James Delbourgo (History, Rutgers University)
Sir Hans Sloane's Milk Chocolate and the
Whole History of the Cacao
Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) is often remembered for two signal contributions to the history of knowledge and civilization: amassing the vast collections that formed the basis for the British Museum; and inventing milk chocolate. This paper investigates the naturalist’s engagement with Cacao that resulted from his voyage to the colony of Jamaica during 1687-1689. It explores how questions about Cacao as a species also involve questions about cacao the crop, and chocolate as recipe, commodity and ethnographic curiosity. The paper concludes by considering the symbolic and cosmological functions of herbarium specimens like Sloane’s Jamaican Cacao in relation to imperial history.
