American Food Plants in the Canary Islands

AMERICAN FOOD PLANTS IN THE CANARY ISLANDS IN THE ISTH AND 16TH CENTURIES One of the most significant things to happen following the Discovery was the introduction of New World plants for human nourishment. However, few are aware of the reverse process, which is the significance of the Islands as a place of introduction of American plants, from where they could reach Europe. In addition, the role that the Canary Islands may have played in the introduction of certain crops in America (sugar cane, bananas, grapevine, etc.) has been mentioned frequently and repetitively. In the 18th century, progressive individuals like Alonso de Nava Grimón y Benitez, who established the La Orotava Plant Acclimatization Garden in 1791, and organizations like the Royal Societies of Friends of the Country-best represented by Viera y Clavijo's positive outlook-insisted on the quantity and significance of American crops in the Canary Islands. During this same period, the first economic and social censuses were conducted, providing a reliable means of determining which plants were grown in each town or island and in what amounts. However, prior to this century, we need to search for references about the cultivation of American plants in notarial records, descriptive texts, or chronicles, as well as in any other work that even somewhat provides us with an idea of the situation. And since the first centuries of European colonization of the Archipelago-the ISth, l6th, and 17th centuries-will be the focus of the current work, which has been prepared with an interdisciplinary perspective, it is this gap that we attempt to fill in with it. Given that the Conoru Islands were situated alono the road to the Americos. it's probable that the introduction of American flora there was more complicated than one may have imagined. The Canary Islands served as a stopover port for supplies on route from the Iberian Peninsula to America; nevertheless, the Canary Archipelago was not used to return from America to Europe. The preferred path was frequently found farther north, passing through the Portuguese North Atlantic islands of Madeira and Azores. Only a few ships made it from the New Continent to the Canary Islands following a storm or a mechanical issue. According to Campo (1993, pp. II-17), it is probable that the majority of American plants entered the Archipelago legally from the Peninsula, namely from Cádiz or Seville. Nevertheless, the historical tracing that we provide By doing this research, we will be able to determine whether or not this claim is true and create a potential categorization of the crucial phases involved in the introduction of Americon plants to the Canary Islands. Furthermore, since the fifteenth century, we have had to distinguish between the information provided by official technical and medical documents (cultural, medical, and pharmaceutical) that were often skeptical of novel treatments and crops, and the texts that demonstrate that the Canarian population started utilizing American plants (Morales Padrón, 1970, p. 34), albeit occasionally only as ornaments (López Díaz, 1991). Cochineal, tobacco, and fistula cane, for instance, are listed as products used to collect debts that US citizens have with the Canary Islands or the Peninsular States. These priceless goods, whose economic worth was comparable to that of gold, silver, and pearls, were unloaded in the island ports (Lobo Cabrera 1990, p. 250). Owing to the variety of information, the approach that has been selected is a search throunn the wholo literature on twove niants that aro native tol America and were already well-established in the Canary Islands during the eighteenth century. Avocado, amaranth, sweet potato, pumpkin, chayota, sunflower, guava, bean, millet, potato, pepper, and tomato are some of these plants (trees or fruits). In addition to being found in the Canary Islands, there are unquestionably a large number of other American plants that, either directly or indirectly, have nutritional value. Examples of these include peanuts, papaya, prickly pears, tropical pineapple, and other less well-known fruits like mamey and passionflower. We are compelled by the need for synthesis to restrict the investigation to the twelve species mentioned; yet, we will not overlook any noteworthy statements on any food plant found in America throughout the examined era. The twelve species under research provide a representative sample large enough to allow for the production of findings that are deemed appropriate. Plants from all throughout the American Continent are included in the selection of plant species. The purpose of this election was to attempt to identify some distinctions between the various regions of the New World. This allowed us to determine if commerce between the Canary Islands and any of the regions was higher, even if it was informal or overlapped. North America, Mesoamerica, the Andean zone, the Amazon basin, Orinoco and Paraguay, and lastly the Caribbean region are the typical divisions of the Continent.