Handbook of Vanilla Science and Technology

V. odorata (Lubinsky 2007). To test his theory, Dr Lubinsky analyzed the DNA of several V. tahitensis accessions from French Polynesia and 40 vanilla accessions, of varying species including V. planifolia and V. odorata, which had been collected from southern Mexico down to Ecuador (Lubinsky et al. 2008b).

His initial analysis of the resulting data showed that V. planifolia and V. odorata, while only distantly related to each other, were both closely related to V. tahitensis. When he analyzed the chloroplast DNA, inherited exclusively from the “mother” plant, he discovered that

V. planifolia was the “mother” of V. tahitensis and that it did indeed result from the hybridization of V. planifolia and V. odorata (Lubinsky et al. 2008b). It is interesting to note that the V. planifolia and V. odorata accessions from Belize proved to be very closely related to

V. tahitensis on the phylogenetic tree that was developed from Lubinsky’s DNA work.

Furthermore, the relatively short branch lengths on the phylogenetic tree indicate that

V. tahitensis is a relatively new hybrid, perhaps 500 or 600 years old. Lubinsky speculates that it came about in 1350 to 1500. Those dates precede the arrival of the Spanish in Mexico and Central America, who were responsible for documenting the cacao and vanilla cultivation they found there. It is quite likely, however, that the cultivation, including that of the Manche Chol Maya, had been in existence for some time before the Spanish arrived. Since the discovery of hand pollination was not documented as having occurred until several centuries later, we must assume that the hybrid we have come to know as V. tahitensis was not engineered by man. So, it is possible then that somewhere in the lowlands of Belize, shaded by the bush and watered by abundant rains, resides the progenitor of V. tahitensis, a naturally occurring hybrid of V. planifolia and V. odorata.

4.1.11 Manche Chol

It is possible that the plethora of seemingly wild vanilla found today in southern Belize is vestigial, left behind by the Manche Chol.

Hernan Cortes traversed Chol territory in 1525 (Jones 1998), cutting across what is now the southwest corner of Belize, at the tail end of a journey that originated on the gulf coast of Mexico in the southern part of what is now the state of Veracruz (Dobson 1973). His chronicle of the entrada, a lengthy letter to Emperor Charles the V, includes several references to the cacao he came across in the region. Cortes was well aware of the value placed on cacao by the indigenous peoples he encountered on his travels, having noted in an earlier letter to Charles the V that “they use it as money throughout the land and with it buy all they need” (Pagden 1971). However, he had no idea of the role that cacao would play, in tandem with vanilla and annatto, in sustaining the local economy as the Spanish vied for domination of the Southern Maya Lowlands.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish attempted to subdue, by forced relocation and conversion to Catholicism and by use of the encomienda system, the Maya peoples who inhabited the Southern Maya Lowlands, an area made up of the southern parts of Campeche and Quintana Roo in Mexico, the Peten in Guatemala, and Belize. The Itza, who inhabited the central Peten, determinedly fought this fate and managed to retain their independence until the end of the seventeenth century (Caso Barrera and Fernandez 2006). Theirs was the last independent Maya polity (McNeil 2006).

The Itzaa elite consumed, for ritual purposes, great quantities of cacao-based beverages. While they grew a small amount of the three important ingredients for chocolate, cacao (Theobroma cacao), annatto (Bixa orellana), and vanilla (V. planifolia), it was only enough for local consumption on a small scale. The central Peten was, because of its soil and climate, an inhospitable place for growing cacao (McNeil 2006). The Itzaa found a way to surmount this problem and controlled the production and trade of cacao, annatto, and vanilla in a large area of Mexico and Central America right up until they succumbed to Spanish domination in 1697 (Caso Barrera and Fernandez 2006; McNeil 2006).