Soufriere, St. Lucia

Anyways, the Dutch got around to being suspicious of the Japanese. They just had to be in cahoots with the English in a plot to overthrow the Dutch rule. A silly notion since the Japanese and Brits were just a few against a thousand. The Dutch called all the Englishmen and Japanese in for interrogation. This interrogation, of course, was done the time-honored way. The Englishmen were hung up on these stretchers in dark and ratty rooms. The Dutch would then fill their mouths with water, allowing them to breathe through their nose. This water filling went on for days, until the Englishmen were so bloated that the features of their faces and bodies were just like little cartoonish imprints on big balloonish figures.

All of the glory and death was creating universal interest in exploration, and expectations across Europe for a better life somewhere else. For the lowest, most desperate, that choice may have been to join a band of pirates. For the wealthy, it was a chance to create a personal empire of wealth. Since state- sponsored companies monopolized the East Indies, the West Indies - such an easy sail from England, France or Holland, was the natural choice for tempting fate. The Dutch made one mistake in the Banda Islands. They let two Englishmen live. Ultimately, when they returned to England to tell what happened, the fate of the Antilles would be sealed.

The English government used the political outcry of the Banda Islands torture to their advantage - they used it to convince the Dutch that they had ownership of one small Banda Island. An important claim, since they could now trade that island with the Dutch, in exchange for another small island, called Manhattan.While war was waging on the seas of the East Indies, empires were also colliding in the West Indies. The English began to fancy the Antilles in droves by the early seventeenth century. Stories and realities of wealth in the Indies were regular in London, and those willing to test fate set sail.

The problem with the West Indies for the English is that the Spanish regarded the territory as theirs, and any ship they deemed fit for a sinking was most certainly bound for a potential cannon battle. The Spanish, however, were stretched thin in the vast Caribbean, and the English, little by little, were able to carve niches into the island chains.

To survive in the islands, the English had to create an empire from one of two species that had already achieved domestication in other parts of the world. It was tobacco, sugarcane, or bust.

The Spanish, who had already put a foothold in the larger islands, knew, before Columbus even sailed, that they could exploit a labor force in Africa to build agrarian empires to the west. That's why Columbus - perceiving this empire, included in his shipload, a quantity of fine sugar cane cuttings.

This plant alone would begin the transformation of a region found by the quest for nutmeg. It is an ancient grass that probably evolved in New Guinea, but was grown in India as the main source of molasses, brown sugar and white sugar to the Central Asians and Europeans. Columbus reasoned that he could use the production of cane to build empires. When farmers in the Antilles would learn how to turn sugar cane into rum, they would figure out a way to corner the European alcohol market, fueling that other commodity - slaves - into the new world.

Jane and I had made a habit of walking through the gardens, picking mangos, and eating things off trees. "There is no way," she said, "that everybody can eat all those mangos.". They - the mangos, being everywhere. She pointed to an orchid plant. A long vine with pods that look like unripe chilis. A vanilla bean. I ate it. I developed a rash. My mouth hurt like hell. I had just unwittingly contracted vanillism.

See also: Itching eruption of the skin, nasal catarrh, headache and muscular pain.

We met the summer chef of St. Lucia's most distinguished restaurant. His name is Nigel, he is known, even in New York, for having risen through the ranks of St. Lucian obscurity, to become a master of Antillean cuisine. He offered me a cacao fruit, to look at it. I ate it. It tastes more like unripe rhubarb than chocolate.

See also: dog food.

"No, you have to roast it to make the chocolate" he said. He showed us how to cook a plantain. He explained how to distinguish it from a banana. He fed us breadfruit. Jane called this the worst food ever invented. She is not the first to say that. The fact that she is not the first to say that is significant. And the others too - the vanilla, the chocolate, the sugar cane, and the banana. To understand them, to understand how their evolution determined this vast region's fate, we need to hop on a plane.

We need to go to Puerto Rico.