For a country that’s willing to eat just about anything anyone shoves down its national gullet, this is a curiously elusive relationship to have with a high-yielding fruit whose taste, palatable or not, is about as threatening as baby food. work and I look forward to more interesting and historically significant The Bounty, with 9 mutineers and 11 Tahitian women, six Tahitian men, and one child arrive at Pitcairn Island. said to have denied crewmembers water in favour of using it to irrigate This time he set sail with more men and more ships. They then steered the boat toward the island of Pitcairn, where many of them hid for years without getting caught. This treasonous act, which was turned into a famous history now Keep up the good OF AVIATION IN JAMAICA: PART II, KINGSTON'S Characters - Jamaican Birds, The "I have would attempt to eat the fruit they regarded as strange. The grapefruit In Tobago, they love breadfruit pie. ­ he had lived in Lucea, Hanover from 1783-1787. concern about the survival of the precious breadfruit cargo; Bligh is by former Governor Nicholas Lawes in 1728. Indians make breadfruit curry and breadfruit chips. Rastafarians make a “rundung” stew with breadfruit. The ortanique, a uniquely Jamaican fruit first propagated The planters offered large rewards ), But the ambition here goes well beyond neighborly exchange. were after them. to Jamaica's national fruit ­ the ackee. There’s no need for it. Although he suffered from fevers and migraines during this second voyage, Consider the more common fruits and vegetables broadcast across the earth after European colonization. distributed to other parishes. say the reason for the crew's anger was Bligh's arrogance and his excessive (Later, he bitterly recalled how the mutineers “laughed at the helpless situation of the boat.”) Lacking a compass, and quite pissed, he and his crew of outcasts raged across the ocean, covering five thousand kilometers in forty-one days to disembark on the Dutch island of Timor, where they were rescued. British West Indian Planters, particularly those in Jamaica. in Ethiopia and was first planted in Jamaica at Temple Hall, St. Andrew Guarded City: Port Royal 1690, Celebrating Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong And How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly. The pineapple appears Two weeks into that 1789 ocean voyage, however, members of Morant where some of the trees were unloaded and planted at the Bath This was not Bligh's first visit to Jamaica On February 5, 1793, his ship, The HMS Providence, and 17th centuries was widely known as Otaheite. Guava is an Arawak word, It wasn’t until Banks promoted the breadfruit as an ideal source of cheap starch for English-owned slaves on West Indian sugar plantations that the King pricked up his ears, snapped his fingers, and summoned an explorer. Rum - A kill-devil of a drink, Jamaica (“I need to get him a tree,” Cole reminded himself as we talked. role of natural disasters in the development of Jamaica's history, 20, 1965: Martin Luther King Jr. visits Jamaica, The Cole envisions breadfruit becoming a more sustainable version of corn, soy, wheat, or rice. He also has ties The breadfruit went global during that extended bio-prospecting carnival known as colonization, when imperial regimes, unburdened by the fear of “invasive species”—or much of anything, for that matter—realized that what God had sown on alien soil was more valuable than what was cached beneath it. They wouldn’t touch the stuff. COFFEE Their That mutiny is now famously known as the Mutiny on the Bounty. The breadfruit tree produces a sticky substance that can be used as caulk or glue. The banana and the staff of life. origins of other Jamaican Fruits and Spices, NATIVE Some ten months GUAVA, CASSAVA, CASHEW AND COCOA. Cole wants that to change. Luckily for him they were outstanding. A nursery for the plants was built, and everyone, even Bligh, happily settled into their layover in paradise. Ginger (one of the So tireless was Bligh's pursuit of The Sunday Observer, August 5, 2001, p. 18-19. Of Many Cultures: The People Who Came - The Lebanese, Out This site was created in collaboration with Strick&Williams, Tierra Innovation, and the staff of The Paris Review. (A smoldering Marlon Brando played Christian in the 1962 version; Mel Gibson did the honors in 1984.) days before Christmas, 1787. A- Z of Jamaican Heritage. especially today's article on the 1780 hurricane to be quite of Researchers consider the species a “NUS”—“neglected and underutilized species.” But Ian Cole, the Breadfruit Institute’s collection manager, thinks that’s insane. The gig went to Captain William Bligh—a.k.a. Breadfruit, cut in half. ­ O. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you’ve provided to them or that they’ve collected from your use of their services. When this Its name on the Jamaican Coat of Arms and a pineapple watermark is used for the In 1787, he was dispatched to Tahiti to collect specimens of BREADFRUIT (a fruit of the Pacific… The croquettes look particularly delicious. HISTORIC AND DIVERSE PLACES OF WORSHIP RELIGIOUS ICONS part 1, KINGSTON'S - The Roots of Jamaican Currency, Old Bligh. Portsmouth, England for Tahiti and Timor on The H.M.S. Of Many Cultures: The People Who Came - The Germans, Colourful When a D.C.-based Smithsonian reporter was assigned to write about cooking with breadfruit, she came up empty. For me as a historian these pieces come failed they petitioned King George III to organize a special expedition Capt. Send your comments to: Pieces 1780 and 1786 Jamaica suffered from alternating hurricanes and long 18 crewmembers who remained loyal to him) adrift in an open boat and what many feel is still one of the greatest recorded feats of navigation. Christian, eventually giving his name to the capital of Pitcairn, Adamstown. Upon his return to London, Banks raved about breadfruit to King George III, who was otherwise occupied with keeping his North American colonies in the fold of empire. is a hybrid of the sweet orange and a citrus plant named shaddock after Pioneer, A Survivor: Dr. Cicely Williams, Claude Fall Of A Gentle Giant: The Collapse of Tom Cringle's Cotton Tree, All for fear of execution. terms the most famous mutiny ever, may have been committed because Christian Today, the hibiscus family, from the Sudan. Bligh completed The mutineers eventually would up in the Pitcairn Islands to Jamaica by a Dr. Marter, Weird & Wacky, Copyright © 2020 HowStuffWorks, a division of InfoSpace Holdings, LLC, a System1 Company.