Chocolate and cacao - a cruel history

The Mayo-Chinchipe culture first domesticated the cacao tree over 5000 years ago, in present-day southeast Ecuador, and became a beverage consumed by the elite in Maya and Aztec communities. Cacao was highly important in Mesoamerican cultures, used as a currency, medicine, and in ritual practices. In Puerto Escondido, Mexico, ancient bowls and jars have shown traces of cacao have been found in ancient bowls and jars, indicating that cacao was consumed there over 3000 years ago.

In 1519, Spanish invaders were introduced to chocolate and brought it to Europe, where it became a popular upper-class drink. Chocolate in solid form first appeared in the 19th century, where factories began to produce blocks of sweet chocolate for mass consumption.

Chocolate, however, is not merely a sweet drink or treat, offering instead a lens on colonisation, enslavement, capitalism and exploitation. African American academic Martin has analysed the links between racism and chocolate. In the Congo, Belgian rulers policed indigenous Africans by cutting off their hands. Meanwhile, in the Belgian city of Antwerp, hand-shaped chocolates were sold, as a symbol of the city, which profited from the brutalities of colonisation.

Slavery and exploitation continue to be associated with the chocolate industry. Child labour is rife in Western African cocoa farms, which supply most of the word’s cocoa, and child exploitation and slavery has also been reported on cocoa plantations in Brazil.

As the Food Empowerment Project points out, “Over the years, the chocolate industry has become increasingly secretive, making it difficult for reporters to not only access farms where human rights violations still occur, but to then disseminate this information to the public. In 2004, the Ivorian First Lady’s entourage allegedly kidnapped and killed a journalist reporting on government corruption in its profitable cocoa industry.”

Many children begin labouring on cocoa farms at a young age to help support their families, or because they have been sold to cocoa traffickers or farm owners. This is hard, dangerous work. Children are exposed to poisonous agricultural chemicals without protective clothing. They are forced to wield sharp and dangerous machetes or to carry loads as heavy as a hundred pounds. Often they are denied the opportunity to attend school. As the Food Empowerment Project points out, many children have scars on their bodies from their work in on the cocoa farms.
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Imaged credit: Wikipedia, Luisovalles, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Matadecacao.jpg

Links and references

History of chocolate - Wikipedia
Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry - Food Empowerment Project
The Dark History Behind Chocolate | Harvard Magazine
Chocolate, Politics and Peace-Building | Latinolife
Indigenous Chocolate: Chocolata Inda
Exploring Cultural Appropriation Through A Chocolate Tasting | Chocolate Class