1493 - Agriculture

Agriculture

Agricultural experts accompany Christopher Columbus on his second voyage; all 20 will succumb in the tropics.

The horses and livestock landed by Columbus on Hispaniola are the first seen in the New World. Columbus left Palos with 34 stallions and mares, he has 20 remaining when he arrives, but his cattle weigh only 80 to 100 pounds when fully grown. (The horse originated in the Western Hemisphere and migrated to Asia before becoming extinct in its continent of origin at the close of the Ice Age.)

Sugar cane and cucumbers planted by Columbus on Hispaniola have come from the Canary Islands. Columbus has a special interest in sugar: his late wife's mother owns canefields on an island near Madeira (see 1419; 1506).

Columbus lands a shore party on Guadeloupe November 4 under Diego Marques, who gets lost in the island's rain forest. Five search parties try to locate them, and when Diego's men are found after 5 days they return to the ship with pineapples (Ananas comosus of the Bromelia zeae family, believed to have originated in Brazil), which the Carib tribepeople call na-na, meaning fragrance, or excellence. The seedless fruit can be propagated only by planting its crown or the sprouts which appear on its base, but it was cultivated for centuries—along with the cherimoya, papaya, avocado, tomato, cacao, and soursop—from Paraguay to Panama before making its way to the West Indies. Columbus sends some of these piñas de las Indias, as he calls them, back to Ferdinand of Aragon, and although most of them are dried out on arrival one is in edible condition, giving Europe its first taste of the fruit. "In appearance shape and color, this scale-coated fruit resembles the pine cone; but in softness is the melon's equal; in flavor it surpasses all garden fruits. To it the king awards the palm," writes one of Ferdinand's courtiers. Pineapples will be growing in India by 1548, and by the end of the next century they will have been planted by missionaries and navigators in parts of Africa and China (see 1658).

Columbus introduces limes (Citrus aurantifolia) to what he calls the West Indies, planting seeds from Asian trees to begin an industry.

Seville physician Diego Cheka lands on the islands with Columbus in November and finds Hispaniola "filled with an astonishingly thick growth of wood; a variety of unknown trees, some bearing fruit, and some flowers . . . indeed every spot is covered with verdure." Having some knowledge of botany, Cheka will write, "We found there a tree whose leaf has the finest smell of cloves that I have ever met with; it was like a laurel leaf but not so large; but I think it was a species of laurel." He describes allspice but it is not in fruit and he does not know of his discovery and will err in saying, "We found other trees which I think bear nutmegs, because the bark tastes and smells like that spice, but at present there is no fruit on them. I have seen one root of ginger which an Indian wore hanging on his neck." The Spaniards eat ages (sweet potatoes), which are thought to be "a sort of turnip, very excellent for food," and Cheka notes that the natives make a kind of bread from it, seasoning it with hot pepper or with a spice known to the natives by various names which they also eat with fish and with "such birds as they can catch."