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BATS,
THE ALLSPICE TREE, CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS and UMBRELLAS |
Allspice seed planters*
Jamaican fruit bat colony (Artibeus jamaicensis)
Photograph by Pam Thomas, Courtesy of Lubee Bat Conservancy
ALLSPICE AND CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS?
In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain in search of new lands, gold, black pepper and other expensive spices. The Venetians had control of spice imports and prices. People in the rest of Europe were tired of paying exorbitant prices for spices.
Christopher
Columbus convinced King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain that he could
reach China and Japan by sailing west and that he would be able to claim new
lands, gold and spices for Spain.
Columbus had read Marco Polo's account of the markets in China where spices
abounded in profusion. For example, records open to Marco Polo because of
his position as a market surveyor for Kubilai Khan, showed that the people
of Hangchow ate 9,589 pounds of black pepper every day.(2) Obviously, China
had ready access to abundant supplies of black pepper which made it a magnet
to the pepper-starved Europeans. In his book on the spice trade, The Scents
of Eden, Charles Corn writes that in Europe of the 1600's pepper was sold
by the individual berry and "was nearly priceless".(3)
DID
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS FIND BLACK PEPPER?
No, Christopher Columbus was an ocean away from China and Japan. He was even
farther away from India, home of true black pepper, but he did apparently
have an encounter with allspice.
In 1903 Filson Young published a book based on Columbus's journals. Young writes that when Columbus appeared before King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella on his triumphal return to Spain that he illustrated his glowing narrative with various exhibits from his travels, "now a root of rhubarb or allspice; now a raw nugget of gold."(4) Whether Columbus presented the dried allspice berries or a root of the tree is not clear from this account.
George Usher says that allspice made its European debut as an import in 1601 (5), over 100 years after Columbus's return from his first voyage. However it seems reasonably certain that Columbus met an allspice tree or its fruit, and that dried fruit or some portion of the tree accompanied him to Spain in 1493.
The dried berries of the allspice tree were indisputably important in the New World. Aztec Indians used allspice to flavour chocolate.(1) The Arawak Indians of the Caribbean islands used allspice to season the meat of the wild pig. The seasoned meat was then grilled over an allspice wood fire.(7)
I SUPPOSE THE ALLSPICE TREE GROWS ALL OVER THE TROPICAL
WORLD NOW.
No, it doesn’t. It
has been grown in other parts of the tropical world but it doesn’t do
very well. It is one of the few spice trees that grows almost entirely in
the Western part of the world, mainly in Jamaica. It also grows wild in Guatemala,
Honduras and Mexico.(8)
WHAT KIND OF WORK IS THERE FOR PEOPLE IN THE ALLSPICE BUSINESS?
Most of the allspice plantations
are in Jamaica. Jamaica exports 60 percent of the allspice berries, berry
and leaf oil used in the world.(9)
One-quarter of the people in Jamaica who have jobs work in agriculture.(10)
The allspice industry is an agricultural industry. The trees grow in plantations.
The branches carrying the berries have to be harvested by hand. The berries
are spread by hand to dry in the sun for 12 days. The drying berries have
to be moved inside at night and if there is a threat of rain.(9)
People working in the forest also harvest allspice berries. Allspice trees
grow close to chicle
trees, which are bat-pollinated and bat planted. People collecting
latex from chicle trees can collect allspice berries as well and sell them.(11)
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Allspice
Berries |
BATS PLANT THE SEEDS. WHO POLLINATES THE FLOWERS?
Birds, insects and bees. Bats aren’t the only seed planters. In St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, the Bald Pate, a pigeon, eats the allspice fruit, plants the seeds and roosts in the allspice or pimenta tree. (12)
WHAT IS THE ALLSPICE TREE-UMBRELLA CONNECTION?
The allspice tree has uses
other than as a spice. In the 1800’s there was a demand in Britain for
umbrellas and walking canes made of allspice tree wood. Too many young trees
were cut to make umbrellas and a law was passed in 1882 to protect the sapling
trees.(13)
The oil from the berries and leaves is used for indigestion and easing rheumatism.(8)
The peppery warmth in the berries which can help to ease pain can also keep your feet warm. During the Napoleon’s War of 1812 the Russian soldiers put allspice berries in their boots to warm their freezing feet.(8)
References:
(1) UCLA History and Special Collections, Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, Medical Spices Exhibit: Chocolate; http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/biomed/spice/index.cfm?displayID=4
(2) Sensenig, Pearl, Marco Polo:An Inspiration to Christopher Columbus and the Age of Discovery; http://muweb.millersville.edu/~columbus/data/cwk/SENSEN01.CWK
(3) Corn, Charles, The Scents of Eden, A Narrative of the Spice Trade, Kodansha America, Inc., 1998
(4) Young, Filson, Christopher Columbus and The New World of His Discovery, A Narrative by Filson Young, E. Grant Richards, London, 1906; http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4116/4116-h/4116-h.htm
(5) Usher, George, A Dictionary of Plants Used by Man, Constable and Company, Ltd., 1974 ISBN 0 09 457920 2
(7) Food History - Jerk, Jamaican; http://www.foodreference.com/html/artjerkjamaican.html
(8) Encyclopedia of Spices, Allspice; http://www.theepicentre.com/Spices/allspice.html
(9) FoodNet, Directory of Commodities, Part A-B, Allspice;http://www.foodnet.cgiar.org/market/Tropcomm/part2ab.htm
(10) U.S. Department of State FY Country Commercial Guide:Jamaica
(11) Going, Going, Gum - Guatemala, October 2002;http://www.micromacro.tv/pdfs/construyalo_ingles/hands_on/Going_Going_Gum.pdf
(12) Saint Elizabeth, Jamaica; http://www.great-adventures.com/destinations/jamaica/StEliz.html
(13) Lancashire, Prof. Robert J., Jamaican Pimento
The Department of Chemistry, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Kingston
7, Jamaica
Jamaican fruit bat, Artibeus jamaicensis
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THE PLANT The Allspice Tree Order: Myrtales |
THE BAT Jamaican fruit bnat (Artibeus jamaicensis)*
*Documented by observation, Merlin D. Tuttle, 1985 |
| Text and drawings by ML Alley-Crosby Thank you to the Lubee Bat Conservancy for permission to use a photograph taken by Pam Thomas of Aritbeus jamaicensis. This is an educational, non-profit website. |
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