudieran conseguir con facilidad de las Provinias enemigas, cacao, balate, alcanfor, carey, perlas en abundancia, y de bien oriente, oro y otras cosas estimables, que todo se abandona, y cada dia se hallan mas pujantes los enemigos por la poca oposicion).
José Miguel Herrera Reviriego speaks of a high demand for cacao in Asia and concludes that silver and cacao were the two of the very few commodities the Europeans could offer and by which Chinese merchants felt attracted (‘Estos dos artículos [that is, silver and cacao, A.S.] eran de los pocos productos por los que los mercaderes chinos se sentían atraídos de cuantos podían ofrecerles los europeos y, por tanto, se convirtieron en piezas fundamentales para mantener abierto el trato con China’). See José Miguel Herrera Reviriego, “Flujos comerciales interconectados: El mercado asiático y el americano durante la segunda mitad del siglo XVII”, Historia mexicana 66:2 (2016), 495-553, here 523. I am still looking for more evidence on the Chinese involvement in the cacao trade.
Pedro Murillo Velarde, Historia de la provincia de Philipinas de la Comp. de Jesus, 187.
See also “Registro de oficio de la Audiencia de Filipinas”, AGI, Filipinas, 335, L. 17, 107r: “…el que trata de motivo el aumento de las frutas de esas Yslas, …se les obligase bajo de varias penas, a plantar en cada año, diez pies de árbol de cacao, coco, bonga o pimienta, según la oportunidad de terreno, encargando a los alcaldes mayores de los respectivos pueblos, su observancia y responsabilidad, previniéndolos reciban en efectos de algodón los tributos Reales de todo lo que quieran satisfacerlos en esta especie y que los esfuercen a su siembra, y beneficio…”.
Maria Lourdes Diaz-Trechuelo, “Philippine Economic Development Plans”, 205.
“Aprobación de medidas para fomentar la agricultura” (1759-10-06), AGI, Filipinas, 335, L.17, F.106r-107v. “Expediente sobre proyecto de Ricardo Bagge”, AGI, Filipinas, 160, N. 23 (images 4, 101) says that each year at least ten plants or trees have to be sown or planted in all areas where the soil is appropriate.
“Expediente sobre proyecto de Ricardo Bagge”, AGI, F Filipinas, 160, N. 23 (image 101). Cultivated were rice, maize, sugarcane, tobacco and sometimes wheat, while the territory is described as, for example, not being adequate for the cultivation of cinnamon. Op. cit., images 61, 62.
“Expediente sobre proyecto de Ricardo Bagge”, AGI, Filipinas, 160, N. 23 (image 102).
“Proyecto que hace a S.M. el P. Joseph Calvo manifestando el engaño del descredito en que unos pocos no verdaderos vecinos de las Yslas Philipinas, encomenderos de chinos, extranjeros, y de 10s de Mexico, por su interés obligan a S.M. a gastos excesivos, privando a España y a las Yslas de muchos bienes que pudieran gozar por medio del comercio, mediante la opulencia de sus riquezas en minas de todos metales y frutos”, Biblioteca de Palacio, Madrid (BPM), Miscelánea de Ayala V, 330r-339r, online https://rbdigital.realbiblioteca.es/files/manifests/II-2820.json.
“Proyecto que hace a S.M. el P. Joseph Calvo”, 334v.
Maria Lourdes Diaz-Trechuelo, “Philippine Economic Development Plans”, 216.
This refers to ‘balate’, that is sea slugs. Cf. Manel Ollé, Islas de Plata. Juncos y Galeones en los Mares del Sur (Barcelona: El Acantilado, 2022), 182.
This refers to ‘carey sea turtle shells’ and/or its eggs which were obviously very highly appreciated in China. I wish to thank Dr. José Casaban and Dr. Guillermo Ruiz-Stovel for assisting me with the final identification.
“Expediente sobre el proyecto de Pedro Calderón Enríquez”, AGI, Filipinas, 183, N. 6, image 153: “Dice que el fin de este sujeto es proponer para el aumento y fomento de las Yslas philipinas una compañía en que interviniesen las venerables mesas de la misericordia, y tercera orden de aquella Ciudad, con otros vecinos acacedalados de ella, y que S. M. interesase la quinta parte, concediendo las gracias, y privilegios correspondientes, por cuia mano se havia de hacer comercio en la costa de la China llevando frutas de las Yslas que estíman las de aquellas naciones como son Cacao, Balat, Alcanfór, Carei, Perlas de buen oriente, y oro, para permutarlo en cambio de los Generos que necesitan nuestras Yslas.”
“Carta de Pedro Manuel de Arandia sobre árboles sembrados en Filipinas”, AGI, Filipinas, 386, N. 3 1, image 7.
“Aprobación de medidas para fomentar la agricultura” (1759-10-06), AGI, Filipinas, 335, L. 17, fols. 106r-107v.
Expediente sobre el proyecto de Pedro Calderón Enríquez”, AGI, Filipinas, 183, N. 6, image 153.
“Relación de las islas Filipinas, extraída de una carta de fray Alvaro de Benavente, de la orden de San Agustín y secretario del padre provincial de Filipinas. Hace una descripción de sus cultivos, costumbres, oficios, etc.” (1677-06-06, Manila), AHN, Diversos-Colecciones, 31, N. 86, 2r.
Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803, vol. 47, 257. See also footnote 118 above.
“Expediente sobre el proyecto de Pedro Calderón Enríquez”, AGI, Filipinas, 183, N. 6, image 153.
Roderich Ptak, “The Transportation of Sandalwood from Timor to China and Macao, c.1350-1600”, in Roderich Ptak (ed.), Portuguese Asia. Aspects in History and Economic History, Beiträge zur Südasienforschung 117 (Stuttgart: 1987), 103-109, especially footnotes 25 and 38.
“Avisos de El comercio de Filipinas, [en manos de los sangleyes], y su estilo hasta hoy”, directed to Doctor Francisco Orieta de Filipinas (entre 1601 y 1700), BNE, MSS, 11014, 1r-3v, to be downloaded from https://datos.bne.es/edicion/biam0000002605.html. On page 3v twice the name of ‘Pumquan’ is mentioned, a Spanish designation used for Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功 (1624–1662). This name appears more frequently in contemporary Spanish documents, see, for example, “Carta de Diego Salcedo sobre socorros, comercio, etc.” (1667-08-04, Manila; Luzón, Filipinas), AGI, Filipinas, 9, R. 3, N. 50, so that it is reasonable to date the manuscript to the early 1660s. I would, thus, basically agree with José Miguel Herrera Reviriego, Manila y la Gobernación de Filipinas en el Mundo Interconectado de la Segunda Mitad del Siglo XVII, PhD dissertation, Universitat Jaume I, 2014, 137, who suggests 1663 as a possible date.
“A comprarle el género como la cera, las mantas, el cacao, y este acude tres o 4 días con el precio señalado del Parián”, in ““Avisos de El comercio de Filipinas”, fol. 1v. The document is also discussed by Antoni Picazo Muntaner, “El comercio sedero de Filipinas con México y su influencia en la economía de España en el siglo XVII”, in Francisco José Aranda Pérez, La declinación de la Monarquía Hispánica en el siglo XVII (Cuenca: Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2004), 501-509, 504, who dates it to 1601.
For example, in 1718 in North-Ceram, an island in the southern Moluccas: “Cacao seems to grow very well and produces large nuts” (‘cacao schijnt goed te willen groeien en zeer grote noten te geven’), see Generale missiven van gouverneurs-generaal en raden aan heren XVII der Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, Deel 7, 1713-1724, GS 164, 414. In Ambon Island, Maluku, cacao trees were planted with the hope to be able to use the fruits for commercial purposes, but the result was not good. See Jeroen Bos, “Laboratoria van de VOC herbergden schat aan kennis. Kwikzilver, kaneel en drakenbloed”, lees het na 6 (2012), 85.
William Clarence-Smith, Cacao and Chocolate, 1765–1914 (London, 2000), 95.
For a detailed discussion, see Tilman Frasch, “The Coming of Cacao and Chocolate to Ceylon”, Food & History 12:1 (2014), 137-152, doi: 10.1484/J.FOOD.5.105146.
Monsieur Simon de De La Loubère (1642–1729), A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam; done out of French, by A.P. Gen. R.S.S. La Loubère, Simon de, 1642–1729., A. P, Chapter IX, “Of the Gardens of the Siameses, and occasionally of their Liquors”, 23, online https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A48403.0001.001/1:4.9rgn=div2;submit=Go;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=chocolate (accessed on 8 May 2023).
Paul Van Dyke, Merchants of Canton and Macao, Vol. 1, Politics and Strategies in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Trade (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011); Paul A. Van Dyke, Merchants of Canton and Macao, Vol. 2, Success and Failure in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Trade (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016).
Diyi lishi dang’an guan (ed.), Qingdai Zhongguo yu Dongnanya geguo guanxi dang’an shiliao huibian 清代中國與東南亞各國關係檔案史料彙編, vol. 2, Feilübin 菲律賓 (Beijing: Guoji wenhua chuban gongsi, 2004), 115-117, 148, 166, 168, 169, 199, 216.
William Clarence-Smith, “From Maluku to Manila: Cocoa Production and Trade in Maritime South East Asia from the 1820s to the 1880s”, Workshop paper, University of London, 1993, p.8, with reference to the Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia (ANRI), 31, 50-II, “Verslag van de Kommissaris voor Menado” (1846), and Edgar Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine life, 1850–1898 (New Haven: 1965) for a general background on the Chinese. I wish to thank William Clarence-Smith for sharing this paper with me.
“Consulta XXV: Si ay obligación de restituir lo que dàn los Sangleyes en retorno del de los Alcaldes mayores, en orden chocolate, que les embia el Alcalde, o en tiempo del juego de la metua.”, Juan de Paz (O.P.), Consultas y resoluciones varias theologicas, juridicas, regulares y morales (Sevilla: por Thòmas Lopez de Haro, 1687), 483. I wish to thank my colleague Marina Torres Trimállez who brought this reference to my attention.
Blas Sierra de la Calle, Vientos de Acapulco. Relaciones entre América y Oriente (Valladolid: Museo Oriental de Valladolid, 1991), 67, quoted by Beatriz Palazuelos Mazars, Acapulco et le Galion de Manille, la réalité quotidienne au XVIIe siècle. Histoire. Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle (Paris III, 2012), 316 HAL Id: tel-00846697 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00846697).
Eberhard Crailsheim, “Trading with the Enemy. Commerce between Spaniards and ‘Moros’ in the Early Modern Philippines”, Vegueta. Anuario de la Facultad de Geografía e Historia 20 (2020), 81-111.
Eberhard Crailsheim, “Trading with the Enemy”, 94, with reference to Juan de la Concepción, 1788–1792, vol. 13, 66-68, 75-78, 85, who reports in detail about the lawsuit against Antonio Ramón de Abad.
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