The initial discovery and recognition of the importance of Chocolate is often attributed to Hernan Cortez. Yet in 1502 Christopher Columbus, or Colon, on his fourth and final voyage to the Caribbean, reached the island of Guanaja off the coast of Honduras. History says that he was greeted by Aztecs who offered him sacks full of almond shaped pods in exchange for items they desired. When he did not immediately understand the offering they were giving in exchange, the Aztecan explained to him that a very special drink could be prepared from the beans called tchocolatl or xocolatl. Columbus and his crew found the drink to be bitter and repellent concoction. Little realizing the value of the beans they still took some of the beans back to Spain out of curiosity of the value of them never to realize the economic value of the beans.
When Hernan Cortez arrived seventeen years later to the New World, the then Aztecan leader of the time, Montezuma II, believed Cortez to be the reincarnated Quetzalcoatl, the exiled Toltec god-king whose return was predicted in Aztecan and Toltec mythology. It was according to that myth that that year would be the appointed year of return of the great king who would bring freedom to his people. This confusion made access to the Aztec Capital, Tenochtitlan, where he received the god-kings royal welcome. Cortez was offered many gifts from Montezuma II, including a cocao plantation and a lavish banquet prepared in their honor.
Montezuma realized eventually that he had made a mistake by identifying Cortez as the returned god-king. Cortez enlisted the help of many sympathetic natives and took Montezuma prisoner upon realizing his venerability. It was only a matter of two to three years later that history would see the complete downfall of the Aztec empire.
Not to be compared to his predecessor Colon, Cortez realized rapidly the value of the cocao beans and the impact it would have economically for Spain both as a food and a currency. The value as reported by a contemporary or Cortez was a slave could be purchased for 100 cocao beans, the services of a prostitute for 10, and a rabbit for 4. Pedro Martyre de Angleria, a well known Jesuit, called the cocao beans "pecuniary almonds" thus describing them as "blessed money". He proclaimed that it could exempt it's possessor's from avarice since it can not be hidden or horded underground. The common understanding is that he was referring to the fact that you could not store them for very long without them rotting.
An English friar, Thomas Gage wrote a great collection and extensively on the value of the cocao beans. He is recorded as stating that the natives there bought what they desired or needed for two cocao beans. The exchange he noted also was based on the exchange and value of currency of the time. At the time (1625) the Spanish real was valued at a sixpence or four cents for our understanding. He went on to explain that the natives did in fact make their purchases at the rate of two cocaos, the cost or value placed on the cocaos by the foreigners was 200 cocao beans for a Spanish real or a sixpence being four cents in our day. This is all to say that among the natives the cocao beans were significant and highly valued and was the preferred currency of the day.
Cortez set out to find El Dorado the lost fabled city of Aztec Gold. Not too long after his arrival and after realizing the value of the cocao beans to the natives, he realized that due to the importance placed on the cocao beans by the natives that truly money did grow on trees. The next few years he would set up to exploit the commercial potential of the cocao beans by setting up plantations through out the Caribbean and there by producing "liquid gold". Dur to the nature of the ease and profitability of cultivating the cocao beans, it drew many Spaniards to the New World and the prospect of the easy riches caused many settlers to come and start colonies. Soon Spain established plantations in Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, and the Jamaican and Hispaniola Islands. Though the production of cocao beans has since spread through out the world, to date the most highly prized variety of beans still hails from the original areas.
This "liquid gold" was kept a secret for as long as was possible by the Spaniards due to the ease and huge profits they gained by processing the cocao beans in the New World and then transporting it through out the Old World. But the secret of true Aztec Gold would not last. In 1580 the first ever chocolate plant outside of the New World was set up in Spain. From that point on the popularity of Chocolate began to spread through out Spain at large and into the European countries with great popularity. The Dutch transplanted some trees to their settlements in East Indian States in the early seventeenth century. From there the popularity and cultivation spread to the Philippines, New Guinea, Samoa and Indonesia. The financial success it should be noted was due to the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of African slaves. Plantations were spreading throughout the world and many Europeans countries came and settled the New World in the pursuit of Aztecan Gold, what we all enjoy today as Chocolate.
In reflection it is amazing that something found so commonly today in store through out the world was once the catalyst to expedite the colonization and to activate the "settling" of the New World. That is why to this day we refer to Chocolate as the food of hods and it has rightfully been seen in the venue that it deserves. Not many items have moved a world to action as Chocolate did. Not even the greed for gold moved the world into action as did the first taste of cocao.
If you love poetry check out my book at Amazon.com
Lamentations of the Caves By Rebecca Cuevas De Caissie
