Even the name, hemileia vastatrix, sounds monumentally ominous, and it continues as a plague to this day. Called "rust" because of its initial yellow-brown stain on the under-side of the coffee leaf, it eventually turns black, producing the spores of pale orange powder that rub off and spread. The blotches gradually enlarge until they cover the entire leaf, which then falls off. Finally, the entire tree is denuded and dies. The first year it appeared, the rust did substantial damage in Ceylon, but then it seemed to go into remission, alternating between good and bad years. Scientists from all over the world advised the beleaguered coffee growers. The planters tried chemicals. They tried stripping the diseased leaves. Nothing worked.
Various theories held that the rust was caused by the shade trees (dadap) commonly in use, or that too much dampness encouraged the disease. In fact, it does appear that the fungus thrives in moist environments. The real villain, however, was monoculture. Whenever man intervenes and creates an artificial wealth of a particular plant, nature eventually finds a way to take advantage of this abundant food supply. The coffee tree is otherwise rather hardy. Plants containing mind-altering alkaloids such as caffeine and cocaine almost all grow in the tropics. Indeed, one of the reasons the tropical rain forest provides so many unique drugs is that the competition for existence is so fierce, there being no winter to provide a respite from the battle for survival. The plants developed the drugs as protective mechanisms, just as tropical poison dart frogs have chemical self-protection. The caffeine content of coffee probably evolved as a natural pesticide to discourage predators. Nonetheless, with acres and acres of coffee trees growing, it was inevitable that some nasty little bug or fungus would specialize in the bonanza.
"Now it seems but a question of time for Coffee to be as great a failure in Java as it has turned out to be in Ceylon," wrote Edwin Arnold in 1886. "In many estates the trees display nothing else but branches full of berries, which are still fresh-looking and green, but have become partially black and have dropped off." Arnold was correct. That bastion of traditional coffee soon switched primarily to tea.
One effect of the coffee rust epidemic was a frantic search for more resistant coffee species than the prevalent arabica strain. Coffea liberica, found native in the African country of Liberia, seemed promising at first, but it too succumbed to the rust, yielded less than Coffea arabica, and never gained in popularity, despite producing an acceptable cup. Coffea canephora, chewed by Ugandan natives, "discovered" by whites in the Belgian Congo and named "robusta" by an early promoter, turned out to be resistant and prolific, and it grew at lower altitudes in moister, warmer conditions. Unfortunately, this hardy strain of coffee tasted harsh in the cup and contained twice the caffeine of arabica. Nonetheless, it was destined to play an important role in the future.[15]
The American Thirst
Despite the devastating effects of hemileia vastatrix, however, the world coffee supply would continue to grow, stimulated in large part by the seemingly bottomless American coffee cup. For while the British sipped tea, their rebellious colonies gulped a stronger black brew, destined to fuel the remarkable American entrepreneurial spirit. By the end of the nineteenth century, the United States would consume nearly half of the world's coffee.
Independent scholar and investigative journalist Mark Pendergrast spent three years researching and writing UNCOMMON GROUNDS. His other books include FOR GOD, COUNTRY AND COCA-COLA and VICTIMS OF MEMORY. He lives in Vermont. To visit his homepage, click here. Interested readers can click here to contact him.
Notes *
*a - Most Brazilian coffee is still stripped rather than selectively harvested, then "dry" processed. Much has changed, however. Mechanical harvesting is now possible on flat Brazilian farms. Different types of trees now grow there. Finally, many huge fazendas have given way to smaller lots.
*b - Some consumers got used to the Rioy flavor, however, and came to prize it.
*c - Coffee was a "monoculture" as an export crop. In fact, colonos frequently grew subsistence crops between the coffee trees.
*d - Indeed, Francisco Schmidt, a German immigrant in the 1880s, eventually came to own twenty huge fazendas with sixteen million coffee trees, a private railway and phone system, and thousands of colonos.
*e - The Mayan Indians were not -- and are not -- a homogenous group. There are some 28, including the Quiche, Cakchiquel, Kekchi, Ixil, and Mam. While scattered throughout the country, most reside in the western highlands.
*f - Coffee as an export crop developed relatively late in Central America because square-rigged ships, then in use, could only travel downwind easily. The trade winds from the Atlantic blew ships westward towards the coast of Central America, but there was no easy way to sail back east. The advent of clipper ships, which could sail closer to the wind, and then steamships, made coffee exports more feasible.
*g - A ladino in Guatemala generally refers to someone with mixed European and Indian blood, or a mestizo. Pure-blooded Indians could also become ladinos, however, if they adopted Western dress and lifestyles.
*h - From 1890 to 1892, 1200 laborers from the Gilbert Islands of the Pacific were brought by "blackbirders," or slavers, to work on the coffee plantations of Guatemala. Less than 800 survived the trip, and a third of these died in the first year. The last of the survivors were finally returned to the Gilbert Islands in 1908.
*i - Of course, not all finca owners abused their laborers. On many plantations in Brazil, Guatemala, and elsewhere, enlightened owners treated workers as humanely as possible, paid higher than standard wages, and provided some medical care. Even in such cases, however, the Indians remained poor peons, with little hope of upward mobility, while the owners lived in relative affluence.
*j - Costa Rica had no dye industry (indigo or cochineal) because during the colonial period, the Spanish would not allow it. Thus, Costa Rica had motivation to try coffee before Guatemala, and it was Costa Rica that pioneered new growing and processing techniques. Where Indians did remain in Costa Rica, however, as in Orosi, they were dispossessed of their land just as in Guatemala.
Footnotes
1. Galeano, Open Veins, p. 77; Steven C. Topik in Second Conquest, p. 37-84; Roseberry, Coffee, Burns, History of Brazil, p. 151-175; Jacob, Saga, p. 298-299; Bushnell, Emergence, p. 147.
2. Burns, History of Brazil, p. 1-2, 192-195, 270-271; Galeano, Open Veins, p. 71-75; Bushnell, Emergence, p. 148-151, 177-179; Thomas, Slave Trade, p. 571, 598-599, 611, 629-636; 730-733, 739-747, 787, 804; Haarer, Modern Coffee Production, p. 413-422, 453-458; Ukers, All About Coffee, p. 149-151; Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 240-269; Isola, "Rediscoving," p. 42; Freyre, Masters, p. xlii, 428, 336; Stein, "Negro Slavery in Brazil," in Century of Brazilian History, p. 64-67; Documentary History, p. 251-267; Jacob, Saga, p. 296-297; Burns, Latin America, p. 143-144; Dean, Rio Claro, 34-87; Stein, Vassouras, p. 44-173; Bacha, 150 Years, p. 18-22, 131-195.
3. Dean, With Broadax, p. 178-190; 216-225, 234-235.
4. Dinesen, Out of Africa, p. 8; Lago, From Slavery, p. 44; Jacob, Saga, 293-294; Culturgram '97 Brazil, Ukers, All About Coffee, p. 133-152; Wellman, Coffee, p. 93-112, 370-373; Burns, History of Brazil, p. 191; Cameron, "Second International," p. 907; "Brazil's Hidden Wealth."
5. "Brazil's Hidden Wealth"; Galeano, Open Veins, p. 111; Dean, With Broadax, p. 210-211, 220; Burns, History of Brazil, p. 198-201; Ybarra, "Old King Coffee," p. 48, 50; Stolcke, Coffee Planters, p. 171-173, 185; Levi, Prados; Baer, Brazilian Economy, p. 16-20; Dean, Rio Claro, p. 88-197; Stein, Vassouras, p. 258-261.
6. Arnold, Coffee, p. 252-253; Dean, With Broadax, p. 217; Muniz, "What It Costs," p. 1231; Burns, History of Brazil, p. 209-212, 273, 285, 300-301; Dean, Industrialization, p. 3-66; Evans, Dependent Development, p. 80.
7. Culturgram '97: Guatemala; Stephens, Incidents, p. 277-278; Woodward, Central America, p. 97-105; Williams, States and Social Evolution, p. 18-20, 28-31, 56; Burns, Edweard, p. 5-11-12, 28-30; Handy, Gift, p. 35-74; McCreery, Rural Guatemala; Perez-Brignoli, Brief History, p. 84-87; Conrad, Nostromo, p. 344; Guatemalan Indians and the State; Haarer, Modern Coffee Production, 430-436; Wilson, Maya Resurgence, p. 34-37; Indian in Latin American History, p. xxiii-xxvi; Brockett, Land, Power, p. 21-24.
8. McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 82; 175-180, 187-190, 226-232, 265-278, 282, 289, 293, 301; Williams, States and Social Evolution, p. 61-62, 121; McCreery & Munro, "Cargo"; Cambranes, Coffee and Peasants, p. 153; Sanborn, Winter in Central America; Paige, Coffee and Power, p. 87; Richard Adams email, Feb. 1998.
9. McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 195-215, 232-233; Williams, States, p. 59, 119, 154, 165-169, 196; Sanborn, Winter in Central America; Hannstein, Early Twentieth-Century Life, p. 11-27; Betty Adams email, Feb. 1998; Falcón, Erwin Paul Dieseldorff, p. 36-66, 302-348; Adams, Crucifixion by Power, p. 138-139; King, Coban, p. 29-35, 95-99.
0 Ukers, All About Coffee, p. 144-147; Williams, States, p. 150; Wellman, Coffee, p. 373-380.
1 . William Dinwiddie quoted in Stone, "Puerto Rico's Needs," p. 1023; McCreery, Rural Guatemala, p. 278-280, 331; Perez-Brignoli, Brief History, p. 107; Conrad, Nostromo, p. 103; Buckley, Violent Neighbors, p. 13.
12. Turner, Barbarous Mexico, p. 8-13, 58-79, 92-93, 112-113, 224-226; Ross, Annexation of Mexico, p. 49-80; Woodward, Central America, p. 171; Perez-Brignoli, Brief History, p. 87-88; Williams, States and Social Evolution, p. 69-79, 84-91, 123-126; Paige, Coffee and Power, p. 18-19, 154-162; Burns, Latin America, p. 148-152; North, Bitter Grounds, p. 17-28; White, El Salvador, 80-90; El Salvador, p. 3-14, 49-58, 120-122; Anderson, War, p. 14-18; Brockett, Land, Power, p. 25-26.
3 Williams, States, p. 9, 39, 44-53, 127-130, 161-162, 197; Gudmundson in Coffee, Society and Power, p. 112-150; Seligson, Peasants of Costa Rica, p. 14-48; Winson, Coffee and Democracy, p. 1-36; Samper Kutschbach in Coffee, Society and Power, p. 151-180; Mario Samper interview; Carolyn Hall interview; Brockett, Land, Power, p. 26-27.
4 Thurber, Coffee, p. 66-69; Haarer, Modern Coffee Production, p. 6-7; Arnold, Coffee, p. vi, 35-46, 117-129, 225; Weatherstone, Pioneers, p. 90-117, 146-178; Kooiman, "Plantations"; Barron, "Science."
5. Arnold, Coffee, p. 129-132, 232, 268; Haarer, Modern Coffee Production, p. 1-7, 17-18, 296-299, 400-402; Wellman, Coffee, p. 80-87, 250-260; Thurber, Coffee, p. 78-79; Schapira, Book of Coffee, p. 37; McDonald, Coffee Growing, p. 7
