Who brought breadfruit to the Caribbean?

Answer 1

Breadfruit was brought to the Caribbean in the eighteenth century as a staple part of the slaves' diet. Originally, the tree grew in the Polynesian islands, where it was called "ulu." The slaves didn't like the fruit, however, and refused to adopt it as a staple part of their food supply until years after abolition. Today, breadfruit is a standard element in local dishes.

Captain Bligh and his crew first tried to import the tree in 1787 from Tahiti. According to one source, however, the crew rebelled when the seeders soaked up more than their share of drinking water and Bligh rationed his men's water supply. During the rebellion, the dissenters set Bligh, his loyalists, and the trees adrift in the ocean. Bligh and his followers survived to make the trip again successfully in 1793.

Answer 2

The three main types of breadfruit found in the Caribbean are the yellow heart, the white heart, and the prickly breadfruit, more commonly known as chataigne. ('Chataigne' is the French word for 'chestnut,' and the fruit was certainly given its name because of its similarity, in both taste and smell, to the chestnut of the temperate countries.)

The breadfruit is believed to be native to the area extending from New Guinea through the Indo-Malayan Archipelago and Western Micronesia. The early English explorers who discovered breadfruit in the early 18th century were so impressed with its versatility as a food that after several periods of famine in Jamaica between 1780 and 1786, plantation owners in what was then the British West Indies petitioned King George III to import seedless breadfruit trees to provide food for their slaves. Captain William Bligh made his first voyage to Tahiti in 1787 with a cargo of over 1,000 potted breadfruit plants, but on this expedition his crew staged a mutiny and he was forced to try again to introduce breadfruit to the Caribbean. His second attempt was a successful one, and in 1793 the HMS Providence delivered 600 plants from Tahiti to St. Vincent and Jamaica. The shipment also included the seeded breadfruit, chataigne, which had been picked up during a stopover at Timor, where Bligh had travelled with the remaining members of the crew after the mutiny. The director of the St. Vincent Botanical Garden was a great advocate of the new crop and distributed plants to the Leeward and Windward Islands and the Bahamas. Most of the breadfruit in the Caribbean and elsewhere in the tropics originated from those few early introductions. The French also brought breadfruit to their Caribbean colonies: Martinique and Cayenne received a variety from Tonga via the Pamplemousse Botanical Garden in Mauritius.

When breadfruit first reached the Caribbean, the slaves refused to eat the foreign food and it was instead fed to animals. Only years after abolition did Caribbean people begin to eat it themselves.

Answer 3

Chistopher Columbus