The Papaya

Among my favorite memories of the Big Island of Hawaii is late afternoon at the beach, of a baby girl being fed by her mother spoonfuls of papaya, its flesh glowing a deep orange as the sunset over the ocean’s horizon.  The mango may be the tourist’s beloved fruit, but the papaya is undoubtedly the local’s favorite.  The Hawaiian papaya is about the same size as a large mango, but can be conveniently sliced in half, its seeds and flesh easily scooped out by a spoon.  When perfectly ripened, it is soft, sweet, and fragrant, and at a fifth the cost of a mango, it is a winning choice all around.

It was a surprise for me to learn that many of our beloved tropical fruits originated from the New World.  With the exception of the mango, the pineapple, papaya, passionfruit, guava, dragonfruit, and many others are from South America, and they had traveled to Southeast Asia on the Manila galleon since the 16th century.  The Manila galleon were ships that traveled across the Pacific Ocean between the Philippines in the Spanish East Indies and New Spain, present-day Mexico.  The galleons set sail from Cavite in Manila Bay at the end of June or the first week of July, sailing through the northern Pacific and reaching Acapulco in March to April of the next calendar year. The return route from Acapulco passed through lower latitudes closer to the equator, stopping over in the Marianas, then sailing onwards through the San Bernardino Strait off Cape Espiritu Santo in Samar and then to Manila Bay.

The Manila galleons were known colloquially in New Spain as La Nao de China, or “The China Ship,” as the galleons mostly carried cargoes of Chinese and other Asian luxury goods.  Trade with Ming China via Manila served as a major source of revenue for the Spanish Empire and as a fundamental source of income for Spanish colonists in the Philippine Islands.  Merchants coming from port areas of Fujian, such as Quanzhou and Yuegang, traveled to Manila to sell goods from all over Asia: jade, porcelain, gunpowder, and silk from China; ivory, amber, cotton, and rugs from India; spices from Indonesia and Malaysia.  Slaves from across Asia, collectively known as “chinos,” as well as free indigenous Filipinos, known as “chinos libres,” were also transported to Mexico with the galleons.

In the New World, they were exchanged for silver.  Since Ming China used silver ingots as the currency of exchange, these goods were in turn bought with silver mined from New Spain and Potosí.  Silver prices in Asia were substantially higher than in America, bringing an arbitrage opportunity for the Manila galleon. Every space of the galleons was packed with cargo, including the decks, cabins, and magazines.  Goods shipped back from Acapulco to Manila were from the Americas – silver, cochineal, plant seeds, tobacco, cocoa.  This Pacific route was the alternative to traveling south to the Cape of Good Hope, then west across the Indian Ocean in order to reach Southeast Asia, which was reserved to Portugal according to the Treaty of Tordesillas.

The cargoes arrived in Acapulco were transported by land across Mexico. Mule trains would carry the goods along the China Road from Acapulco first to the administrative center of Mexico City, then on to the port of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, where they were loaded onto the Spanish fleet bound for Spain.  From the early days of exploration, the Spanish knew that the American continent was much narrower across the Panamanian isthmus than across Mexico, but the treacherous jungle crossing made it impractical.

Over 250 years, there were hundreds of Manila galleon crossings of the Pacific Ocean, their route taking them just south of the Hawaiian Islands on the westward leg of their round trip.  Spanish navigators discovered many islands in the Pacific, including the Marianas, the Carolines, Marshall Islands, the Marquesas, the Solomon Islands, and the Cook Islands. Unsurprisingly, the possibility of the Spanish discovering the Hawaiian Islands before Captain James Cook’s first visit in 1778 had been brought up by writers, historians, as well as hobbyist explorers.  The British missionary William Ellis, in his journal of Hawaii, gave several accounts, told by the natives, of foreigners arriving at Hawaii prior to Captain Cook: “during the lifetime of Opiri, the son of Paao, a number of foreigners (white men) arrived at Hawaii, landed somewhere in the south-west part of the island, and repaired to the mountains, where they took up their abode.  The natives regarded them with a superstitious curiosity and dread, and knew not whether to consider them as gods or men. … The foreigners they imagined were supernatural beings, and as such were treated with every possible mark of respect.  After remaining some time on the island, they returned to their own country. … The name of the principal person among them was Manahini; and it is a singular fact, that in the Marquesian, Society, and Sandwich Islands, the term manahini is still employed to designate a stranger, visitor, or guest.”

Then, “a number of years after the departure of Manahini-ma, (Manahini and his party,) in the reign of Kahoukapu, king at Kaavaroa, seven foreigners arrived at Kearake’kua bay, the spot where Captain Cook subsequently landed. They came in a painted boat, with an awning or canopy over the stern, but without mast or sails. They were all dressed; the colour of their clothes was white or yellow, and one of them wore a pahi, long knife, the name by which they still call a sword, at his side, and had a feather in his hat. The natives received them kindly. They married native women, were made chiefs, proved themselves warriors, and ultimately became very powerful in the island of Hawaii, which, it is said, was for some time governed by them.”  However, as scholars have dismissed these claims as lacking credibility, it is a historically accepted fact that Captain Cook & Co. were the first white men to discover Hawaii.

In any case, it was the Spaniard Don Francisco de Paula Marín who was credited with introducing both the pineapple and papaya to Hawaii.  Arriving in Hawaii in 1793, he became advisor to King Kamehameha I who was just capturing Oʻahu island in the Battle of Nuʻuanu. For his service Marín was given land in present-day Honolulu near Pearl Harbor, on which he planted coffee, cocoa, pineapple, papaya, oranges, tamarind, and established Hawaii’s first grape vineyard in 1815.

Over 400 years of abode in Southeast Asia had me convinced that these fruits were native to this land.  After all, I had eaten the sweetest, most fragrant pineapples only grown here, while the only pineapples available everywhere else, be it in South America, India, and even in Hawaii, were much less delicious.  The common commercial pineapple is the MD2 variety, choiced for its large size and longer shelf life, but it is substantially inferior in flavor and sweetness as compared to other varieties such as the Victoria.  Yet it is precisely the sort of small-scale economy and existing local demand of Southeast Asia that allows for these low-yield but tastier varieties to be grown and sold on the street.