Ecuador Nacional Cacao

The cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, originated in the upper reaches of the Amazon basin, the foothills of the Andes, in what is now southeastern Ecuador, sometime after the last Ice Age about 11,000 years ago.  Evidence in Santa Ana (La Florida), an archaeological site in Zamora-Chinchipe Province, confirms that the cacao tree was domesticated there about 5300 years ago.

Cacao Pods almost ripe

The plant has mutated through countless generations.  Today there are 11 recognized varieties (genetic clusters) of cacao, natural as well as artificial strains.   Like wine, the cacao bean qualities are competitive and contentious with more than 400 different flavor measures, all but a few of which are beyond most chocolate consumers.

Cacao fruit can be eaten raw.  The pulp is sweet and lemony, the seeds are hard and bitter.  But cacao became famous as a drink with archaeological evidence of the process that is still used today – fermentation, drying, roasting, winnowing, grinding and blending – without which there is no chocolate flavor. 

Ripe Cacao Pod beans and baba juice

Processing makes excellent chocolate, or not, depending on the beans and treatment.  In this regard, Ecuador has a commanding advantage.  First, the rich, fertile soil nourished by volcanoes, jungles, and coexisting ecosystems results in the primeval chemistry and complexity of its beans, sourcing from the same valley where the plant was first cultivated. Second, Ecuador has year around ideal conditions for growing, fermentation and drying.  The resulting cacao, known as Nacional (also Arriba Nacional or Ancient Nacional), has been the world’s premiere for 5000 years.   

Cultivation in the upper Andean valleys spread to the coastal areas sometime before 2000 BC as agriculture matured locally along with tomato, peanuts, cashews, rubber and balsa wood.  Cultivation spread south to Peru and north as far as Mexico over the next millenium.  Cacao gained a divine status in Mesoamerican cultures –  Maya (2000 BC), Olmecs (1000 BC), Izapan (100 BC), Toltecs (800 AD), Incas (13^th Century AD), and Aztecs (14^th Century AD) – a frothy beverage, mainly consumed by the elite, used in rituals, ceremonies, festivals, as well as currency and tax payments.   Cacao beans became so valuable that they were counterfeited using materials such as ash, clay, amaranth dough, wax, avocado pits, mud or sand, painted or dyed, and mixed with real beans.

Central and South America Theobroma Cacao distribution from Sanat Ana La Florida (SALF)

The Cacao Belt, is a strip 10 degrees either side of the equator, including West Africa, Indonesia, and Ecuador – where 75% of the world’s cacao is grown.   Mexico (15-32 degrees North) has cacao agriculture, but even in Montezuma’s time, 16^th century AD, the best beans came from Ecuador.  Although the Aztecs developed blending cacao to extend and improve their own harvests with flowers, pimienta gorda (allspice), vanilla, maize, and chili powder, among other ingredients, the most prized beans came through a trading network stretching from the highlands of Mexico to the jungles of South America – gold and gems went South to Ecuador and Peru and baskets filled with Arriba Nacional cacao came back North. 

Cacao Belt and Country Cacao Production 2016

Columbus encountered the cacao bean on his fourth voyage, August 15, 1502, as he robbed yet another native canoe that contained trade goods, including cacao beans. His son Ferdinand observed, “when they were brought on board ship together with their goods, I observed that when any of these almonds (cacao beans) fell, they all stooped to pick it up, as if an eye had fallen.” 

But Columbus seems to have overlooked the potential.  It was Hernan Cortes visiting and plundering the Aztec capitol Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) in 1519 who appreciated the value of xocolatl, the Aztec term for cacao.  He sipped ceremonial quantities with Montezuma, who famously drank 50 cups per day.  Cortes is credited with adding sugar to the drink, established his own cacao plantation, raided the Aztec cacao (and vanilla) warehouses and retuned to Spain in 1528 with beans and xocolatl making equipment where it was a hit with the Spanish elite, often reinforced with sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.

The drink spread through Europe as an elite commodity.  The first English chocolate house opened in 1657, and soon chocolate houses were a thing.  Spain did its best to control the market, limit supply, and inflate the prices.  That worked pretty well for 200 years.  But, as countries in the New World ditched Spain, cacao entered the free market with two significant cacao booms:

1779-1842

In early 18^th century England, Chocolate Houses add milk to the cacao drink.  It created a sensation.  In 1764 John Hannon and Dr. James Baker import beans and build a chocolate factory in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the first in the USA, making cakes of chocolate used for drinks and baking.

Until 1828 chocolate remained a drink, and a rather fatty one, because of the high percentage of cacao butter.  In that year Dutch chemist Casparus van Houton used a hydraulic press to extract butter from the cacao paste.  The butter was blown into powder and melted with liquids, allowing a greater variety of chocolate drinks.  

In the same year, Casparus’s son Coenraad invents “dutching,” or alkalizing and together the advances resulted in bar chocolate, a more stable and transportable product.  In 1847 British chocolatier J.S. Fry and Sons introduce mass production for chocolate bars.  They were coarse and bitter, but allowed significant increases in production at lower cost.  In 1875 Switzerland, Daniel Peter and Henri Nestlé developed a process to produce dried powered milk, which could then be added to the chocolate paste to produce the famed Swiss milk chocolate.  Cadbury and Fry’s soon follow.  The chocolate market expanded with every advance.

1895-1913

In 1879 Rodolphe Lindt invents the conche, a process of agitating the chocolate to fully enrobe the cacao solids in cocoa butter, making it smoother, and also aerating the chocolate so that acids evaporate, making it less bitter.  Conching perfected the chocolate bar, giving it a smooth, melt-in-your-mouth consistency that blended well with other ingredients. 

In 1893, Milton Hershey bought Germany’s chocolate production display from the Chicago World’s Fair, shipped it back to his caramel factory in Pennsylvania where he installed it to establish the Hershey Chocolate Company. The business was a spectacular success, propelling Hershey into the elite class of 19^th century industrialists including Rockefeller, Sears, Firestone and Carnegie.  He built an entire town for his employees, modestly named after himself, bought a sugar plantation in Cuba, opened Hersheypark (50 years before Disneyland), and Hotel Hershey where you can still enjoy their spa’s Peppermint Scrub and a Chocolate Fondue Wrap ($160).

Chocolate officially reached global distribution during the World Wars.  Hershey specially prepared “Military Chocolate” to the Army’s specification:

1. Weigh 4 ounces (113.4 g)
2. High in food energy value – 600 calories
3. Able to withstand high temperatures
4. Taste “a little better than a boiled potato” (to keep soldiers from eating their emergency rations in non-emergency situations)

Hershey Military Chocolate Ration 1927

Up through World War 1, Ecuador was the leading developer, producer, and exporter of cacao, all due to the quality of Nacional beans.  As cultivation spread further to Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, and Trinidad, cacao interbred and additional strains developed.  Three varieties of Theobroma cacao were identified in 1753 by the Swedish scientist Carl von Linné – Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario – all derivatives of Ecuador’s Nacional.  The three varieties are still recognized today:

• Forastero represents about 85% of the world’s cocoa production.  It is a high-yielding, disease resistant hybrid, originally from Brazil, then exported to West Africa and Indonesia.  The word means ‘stranger’ in Spanish.  It is ordinary, everydayk “bulk” cocoa with strong, earthy flavours.  Forastero is cheaper to grow, consistent and reliable.  It is considered bland by critics, but Forastero mega-producers like Hershey’s and Cadbury savagely defend the quality.  Sugar makes up for Forastero’s alleged lack of flavor in many consumer chocolates – Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar is 53% sugar, 25% Forastero cacao.

• Trinitario represents about 12% of the world’s cocoa production.  It was bred following Trinidad’s 1727 hurricane in which most of the criollo plantations were destroyed. Forastero seeds were brought from Venezuela and cross-fertilized with the native criollo beans resulting in the Trinitario.  It is grown particularly in the Caribbean but also in Venezuela and Colombia and is considered a fine flavor cacao.

• Criollo, another fine flavor cacao, makes up just 2% of global cacao production.  The absence of tannins gives Criollo a unique creaminess, sweetness, and roundness.  It is the variety most closely related to the original Nacional.  It has been cultivated for at least 1500 years, the cacao of the Mayas and the Aztecs.  By the early 20^th century, its production was abandoned due to its low yield, at risk of extinction for many years. Criollo is scarce and expensive, rarely used in pure form, usually mixed with Forastero, but several small producers are reviving the strain.  It is still found in Venezuela, Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Colombia, Samoan Islands, Sri Lanka and Madagascar.

Nacional, the primeval cacao, remains a national treasure, grown only in Ecuador.  It was the only cacao cultivated in Ecuador until the early 20^th century, an era when Ecuador produced 30% of the world’s supply.  At that time, it represented 70% of Ecuador’s exports and enabled a wealthy class of mega-plantation owners.  Then disease struck the crops.  Frosty pod disease (Moniliophthora roreri) in 1916 and Witches’ Broom Disease (Moniliophthora perniciosa) in 1919 decimated Ecuadorian cacao production by 77%.  A century of hybridization and globalization took place which saw the majority of cacao production move to West Africa and Indonesia, almost exclusively the hardy Forastero, although Criollo, Trinitario and later variations held fast in regional locations.  By the beginning of the twenty-first century, some experts believed that genetically pure Nacional cacao no longer existed.

Enter the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias, Ecuador’s agricultural research institute.  In 2009, INIAP collected DNA samples from 11,000 cacao trees throughout Ecuador of which 6 trees were confirmed to be 100% genetically pure Nacional cacao.  Further testing in 2013 identified 9 more, total 15.  These trees became the stock from which Nacional cacao has been revived.

Holcim Cacao Farm – November 2022

https://youtu.be/UvsLS0oIiDc

Today, Ecuador produces about 5% of the world’s bulk cacao, 235 thousand metric tons, 7th largest producer in the world, at a value of about US$ 700 million.  Thanks to INIAP’s research on Nacional, Ecuador supplies 60% of the global Fine Flavor Cacao, selling at premiums that often exceed market predictions. 

For the last 100 years, chocolate making has been big business almost exclusively run on Forastero cacao grown in the West African British colonies (60%) where most plantations moved after the Ecuador infections.  Mega producers like Cadbury, Nestle and Hershey purchase beans at bargain prices with little emphasis on quality or flavor.  Who needs cacao when your product is 50% sugar?  In some cases consumer chocolate bars contain as little as 11% cacao.

Not that big chocolate is going anywhere soon, but several factors have challenged the 21^st century chocolate market:

1. Scharffen Berger, was founded in 1996 in San Francisco at a time when there were only nine companies grinding their own cacao in the US, all huge, except for Guittard Chocolate Company (founded by a French gold miner in 1868 San Francisco).  Guittard was so impressed with the quality of SB’s chocolate that they revamped their own production returning to their founder’s methods and sourcing beans from single origin craft growers like Ecuador’s ASOCIACION ARTESANAL SABOR ARRIBA (beans directly from small farmers and focusing on the unique flavors of the beans from different regions.).  Scharffen Berger was sold in 2005 to the Hershey Company, and moved to Illinois, but similar small bean-to-bar makers now number more than 250 in the United States.
2. Dagoba Chocolate was founded in Ashland, Oregon in 2001 by Frederick Shilling to produce organic, fair-trade, Rainforest Alliance Certified™, non-GMO chocolate.   DAGOBA established the nonprofit One for All Cacao Project with the objective of strengthening cacao communities by advancing the role of women in cocoa production.  The success of Dagoba demonstrated the viability of premium chocolate.  The Hershey Company bought the company in 2006, expanded the product line but dropped the fair-trade certification.

1. At the British Association science festival in Glasgow in September 2001, the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston in February 2002 and the American Heart Association in Chicago in December 2002, researchers deliver the message: chocolate is good for you.
2. As single origin buyers increase demand, small farmers and cooperatives increase the quality of their post-harvest processes – fermenting, drying, storing, and transport, all critical to flavor.
3. Concerns rise related to the dominance of the high yield, disease resistant multi-strain varieties like Forastero/CCN-51 (Coleccion Castro Naranjal) due to mass production, low prices, poor flavor, and full- sun, monoculture growing conditions.  CCN-51 is estimated to comprise 40% of global production, displacing varieties that would otherwise contribute to a more diverse genetic base, accommodate a broader ecology, support small farmers, and maintain superior flavor.
4. A growing awareness of the inequities in the cacao supply chain.  Large chocolate manufacturers squeeze prices to subsistence levels, pressuring plantation owners and the farmers themselves into a cycle of poverty, deforestation, forced labor, child labor, even servitude.  Small producers have the economic advantage to compensate farmers fairly and to make opportunities for women, families, and small growers to participate competitively in the global cacao market.

“Ninety percent of the world’s cocoa is grown on six million small farms, and most of the farmers can’t survive on what they’re paid. Our mission is building a more equitable and transparent supply chain.”

Emily Stone, a founder of Uncommon Cacao

Ecuador’s 2018 research and redevelopment of Nacional variety brings cacao knowledge to a new level of quality and accountability. Since 2001, single origin craft chocolate has been gaining credibility and recognition.  Ecuador’s research has established the genetic base for fine flavor chocolate.  Global NGO’s recognize the potential for the robust cacao industry to provide fair trade family employment, sustainable agriculture, equitable investment and wholesome nutrition.   

Pacari Premium Organic Ecuadorian Chocolate

According to the Fine Chocolate Industry Association, sales of premium chocolates grew 19 percent in 2018, compared with 0.6 percent for mainstream chocolate like the classic Hershey bar. Ecuador is the leader in the production of fine aroma cocoa, with a 62% share of the world market, supporting around one hundred thousand families of small producers.

Collectives like APROCA (Asociacion De Productores De Cacao Organico Del Canton Atacames) UOPROCAE (Unión de Organizaciones productoras de Cacao Arriba Esmeraldas), and Asociacion Artesanal Sabor Arriba in Exmereldas carry on the cacao tradition with a fresh energy to promote Fine Cacao Ecuador (https://finecacaoecuador.com/):

APROCA Factory – Atacames, Ecuador

APROCA Factory – Atacames, Ecuador – Raw Cacao beans 3rd day of fermentation.

APROCA Factory – Atacames, Ecuador – Beans fermented, dried, ready for shipping

APROCA Factory – Atacames, Ecuador – Worker turning beans for uniform drying

APROCA Factory – Atacames, Ecuador – Beans air drying about 10 days into the Fermentation-Drying process

UPROCAE Cacao Factory – Atacames, Ecuador – Cacao Bean delivery day after harvest

Holcim Cacao Farm – Atacames, Ecuador

Live and Work in Downtown Corvallis

LIVE-WORK HOUSING

Live-Work History

Working where you live is the oldest form of community design.  Like dozens of other tradesmen in 1886 Corvallis, Manuel Knight lived with his family at the corner of 2^nd and Adams next door to his blacksmith shop.  But when building and zoning codes were adopted in the mid 20^th century, the strategy was to separate work spaces from residences.  This strategy curtailed opportunities like Manuel’s efficient and healthy lifestyle.

Isaack Koedijck 1617-18-1668, Barber-Surgeon Tending a Peasant’s Foot, c1649-50.  Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection

Living where you work is natural, economical, safe and convenient.  Why isn’t there more of it? 

Because in the late 19th century, industry overwhelmed our cities.  In Europe and Asia, municipalities selectively removed polluting industries from urban areas in order to maintain their pedestrian cores.  But in the US, we overcompensated by separating all uses.  In Corvallis today we have 38 different use categories, none of which are allowed to overlap.  Once the uses are separated geographically, cars and parking become mandatory.  The result is obvious in the per capita car data: the US has 816 cars per 1000 people; Germany, 574; China, 210, which not surprisingly corresponds directly with per capita energy use.

These single use zoning laws have a 100 year record of sucking diversity out of town planning, conceding pedestrian accommodations in favor of vehicles.  The laws are entrenched and protected by administrative bureaucracy. With one exception, zoning generally strives to prevent mixed uses like Live-Work.  That exception is the Central Business District, any city’s most organic neighborhood.  Midcentury planners could not force single use zoning on urban centers, but rather than grasp the underlying reason, CBD was corralled and secluded into its natural course of serving all possible development schemes. 

But like most communities, Corvallis has limited building resources in the CBD zone.  And, of course, many of those buildings are dedicated to single purpose commercial or public uses.  New development has some opportunities to provide Live-Work at a large scale, but the format is unfamiliar to most banks and developers, so enthusiasm is tiny.  Small scale opportunities to combine living and working under one roof are rare.   

So what chance would Manuel Knight have to sustain his lifestyle today?  

In 2009 the International Building Code adopted Section 419 – Live/Work Units – providing a definitive code path for a building type that has been serving humanity just fine for thousands of years.  Its first use in Corvallis is the building at 415 SW 2^nd St., coincidentally the same site as Manuel’s blacksmith shop.

1912 Corvallis Produce Company – 415 S. 2nd St.

His 19^th century logistics would find that the 1923 commercial building at 415 SW 2^nd St. was well suited for a live-work routine. The open floor plan and high ceilings offer function for multiple uses.  The structure is fabricated from high quality local old growth Douglas Fir beams, columns, joists and planks that have served a variety of enterprises well for 99 years – Planing Mill, Garage, Electrical shop, Mattress Company, Foundry, Produce Market, Corvallis Implement Company, Printing Company and world-famous Beaver Cabinet Co., among others

But Manuel would be overwhelmed with the volume and complexity of 21^st century construction – zoning and building permits with provisions for light, ventilation, fire sprinklers and separations, product listings, exiting, access, seismic resistance, and parking for starters.  And the cost of housing relative to his income would be incomprehensible.

1923 2nd St. East Side between Washington and Adams, looking NE

Beaver Cabinet Shop about 1944

Aerial View of Corvallis from the North about 1940

Why Bother?

Corvallis is a perfect example.  We have been in a housing crisis for the last 60 years.  According to the 2018 US Census nearly twice as many people commute into Corvallis for work every day as the number of people who live and work here.  That ratio has been growing since 1960.  An ECONorthwest study commissioned in 2014 found that 40% of in-commuters (8,332 people) would prefer to live in Corvallis if they could find housing here. 

According to city records, Corvallis has a housing stock of 25,280 units but needs 29,400 units to adequately serve the population.  That gap has grown by 500 units since 2016.  Corvallis also needs 177 additional units per year to accommodate anticipated growth.  In 2021, we built 81 new units.

Not only can Live-Work help solve the lack of housing, but it leverages the benefit by eliminating a grueling, nasty commute.

Live-Work Specifics

1. Live-work units foster Humanity.  According to US Census Data, average commute time for workers age 16 years+ (2014-2018) is 26.6 minutes (one way, includes both public and private transport).  Live-Work gives back every resident an hour a day.

• Economics.  Live-Work saves on burdensome routine commuting expenses.  Every car in the US costs roughly $5,264.58 annually (AAA) – car payments, gas, oil, tires, car insurance, and repairs, not counting collisions.  On average, commuting to work accounts for 75% of total vehicle mileage. 

• Live-Work enjoys favorable Tax Deductions.   According to attorney Keith R. Gercken (Sheppard Mullin Richter and Hampton, LLP):

The principal tax advantage of a live/work unit is that it is generally much easier to substantiate regular and business use of the business space if challenged by the IRS. The live/work unit also tends to be helpful in validating certain other requirements for taking a home office deduction, such as the fact that the office space is the taxpayer’s principal place of business or that it is used to meet with clients.

• Environmental.  The average passenger vehicle emits about 404 grams of CO₂ per mile. 

The average North American weighs 177.9 lb.  The average Compact car weighs 2919 lbs (3361 lbs for midsize) – ratio 16.4:1 (For Bikes: 0.14:1).  Our current zoning adds a 3000 lb ball and chain to every citizen. Most of our population can’t even buy a loaf of bread without their 1-1/2 ton mass of steel, plastic, hopelessly complicated technology, smelly, noisy, expensive, environmental disaster.

Astonishingly, the average US city has regulated parking to provide 8 parking spaces for every car.  A 2018 study by the Mortgage Bankers Association calculated that public parking costs every household as much as $192,000.  There is no such thing as free parking.

• Health.  In CBD, groceries, parks, restaurants, theaters, government and shopping are a 10 minute walk away.

• Safety.  Pedestrian compact neighborhoods benefit from lower crime, safer streets and lower traffic incidents.  University of Pennsylvania 2019

• Convenience.  All the primary city conveniences are at your doorstep.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Manuel Knight was born in Chile in 1826.  He migrated to Benton County by the 1850’s.  He was a blacksmith by trade, partnered with a Mr. Titus until 1865 when he bought out the business at 2^nd and Washington.  The building burned to the ground in 1873, subsequently rebuilt by Mr. Knight.  In 1886 Manuel bought the property, Block 2, lota 9 and 10, and continued his trade through 1905 when he sold to James Phillips.  Manuel Knight died in Corvallis 23 December 1909, the second oldest member of the local Masonic Lodge.  His obituary reads, “He was a man of unassuming character, quiet and peaceable, one who brought nothing but good to the community.”

Ahmadnagar, India March 2019

Ahmadnagar (also Ahmednagar) is a city of 400,000 in western central India, about 200 km inland, East of Mumbai.  It is noisy, busy, trashy, and industrious with a few traffic signals, no street signs, and almost nothing that resembles a sidewalk.  Like most of India, the informalities do not seem to bother the locals who endure the surging vehicle, pedestrian and animal traffic with mild detachment.

Ahmadnagar is located on the Deccan Plateau, the geographic feature that defines the triangle of the Indian subcontinent south of the Ganges River.  It is a tropical climate, hospitable to humans since the Stone Age.

The Deccan hosted some of India’s major medieval dynasties including the Vakataka Empire, a Brahmin dynasty from the 3^rd century CE, contemporary with the Northern Gupta Dynasty, during India’s “Golden Age”, a period of great scientific, cultural, economic and political advancements.  Remnants of the Vakataka Empire include the rock cave complexes at Ellora and Ajanta, both UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Hindu (perhaps the world’s oldest religion), Buddhist and Jain dynasties competed in Southern India for centuries.  As early as the 7^th century CE, Islam began its influence in India as the original Middle East (Turkic) sultanates fractured.  Invasion became the primary means of international diplomacy.

By the 10^th century, Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms in India were being plundered by Turkic Mamluk militias, at least 17 times between 997 and 1030.  But the real invasion began in the 13^th century when the Mamluks established the Islamic Delhi Sultanate and colonized most of the subcontinent for the next 320 years.  The fusion of Islam and Indian cultures led to profound growth of both civilizations.  Trade expanded throughout Africa and Asia.  Architecture, politics, literature, commerce and language were advanced, still now applauded with international renown.

The Delhi Sultanate also brought military credibility.  While he was thrashing his way across the rest of Asia (including the homelands of the Delhi Sultans), Genghis Khan ordered an India invasion in 1221 in pursuit of a Persian-Turkic bad guy, Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu.  His armies invaded and ultimately defeated Mingburnu, but stalled out against the stronger Delhi forces.  Genghis left his 3^rd son, Ögedei to pursue India, but his death in 1241 prompted the Mongols to return to friendlier (conquered) territory to the North.  It took another 300 years for Genghis’s descendants (the Mughal Empire) to finally overcome the Delhi Sultanate.

Along the way, discontent was spreading through the Delhi Empire.  In 1345, the Delhi sultan attempted to quell the uprisings by moving his capitol south to Daulatabad.  It did not go well.  His army was devastated by plague, demoralized, and rebellious.  The troops switched allegiance to the remnants of one of the medieval Indian kingdoms, the Bahmani Sultanate, led by an Afghan military general, Ismail Mukh.  They revolted against Delhi and re-established the historic empire, although now commanded by northern Islamic foreigners.

The new sultanate found itself wedged between hostile kingdoms who had held out against Delhi – Gujarat, Malwa, and the powerful Hindu Vijayanagara kingdom, as well as their own internal foreign sympathizers who were not well accepted by the locals, and vice versa.   Bahmani shrewdly survived for 150 years through political, cultural, economic and military manipulations,  but eventually, contention with the Vijayanagara kingdpm led to collapse into what became known as the five Deccan Sultanates – Nizam Shahs (Ahmadnagar), the Adil Shahs (Bijapur), the Qutb Shahs (Golconda), the Imad Shahs (Gawilgarh), and the Barid Shahs (Bidar).

Malik Nizam-ul-Mulk, patriarch of the Nizam Shahs, was a noble at the Bahamani court from a well off Indian family of Pathri.  He had converted to Islam during his service to the sultan, and promoted the Nizam Shah Dynasty as the only “native” of the Deccan kingdoms. His Indian patrimony was a source of friction with the many Bahamani ex-pat nobles.  Malik was assassinated by them in 1486, during the Bahamani break up.

His son Ahmad Nizam Bahri was then governor of Junnar, also in the Maharashtra District.  He rebelled, defeating the Bahmani army on May 28, 1490 and declared independence for the Nizam Shahi dynasty.

In 1494, the foundation was laid for his new capitol, humbly named after himself, Ahmadnagar. He initiated construction of a fort that was renowned for its security (used by the British into the 20^th century), began mosques and monuments and one of the most impressive waterworks of the era, an extensive underground storage and distribution system that delivered water over a 15 km network.

One of Ahmad’s zealous chroniclers, Tarikh-i Firishtah, described the scene:

… Ahmad Nizam Shah laid the foundation of a city in the vicinity of the Sena river, to which he gave the name of Ahmadnagar. So great exertions were made in erecting buildings by the king and his dependents, that in the short space of two years the new city rivalled Baghdad and Cairo in splendour.

After several attempts, he secured nearby Daulatabad the fort that had started the decline of the Delhi Sultanate.  His son and descendants expanded the territory well into the 16^th century, attracting the attention and hostility of the ever pressing Mughals who by 1526 had conquered and dispatched the Delhi Sultanate.

Through family intrigue (poisonings, traitorous regents, imprisonments …) and wars with the invaders, the dynasty survived for 109 eventful years before the Mughals finally won out, but not before Chand Bibi, Ahmad’s great granddaughter and India’s greatest female warrior, gave them several humiliating defeats.

The Mughals spent the 17^th century trying to conquer the rest of India.  In 1632, Shah Jahan, the  5^th Mughal emperor (builder of the Taj Mahal), captured the fortress at Daulatabad, and imprisoned Hussain Nizam Shah III, the 13^th and next to last king of Nizam Shahi.  Shah Jahan appointed Aurangzeb as Viceroy of the Deccan.

Aurangzeb  (Muhi-ud-Din Muhammad), “Ornament of the Throne”, rose to become the sixth Mughal emperor, reigned from 1658 to 1707.  He died at Ahmednagar.

Aurangzeb was a ruthless militant and religious fanatic.  He subdued almost the entire subcontinent, burdened the Hindus and Sikhs with heavy taxes, destroyed temples, tortured and assassinated Muslim saint Sarmad , killed his own brother Dara Shikoh for un-Muslim behavior, bricked alive  two young sons of Guru Gobind Singh, age 7 and 9, for not converting to Muslim.

The Mughal Empire reached its peak under Aurangzeb in 1700, a kingdom of 158 million subjects (world population 650 million at the time), 10 times larger in revenue than that of his French contemporary Louis XIV, and surpassing China as the world’s largest economy with nearly a quarter of world GDP.

At age 88, after 49 years on the throne during another military campaign in southern India, he realized that he was dying along with his intolerant empire, and was not destined to conquer the rest of the subcontinent.  He died in 1707 at Ahmednagar on his way back to his hometown Khuldapur.

More than 300 years later now, in this city of Ahmadnagar, the remnants of the empire are a remarkable site against the bustle and clutter of today’s city. Four of the most enduring legacies include:

Damdi (Dumdani) Masjid Mosque

Built in 1567, this small mosque is an exquisite work of carved stone masonry, a fine example if Islamic-Indian architecture.  The mosque is attributed to Queen and warrior Chand Bibi.  Damdi was the penny of the Nizam Shah currency, honoring the contributions made by the peasants and laborers of Ahmednagar.

It is set in a Muslim cemetery, neighboring a non-mulsim graveyard and the Ahmednagar Fort.  It is also the site of one of Ahmednagar’s famed water utilities, an underground water tank, a Bawli, connected to the city’s distribution network, offering liberal ablution opportunities for the worshippers.

The mosque was all but abandoned following the Partition of India (Ahmadnagar is now 90% Hindu), but maintained for generations by a local family.

Ahmadnagar Fort

The fort was originally built in 1427 by Malik Ahmad Nizam Shah I, namesake of Ahmednagar. It was made of mud but fortified in stone in 1562 after a 4 year upgrade. It is the site where, in 1596, Chand Bibi repulsed the Mughal invasion, though it fell under her leadership in 1599 and Chand was killed by her own troops during the 4 month melee.

After Aurangzeb died at Ahmednagar Fort on 20 February 1707, the fort passed back to the Nizams, then the Marathas and Scindias. During the Second Anglo-Maratha War in 1803, the British defeated Maratha forces and the fort was occupied by the East India Company.

 In 1942, when Gandhi called on the British to leave India, his colleagues Jawaharlal Nehru and the Indian National Congress drafted the Quit India Resolution.  Nehru and most of the committee were arrested and imprisoned at the Ahmednagar Fort until 15 June 1945.  Nehru used his time there to study politics and write his pioneering book “Discovery of India”.

Currently, the fort is under the administration of the Armoured Corps of the Indian Army.

Farah Bagh

Farah Bagh (also Faria Bagh, Farah Baksha) is a palace finished in 1583, intended for Burhan Nizam Shah I (1510-1553), the 2^nd ruler of the Nizam Shah Empire.  It was the center of a larger imperial complex situated 3 km outside Ahmadnagar on a lake, now seasonal.

The complex was started in 1573, completed for occupancy by the 4^th emperor, Murtaza Nizam Shah (1565-1588), who played chess here and added a separate palace for himself in the garden.  Sultana Chand Bibi also frequented the palace.

Nyamat Khan, a favored artisan, was assigned the design.  Construction started, but his contemporary critics convinced Burhan Nizam Shah that the design was all wrong.  He had it torn down, started again.  The job was then delegated to Salabat Khan I who soon died from the burden, and construction was finished by his nephew, Salabat Khan II.

The octagonal 2 storey greyish-pink stone structure was set on an island in the lake, surrounded by gardens. The main chamber, called Rang Mahal, is a magnificent space with detailed stucco and carved stone features, about 60×100’ with a central dome maybe 30 feet high.  The monument has a dimension of about 250 feet square consisting of chambers, corridors and stairways around the central hall.  The style is called Iranian, noted for its stone arches.  The palace also boasted an evaporative cooling and ventilation system tied to the lake and fountains.

The Ahmadnagar aqueduct fed the lake, reported to be seventeen feet deep and 150 feet wide. The garden and grounds extend about 500 yards from the palace, still traces evident today.

Farah Bagh’s overall volume and appearance is strikingly similar to the Taj Mahal. Muslim Emperor Shah Jahan, the one who captured Daulatabad, and appointed Aurangzeb to subdue the Nazim Shahs, lived in Ahmednagar in the early seventeenth century while he was rebelling against his own father.  He knew Farah Bagh.  His visit to nearby Daulatabad in 1632, the same year as he started construction on the Taj Mahal seems more than coincidental, feeding speculation that the structure was inspiration for his later monument.

Tomb of Salabat Khan

The Tomb of Salabat Khan II (Architect of Farah Bagh) is a three-story stone structure situated prominently 13 km from Ahmednagar, visible from almost anywhere in the city.

It is believed that the structure was planned to be seven-stories but only three were built. The plan is octagonal consisting of simple massive stone arches.

The tombs are set in the base where Salabat Khan and one of his wives lie, surrounded by the stone foundation, reported to be 12 feet thick.  The 3 story arches rise to about 70 feet with a continuous gallery twelve feet wide all round, accessible by the narrowest of stairways, practically hidden in the wall.

Salabat Khan II, was a minister of the fourth Nizam Shah, Murtaza (1565-1588).  He followed his father as a statesman, appointed minister (Sardar) in 1579 after the mad minded Murtaza put to death his previous regent in a fit of suspicion and rage. In 1588, Murtaza was killed by his son and successor Hussain Nizam Shah II.  Salabat went on to complete the royal complex at Farah Bagh, and served the kingdom with distinction until his death in 1589.

 

Mandvi, Gujarat India February 2019

Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492 in the Santa Maria, a 3 masted wooden ship called a nau, about 58 ft long with a load capacity of about 100 tons (Gross Tonnage).

Meanwhile, over in the Indian Ocean, the carpenters at Mandvi, India were starting up a ship building industry, producing ships 4 times that size to transport dates, fish, timber and fruits between East Africa, the Persian Gulf and India, a journey of similar dimensions.  Mandvi’s ships are still making that journey.

The city itself was not founded until a century later, but the small port at the mouth of the Rukmavati River had already become a shipping landmark by 1498 when Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama set out to discover a Europe-to-India sea route.

Da Gama set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497, trying to find a route to the lucrative Indian spice trade without passing through the highly contested Mediterranean and the hazardous Arabian Peninsula.  Da Gama, 170 crewmen and 3 years-worth of groceries sailed in 4 ships down the West coast of Africa following known trade routes for about a month, then ventured into the open ocean for a 3 month, 6000 mile loop that landed them on the southern tip of the South African coast, the longest journey out of sight of land ever attempted.  By 16 December, the fleet passed the Great Fish River, South Africa, and sailed where no European had sailed before, into the Indian Ocean.

The flotilla worked its way up the east coast of Africa, stopping at Mozambique, then Mombasa.  These areas were Muslim, heavily reliant on trade and culture from the Gulf States and Southern Asia.  Da Gama noted with interest the products available along the route, especially the Asian spices pepper and cinnamon.  That was his meal ticket for a lucrative exploration, and he learned that Calicut (Calcutta) on the East coast of India was the place to find his market.  Unfortunately, he and his crews were poor guests.  They engaged in piracy, even pretended to be Muslim trying to bluff the local sultan with cheap trinkets.  They were quickly run out of port, exiting under fire from Mombasa.

As da Gama entered the friendlier port of Malindi, a Mombasa rival, he began to understand that his voyage in foreign lands would go a lot better if he had a guide.  He contracted the services of a pilot with knowledge of the Indian Ocean and the seasonal monsoons, which were sure to affect the voyage in June and July.

Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, variously identified as a Christian, a Muslim, an Indian, even the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid.  There is no clear documentation, but the Indian version identifies him as Kanji Malam, a Kutchi sailor from the Gujarat port town of Mandvi.  So, let’s go with that.  Vasco da Gama and his explorers left Malindi for Calicut on 24 April 1498 with a Mandvi pilot, and successfully opened the spice route that made Portugal a world power for the next century.

Mandvi, Gujarat, India is a modest town of 51,000, situated on the Arabian Sea in Northwest India’s Kutch district, an important site of the Indus Civilization dating back 5000 years.  At the beginning of the 16^th century, Mandvi survived on local fishing, shipbuilding and regional trade.  Agriculture was, still is, limited due to the unpredictable wet and dry seasons of the Kutch.

But the dynamics changed in the mid 16^th century when the local Jadedja kings recognized the strategic location of Kutch for trade.  They developed the capitol Bhuj and the port of Mandvi to serve the Silk Road – camel caravans to the East, maritime routes to the west.  Even pilgrimage services to Mecca.  In Delhi, the Indian Mughal Emperor Jehangir was so thrilled with the economics, he exempted Kutch from paying tribute, and the royal support grew stronger as Europeans gained control of other Indian ports, leaving Mandvi as one of the few Mughal shipping options.

Mandvi became a thriving trade center, developing sophisticated systems of commerce and banking.  Mandvi merchants owned a fleet of 400 vessels traversing the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean to ports in East Africa, Mozambique, Oman, the Persian Gulf and Calcutta, trading dates, cotton, rice, salt and Indian pottery for coffee, mats, horses, armaments, pearls, ivory, cloves and rhino hide from Africa/Arabia and, of course, spices from East Asia.

In addition to commerce, Mandvi learned the burgeoning art of diplomacy, being situated at the intersection of cultures, reliant on good international relations.  Their ship building industry thrived, the Boeing of India’s 18^th century.

In 1760, under ruler Rao Godji, Mandvi’s fortunes were secured with a formal dockyard for building and repairing of ships, whose employment stimulated population growth to 50,000, about where it is today.

The ships, called kotias, vahans or dhows, were made from local Sal wood, ranging in size from Santa Maria sized 100 tons up to 1500 tons, later 2000 tons, 50 to 170 feet long, typically manned by crews of 12 to 30.  Hand built, of course, fashioned from 60 foot logs into curves of keels, ribs, hulls and decks, secured with spikes, wedges, and dowels, waterproofed with cotton chinking and oil.

The ship construction, often taking two years, is managed by a single master builder, called the Gadiar, and a workforce of about 25 carpenters and laborers.   No bother about engineering drawings, the master lays out the keel on the gravel beach from a single tree trunk, directing the carpenters to saw, twist and shape the form to his liking.   Then the ribs, up to 500 lbs. each, bent, laminated, lashed and spiked to form the hull, to which the planks are bent, shaped and bolted.  Beams and decks are added, then a skin of laminated hardwood on all exposed surfaces, suitably chinked, caulked and oiled for a waterproof shell.  These ships survive the Ocean trade for 50 years.  The finished package sells for up to $1.0 million for the largest model.

The most remarkable aspect of the Mandvi shipbuilding industry is that it has lasted for 400 years. The tools have been updated – saw mills, chain saws, electric drills, and winches have replaced the hand tools.  Bolts, nuts and washers replaced the spikes.  Wood is now imported from Malaysia.  But the wooden boats are unmistakably 16^th century crafts, right up until they are fitted with navigation electronics and towed to Arabia for fitting with diesel engines.

There are about 1,000 dhows still in service in India.  Mandvi maintains most of them and builds a few new ones every year.  But piracy in East African and Gulf waters has favored larger, lighter and faster vessels, shrinking the market for wooden vessels for all but the few remaining dedicated routes.

Dominica Architecture – October 2018

The Architecture on Dominica is natural, local, functional and unsophisticated.  Also colorful, under-maintained and susceptible to nature’s most devastating special events.

Early 20th century Roseau

Columbus came to the Indies to make a profit.  Gold, silver, then sugar, bananas, tobacco and anything else with sales potential in Europe.  Security became an issue as loot was stockpiled, and the colonizers moved quickly to develop a lasting form of structure.  They chose local stone and local wood, grand resources at the time on Dominica.

Historically, the island was one of the last to develop in the Caribbean, thanks to the determined efforts of the native Kalinago.  But eventually, the Europeans oozed onto the island, fostered a European framework for settlement, then did their best to improve that which needed none.

Traditional Kalinago House Reconstruction

The Kalinagos were doing just fine without Eurostyle, living in balance with their environment for more than a thousand years, perfecting their own civilization based on native climate, geography and materials.  Houses need no climate control in Dominica.  Shade and breezes are nice, so traditionally structures were open, modest and expendable, rebuilt every few years as the weather cooperated or not.  Thatched roof dwellings survived into the 20^th century in the Capitol Roseau.

In their otherwise horrible misadventure, the French and British imposed “architecture” on the island, what is known now as Creole Caribbean Architecture.  Creole is the term describing mixed African and European heritage, especially related to the West Indies.  It applies to people, food, music and culture.  The local scene began to Creolize in the 18^th century as the Europeans expanded plantations, imported more Africans, and built using local stone and lumber, first for military and religious uses, followed by housing and commercial structures.

Fort Shirley, Cabrits National Reserve

The forts in the Caribbean are still the most impressive structures on the islands, no different on Dominica.  The French started military construction in violation of their treaty in the early 18^th century.  As the French and British traded assaults later that century, each of them added to the fortifications, eventually establishing defenses that successfully withstood France’s most aggressive attacks in 1795 and 1805.

The local stone, along with mortar made from shellfish, proved its value.  The complete inventory of Dominica’s 18^th century Home Depot consisted of local stone (river rock or volcanic) a selection of local hardwoods, and clams.

Roseau Commerical, 19th Century

Everything European, and then Creole, including streets and sidewalks were built of these local resources.  Churches quickly followed the forts, then houses, warehouses, and commercial buildings.  Unlike many of the other islands, Dominica never developed ostentatious plantation houses.  Plantations were typically run by overseers working for an absentee landlord.  Offsite investors wanted the money used for production, so the only significant European historic house in Roseau is the Catholic bishop’s house.  It’s a pretty nice Palladian-Georgian Victorian.

1784 Roseau Warehouse and Trading Post

Warehouses along the seafront in Roseau are significant stone structures, mostly dilapidated now, like most Dominican buildings, but still used actively with partial roofs and failing porches.

The most likable of all the heritage architecture are the commercial buildings.  Using the same stone and hardwood, the buildings reflect the island geography and lifestyle.  Cars have ruined their street charm, but their characteristic dignity is intact.

One and two story, sometimes 3, the structures typically have stone foundations and stem walls, beamed floors, and a finely crafted mortise and tenon roof.  Porches and verandas figure prominently.  Doors and openings are framed in solid stone arches, mostly shuttered.  Window glass is still optional.  Housing is often incorporated on the upper floors.  Detached housing was often a modest simplified version using the same materials.

Due more to poverty than preference, Roseau is fortunate to have dozens of these structures remaining, in spite of the occasional roof removal by nature, or collapse due to unsympathetic remodels, both of which are also prevalent in the town.

 

Operation Red Dog Dominica July 2018

You’re a lazy 30 year old redneck without a job, negative political convictions, living in Texas.  Your father gassed himself in a trailer park, your sister married at 13, your mom’s new husband beats her, you served a year in prison for raiding people’s vacation homes, you like guns and money, don’t like blacks or communists, grew up in the shadow of KKK’s hometown in Tennessee.  Your only real work experience is military except for bank fraud and selling pot, all of which ended badly, forcing you to compulsively lie about the experiences.  You read Soldier of Fortune magazine.  It’s 1979.

You judge yourself to be perfectly qualified to invade a country.

You are Mike Perdue.

He found the perfect partner, Wolfgang Droege. a German/Canadian, high school dropout, hate filled organizer who introduced Perdue to David Duke, the White Supremacist.  Operation Red Dog was off and running.

Perdue was inspired by the 1979 military revolution in Grenada, which itself was inspired by Castro’s success in Cuba.  The New Jewel Movement (NJM) in Grenada was led by Maurice Bishop, a London educated attorney/revolutionary, who had pestered Grenadian Prime Minister Eric Gairy since independence in 1974.  The People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) was proclaimed on 13 March 1979 after the People’s Revolutionary Army (PRA), a secret militia of NJM, launched an armed takeover of the radio station, police barracks, and other key locations while Prime Minister Gairy was on a trip to the US.  The PRG suspended the constitution and ruled by decree with Bishop as prime minister. All political organizations except the NJM were banned, and membership in the party was thereafter tightly controlled.

Naturally, Bishop was looking in his rearview mirror, aware that revolution had shallow roots, and that Grenada was under intense scrutiny from the UK, Russia and the US, all looking for an excuse to “set things right”.  Speculation bred that Gairy in the US was trying to raise his own army to regain the country.  Bishop baldly asked for help to withstand the (real or imaginary) mercenary forces, and Soldier of Fortune duly reported all the intriguing opportunities.

 

Dominica High Court of Justice.  One of the invasion target sites.

Mike Perdue took the bait.  He tracked down Gairy in San Diego, posed as a reporter, and set up a meeting at Gairy’s hotel.  Perdue dropped any pretense and embellished a story to Gairy about his skills, connections, and ambitions and the only thing he needed from Gairy was a contract to return him to power in Grenada.  Gairy was lukewarm and offered no contract, but Perdue was certain that he could be convinced.  He began planning the invasion of Grenada.

Perdue’s dream wandered to the possibility that he had opened the vault door.  In addition to a lucrative mercenary contract, Perdue imagined gaining government sanctions for a series of lucrative businesses, including cocaine manufacturing plants, casinos, hotels, brothels, gunrunning, even exploiting the country’s labor and natural resources for profit – a “crooks paradise” he would later admit.

Perdue knew Droege through the KKK and solicited his help to organize the invasion.  Droege was able to attract initial financing from Canadian sympathizers some of whom visited the island for reconnaissance.  In return, the investors were promised gunrunning approval and money laundering opportunities.  Perdue and Droege began to search for likely mercenaries for the mission.

 

Perdue wanted to set up a training ground for his mercenaries.  He knew the Caribbean well enough to understand that the sparsely populated island of Dominica would be an easy place to camp out.

Perdue felt that operation was progressing well, but as discussions with Gairy continued, their strategies differed.  Perdue liked a military style assault by boat while Gairy suggested the mercenaries enter the country as tourists and seize weapons locally from the police and army.  At the same time, Bishop’s Grenada government was experiencing internal conflict and blatant corruption that was gathering more international attention.

 

Dominica Police Headquarters

By the time he met with David Duke later in 1979, after some coaching by Droege’s Canadian friends, Perdue’s plan had changed.  Grenada was out, Dominica was the target, offering all the same benefits with much less trouble or resistance.  The island was conveniently suffering from deep poverty, a devastating hurricane David, a well-established militant resistance called the Dreads, and an ugly political struggle leaving a deposed Prime Minister, Patrick “PJ” John, wanting desperately to return to power.

In the summer of 1980, Droege spent two weeks on the island with syndicated investors from Las Vegas. Perdue and Droege subsequently approached John directly in Dominica.  In September 1980 Perdue and John agreed in writing to commence what they called “Operation Red Dog,” a violent coup that would place John back in charge of the government and in return, John would use his influence to assure military support for the coup, give Perdue license to use the island for a casino, drug smuggling, and money laundering, and the mercenaries would receive more than $8 million cash.  In turn, Perdue promised the Las Vegans access to all natural resources and development projects on the island.  By winter 1981, Droege and Perdue secured more than $100,000 in capital for the invasion.”

Perdue gathered 8 conspriators for his core militia.  They included right-wing North Americans, Caribbean leftists, white supremacists, neo-nazis, black revolutionaries, capitalists, socialists, a nightclub owner, a gunrunner, a gay vigilante, a nurse with Irish Republican Army connections, and a couple of country boys who thought they were working for the CIA.  On the island, Prime Minister John was organizing a guerilla force of disgruntled army veterans and Rastafarian rebels.

Mike Howell’s Boat Manana

Perdue’s plan was to travel from New Orleans to Dominica on a chartered boat, land on the island at night using rubber boats, meet up with John’s group and attack the police headquarters, courthouse, statehouse and political leaders and declare the new government.  They expected casualties.

In fact, Perdue’s entire plan appeared to be copied from the 1980 movie “The Dogs of War” (Christopher Walken, Tom Berenger), based on the book by Frederick Forsyth.

In February 1981, with a referral from David Duke, Perdue had arranged a captain and crew for the transfer.  The guy  backed out.  Perdue then walked down the pier, approached a local boat captain, Michael S. Howell. Perdue told Howell the CIA needed his boat for a covert operation.  Howell played along.

Howell, a Vietnam vet, was suspicious enough to contact the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).  The caper was busted, unbeknownst to Perdue.  ATF watched the whole show.

 

Dominica Capitol Building

Meanwhile, in March 1981, Droege’s buddy James McQuirter, the Grand Wizard of the Canadian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, thinking he would build his image, contacted a Toronto radio reporter and spilled the story.  The reporter, eager for a blockbuster, had 2^nd thoughts and went to the police.  Bust #2, this time with CMP and FBI.

With conspirators on the ground in Dominica scouting the plan and coordinating with John, Perdue and the mercenaries assembled automatic weapons, shotguns, rifles, handguns, dynamite, 5000 rounds of ammunition, and a Nazi flag.  All under the watchful eye of the ATF.

On April 25, after Dominica officials were advised of the coup by Canadian authorities, John was arrested.  It was international news.  Not to be dissuaded, Perdue told his guys “it’s too late to turn back.”

The next day, Droege and Perdue met with three facilitators in New Orleans to transport the weapons, set up by Captain Howell.  ATF agents, of course.  All was set for a departure the following night.  The 10 mercenaries rendezvoused with the 3 facilitators and all the weapons in a small neighborhood park.  The ATF agents managed to convince Perdue to put all the weapons in one van, and all the conspirators in another.

Off they went to the marina where they were greeted with spotlights and a substantial welcoming committee from the police and FBI.

Droege and Perdue received three-year prison terms.  The other mercenaries received sentences from 6 months to three years.  McQuirter was convicted in association with the coup, along with other murder and counterfeiting charges, was locked up until 1989.

One of the conspirators, 21 year old George Malvaney served his sentence, went on to get a college degree, worked for the state, headed up Mississippi’s oil spill clean-up efforts for the EPA and participated in recovery for Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Wolfgang Droege was shot dead in a suburban Toronto 14 April 2005.

“PJ” John was sentenced to 12 years in prison in Dominica.  The commander of the army, three army officers, and two civilians were also imprisoned.   John was pardoned by Prime Minister Dame Eugenia Charles of Dominica in 1990.  After his release, the former soccer star served as president of the Dominica Football Association, an affiliate of FIFA.

 

Dominica Agriculture July 2018

 

Being a tropical island with abundant water and an ideal climate, Dominica has tried to coax agriculture from every angle.  Nature has not accepted the invitation.

The native Kalinagos numbered about 100,000 in the Caribbean when Columbus arrived in 1493.  They had cultivated fruits and vegetables, harvested useful timber, and managed to leave the islands in their natural state.

Abandoned Banana Plantation

As early as 1632, Spain and France had thoughts of colonizing the island.  Spain was more interested in gold and silver.  Dominica had neither.  France was developing sugar plantation agriculture on neighboring Martinique and Guadeloupe, but Dominica’s rugged geography and the Kalinago natives were a deterrent for most of the 17^th century.

The island’s natural offerings were too plentiful to resist forever.  By 1690, French woodcutters set up timber camps to supply the French islands with wood.  The Brits followed.  Commercially valuable woods included mahogany, mahoe, and teak as well as a local hardwood called basalata, known as ironwood.  You can’t drive a nail in it.  Today, 60% of the island, 110,000 acres, is classified as forest, but less than 1000 acres produces commercial timber.  Most of the remainder comprises Dominica’s national parks, the showpiece for their “Nature’s Island” identity.

Ruins of 18th century Sugar Cane Factory

By 1725, the French began plantation farming on the low lying coastal areas, about 25% of the island’s land mass.  They planted sugarcane and coffee, often on the same plantation.  Eventually coffee, Arabian Coffee, became the predominant crop, well suited to Dominica’s soil and rainfall.  Coffee production increased from 684,000 pounds in 1743 to 1,585,000 pounds in 1753.  It was successful enough that the supporting slave population soon outnumbered the Europeans, and the advantage has held ever since.  Coffee continued as Dominica’s primary agricultural product for the next century, with exports to neighboring islands, Europe and the Americas, reaching 3,000,000 pounds at its peak.

Coffee Tree

Early in the 1800’s, coffee began to suffer from blight and coffee leaf miner.  A hurricane in 1813 wiped out much of the crop.  When slavery was abolished on Dominica in 1838, the industry collapsed from more than half of the island’s exports to a fraction – 10,877 pounds in 1877, and limping along into the 20^th century.

Sugar cane, never prosperous on Dominica in spite of persistent French efforts, met the same fate for the same reasons.  Dominica does, however, in true Caribbean fashion, has maintained a limited rum production, the only lasting remnant of the island’s sugar cane industry.

Rum recipes are rampant, and sacred.  Cuba claims priority with rum, but Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, Guyana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Dominica all produce rum with local character and enthusiasts.

Dynamite Rum – A local spice rum

Rum is distilled from sugarcane molasses and sugar by-products, aged in oak casks. The older and darker, the better, says Havana Club, though the many recipes, including the addition of caramel and local spices, throw off the simple comparisons.  Age is prominently noted on each label, if the bottle has a label.

Rum is the cultural lubricant of the Caribbean, like craft beer is to Oregon.  Dominica’s most official brand is Macoucherie, the only one distilled from local cane, raised on the Shillingford family’s colonial estate, producing 10,000 gallons annually.  Unfortunately, it shut down after Maria, still awaiting an announcement about recovery.

There’s nought no doubt so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion                              – Lord Byron

The unofficial brands are called cask rum or spice rum.  One bar in Roseau has at least 67 varieties of cask rum, each one specialized with banana, mango, guava, cinnamon, rosemary, absinthe, pepper, or other fruits and herbs.

The bad boy of the lot is called ‘bois bandé’, a medically “proven” aphrodisiac.  In Dominica, it’s illegal even to take the bark from the bois bandé tree.  It’s bad.

Moonshine Rum, “Mountain Dew”, is also illegal, but production is so prolific, the state does not bother.

Finally, Bay Rum is a popular international brand from Dominica, though not made from Sugar Cane.  It’s a men’s deodorant.

As coffee and sugar production withered at the end of the 19^th century, cocoa (cacao) and citrus fruits, mostly lime, became Dominica’s bread and butter.  European and American demand offered record agricultural harvests for cacao and limes in Dominica up to World War 1.

Dominican Agriculture was such a prized industry at the turn of the 20^th century that the Roseau Botanical Gardens was established to research, teach and market ornamental and commercial species from the all of the tropics.  Seeds and seedlings were considered the finest in the West Indies up to WW2.

Lauchlan Rose, a Scottish shipbuilder, turned his attention to limes in 1867.  He patented a process that preserved the juice without alcohol, much to the disappointment of sailors, who got rations of lime juice from the Royal Navy to fight scurvy and disease onboard.  At the time, Dominica was the world’s largest producer of limes, and Rose judiciously purchased 2 of the largest lime plantations on the island to supply his popular Rose’s Lime Cordial and marmalade.  The company converted a sugar cane factory to lime processing and another in 1921 to produce citric acid crystals for carbonated beverages.  4 more estates were purchased by 1958 when Rose was bought out by Schweppes, then Cadbury, who consolidated their operations in Ghana and Cameroon.  So much for Dominica’s lime industry.

The cacao plant thrived on Dominica, still apparent along roadsides.  The quality was high, and the UK commanded their colony’s entire production with an exclusive trade mandate.  That was good for Dominica, for a while.  As lime prices escalated to supply WW1, cocoa prices dropped because nonessential transport was restricted by Britain on behalf of the war effort, leaving Dominica with no market for its cocoa production.  After WW1, disease, falling world prices, and hurricanes in 1926, 1928, and 1930 wiped out the industry on the island.  At the beginning of the 1930’s Dominica agriculture was as depressed as the World economy.

Papaya

In the mid 30’s, a US ex-pat started a vanilla enterprise that quickly caught on among the small farmers, and boomed with the establishment of the Vanilla Grower’s Association.  Dominican vanilla had a profitable 10 year run until several simultaneous events brought on a quick death.  Hucksters began to sell look-alike White Cedar pods as vanilla beans and managed to undermine the market, synthetic vanilla was invented, and the association warehouse burned down along with 50,000 pounds of beans.  By 1960, the industry was no longer.

As early as 1931, Dominica was shipping commercial bananas to England. By 1934, Dominica had secured trade agreements with US and Canadian distributors, and the Dominica Banana Growers Association was formed.  By 1937, banana export ships docked every two weeks for cargos to North American and Europe. But WW2 put an end to that.  Ships were needed for the war effort.  Not until 1949 did banana exports pick up again.  When Geest Industries Ltd. bought out the local trader in 1954, banana export became Dominica’s main revenue.

Bananas grow all year round.  They propagate vigorously in the right environment, and can regenerate fruit in 9 months or so.  For Dominica, that meant even if a hurricane wiped out the entire crop, or a disease killed off all the plants, recovery was less than a year away.  It was Dominica’s territory.

Local farmers had never known such steady production.  Banana plantations spread through all the favorable areas, putting abandoned colonial estates back into production.  Government supported the farmers who collectively bargained for healthy prices, road maintenance, and adequate port facilities.  Bananas offered an economic and social profit previously lacking on the island.  The industry expanded through the 50’s and 60’s, peaking at a value of 80% of the islands exports.   Two generations of Dominicans benefited from the banana.

Banana leaf spot struck in 1978.  Many crops had to be destroyed and replanted.  Bananas grow on relatively soft stalks with barely enough structure to hold up the genetically- and fertilized-enhanced Robusta and Lacatan fruit varieties.  When Hurricane David hit in 1979, the trees were almost totally leveled.   Hurricane Allen hit the following year. Hugo in 1989, Luis in 1995 and Lenny in 1999 pretty much finished off the enthusiasm for bananas.

Tobacco

The Grower’s Association solicited international support to sustain the industry and took on considerable debt, with Government backing, to save Dominica’s prime industry.  As production, handling and shipping costs escalated in the 80’s, US companies Dole and Chiquita promoted their Africa and South America products.  In spite of high quality, Dominica’s bananas have not kept a competitive pace, now limited to less than 2% of the global market, and almost exclusively for domestic consumption.

The limited geography, transportation hurdles (one community of about 1300 was isolated just this weekend due to a road washout), disease, hurricanes and Dominica’s limited geography have proven to be persistent obstacles. The island still has about 9,000 farmers and 10 agricultural cooperatives, accounting for about 20% of GDP and 40% of the labor force.  Oranges, grapefruit, coconuts, vanilla, spices, cassava, pineapples, mangoes, and passion fruit all have a small production, but quantities are modest, and the production is limited to hand care operations.

Mango

Every few years a new or renewed proposal comes about.  In 2009, Hugo Chavez proposed a coffee factory using imported Venezuela beans, 2000 tons per year, then transitioning to Dominica beans as the plantations matured.  In 2015, the government budgeted $2 million to energize the local cocoa industry.  Banana recovery proposals come up annually.  Those proposals are still on the table.

In the meantime, after 300 years of trying for an agricultural champion, with remnants of the banana industry evident everywhere on the island, leftovers of citrus, coffee and vanilla farms, and amid ruins of the water driven 18^th century sugar cane factories, Dominica seems to have accepted that Nature is not going to provide a viable export, rather better to leave her alone and bring tourists to the Caribbean’s “Nature Island”.

 

Dominica and Europe June 2018

Unlike most New World countries, Dominica was a holdout from European colonization.  In the 15^th century, it was a Kalinago (Carib) stronghold, called “Wai’tukubuli,” meaning “Tall is her body” (Dominica’s local beer is called Kubuli).  The Kalinago were conquerors of the Antilles, having recently subjugated the Arawaks and Taino on Dominica and the adjacent islands.  Their Caribbean population at the time of European discovery numbered about 100,000 and their tribal system was several hundred years old at that time.  They had no need for supervision from a feathered helmet head.

Columbus landed but was unceremoniously convinced that his presence was not welcome.  Poisoned arrows and all.  Spanish ships sailed to the island over the next hundred years, but the Kalinago sent them packing.  The Spanish eventually gave up on Dominica since it offered no gold, but before they left for good, they managed to trash the Kalinago reputation with rumors of human atrocities.  Of course, this also worked to the Kalinago’s advantage since their “wild” status kept the other colonizers at bay.

The Europeans lusted after all New World territory, so it was just a matter of time before they got serious about Dominica. The English timidly made approaches.   Captain John Smith and his Virginia Colony stopped in Northwest Dominica at Portsmouth Bay in 1607 to take on some of Dominica’s plentiful fresh water.  They were on their way to establish Jamestown, the first English colony in North American. The British briefly moved to settle Portsmouth, but disease and native threats kept the settlement from taking hold.

In 1627, the opportunist prettyboy Earl of Carlisle claimed the island, a hollow advance since there was no attempt at settlement.

In 1632, the French ignored Carlisle’s proclamation, made their own claim: Compagnie des Îles de l’Amérique which covered all the ‘Petite Antilles’.  Their early logging and farming settlements in the North failed to accommodate the Kalinago’s use of the land.  In 1635, a local native war party canoed to the site of a French village, burned it to the ground and killed several Frenchmen.   The French Captain in charge retaliated by ransacking a Kalinago village and naming it after himself.  It’s still named after that putz.

French missionaries worked the island from about 1642, softening the eventual invasion. The Caribs were savvy enough to observe the threat of disease and military force on the other Caribbean islands.  In 1660, they negotiated a treaty with England and France whereby Dominica and St. Vincent would remain neutral territory.

But France and England continued to expand their logging and farming.  The Kalinagos were not about to give up.  The natives began a systematic attack on Europeans meddling on Dominica and other nearby islands. In a culmination of atrocities, in 1674, the Kalinago raided the British colony of Antigua.  Sir William Stapleton, the Governor of the Leeward Islands, waiting for an excuse to subdue the “cannibals”, launched an attack on a stronghold of the Kalinago a few miles north of the Dominican capitol Roseau.  80 Caribs were killed, others enslaved, the houses burned.  The village is still known as Massacre.

Following the Massacre incident, the Kalinago were rounded up and sent to a 232 acre reserve on the remote windward side of the island, property that the French found of no value.  English and French loggers continued harvesting Dominica’s prized timber into the 18th century.  A group of disgruntled French colonists abandoned neighboring Martinique in favor of less French Dominica in 1715, followed closely by their countrymen from the other neighbor, Guadeloupe.  French plantations soon were seriously growing coffee for which they imported West African slaves to the New World because the native Caribs were “uncooperative”.

France could resist no longer.  In 1727, M. Le Grand claimed charge of the French colony of Dominica.  Of course, nothing is ever really settled between England and France, so Lord Rollo invaded Dominica in 1759, and Britain officially gained control under the 1763 Treaty of Paris.  That same year, Britain established a legislative assembly, the Government of Grenada which included the islands of Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, Tobago, and Dominica, representing only the white population.

In 1768, Dominica established its own Legislative Assembly supervised from London, ruling a white minority of mostly French sympathizers and a large majority of unrepresented African slaves and native Kalinago.

When England found itself distracted with the American Revolutionary War in 1778, France invaded Dominica at the invitation of the locals and settled back in, about the same time that the African – Kalinago/Carib population decided that they did not like either of the European options.

Dominica managed to maintain nearly complete records of the incoming slave ships, indicating ports of embarkation, ethnic groups, date of arrival, and the number of slaves on board.  It is a unique record.  Between 1715 and 1808, Britain and France imported more than 100,000 slaves to the island, some of whom were transited to nearby island colonies.

Much to the relief of West Africans, the French halted slave trade to Dominica when they took the island back in 1778.  But when Britain regained control under the 1783 Peace of Paris, the trade started up briskly again at a rate of about 10,000 Africans per year.

At the end of the 18^th century, when Newton was busy inventing modern Physics in Cambridge, apparently the rest of Britain did not understand math very well.  England was running its colony on behalf of a few thousand Brits while disgruntled French, hundreds of hostile natives, and tens of thousands of freed, runaway and enslaved Africans were excluded from the government.  England was outnumbered.  The Colihaut Uprising was predictable, a well supported slave rebellion in 1785 and 1786.  The British eventually quashed the rebellion, but rebel freed slaves, known as Maroons, escaped to the mountains and agitated strategically until 1814 when Britain was forced to soften its discrimination.

In the meantime, France did not give it up.  They invaded in 1795 and again in 1805, both of which were repelled by the British.  Roseau was burned to the ground in the 2^nd attempt, but the British regrouped and sent France packing, never to return.  Except that France never really left.  The cars drive on the left side, and the laws are British, but place names are French, natives speak Creole, and the island is 80% Catholic.

In 1831, the Brown Privilege Bill conferred political and social rights on free African-Dominicans, but not Africans. Three coloreds (not blacks) were elected to the legislature. Slavery was abolished on Dominica in 1834.  14,175 slaves were released.  Britain paid the slave owners £275,547.  Slaves got a holiday.

A political party known as the Mulatto Ascendancy gained a majority in the House of Assembly in 1838.  It was the first and only 19^th century British Caribbean colony to have a Black-controlled legislature, although it was still subject to the House of Commons whose sympathies rested with the English plantation owners.   The Dominicans in the legislature, naturally, supported and advocated for former slaves on the island, threatening the authority and profitability of the English planters.  England intervened, causing another uprising in 1844.  In 1865, the colonial office replaced the legislature with a half elected-half appointed membership, then manipulated the proceedings to favor the planters. That caused more friction, so Britain simply eliminated the local rule and re-established the colonial government in 1896, wiping out the rights of the majority.

In 1903, Sir Heskeith Bell, the British administrator and friend of the Kalinagos, expanded the Carib Reservation to 3,700 acres and eventually allowed the native population to run its own affairs.  The Reserve re-established its communal land tenure system of pre-Columbian times. About 3,000 Kalinago live on the Reserve today.

The Caribbean colonies fought their way back to local rule as Britain’s global empires collapsed in the early 20^th century.  Dominica endured several versions of colonialism through the world wars, and gradually took charge of their own internal affairs, officially becoming an associated state of the United Kingdom in 1967.

The Commonwealth of Dominica declared independence in November 1978.

 

Photos of 17^th and 18^th century European buildings on Dominica – Fort Shirley (British from 1763), Dominican Capitol Roseau, and Newtown.  French masons used the nearby Roseau River stones to expertly craft houses, churches, commercial and government buildings starting in the late 17^th century in Roseau.  Lime mortar was manufactured using local coral.  Fort Shirley was constructed not far from where Columbus landed in northwest Dominica.  It was built by the British to protect the island from mostly French pirates, and was the stronghold where the Brits saved the island from French invasion in 1805.  It is constructed of local lava stone.

 

New World Dominica May 2018

Columbus ran into Dominica on his second trip to the New World.  He set sail from Cadiz, Spain on 24 September 1493 with 17 ships and 1200 men. Same as his first journey, the flotilla stopped at the Canary Islands, leaving 13 October on a more Southerly route, hoping for better winds.  He guessed correctly, making it to land in 3 weeks, arriving within sight of the island on 3 November 1493.  He named the island Dominica, Latin for Sunday, the day he arrived, and forever made confusion for the islands of Dominica and nearby Dominican Republic.

Columbus made history with his first voyage, crossing from the Canary Islands in 5 weeks to the “Indies” in the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria with a crew of 87.  The first trip ended up on Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), where the Santa María ran aground and had to be abandoned.  With only 2 ships, he made a deal with the local chieftain, Guacanagari, to leave 39 of his men behind in a settlement called La Navidad, then sailed off on January 16, arriving at Lisbon on March 4, and on to Palos, Spain March 15, 1493.

His return was a triumphal sensation, bringing back native Indians, plants and a sample of gold.  But the Spanish underwriters worked him over for losing one of the three ships and not bringing back more treasure, gold in particular.  Still, Columbus had little difficulty in convincing Ferdinand, Isabella and their financers to mount a second voyage, this one heavily commercialized, hoping to establish an agricultural industry, christianity and trading in what Columbus still thought was India, or maybe China.

Upon his second arrival in the Indies, Columbus discovered a lush tropical forested island set on volcanic peaks with sparse beaches, inhabited by a native population.  He visited the Northwest part of Dominica with a small garrison, but they were intimidated by the unfriendly natives.  They withdrew, headed North for Guadalupe, Puerto Rico, and eventually Hispaniola where he intended to link up with the remains of his 1492 crew.

Unfortunately, while Columbus was back home, his naughty sailors had angered the native Taino population by raping the women.  The natives slaughtered them to the last man.  Columbus got even by enslaving the tribe he judged responsible, a precedent for the generally horrible European treatment of the Native American population.

The 15^th century Dominican natives called themselves Kalinago, probably descendants of South American Kalina tribes from the Orinoco River in Venezuela who migrated to the islands about 1200 AD.   Kalinago language and culture evolved through trade and competition with other island populations such as the Igneri and Taino.  At the time of the Columbus visit, Kalinagos inhabited much of what is now the West Indies, having conquered, acquired or otherwise assimilated earlier neighboring cultures.  They had no use for Spanish colonizers, quickly and decisively delivering a “no thanks”, including poisoned arrows, to the 1493 visitors.

Caribs by Agostino Brunias, about 1770

Columbus botched their name to Canib and Carib, then went on to vilify the Kalinago culture because of their short hospitality. We criticize what we don’t know about.  In any case, his visit was certainly vivid since he named the Caribbean region after the tribe, undiplomatically and mostly inaccurately libeling them as “human flesh eaters”, for which the term cannibal was crafted.

Shakespeare even liked the term, inventing an unsavory, disheveled, wild half man named Caliban for a starring role in the Tempest written about 1610.

The fact is that the Kalinago/Caribs were the fiercest warriors and most astute diplomats in the West Indies, due largely to their skills as boat builders and sailors. They had control of many of the Southern islands after 200 years of warring, trading, and mating.  Like the Rome and Mongol empires, Kalinago learned to assimilate local cultures and honored the bravery of their conquered enemies, even adopting the local language over their South American origins (the last known speaker of Island Carib died in the 1930s).

In spite of Queen Isabel’s ruling to the contrary, by 1511, Spanish explorers had justified enslaving the Caribs because of their belligerence (heroism) and uncivilized (speculative) cannibalism.  The Kalinago reacted violently, keeping Spanish, French and English interests off of Dominica for the next 150 years, strategically using the island’s mountainous terrain to suppress European advances.

Finally in 1660, facing an uncontrollable wave of European invaders and their diseases, the Carib nation (Island Caribs) signed the Treaty of Saint Charles  with France and England agreeing to hand over all the islands except Dominica and Saint Vincent, which were to be honored as Carib reserves.

Fort Shirley, British Dominica from 1760’s

\That lasted until 1763 when the English ignored the treaty and annexed both islands, leaving a puny 233 acre reservation for the 400 or so Caribs left on Dominica.  In a moment of uncharacteristic guilt, England expanded the reservation to 3700 acres in the early 20^th century, on which about 3,000 Caribs survive today, the only remaining native Caribbeans.  They now again elect their own chief in traditional manner, a royalty with pedigree that rivals the English crown.

 

 

Dominica Hurricane Maria May 2018

Dominica is a Caribbean island 30 miles long, 15 miles wide with a population of about 70,000, now less the 10,000 citizens and expats who left the island after their homes were destroyed by Hurricane Maria in September 2017.  90% of all the buildings on the island were damaged.  The winds ripped off whole roof structures, flew them out into the ocean, then the flooding and landslides washed out whatever was left in their path.

Maria is regarded as the worst natural disaster on record in Dominica and Puerto Rico, the deadliest storm of the robust 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. Maria was one of three consecutive major hurricanes to hit the islands in two weeks, after Irma and Jose, each swiping through a slightly different path.  Not to mention Tropical Storm Erika, the next worse natural disaster, that ripped through Dominica in August 2015.

The hurricane reached Category 5 strength on the early morning of Monday, 18 September. 160 mph winds (257km/h), according to the US National Hurricane Centre (NHC), as it made landfall on Dominica at around 01:15 AM GMT, the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the island. Maria ploughed through Dominica, then moved North, increasing intensity to its peak over the eastern Caribbean at 175 mph (280 km/h), and proceeded on to blast Puerto Rico.

At least 31 in Dominica were confirmed killed by the hurricane with dozens still “missing” 8 months later.  The physical devastation was catastrophic for Dominica, among the poorest of the Caribbean Islands.

According to Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit the following day, “… we have lost all what money can buy and replace.”  The island was left with a total communication blackout, 80% electrical blackout, crippling housing damage, roads, bridges and highways washed out every few miles and the remaining infrastructure nonfunctional.  The seaport, airports, utilities, and almost every commercial establishment were shut down. Dominica’s pride, the lush vegetation had been 75% eradicated.

The UN estimated that there were 33,000 buildings on the island.  After 8 months, it’s easy to see that most buildings have not fully recovered.  Thousands of abandoned buildings, others patched with tarps.  Many tenants just ignore the damage, run their car repair shops or sell cosmetics without a roof.   Still others arguing with their insurance companies, like the hotel we are assigned that has no hot water, windows missing, ceilings collapsed, paint blistered, floor tile peeling, debris in the courtyard, but open on Bookings.com, ready for your tropical vacation.

I work for Engineers Without Borders, who have contracted with the UN to provide quality control for installation of the $3 million worth of building materials that China donated.  Germany, UK, Israel and India have also made significant contributions. The UN has at least 4 agencies here distributing the goods.  It’s complicated.  10 other NGO’s are on the island competing for materials with each other and the locals.  Home Depot has been contracted to deliver more containers filled with supplies, currently the best source.  Our challenge is to coach the installers so that the materials stay on the island next time the wind blows.