Anthony Wilder
[Editor's Note] Many people are used to drinking coffee every day, but the amazing capital exploitation and colonialism surrounding the coffee industry are little known. Anthony Wyer, a British historian and coffee trader, uncovered the mystery woven by clues such as alchemy, politics, science, poetry, slavery, etc., link the past of the coffee colonial era with its important role in the world today, and bring together the secrets hidden behind the tiny coffee beans and the five hundred years of coffee history into the "Secret History of Black Gold".
Authorized by the publishing house, this article excerpts the interesting stories between Napoleon and coffee in the book, as well as the joys and sorrows of the French emperor during his exile in Saint Helena .
"Black Gold: A Secret History of Coffee", written by Anthony Wilder, translated by Zhao Yifeng , Peking University Press , April 2022
1502 On May 21, 2022, a Portuguese fleet commanded by Captain João da Nova was sailing northward through the vast southern Atlantic waters, and unexpectedly a piece of land appeared in front of him.
João da Nova Galician Ministry of Culture Official Website Photo
Fleet docked along a small bay with fresh water, the only beach on a 47 square mile-sized island that was once unknown and covered with cliffs on all sides. Da Nova named this newly discovered place Saint Helena - that was the name of the day of the mother of Constantine the Great.
Sailors conducted a simple search of the island and found that it was an uninhabited Eden without any large predators and toxic insects. The steep mountains are covered with thick volcanic ash soil, covered with ebony , rubber tree and fruit trees. According to the customs practices of the sailors at that time, they left some goats on the shore before leaving there and returning to their homeland so that future visitors could enjoy.
About the same year, in Yemen , a new drink made from the fruits of plants native to Ethiopian appeared, and this is coffee. Coffee then quickly became popular in the Islamic world. By the standards at that time, the consumption of coffee was already very large. In 1511, there was a fierce conflict over coffee in Mecca . By the end of the 16th century, European merchants and travelers carefully embarked on an expedition within the Ottoman Empire, and reports on this "Arabic wine" were spread to the West. Soon, Europeans also began to drink coffee. By the 17th century, coffee had become very popular in Europe, especially in the UK, France and the Netherlands. The European maritime powers understood that if they began to grow coffee in their new tropical colonies, they could weaken Yemen's port of Muha's monopoly on coffee trade. So, first of all, the Dutch , followed by the French, managed to get the seedlings of coffee in Yemen. The British East India Company was unwilling to accept it and managed to get some seeds from Muha and brought them to St. Helena in 1732. The seeds grew unattended there and were not rediscovered until recently.
By the mid-18th century, European colonies dominated the world's coffee trade, using plantation products usually operated under slave labor or similar conditions to meet the country's urgent coffee consumption needs. Meanwhile, St. Helena, the world's most remote island, played a huge strategic role in Britain's efforts to maintain its Eastern hegemony. Due to its remote location, many important figures returning to Europe from Indian colonies and other places have visited this island. This island was also regarded by the British government and became the most suitable place for Napoleon, who was defeated in Waterloo in 1815, to be exiled.
Scenery of St. Helena wiki map
Today, one of the rarest and most expensive coffees in the world comes from St. Helena, , a coffee produced by the East India Company in 1732. The island is still a piece of British overseas territory and an inappropriate remains of the declining "Sun-Don't Set" Empire.
St. Helena Coffee Tree St. Helena Coffee Official Website
St. Helena Coffee has been appreciated by tasting experts, but the natural environment of this island has deteriorated since it was discovered by people. The goats left by Da Nova have ravaged the trees there, the local ebony has almost disappeared, and other human-made disasters have stripped the thick surface soil on the island, exposing the rugged volcanic rocks in broad daylight, forming the appearance of most of the island. After the opening of Suez Canal , the island lost its strategic importance - there was no airport there, and at the same time, it could only take a heavy armored ship.
The black and gray basalt stone of Saint Helena witnesses the mysterious stories of many major events and important figures in world history.
Napoleon's residence in St. Helena Longwood Manor Lisa Strachan Picture
When he was in St. Helena, although Napoleon was not very interested in food, he often drank coffee. I drink coffee every morning at 6 o'clock and after lunch at 10 o'clock. When the dinner began at 8 o'clock was about to end, he always had to drink coffee from a silver pot poured into his valuable cups , which Napoleon ordered the Sevre Porcelain Factory in 1806. The cups are small and blue, decorated with gilded hieroglyphs and images from Vivant Denon's "Scenes of Egypt". Bingham noticed the cups, saying: "The desserts were served in Sevre porcelain plates, served with gold knife and spoon. Those coffee cups were the most beautiful cups I've ever seen, each with an Egyptian picture on each of them, and the portrait of a celebrity on the shallow plates. In France, it costs 25 guinea- to buy such a cup with a shallow plate."
Porcelain plates made by Sevre Porcelain Factory 1804-1805, the Egyptian temple scenes were drawn for Vivant Denon in the plate. The British Museum's collection
Napoleon, who has always been generous, gave a set of cups to Mrs. Malcolm - her husband was the one who took over Admiral Coburn's position as Admiral Coburn. Bage Balcomm, accompanied by Napoleon, visited Maréchal Bertrand, an assistant who lived near the residence of the priest of St. Matthew, to taste the "scented" coffee cooked by La Pages, but he did not mention where that coffee was produced. At an impromptu picnic lunch party at Sir William Dofton's home, Napoleon brought cold pies, canned cooked meat, cold turkey, curry-cooked meat, dates, almonds, a very delicate salad, and coffee. Mrs. Grinterry tasted the coffee and felt "sorreciduous and difficult to swallow."
Coffee cup made by Sevre Porcelain Factory was once a gift from Queen Mary Louise, the second wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, to her maid. The National Museum of History
The Pleasant Mountain is located in the Sand Bay area of St. Helena Island, surrounded by 500 yards of bamboo fence, which is where the coffee trees from Yemen in the 1730s were first planted. It is easy to speculate that Sir William would tell Napoleon that he could see the place where the coffee trees were planted in the house he lived, and he might even prepare some coffee for Napoleon from the bamboo fence.
However, because there are no experts and equipment for processing coffee on the island, the jazz coffee is likely to be processed poorly, which leads to the "sour and hard to swallow" smell that Mrs. Grintri complained about. Interestingly, Mrs. Grintry actually complained in front of Napoleon that the coffee tasted badly. If it were Napoleon himself, she would not have been so elegant, nor would she hurt her father's hospitality, unless there was any other reason involved. No one knows what happened in the picnic on the grass on the edge of Mount Pleasant.
This happened in October 1820, shortly after Napoleon suddenly became interested in gardening and solemnly planted several coffee trees.Those trees could not stand Longwood's endless wind and died quietly.
"Napoleon's Exile in St. Helena", by Franz Josef Sandman, in 1820, the collection of the Mamesong National Castle Museum,
Napoleon must have started drinking coffee shortly after he became an adult. When he pursued his first wife, Josephine, in 1795, he provided Napoleon with coffee produced in her house on Martinique's real estate. The Tasher family, who was born in Josephine, has owned their own plantations there since the 17th century. They first planted sugar cane, and then started planting coffee after Gabriel Cliou passed it on to that island. There were 150 slaves in the plantation, all of which were treated well, but that plantation did not bring income to Josephine because the island was controlled by the British when she was dating Napoleon. Perhaps influenced by Josephine, Napoleon restarted the French slave trade in 1802.
Of course, in addition to being influenced by Josephine, Napoleon was also under pressure from the demands of Nantes , Bordeaux , Marseille and other regions to allow slavery. Moreover, Napoleon saw from the example of the San Dominican rebellion how painful economic losses would be caused by the loss of colonies, which is also one of the reasons.
However, in the case of St. Helena, it is precisely the practice of maintaining colonial rule that has brought about a painful loss. Although St. Helena is still owned by the East India Company, the British king took over St. Helena during Napoleon's exile and paid a considerable increase in expenses to keep the island highly alert. The respected Governor Wilkes was given a pension and sent away, with Admirals Coburn and Malcolm serving as interim governors, until the king's chosen Governor Sir Hudson Lowe arrived in April 1816. Hudson Lowe was taciturn, boring and boring, and his days in the exile were like years for him. But Montholon, one of the so-called four evangelists who accompanied Napoleon to the exile, accompanied Napoleon to the land of exile,—the other three were Bertrand, Gourgaud and Rath Cass—had written: “An angels from heaven will not make us like the new governor.” In fact, no matter what the merits of Hudson Lowe had, he was not an angel. As relations with Napoleon deteriorated rapidly, he was immersed in the matter of defending his control over Napoleon's custody-people called the place "Hudson Castle." He would wake up in the middle of the night and write down new ideas on how to strengthen safety precautions. He faced Napoleon, a bitter, boring and ruthless opponent in his heart. Napoleon once said in December 1818: "No matter what others say, I can make the governor's reputation greatly increase, or make him famous... No matter what I say, whether he is rude or wants to poison me, everyone will believe it."
Editor-in-charge: Zhu Zhe
Proofreading: Shi Yan
