Central America
-
More Magic Beans- This History of Chocolate
That most delicious of desserts that we all crave. It was rightly named as “food of the gods” by the ancients. However, the chocolate the pre-Olmec cultures were making was nothing like the chocolate we eat today. It was consumed as a beverage, and was quite bitter. The peoples making this drink were living in Mesoamerica prior to the cultures of the Olmecs, Mayan and Aztecs. Anthropologists from the University of Pennsylvania have found cacao residue on pottery found in Honduras from as early as 1400 BCE. Some sources place the discovery of chocolate even earlier at 1900 BCE. Anthropologists surmise native peoples found the cacao plants in the tropical…
-
Treaty of Tordesillas
So if you watched the US presidential debate last night, you would have heard one of the candidates make mention that the Iran arms deal is the “worst in history”. This got me thinking. No matter what your political persuasion, I think we can all agree this is hyperbole. All of history is a very, very long time and there have been some ridiculously bad deals signed. One that comes to mind is the Treaty of Tordesillas. In the 15th century, both Spain and Portugal were two of the world’s superpowers. Both countries were sending out explorers and divvying up the New World (that’s another set of terrible treaties that…
-
Gregor MacGregor- Prince of Frauds
If you are like me, your world geography is a bit fuzzy. This is not a new thing, and was probably worse in the past when new lands were being discovered by Europeans, renamed and divvied up. They also didn’t have handy Professor Google to teach them where things were. Maps were a sketchy business. So when an ambitious Scotsman came forward claiming to the the Prince, or Cazique, of Poyais, most people did not realize Poyais did not exist. During the Napoleonic Wars, former Spanish and Portuguese colonies were benefiting from the upheaval in the mother countries. Most of the countries of South America gained their independence between 1809…
-
Manco Inca Yupanqui
The Inca had a great empire in what is now Peru, parts of Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, north and Chile and a small part of southern Colombia. They were the Roman Empires of the Americas. However, they when the Spanish explorers first encountered them the Inca were coming off a debilitating civil war and in the middle of a smallpox epidemic. 160 Spanish Conquistadors arrived in Peru with Francisco Pizarro, and they took full advantage of the destabilizing political situation. The civil war was between two brothers who both claimed the throne- Atahuallpa and Huascar. The war was only ended when Atahuallpa killed his brother, however,…
-
The Darien Scheme
Scottish settlement in America brings to mind Nova Scotia or any of the original thirteen colonies. There was one Scottish settlement which is much less known, but is just as important if not more so. Since the crowns of England and Scotland had been united under James I, the fortunes of the two countries were tied closer than ever. However, things were not rosy in Scotland. Poverty, war, famine and homelessness was plaguing the land and threatening to have the Scottish identity swallowed up by their more prosperous neighbors the the south. William Paterson, a Scot who had made his fortune as one of the founding directors of the Bank…
