Handbook of Vanilla Science and Technology

The Chontal Maya of Acalan, which translates as “Place of Canoes” (Henderson 1997), were excellent seafarers, in control of extensive maritime trade routes that stretched east around the Yucatan peninsula and all the way down the coast to the important trading center of Nito on the Gulf of Honduras (Coe 2005). They traveled these enormous distances to engage in the trade of luxury goods, including cacao, which they produced, feathers, jaguar pelts, and slaves. In the wake of the Spanish conquest of the Yucatan, however, their trading activity ceased (McNeil 2006). The Itza stepped into the breach and reassembled the Chontal exchange system and resumed use of their trade routes (Caso Barrera and Fernandez 2006).

Control of this trading system meant that the Itzaa were assured an uninterrupted supply of cacao for their personal consumption. It must also have been very lucrative: Numerous Maya fled south from the Spanish incursion on the Yucatan to resettle in locations close to Itza territory (Jones 1998), thus creating new outlets for trade. The Itza went to any means necessary to maintain their power and control of their extensive trading system and to protect their territory from the advance of the Spanish. They bullied their neighbors, enslaving them, raping their women, and sacrificing a hapless few who were fool enough to offer aid to the Spanish. In 1630, they viciously attacked the Manche Chol, ultimately inciting the Chol to revolt against Spanish domination (Jones 1998). They warred with theLacandrSn for control of the Salinas de los Nueve Cerros, the only source of salt in the region. They then used their control of this precious resource to force the Lacandon, and the Manche Chol, to exchange their valuable commodities, including cacao, for salt (Caso Barrera and Fernandez 2006; McNeil 2006). It is the Manche Chol, who lived south and east of the Peten, with whom we are most concerned, as much of their territory was within what is present-day southern Belize.

With its numerous fertile river valleys, Manche Chol territory was ideally suited to growing cacao. In their orchards, called pakab in the Cholti language, the Chol grew great quantities of cacao, annatto (Thompson 1988), and vanilla (Caso Barrera and Fernandez 2006; McNeil 2006). In 1620, the Dominican friar Gabriel de Salazar made a circuit around Central America that took him, among other places, the length of Belize, along the shoreline and through Chol territory (Feldman 2000; Caso Barrera and Fernaandez 2006; McNeil 2006). It is evident from Salazar’s observations that cacao was important in the region, as he remarked that the Chol would “cast a spell for a cup of chocolate” (Feldman 2000). Salazar noted the large cacao and annatto orchards in the Chol villages along the coast of Belize: Yaxhal, Paliac, Campin, and Tzoitae. Chol territory continued, tracing a crescent shape, south and west away from these settlements to the towns of Manche, Chocahau, Yaxha, and Yol (all in present-day Guatemala). From these villages, the Manche Chol would transport their precious cargo to the Itza capital of Noh Peten (Caso Barrera and Fernandez 2006).

It was not only the Itza who forced the Manche Chol into trade. The Spanish got in on the action too, extorting cacao, annatto, and vanilla from the Chol in exchange for overpriced metal tools and other wares. In fact, The Chol, surrounded by the Itza to the northwest, the Yucatec to the north, and the Kek’chi and the Spanish of Verapaz to the southwest, managed to engage in trade with all their neighbors, some forcibly and some voluntarily. This attests to the value of the resources in the possession of the Manche Chol and illustrates that they must have intensively produced cacao, vanilla, and annatto in order to be able to supply everyone around them (Caso Barrera and Fernandez 2006; McNeil 2006).

In 1689, the Manche Chol were rounded up by the Spanish and forcibly relocated to the Valley of Urran in the Guatemala highlands (Caso Barrera and Fernandez 2006; McNeil 2006). The terrain was absolutely foreign to them: J.E.S. Thompson made the acute observation that it was like banishing “Sicilians to the remoter highlands of Scotland” (Thompson 1970). It was not long before they started to perish. In 1699 it was noted by Marcelo Flores, a Spanish Captain, that some Chol still occupied what had been their lands in eastern Guatemala and southern Belize. However, by 1710 there were only four Manche Chol left in the town of Belen in the Valley of Urran (Thompson 1988; Caso Barrera and

Fernandez 2006). Their ultimate disappearance meant the loss of their acumen with regard to the cultivation of vanilla.

When the Spanish forcibly relocated the Lacand(Sn in 1695 and defeated the Itza in 1697, the cacao based trading network collapsed. While Kek’chi and Mopan Maya continued to grow cacao in what had been Chol territory, the trade never returned to its prior level of importance.

4.2 DISCUSSION