Handbook of Vanilla Science and Technology

In the 1660s, the English pirate William Dampier recorded observing wild vanilla populations three times, twice in New Spain (near the present-day states of Campeche and Tabasco, Mexico), and lastly in the vicinity of Bocas del Toro, on the Caribbean side of the Costa Rica-Panama border. At “Bocca-toro”, Dampier made his most extensive comments about vanilla, discussing aspects of curing and trade:

The vanilla is a little pod full of black seeds... the Indians (whose manufacture it is, and who sell it cheap to the Spaniards) gather it, and lay it in the sun, which makes it soft; then it changes to a chestnut color. They press it frequently between their fingers, which makes it flat. If the Indians do anything to them besides, I know not; but I have seen the Spaniards sleek them with oil... These vines grow plentifully at Bocca-toro, where I have gathered and tried to cure them, but could not, which makes me think that the Indians have some secret that I know not of to cure them. I have often asked the Spaniards how they were cured, but I never could meet with any could tell me. One Mr Cree who spoke Spanish well ... and had been a privateer all his life, and seven years a prisoner among the Spaniards at Portobello and Cartagena... could not find any of them that understood it... At, or near a town also, called Caibooca, in the bay of Campeachy, these pods are found. They are commonly sold for three pence a pod among the Spaniards in the West Indies, and are sold by the druggist, for they are much used among chocolate to perfume it. Some will use them among tobacco ... I never heard of any vanillas but here in this country, about Caibooca, and at Bocca-toro (Dampier 1776; pp. 369-370).

Dampier and the English were not alone in their belief that vanilla curing was an “Indian secret”. Like the English, the Dutch had been on the lookout for commercial prospects in the New World. They became heavily involved in partnership with the English in the sugar cane trade in the Caribbean, as well as Guyana in northern South America (Davis 2006). Refugee Sephardim established communities in both places, often serving as intermediaries in the trans-Atlantic trade of specialized products such as cacao, pimento, and vanilla, after having been banned from the principal trade in sugar cane (Arbell 1995). For example, by 1655, Jamaican Jews had secured a monopoly on the island’s pimento and vanilla trade (Fortune 1984), while in Guyana, Jews had apparently learned the curing of vanilla from the native population. A letter from Commander Beekman of Essequibo and Pomeroon [Guyana] to the headquarters of the Dutch West India Company, March 31, 1684, states:

The Jew Salomon de la Roche having died some 8 to 9 months ago, the trade in vanilla has come to an end, since no one here knows how to prepare it, so as to develop proper aroma and keep it from spoiling. I have not heard of any this whole year. Little is found here. Most of it is found in Pomeroon, whither this Jew frequently traveled, and he sometimes used to make me a present of a little. In navigating along the river, I have sometimes seen some on the trees and picked with my own hands, and it was prepared by the Jew... I shall do my best to obtain for the company as much as shall be feasible, but I am afraid it will spoil, since I do not know how to prepare it... (Arbell 1995; p. 359).

In response, Com. Beekman was sent the following in August 21, 1684:

As to the vanilla trade, which we recommend you carry on for the company, where you answer us saying this trade has come to an end through the death of a Jew, Salomon de la Roche ... a meager and poor excuse (Arbell 1995; p. 360).

The same pattern was seen in Curapao. In 1699, Jean Baptiste Labat, a French missionary stationed in Martinique, wrote the following:

... a Jew who inherited Benjamin d’Acosta, who came from Curap ao to ask for the money due to his relative. He said that he had traveled on the coast of South America, and he knew how to prepare vanilla extract. I begged him to teach me how the Indians prepared the vanilla, how to dry it, and how to have the extract. I observed exactly the way he showed me and tried several times to prepare it with no results. I concluded that maybe the vanilla in Martinique was different from the one in Cayenne. But I think he had deluded me. It is not extraordinary to this sort of people... (Labat 1722; p. 3).

If vanilla processing was not straightforward or obvious in some instances, it did not prove to be an impediment to the export of vanilla from many regions during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In 1735, the French mathematician and surveyor Charles Marie de La Condamine, trekked across the Amazon from Peru to Brazil, and noted the export of vanilla along with other goods traded near Para for export to Lisbon: