Tag Archives: colonialism

Huatulco

How Food Inspired Colonialism in the 15th Century

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By Raveen Singh

It’s amazing to think that the spices sitting quietly in our kitchens today were once rare treasures. Coriander, oregano, or even sea salt — things we take for granted — were, centuries ago, expensive luxuries. They were used as currency, to pay taxes, and even as dowries. They triggered piracy, battles, wars, and ultimately centuries of European colonialism and conquest — along with slavery, exploitation, and the destruction of entire societies.

Here’s how the craving for flavor reshaped the world.

Before the Rise of the Ottoman Empire

Before the 13th century, the world was broadly divided into East and West. The Far East — today’s India, Southeast Asia, and China — was separated from Europe by the Middle East. When the Roman Empire collapsed around 500 CE, Europe fragmented into feudal states, a period often called the Dark Ages.

Yet Rome had left behind one lasting habit: a taste for luxuries from the East. Silk, tea, and, above all, spices continued to flow westward along the Silk Road. Overland routes passed through Persia, Iraq, and Turkey before reaching Mediterranean traders. Arab merchants controlled the trade, selling Chinese silk, Indian spices, precious metals, and even horses at enormous markups.

Spices were so valuable they were treated like money. A pound of saffron could cost as much as a horse. In 1393, nutmeg was valued at seven fat oxen. Peppercorns were used to pay taxes and tolls; towns kept their accounts in pepper. Brides received pepper in their dowries. Charlemagne even ordered farmers to grow herbs like fennel, sage, thyme, and coriander.

The Silk Road carried more than goods — it spread religions, art, technology, and ideas. By the 13th century, explorers like Marco Polo described the spice-rich lands of Java, India’s Malabar Coast, and the South China Sea, fueling Europe’s hunger for direct access.

The Ottoman Roadblock

When Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, everything changed. The empire imposed heavy tariffs on goods passing through its lands. Maritime choke points like the Eastern Mediterranean and the Suez were also under Ottoman control. For Christian Europe, spices became harder and costlier to obtain.The solution?

Find another route.

Portugal’s Push Around Africa

Portugal led the way. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, proving the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were connected. Vasco da Gama reached India a decade later, opening the door to a direct maritime spice route.

The Portuguese established forts and outposts along Africa and into Asia, powered by advances in navigation and shipbuilding. By the mid-1500s, Lisbon had become a hub for Asian spices, its empire stretching all the way to Nagasaki.

Spain’s New World Accident

Spain, emerging from the Reconquista in 1492, turned to exploration as well. That same year, Christopher Columbus — sailing west in search of Asia — stumbled instead on the Americas. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas divided the world between Spain and Portugal, with Spain claiming the western lands and Portugal much of the east.

Soon after, Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztecs, seizing gold and introducing Europe to new flavors like vanilla. Spanish conquests spread rapidly across the Americas, shifting focus from trade to colonization.

A Naval Race for Flavor

By the 16th century, five powers — Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, and the Netherlands — were racing to control trade routes. All relied on naval supremacy. For about 150 years, the Americas consumed much of their attention, but the spice trade remained the golden prize.

Portugal grew rich, but by the late 1500s, its overstretched empire came under attack from the Dutch, British, and French. Spain, flush with silver and gold from the New World, shifted its energy westward.

What tied them all together was the same obsession: the pursuit of flavor.

The Global Consequences

What began as a quest for pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg reshaped the globe. European empires carved up territories, enslaved millions, and wiped out entire societies in their hunger for spices, silk, tea, and gold.

Seen this way, the Age of Exploration wasn’t just about adventure or discovery. It was about dinner. The next time you grind pepper onto your steak, remember: wars were fought, empires rose and fell, and lives were lost for that tiny spice. The flavors we sprinkle casually today once carried the weight of empires — and their shadows still shape our world.

 

Huatulco

How Mexican Is Mexican Cuisine? Very, But …

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By Deborah Van Hoewyk

When, in 1519, Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortés met Aztec emperor Moctezuma II, he also met a frothy drink reputed to be an aphrodisiac – xocolatl, or chocolate. Unknown elsewhere in the world, traces of cacao preparation and use go back to nearly 4000 BCE in Ecuador. At first, cacao produced a bitter drink used in various rituals. By the time Moctezuma was drinking xocolatl, it was flavored with spices and thought to have medicinal and spiritual properties. The Spanish, as they did with most “new” things they encountered in Mexico, took it back to Europe, where it met sugar – anyone for a Godiva?

The Columbian Exchange

Before the arrival of Old World explorers – in particular the Spanish conquistadores – the ancient (Aztec, Mayan, and Olmec) indigenous cuisines were basically vegetarian. The famous milpa system intercropped corn, beans, and squash; the beans climbed the corn stalks, and the squash leaves sheltered the roots of all three. The milpa system used crop rotation and fallowing (letting land lie unplanted), which promoted sustainable production and biodiversity, ensuring that the system was successful for the long term.

Pre-Columbian agriculture also produced chili peppers, tomatoes, avocados, and cacao; condiments included salt, honey, and edible flowers and insects. The history of tortillas goes back to nearly 10,000 BCE, when ancient corn was domesticated from a grain called teosinte. The grains, which over time became more like the corn kernels we know today, were soaked in an alkaline solution to break them down enough to create the dough (masa) for the tortillas (the process is called “nixtamalization”).

The indigenous diet was not totally vegetarian, though – the vegetable base was supplemented with domesticated turkeys and ducks, possibly dogs, and wild-caught game (deer, rabbits, wild birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and seafood).

Cooking techniques included open fires, pit fires where ingredients were wrapped in leaves to steam in their own juices, and the creation of “spice powders” by grinding dried ingredients into powders for flavoring. Stewed vegetable dishes and moles were cooked in cazuelas, shallow round earthenware cook pots positioned over a fire.

When Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492 – he landed in the Bahamas, renaming the island of Guanahani as San Salvador, then moved on to what are now called Cuba and Hispaniola (divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic) – he started the “Columbian Exchange.” The term refers to the widespread exchange between the Americas and Europe, and once slavery became part of it, West Africa as well, of just about everything: people and their cultures, plants and animals, technology and ideas, and disease. The Exchange would shape agriculture, ecology, and society on both sides of the Atlantic, if not around the world; it also killed an estimated 45 to 100 million indigenous people through exposure to diseases not found in the Americas (smallpox, cholera, bubonic plague, typhoid fever, diphtheria, the flu, measles).

The Spanish Conquest of Mexico’s Foodways

For Mexico, conquered by the Spanish in 1521, the changes to foodways were profound. The Conquest brought new ingredients – saliently, larger meat animals (cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats) and more poultry in addition to the native turkeys. The Spanish also brought wheat and rice (the latter arrived with Africans brought as slaves to work in the New World). Olive oil and wine, essential to Spanish cuisine, came over in large earthenware jars; new fruits (stone fruits like peaches, figs, and melons), and nuts and beans (chickpeas, or garbanzos, field peas, almonds).

The fact that Spain had lived under Arabic rule for several centuries – North African Arabs held sway in southern Spain (Al Andalus) from 711 to 1492 CE – also shaped the foods and cooking techniques that made their way west. The flavors of new herbs and spices – garlic, cumin, coriander, and cinnamon especially are all redolent of north African and Middle Eastern cuisine.

Perhaps the most popular, and widely available today, Arab dish is tacos al pastor (shepherd’s tacos), or Tacos Árabes, a variation of Middle Eastern shawarma. You can see it from afar, as restaurant staff slice marinated pork or mixed meats (originally they were made with lamb or goat) off a vertical roast on a spit, filling up flour tortillas, and topping the meat with onions and sauce. Arroz con leche (rice pudding) is also considered a Middle Eastern treat that arrived in Mexico via Spain.

Spanish cooking also brought new cooking methods, frying – made possible by the Spanish contributions of olive oil and lard (manteca) – and baking. With the Spanish introduction of wheat, baking the wide range of pan dulces (sweet breads – great for breakfast) got started. The Spanish brought their baking techniques with them and began incorporating Mexican ingredients along with their wheat.

French Influence:

In the wake of the War of Independence, when Mexico threw off Spanish rule, the French tried to replace the Spanish. The “French Intervention,” followed by the Second Mexican Empire, was short – 1862-67 – but it served to expand Mexico’s baking repertoire. Bolillos are considered the Mexican “French Bread.”

French crêpes were incorporated in Mexican dishes, the crêpes stuffed with fillings like huitlacoche (corn smut) or poblano peppers, the whole thing covered with sauce – the cream sauces are a French contribution.

The French also contributed water-bath cooking techniques (e.g., the bain-marie), which refined Mexican custards and flans.

Lebanese Influence

While many credit tacos al pastor to the Lebanese, they did not start immigrating in any great numbers until the 1880s, after one or another version of tacos el pastor had appeared. The Lebanese first arrived in the Yucatán peninsula as the Ottoman Empire reached its oppressive height. More Lebanese arrived during the Israel-Lebanon War of 1948, when Mexico made haste to admit them. The Lebanese also brought a dish called “kibbeh,” small fritters of ground beef, bulgur wheat, onion, and spices. Taquitos de parra (little tacos of grape leaves) are stuffed with ground meat, rice, garlic, and maybe some cinnamon; many Mexicans make them bigger than taquitos, and use cabbage leaves in place of grape leaves. If you buy jocoque, a thick yogurt used for sauces or dips, that’s a Lebanese creation as well.

Mexican Influences on Mexican Cuisine

Other culinary traditions have influenced Mexican cuisine; African, Caribbean, Chinese, Portuguese and Philipino dishes can all be found in Mexico, but the greatest influence on Mexican cuisine is the different regional variations in the flavors, ingredients, cultural practices, and special dishes across the country. (See Brooke O’Connor’s article, “Seven Regions of Mexican Flavors,” in the August 2023 issue of The Eye.)

Northern Mexico offers grilled meats – we’ve passed many a barbacoa establishment coming south through Monterrey and Querétaro; the closer you are to the border and “Tex-Mex” land, the more frequently you’ll eat flour tortillas. And here in Oaxaca, have you had chapulines drowning in cheese? Salt and crunch can’t beat it!

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Contrasting Transitions:Guerrero and Aguilar Among the Maya

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By Randy Jackson

The path of human history is a story of successive transitions. Few transitions are peaceful enough to allow the individuals affected to adjust without a personal cost. The greatest historical transitions are the collapse of civilizations. Pre-Conquest, and over the course of 3,000 years, Mexico has had seven major civilizations: The Olmec, the unknown culture or cultures that built Teotihuacán, Zapotec, Mixtec, the Maya, the Toltec, and the Aztec. The last of these civilizations, the Aztec, ended with the Spanish Conquest.

When wandering the ruins of some of these ancient civilizations, I believe one question intrigues us all: What was it like to be a person living in those ancient times? Anthropologists and archaeologists can articulate many aspects of the daily lives of people in these civilizations surprisingly well. These aspects are things people did, how they lived, even what they might have believed. But, except for the leaders of these civilizations, very little is known about any individual, especially individuals who had witnessed the transition of one civilization to another.

Two exceptions to this are Gerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero. These two Spanish men survived a shipwreck and were washed up on the shores of the Yucatan in 1511, eight years before the arrival of Cortés. There were between twelve and fifteen men in all who washed ashore that day. Some were killed (their leaders likely sacrificed); the remaining men were all enslaved. All but two died or were killed in the following years.

The only two men to survive, Aguilar and Guerrero, escaped their initial enslavement and ended up among a rival Mayan group. Among this second group the Spaniards were treated somewhat better. By working hard, over some years they were able to integrate with the Mayan people and learned to speak their language.

The different ways these two men integrated into the Mayan society seems to have been a function of the type of person each man was. Aguilar was educated in the Catholic Church and was a Franciscan friar. As a man of faith, he kept his Christian faith and persevered in his time among the Maya. He hung onto some hope that he might, one day, return to Spanish society and even Spain. Less is known about Guerero’s upbringing, except that he was likely a fisherman before joining a Spanish crew heading to the new world. Guerrero distinguished himself in battle fighting for his Mayan compatriots. He became a warrior chief, he married a woman named Zazil Ha, the daughter of the cacique (chieftain) and had a family.

When Cortés approached the Mexican coast, he first stopped on the island of Cozumel for some ship repairs. While there, the Spaniards were approached by a canoe of Mayans. To the Spaniards bewilderment and surprise one of the Mayans asked in Spanish, “Gentleman, are you Christians?” This person was Gerónimo de Aguilar, indistinguishable to the Spaniards from his Mayan companions.

Aguilar had adapted and survived his Mayan captivity. With Aguilar’s ability to speak Mayan he was of great service to Cortés and when teamed up with Malinche (an amazing former noblewoman with command of several Mexican languages – see The Eye, March 2021), Aguilar had a front row seat to the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The societal collapse Aguilar watched was from the perspective of a Spaniard and conqueror.

Gonzalo Guerrero’s perspective was fundamentally different. Before leaving for Cozumel to meet up with Spanish, Aguilar went to Guerrero to tell him about the Spanish ship and to see if Guerrero would join him in meeting with the Spanish. Guerrero refused, telling Aguilar he would never be accepted back into Spanish society. He was tattooed and had nose rings and ear plugs in the Mayan style. And besides, Guerrero added, “And look at how handsome these boys of mine are.”

Cortés and his conquistadors passed through the Yucatán and went on to defeat the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico. The Mayan peoples proved much more difficult for the Spaniards to overcome. It took them decades, and the lives of hundreds of Spanish soldiers, to subdue the Yucatán. The successful Mayan resistance is likely the result of having Gonzalo Guerrero to advise them.

The first Spanish attempt to subdue the Mayan Yucatán was in 1527, six years after the fall of the Aztecs at Tenochtitlán. Francisco de Montejo led a group of Spanish soldiers on this mission; his first effort was to try to get Guerrero on his side. From a ship in the Bahia de Chetumal, Montejo was successful in getting a letter to Guerrero promising to “honor and benefit” him if he became one of Montejo’s “principal men.” Guerrero responded, writing on the back of the letter in charcoal. He once again refused to join his former countrymen.

Montejo’s attempt to conquer the Yucatán was unsuccessful. The Mayans used guerilla tactics, as well as craftily supplying the Spaniards with misinformation. These tactics were considered to have originated with Guerrero. The heat, mosquitos and the Yucatán jungle did the rest. There were further excursions and some battles with the Mayans, but by 1535 the only Spaniard living in the Yucatan was Gonzalo Guerrero. By this time Guerrero had been among the Maya for twenty five years. Earlier, in 1531, Guerrero’s former compatriot, Gerónimo de Aguilar, had died near Mexico City on his encomiendia (an estate allowed to exact tribute from the native population after the Conquest).

Then in 1536, the Spanish attacked and overwhelmed a Mayan cacique named Çiçumba at a fortress in Ticamaya, Honduras. After the battle, among the dead, Spanish soldiers found a bearded man in native dress killed by a shot from an arquebus, an early long gun. The Spanish commander, Alvarado, reported that the man was Gonzalo Guerrero. Stories say he arrived from Chetumal with 50 canoes of warriors to support Çiçumba.

The dictionary definition of “transition” is “the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.” It’s hard to imagine a greater transition than a civilization collapsed by conquest. Millions of people living in what is now Mexico at the time suffered unknown hardships and death. So many individual stories that will always remain unknown to us. As for Gerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero, we know the main structure of their lives, the decisions they made, some of the things they faced in life, even how they died. Their stories are grand and the transitions they faced are recorded for all times.