Chapter IV: Its History

OLD DRAWING OF AN AMERICAN INDIAN, WITH CHOCOLATE-POT AND WHISK.]

Although now cultivated in many other tropical countries, the cacao tree is one of the New World's rich gifts, first made known to our ancestors by the venturesome Spaniards, who probably became acquainted with its cultivation early in the sixteenth century, and spread the knowledge derived from the Mexicans and the inhabitants of Central America to their other colonies. They found cacao a more veritable mine of wealth than even the gold of which they procured such store. It is indeed a curious coincidence that in those countries of gold the cacao-beans were not only the form in which tribute was paid, but themselves passed as currency. On account of their use for this purpose by the Mexicans, Peter Martyr styled them _amygdalæ pecuniariæ_--"pecuniary almonds"--exclaiming: "Blessed money, which exempts its possessors from avarice, since it cannot be hoarded or hidden underground!"

Joseph Acosta tells us that "the Indians used no gold nor silver to trafficke in or buy withall ... and unto this day (1604) the custom continues amongst the Indians, as in the province of Mexico, instede of money they use cacao." The Aztecs also made use of cacao in this way, as many as 8,000 beans being legal tender--rather a task, one would imagine, for the money-changers.

In Nicaragua this practice was so general that "none but the rich and noble could afford to drink it, as it was literally drinking money." A rabbit sold there for ten beans, "a tolerably good slave" for a hundred. Slaves must, however, have been at a discount just then, if the silver value of the beans was no greater than when Thomas Candish wrote in 1586: "These cacaos serve amongst them both for meat and money ... 150 of them being as good as a Real of Plate"--about 6d. "A bag," of unknown size, "was worth ten crowns." One of the storehouses of Montezuma, the last of the old independent Mexican Chieftains,[18] was found by the Spaniards to contain as much as 40,000 loads of this precious commodity, in wicker baskets which six men could not grasp.

John Ogilby, writing in 1671 of the produce of America, says:

"But much more beneficial is the cacao, with which Fruit New
Spain drives a great Trade; nay, serves for Coin'd Money. When
they deliver a Parcel of Cacao, they tell them by five, thirty,
and a hundred. Their Charity to the Poor never exceeds above
one Cacao-nut. The chief Reason for which this Fruit is so
highly esteem'd, is for the Chocolate, which is made of the
same, without which the Inhabitants (being so us'd to it) are
not able to live. Before the Spaniards made themselves Masters
of Mexico, no other Drink was esteem'd but that of the Cacao;
none caring for Wine, notwithstanding the Soil produces Vines
everywhere in great Abundance of itself."

From contemporary travellers' records are to be gleaned many such strange facts and stranger fancies regarding the precious bean and its products, some of them extremely quaint and curious. Bancroft, for instance, writing of the Maya races of the Pacific, tells us that "before planting the seed they held a festival in honour of their gods, Ekchuah, Chac, and Hobnil, who were their patron deities. To solemnize it, they all went to the plantation of one of their number, where they sacrificed a dog having a spot on its skin the colour of cacao. They burned incense to their idols, after which they gave to each of the officials a branch of the cacao plant." Palacio also tells us that "the Pipiles, before beginning to plant, gathered all seeds in small bowls, after performing certain rites with them before the idol, among which was the drawing of blood from different parts of the body with which to anoint the idol;" and, as Ximinez states, "the blood of slain fowls was sprinkled over the land to be sown."

A CACAO PLANTATION. (_One of the earliest illustrations of this subject known, showing the shade trees, and beans drying._)]

The idea that secret rites were necessary at the planting of cacao to counteract their ignorance of its requirements was long current also among the superstitious Spaniards, who similarly accounted for the early failures of the English, as witness the following amusing extract from a contribution to the _Harleian Miscellany_ in 1690:

"Cocoa is now a commodity to be regarded in our colonies,
though at first it was the principal invitation to the peopling
of Jamaica, for those walks the Spaniards left behind them
there, when we conquered it, produced such prodigious profit
with so little trouble that Sir Thomas Modiford and several
others set up their rests to grow wealthy therein, and fell to
planting much of it, which the Spanish slaves had always
foretold would never thrive, and so it happened: for, though it
promised fair and throve finely for five or six years, yet
still at that age, when so long hopes and cares had been wasted
upon it, withered and died away by some unaccountable cause,
though they imputed it to a black worm or grub, which they
found clinging to its roots.... And did it not almost
constantly die before, it would come into perfection in fifteen
years' growth and last till thirty, thereby becoming the most
profitable tree in the world, there having been £200 sterling
made in one year of an acre of it. But the old trees, being
gone by age and few new thriving, as the Spanish negroes
foretold, little or none now is produced worthy the care and
pains in planting and expecting it. Those slaves gave a
superstitious reason for its not thriving, many religious
rites being performed at its planting by the Spaniards, which
their slaves were not permitted to see. But it is probable
that, where a nation as they removed the art of making
cochineal and curing vanilloes into their inland provinces,
which were the commodities of those islands in the Indians'
time, and forbade the opening of any mines in them for fear
some maritime nation might be invited to the conquering of
them, so they might, likewise, in their transplanting cocoa
from the Caracas and Guatemala, conceal wilfully some secret in
its planting from their slaves, lest it might teach them to set
up for themselves by being able to produce a commodity of such
excellent use for the support of man's life, with which alone
and water some persons have been necessitated to live ten weeks
together, without finding the least diminution of health or
strength."

However valuable this last quality rendered the newly-discovered drink, its method of preparation and the unwonted spices employed prevented its ready adoption abroad, although the Spaniards and Portuguese took to it more kindly than some of the northern races. Joseph Acosta, writing of Mexico and Peru, says:

"The cocoa is a fruite little less than almonds, yet more
fatte, the which being roasted hath no ill taste. It is so much
esteemed among the Indians (yea, among the Spaniards), that it
is one of the richest and the greatest traffickes of New Spain.
The chief use of this cocoa is in a drincke which they call
chocholaté, whereof they make great account, foolishly and
without reason: for it is loathsome to such as are not
acquainted with it, having a skumme or frothe that is very
unpleasant to taste, if they be not well conceited thereof. Yet
it is a drincke very much esteemed among the Indians, whereof
they feast noble men as they passe through their country. The
Spaniards, both men and women, that are accustomed to the
country, are very greedy of this chocholaté. They say they make
diverse sortes of it, some hote, some colde, and put therein
much of that chili: yea, they make paste thereof, the which
they say is good for the stomacke, and against the catarre."

But this was not the only medicinal property attributed to "the food of the gods," for the Aztecs used to prescribe as a cure for diarrhoea and dysentery a potion prepared of cacao mixed with the ground bones of their giant ancestors, exhumed in the mountains. Such a very active principle was sure to make its enemies too, and several amusing attacks have survived to witness their own refutation. It was regarded by some as a violent inflamer of the passions, which should be prohibited to the monks; for, as one writer puts it, "if such an interdiction had existed, the scandal with which that holy order has been branded might have proved groundless." As late as 1712, after its use had become established in this country, the mentor of the _Spectator_ writes: "I shall also advise my fair readers to be in a particular manner careful how they meddle with romances, chocolates, novels, and the like inflamers, which I look upon as very dangerous to be made use of during this great carnival" (the month of May).

Some accounted for the assumed ill-effects of cocoa to its admixture with sugar in the form of chocolate, for a few years earlier a London doctor had declared that "coffee, chocolate, and tea were at the first used only as medicines while they continued unpleasant, but since they were made delicious with sugar they are become poison." Similarly, an anonymous assailant in a pamphlet "Printed at the Black Boy, over against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street," exclaims:

"As for the great quantity of sugar which is commonly put in,
it may destroy the native and genuine temper of the chocolate,
sugar being such a corrosive salt, and such an hypocritical
enemy of the body. Simeon Pauli (a learned Dane) thinks sugar
to be one cause of our English consumption, and Dr. Willis
blames it as one of our universal scurvies: therefore, when
chocolate produces any ill effects, they may be often imputed
to the great superfluity of its sugar."

In the New World fewer questions were raised, and the only conscientious objection appears to have been felt by a Bishop of Chiapa, whose performance of the Mass was disturbed by its use. The story is told in Gaze's "New Survey of the West Indies," published in 1648, and is worth repetition. It is well to bear in mind his information that "two or three hours after a good meal of three or four dishes of mutton, veal or beef, kid, turkeys or other fowles, our stomackes would bee ready to faint, and so wee were fain to support them with a cup of chocolatte."

"The women of that city, it seems, pretend much weakness and
squeamishness of stomacke, which they say is so great that they
are not able to continue in church while the mass is briefly
hurried over, much lesse while a solemn high mass is sung and a
sermon preached, unles they drinke a cup of hot chocolatte and
eat a bit of sweetmeats to strengthen their stomackes. For this
purpose it was much used by them to make their maids bring them
to church, in the middle of mass or sermon, a cup of
chocolatte, which could not be done to all without a great
confusion and interrupting both mass and sermon. The Bishop,
perceiving this abuse, and having given faire warning for the
omitting of it, but all without amendment, thought fit to fix
in writing upon the church dores an excommunication against all
such as should presume at the time of service to eate or
drinke within the church. This excommunication was taken by
all, but especially by the gentlewomen, much to heart, who
protested, if they might not eate or drinke in the church, they
could not continue in it to hear what otherwise they were bound
unto. But none of these reasons would move the Bishop. The
women, seeing him so hard to be entreated, began to slight him
with scornefull and reproachfull words: others slighted his
excommunication, drinking in iniquity in the church, as the
fish doth water, which caused one day such an uproar in the
Cathedrall that many swordes were drawn against the Priests,
who attempted to take away from the maids the cups of
chocolatte which they brought unto their mistresses, who at
last, seeing that neither faire nor foule means would prevail
with the Bishop, resolved to forsake the Cathedrall: and so
from that time most of the city betooke themselves to the
Cloister Churches, where by the Nuns and Fryers they were not
troubled....

"The Bishop fell dangerously sick. Physicians were sent for far
and neere, who all with a joynt opinion agreed that the Bishop
was poisoned. A gentlewoman, with whom I was well acquainted,
was commonly censured to have prescribed such a cup of
chocolatte to be ministered by the Page, which poisoned him who
so rigorously had forbidden chocolatte to be drunk in the
church. Myself heard this gentlewoman say that the women had no
reason to grieve for him, and that she judged, he being such an
enemy to chocolatte in the Church, that which he had drunk in
his house had not agreed with his body. And it became
afterwards a Proverbe in that country: 'Beware of the
chocolatte of Chiapa!' ... that poisoning and wicked city,
which truly deserves no better relation than what I have given
of the simple Dons and the chocolatte-confectioning Doñas."

It was only natural that the nuns and friars of the cloister churches should raise no objection to this practice of chocolate drinking, for we read further that two of these cloisters were "talked off far and near, not for their religious practices, but for their skill in making drinkes which are used in those parts, the one called chocolatte, another atolle. Chocolatte is (also) made up in boxes, and sent not only to Mexico, but much of it yearly transported to Spain."

The introduction of cocoa into Europe, indeed, as well as its cultivation for the European market, is due rather to the Jesuit missionaries than to the explorers of the Western Hemisphere. It was the monks, too, who about 1661 made it known in France. It is curious, therefore, to notice the contest that at one time raged among ecclesiastics as to whether it was lawful to make use of chocolate in Lent; whether it was to be regarded as food or drink. A consensus of opinion on the subject, published in Venice in 1748, states that

"Among the first Probabilist Theologians who undertook to write
entire Treatises and to collect all the possible reasons as to
whether the Indian beverage (chocolate) could agree with
European fasting, was Father Tommaso Hurtado. He employed the
whole of the Tenth Treatise of the second volume of the 'Moral
Resolutions,' printed in 1651, and added thereto an Appendix of
more chapters.

"Father Diana found reason for acquitting the consciences of
those who, in time of fasting, should drink chocolate. Father
Hurtado, more courageous withal, and more benign than Diana,
does not speak of this treatise in order to investigate the
law; the nature of fasting admits drinking without eating.
Therefore consumers are, without the help of casuists, troubled
themselves and afflicted, when in Lent they empty chocolate
cups. Excited on the one hand by the pungent cravings of the
throat to moisten it, reproved on the other by breaking their
fast, they experience grave remorse of conscience; and, with
consciences agitated and torn with drinking the sweet beverage,
they sin. Under the guidance of these skilful theologians, the
remorse aroused by natural and Divine light being blunted,
Christians drink joyfully. For all agree that he will break his
fast who eats any portion of chocolate, which, dissolved and
well mixed with warm water, is not prejudicial to keeping a
fast. This is a sufficiently marvellous presupposition. He who
eats 4 ozs. of exquisite sturgeon roasted has broken his fast;
if he has it dissolved and prepared in an extract of thick
broth, he does not sin."

As for the introduction of cocoa into this country, the contemporary Gaze tells us that

"Our English and Hollanders make little use of it when they
take a prize at sea, as, not knowing the secret virtue and
quality of it for the good of the stomach, of whom I have heard
the Spaniards say, when we have taken a good prize, a ship
laden with cocoa, in anger and wrath we have hurled overboard
this good commodity, not regarding the worth of it."

About the time of the Commonwealth, however, the new drink began to make its way among the English, and the _Public Advertiser_ of 1657 contains the notice that "in Bishopsgate Street, in Queen's Head Alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West India drink, called chocolate, to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time, and also unmade, at reasonable rates." These rates appear to have been from 10s. to 15s. a pound, a price which made chocolate, rather than coffee, the beverage of the aristocracy, who flocked to the chocolate-houses soon to spring up in the fashionable centres. Here, records a Spanish visitor to London, were to be found such members of the polite world as were not at the same time members of either House. The chocolate-houses were thus the forerunners of our modern clubs, and one of them, "The Cocoa Tree," early the headquarters of the Jacobite party, became subsequently recognised as the club of the literati, including among its members such men as Garrick and Byron. White's Cocoa House, adjoining St. James' Palace, was even better known, eventually developing into the respectable White's Club, though at one time a great gambling centre.[19]

A little later the "Indian Nectar," recommended by a learned doctor on account of "its secret virtue," was to be obtained of "an honest though poor man" in East Smithfield at 6s. 8d. a pound, or the "commoner sort at about half the price," so that it was getting within more general reach. Subsequently the following advertisement appeared regarding a patented preparation of cocoa "now sold at 4s. 9d. per pound."

"N.B.--The curious may be supplied with this superfine chocolate, that exceeds the finest sold by other makers, plain at 6s., with vanillos at 7s. To be sold for ready money only at Mr. Churchman's Chocolate Warehouse, at Mr. John Young's, in St. Paul's Churchyard, London, A.D. 1732."

The opportunities of increasing the revenue from the growing favourite were not lost sight of, and till 1820 its spread was checked by a duty of 1s. 6d. a pound, collected by the sale of stamped wrappers for each pound, half-pound, or quarter-pound, "neither more nor less," just as in the case of patent medicines at present.

In the reign of George III. the duty on colonial cocoa was raised to 1s. 10d. a pound, that on such as the East India Company imported to 2s., and that on all other sources of supply to 3s. In the early years of the last century the cocoa imported from any country not a British possession was charged no less than 5s. 10d. a pound as excise, with an extra Custom's duty of from 2½d. to 4¾d. on entry for home consumption. This restrictive tariff was by degrees relaxed, but it is only since 1853 that the duty has been reduced to 2d. a pound on the manufactured article, or 1d. a pound on the raw material.

While the heavy duties were in force, all houses in which the manufacture or sale of cocoa was carried on were compelled to have the fact stated over their doors, under penalty of £200 from the dealer having more than six pounds in his possession (who had to be licensed), and £100 from the customer encouraging the illicit trade. No less than £500 as fine and twelve months in the county gaol were inflicted for counterfeiting the stamp or selling chocolate without a stamp. To prevent evasion by selling the drink ready made, it was enacted under George I., whose physicians were extolling its medicinal virtues, that

"Notice shall be given by those who make chocolate for private
families, and not for sale, three days before it is begun to be
made, specifying the quantity, etc., and within three days
after it is finished the person for whom it is made shall enter
the whole quantity on oath, and have it duly stamped."

Nothing is more eloquent of the growing favour in which cocoa is held in this country, as its real value becomes more generally appreciated, than the remarkable progressive increase of the quantities imported during recent years, as will be seen from the table appended. These quantities doubled between 1880 and 1890, and have since more than doubled again.

TABLE SHOWING THE QUANTITIES OF CACAO CLEARED
FOR HOME CONSUMPTION SINCE 1880.

lbs.
1880 10,556,159
1881 10,897,795
1882 11,996,853
1883 12,868,170
1884 13,976,891
1885 14,595,168
1886 15,165,714
1887 15,873,698
1888 18,227,017
1889 18,464,164
1890 20,224,175
1891 21,599,860
1892 20,797,283
1893 20,874,995
1894 22,441,048
1895 24,484,502
1896 24,523,428
1897 27,852,152
1898 32,087,084
1899 34,013,812
1900 37,829,326
1901 42,353,724
1902 45,643,784

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Not an "Emperor," as reported by his conquerors.

[19] See Appendix III.