Columbian Exchange

AJ Drew

AJ Drew

Going to focus on ghost pepper just because it makes a great example.  It has been cultivated in India for much time.  Most of us know the generics are in part from the Americas.  All capsicums are.  Thing is, how did it get to India?  How did other capsicums wind up all over the world?

Of course we had the Columbian Exchange when plants went from the New World to the Old World in great numbers.  But I -thought- that the area where capsicums came from was Spanish dominated.  India and many other places where a lot of peppers are found were under British rule.  The brits loved running around the world, growing things, and shipping them back to Europe.

It could be as simple as the Brits purchased seed stock from the Spanish, but I am thinking there is a part of this story I am missing.

Any ideas?
 
I read a cool thread on here about how ppl from India would work as indentured servants in Trinidad and the theory is that maybe 7s share a common genealogy with the Chinese half of Bhuts and Nagas. But even going beyond that, history as we know it is pretty limited. The canon of historical events is focused through a Western European lens. Explorers from Asia and Nordic lands got around quite a bit during Colombus's time and before. Who knows what goods they were trading in?

Also, as much as e tend to perseverate on chiles, there is little on world history that has to do with produce. That's just a fixation that most historians don't seem to share with us.

Finally, the longer time I spend following biology, the less faith i have in modern science. These jokers are so convinced that Capsicum of a New World thing, but how do they know that? Folklore in India that pre-dates what we know of Western colonization there makes mention of chiles. It seems to me that biologists change their collective minds on taxonomy and such all the time, and disagreements between biologists are pretty much constant. I'm not sure I'm going to take the New World theory on Capsicum as the Gospel. I guess I'm just a secular guy.
 
AJ Drew said:
Going to focus on ghost pepper just because it makes a great example.  It has been cultivated in India for much time.  Most of us know the generics are in part from the Americas.  All capsicums are.  Thing is, how did it get to India?  How did other capsicums wind up all over the world?

Of course we had the Columbian Exchange when plants went from the New World to the Old World in great numbers.  But I -thought- that the area where capsicums came from was Spanish dominated.  India and many other places where a lot of peppers are found were under British rule.  The brits loved running around the world, growing things, and shipping them back to Europe.

It could be as simple as the Brits purchased seed stock from the Spanish, but I am thinking there is a part of this story I am missing.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
 
My first thought is the British East India Company, as far as seed trade/movement around the globe - certainly with Spanish/Arab assistance along the way.  
 
Bicycle, I ran into the thought about mythology too.  In particular, the word naga for the snake like demon thing.  Lots of references to peppers there but at the time of the mythology, supposedly no naga peppers existed.  It think this might be up there with Jewish artifacts in Newark Ohio earth works or cocaine in Egyptian tombs.  Not willing to go with aliens yet, but it is coming close.  Ah, the pepper aliens.
 
Well, the portuguese people were sailing to India when they ended up in Brazil back in 1500. Maybe before they slayed some natives and took Paubrasilia trees they got some peppers to india 
 
btw, I'm not by any means being aggressive lol
 
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