Sweet Tooth for Empire: Sugar and the British Atlantic World

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and wife; and I know a man who was popularly credited to have eaten 300 human bodies.” 50 He also related how “I was once in a certain city for twenty-seven days, where human flesh was hung up near the houses, in the same way as we expose butcher’s meat. I say further that they were surprised that we did not eat our enemies and use their flesh as food, for they say it is excellent.” 51 Again, it must be remembered that Vespucci is not necessarily the most reliable witness, but these stories are sensationalistic and disgusting nonetheless. Switching from the explorer to a different figure, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, the author of La Historia General y Natural de las Indias, also wrote about the cannibals. “In these islands they eat human flesh, except in Boriquén; also in many places of Tierra Firme, as will be seen. Pliny says the same of the anthropophages of Scythia; besides eating human flesh, they drink from the skulls of dead men and weak necklaces of their teeth and hair. I have seen such necklaces in Tierra Firme.” 52 Gaspare Contarini an ambassador to Emperor Charles V and Pope Clement VIII and subsequently a cardinal who led a reform faction, also recorded an interesting description of the cannibalism. 53 “The inhabitants are very civilized, except in religion, because they are idolaters and sacrifice men to their idols; they follow also this savage custom, that when they fight with their enemies, they eat all their enemies who die in battle.” 54 Contarini continued, “these marks of a high culture, however, stood in glaring contrast to the human sacrifice and cannibalism practice by the inhabitants.” 55 Here it would be helpful to note that 50 Amerigo Vespucci, “Letter on his Third Voyage from Amerigo Vespucci to Lorenzo Pietro Francesco Di Medici,” in Markham, 47. 51 Ibid. 52 Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, “La Historia General y Natural de las Indias,” in Repertorium Columbianum: Volume 9 Oviedo on Columbus, ed. Jesús Carrillo, (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2001), 58. 53 Gaspare Contarini, in, Repertorium Columbianum: Volume 10 Italian Reports on America-1493-1522: Letters, Dispatches, and Papal Bulls, ed. Geoffrey Symcox, (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2001), 84. 54 Ibid. 55 Symcox, “Introduction,” in Symcox, 21.
Contarini was talking about the Aztec culture, not the Caribbean Indians, but his condemnation of cannibalism was certainly no less vociferous. Many people discussed and disseminated information about cannibalism, not just the cultural elites and explorers. This included Marcantonio Coccio, “an instructor of literature at the school of San Marco in Venice.” 56 He wrote, “they are a cruel, hateful people: they feed on human flesh, which makes them a source of terror to their neighbors. They travel far and wide, robbing and looting, and killing their male captives, along with the children, and eating the flesh of their newly-slaughtered victims sprinkled with salt.” He stressed the idea that “the women are kept for breeding, and the Cannibals serve their still-nursing children like lambs or kids at their horrible banquets.” 57 He concluded with a graphic analogy, “the Spaniards found visible proof of these reports when they broke into the houses which the Cannibals had abandoned: the tables were set, and on them were bowls like ours, filled with parrots, other birds the size of pheasants, and human flesh. Nearby hung a human head, still dripping blood.” 58 Antonio Gallo commented, “some of them are inhabited by certain wild men, called Cannibals, who live on human flesh.” 59 Agostino Guistiniani, “a Genoese prelate and scholar, [who] was an authority on Eastern studies,” decided to offer his proverbial two cents as well. 60 He decreed, “it was discovered that several of these islands were inhabited by uncivilized men called cannibals, who showed no distaste for human flesh as food.” 61 56 Marcantonio Coccio, in Repertorium Columbianum: Volume 12 Italian Reports on America-1493-1522: Accounts by Contemporary Observers, ed. Geoffrey Symcox, (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2002), 68. 57 Coccio, 69. 58 Ibid., 69. 59 Angelo Trevisan, in Symcox, 71. 60 Ibid., 77. 61 Ibid., 78.
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objectives.” 123 Dulles would use
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Planning Board report was too optim
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establishment of such a coalition a
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allied powers before Geneva. 150 Th
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Stassen countered that the U.S. cou
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particularly Britain, for his decis
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people.” 14 A large crowd gathere
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Revolution.” 21 This was held on
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held the Bank’s presidency until
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solutions to the town’s problems.
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Photograph by William H. Tipton of
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Men gathered outside of Landau’s
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Sweet Tooth for Empire: Sugar and the British Atlantic World

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