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Retrospect

The Amazon on the spice route

Leaves, fruit, bark, roots, oils, and resin from the forest boosted the economy and brought wealth to the region during the colonial period

Brazil nuts (right), cacao, and sarsaparilla (right): substitutes for Asian spices

Brasiliana Iconográfica / Joaquim José Codina / Charles Landseer / José Joaquim Freire

The eighteenth century, in the state of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, which during colonial Brazil represented what is now the Amazon, was the heyday for commercial exploitation of the so-called “drugs of the Sertão.” This was the name given to products collected from the Amazon rainforest and exported to Europe. Documents from this period, kept in the Public Archives of Pará State and transcribed in Livro das canoas (Book of canoes: Documents related to the Amazon’s Indigenous history; USP/FAPESP, 1993), record the expeditions from Belém to the Amazonian rainforest. The aim was to harvest one of the most sought-after plants in the Amazon: cacao, which Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné, or Lineu (1707–1778), christened Theobroma (“Food of the Gods”), in 1753.

For a journey that could take up to eight months, the canoes carried not only food, but cotton cloths, tools, brandy, and offal, which could be used as currency to pay the Indigenous people who made up the crew and to trade with those who lived in the rainforest. In the colonial Amazon region, cacao itself was a highly valued currency. “Along with other spices, cacao was called ‘natural currency’ or ‘earth’s currency,’” highlights historian Rafael Chambouleyron, from the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) and organizer of the book As drogas do sertão e a Amazônia colonial portuguesa (Drugs of the Sertão and the Portuguese colonial Amazon; University of Lisbon’s Center for History, 2023).

“Chocolate consumption was booming in Europe at the time,” says Camila Loureiro, from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), who is conducting research, supported by FAPESP, on the human activities and environmental impact of colonialism in the Amazon region between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Indigenous Brazilians consumed the fruit pulp, which has a sweet flavor, but the Spanish had already introduced Europe to chocolatl, a bitter drink made from roasted cacao beans, created by the peoples of Mesoamerica. To improve the aroma and flavor, the Europeans added other spices from the rainforest, such as the widely loved vanilla bean (Vanilla sp.). According to the researcher, cacao accounted for 90% of Pará’s exports between 1730 and 1755, when around 15,000 tons of seeds were sent to Europe.

The flourishing market brought prosperity. French naturalist Charles-Marie de La Condamine (1701–1774), who traveled along the Amazon River with the goal of measuring the length of a one-degree arc along a meridian close to the equator, was amazed by Pará’s development when he arrived in 1743. “It seemed to us, upon arriving in Pará and emerging from the Amazon rainforest, that we had been transported to Europe,” he wrote in the book Viagem na América Meridional descendo o rio das Amazonas (Traveling in South America down the Amazon River), in 1745. “We came upon a great city, well-lined streets, bright houses, most of them built 30 years ago from stone and gravel, magnificent churches. Pará’s direct trade with Lisbon, from where a large train arrives every year, makes it easy for people of means to provide themselves with all kinds of comforts.”

Canoe and Indigenous people along the bank of a Rio Negro tributaryBrasiliana Iconográfica / Joaquim José Codina

Geopolitical pressure
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Portugal no longer dominated the spice trade with eastern Asia; it was facing fierce competition, especially from the Dutch, and was looking for substitutes for products such as cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and pepper. There was also geopolitical pressure to occupy Brazil’s interior, as historian Christian Fausto Moraes dos Santos, from the State University of Maringá (UEM) points out: “Portugal had to establish borders with Spain on the American continent and control the territory, according to the maxim ‘it’s yours if you occupy it.’” According to Moraes dos Santos, this led to the foundation of Belém in 1616, which acted as the launching point for expeditions into the Amazon rainforest and ships filled with spices headed back to Lisbon.

In Brazil’s hot and humid forests, the Portuguese were sure they would discover plant species similar to those found in South and Southeast Asia. And they did find new flavors and aromas: leaves, fruits, seeds, roots, and bark from aromatic trees that, when crushed or converted into oils, resins, and tinctures, would have great commercial value as seasonings or medicines. “We have already identified 36 species exploited by the colonists in the area,” says history student Sofia Montaner Preto. Under Loureiro’s guidance and with the support of FAPESP, she is conducting a survey of the plant species exploited in the colonial Amazon region as part of her undergraduate research project.

There were plants valued for their culinary qualities, medicinal virtues, or both—such as puxuri (Licaria sp.), known as “Brazilian nutmeg” for its aromatic and medicinal properties similar to those of nutmeg. With its peculiar flavor and aroma (reminiscent of a mixture of nutmeg and cardamom), puxuri is still used today in both sweet and savory dishes. In the eighteenth century, it was highly valued in the Amazon region as a remedy for gastrointestinal disorders. “Based on Indigenous knowledge, the Jesuits prepared an infusion of its seeds ground in brandy to treat stomach ailments and dysentery,” explains ethnobotanist Márlia Coelho-Ferreira, from the Emílio Goeldi Museum of Pará (MPEG).

A 1680 map by Sanson d’Abbeville details the course of the Amazon River, the main route to the interior of the AmazonBrazilian National Library

Another dual-purpose plant was sarsaparilla (Smilax sp.), known to the Indigenous people as “japecanga.” The leaves and fruit were used as food, while the roots were used to make a tea with purifying and diuretic properties. Copaíba oil-resin and andiroba seeds were also considered medicinal: “The oil-resin extracted from the trunk of Copaíba trees [Copaifera sp.] became known as ‘Jesuit’s Balm’ because of its wound-healing, anti-inflammatory, and antiseptic properties. The oil from the seeds of the andiroba tree [Carapa guianensis] was applied to the body to prevent insect bites and to treat rheumatism and bone fractures,” summarizes Ferreira.

At that time, besides cacao, the Amazonian spice list was dominated by clove wood (Dicypellium caryophyllaceum), a tree whose bark was used mainly in cooking as a seasoning and digestive aid. Very aromatic, clove wood was chosen by the Portuguese as a substitute for cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) and was also called “cravo-do-maranhão” (cloves from Maranhão) or “cravo-do-pará” (cloves from Pará). “Although different in appearance, its flavor is almost the same as cloves from India,” said the Overseas Council (institution with financial and administrative duties) when it received samples of the species in 1646. In Preto’s survey, clove wood and cacao are the most frequently mentioned, accounting for 36% of the entries in two volumes of Livro Grosso do Maranhão, a compilation of legislative sources covering the period from 1647 to 1745, published in 1948 in Anais da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro (Annals of the Brazilian National Library in Rio de Janeiro).

View of Belém (1825), one of the main hubs during the Amazonian spice tradeAtlas Para Viagens No Brasil / Spix e Martius

The Indigenous effort
According to Chambouleyron, clove wood exploitation is actually quite peculiar: unlike other products from the Amazon rainforest, such as copaíba oil-resin or andiroba seeds, Portugal’s interest in the spice was not based on millennia of Indigenous knowledge, since the Indigenous peoples of Brazil were not in the habit of using this aromatic bark. The Indigenous people, however, were essential to its exploitation.

The Portuguese were able to obtain Amazonian spices because they used Indigenous knowledge of the navigation routes and how to build boats to navigate the Amazonian river network. Their canoes could reach up to 20 meters in length. “Mastery of the rivers was fundamental. All the Indigenous technology for river navigation was adopted by the Portuguese and adapted with the use of European tools,” says Chambouleyron.

Indigenous labor was used to exploit the forest, starting with rowers who guided the canoes through the region’s intricate river network. Each canoe could have between 20 and 50 Indigenous people recruited for this task, usually paid in 1.10-meter lengths of cloth. According to Loureiro, the Indigenous villagers were forced to work under the supervision of the missionaries. And to keep them from running off into the forest in the middle of the expedition, they were motivated with gifts—such as brandy, salt, axes, and hooks, for example—in addition to the agreed-upon salary.

Chestnut trees in Marabá (1927): exploitation of spices continued into the twentieth centuryIgnácio Baptista de Moura / Centro Cultural e Turístico Tancredo Neves / Wikimedia Commons

According to an article by the UNICAMP historian published in 2019 in the journal Estudos Avançados, women and children (boys and girls up to the age of 14) made up 84% of the enslaved population. Women and children were responsible for the agricultural activities, which were essential for feeding and paying laborers, as well as for acquiring more captives. Although laws were passed in the seventeenth century prohibiting the enslavement of Indigenous peoples, there were still legal ways to obtain Indigenous slaves. One of these was ransom, or the purchase of Indigenous peoples captured in interethnic conflicts. Saved from having to sacrifice themselves, they owed their lives to those who rescued them.

After centuries of exploitation, clove wood is among the species most seriously threatened with extinction. According to Ferreira, a 2012 study found only two populations of the species in Pará, in the municipalities of Vitória do Xingu and Juruti. Later, clove wood was also recorded in the municipalities of Moju and Senador José Porfírio.

Other Amazonian species continue to be exploited to this day. “The trade volume of ‘drugs of the Sertão’ has always been small compared to commodities like sugar, for example, but it has continued over time,” explains Loureiro. Medicinal plants have also continued to play an important role in the Amazon region, especially in folk medicine, and several are currently the subject of scientific research.

“Many therapeutic properties have been proven and others are being discovered in the light of current scientific research methods,” says Ferreira. Studies on precious bark (Aniba canelilla) are a good example of this. “Preclinical studies have shown that the oil extracted from the bark has relaxing effects on intestinal smooth muscle, justifying use of the plant for gastrointestinal disorders, as well as cardiovascular effects.”

According to Santos, the exploitation of Amazonian spices during the colonial period, although mostly predatory, had the merit of recognizing the region’s economic potential, which has often been forgotten throughout history. Even today, he believes, investment in the region’s sustainable development to promote and organize this activity is lacking: “With investment in technology, we could transform the Amazon without destroying the rainforest.”

The story above was published with the title “Earth’s currency” in issue 344 of October/2024.

Projects
1. Between a deep past and an imminent future: Human activity and environmental impact of modern colonialism in the Amazon (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) (n° 22/02896-0); Grant Mechanism Research Grant – Initial Project; Principal Investigator Camila Loureiro Dias (UNICAMP); Investment R$763,123.36.
2. Indigenous knowledge of plants in colonial Amazonia (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) (n° 24/01523-1); Grant Mechanism Doctoral Fellowship in Brazil; Supervisor Camila Loureiro Dias (UNICAMP); Beneficiary Talles Manoel da Silva; Investment R$362,995.20.
3. Drugs from the outback: Survey of occurrences of plant species in colonial chronicles and expedition reports (n° 24/05635-9); Grant Mechanism Undergraduate Project; Supervisory Camila Loureiro Dias (UNICAMP); Beneficiary Sofia Montaner Preto; Investment R$13,594.68.

Scientific articles
CHAMBOULEYRON, R. O “cravo do Maranhão” e a Amazônia global (séculos XVII-XVIII). Revista de Índias. Vol. 82, no. 285. 2022.
DIAS, C. L. Os índios, a Amazônia e os conceitos de escravidão e liberdade. Estudos Avançados. Vol. 33, no. 97. 2019.
DONINI, C. V. et al. Flores e cascas: Exploração de cravo, Dicypellium caryophyllaceum e Syzygium aromaticum, no século XVIII. VIII Congresso Internacional de História. Maringá, Universidade Estadual de Maringá, 2017 (Simpósio História, Ciências e Ambiente).
MEDEIROS, M. F. T. et al. Histórico e o uso da “salsa parrilha” (Smilax spp.) pelos boticários no Mosteiro de São Bento. Revista Brasileira de Biociências. Vol. 5, no. S1. July 2007.

Books
MEIRA, M. (org.). Livro das canoas: Documentos para a história indígena da Amazônia. São Paulo: NHII-USP. 1994.
CHAMBOULEYRON, R. (org.). As drogas do sertão e a Amazônia colonial portuguesa. Lisboa: Centro de História da Universidade de Lisboa, 2023. Available at: Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa:
DANIEL, J. Tesouro descoberto no máximo rio Amazonas (1722–1776). Rio de Janeiro: Contraponto, 2004.
FERREIRA, A. R. Viagem filosófica pelas capitanias do Grão Pará, Rio Negro, Mato Grosso e Cuiabá 1783–1792. Rio de Janeiro: Conselho Federal de Cultura, 1971.
LA CONAMINE, C.-M. de Viagem na América Meridional descendo o rio das Amazonas. Brasília: Senado Federal, 2000 (Coleção O Brasil visto por estrangeiros).

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