Bittersweet Isles
O
nce the Spanish conquistadors found the mainland empires with
their treasures and people, they lost interest in the Caribbean.
They stayed long enough in those islands to sweep up what gold they
could, whether accumulated ornaments or placer tailings, and wiped
out most of the natives in the process. They needed food and found the
local starch staple, manioc, noxious and inedible.* Grain cultivation
never entered their mind: the Indians were wanted for mining, and the
Spanish had not come to be farmers. So they imported food from Eu
rope—very expensive—and brought in cattle to pasture where men
had once hunted and fished. In those early years, the conquistadors
went hungry; "on the edge of famine," says Pierre Chaunu. In the next
stage they became the biggest meat eaters in history.^1
* Chaunu speaks of "manioc, the mediocre, the dangerous pan cazabe ou cazabi. The
shift from the traditional bread to manioc flour proved catastrophic"—L'Amérique, p.- Manioc, or cassava, contains a cyanide-developing sugar that primitive peoples have
learned to eliminate by a complex process of grating, pressing, and heating. Presum
ably the Caribbean Indians were not telling the Spanish how to do this.
f Ibid. Many of these cattle ran wild and offered the prospect of easy game to inter
lopers and buccaneers. The buccaneers got their name from the grill (bocan) they
used to smoke meat, both for themselves and for sale to passing vessels. (My French