Cacao as a form of currency

The thesis of this blog is the following: “Within the history of the various different usages of cacao, it has not been only a type of food, but has also been used as a form of currency.” The two questions that the readers of this blog should ask themselves in order to better understand it is the following: “What was the motivation for the Mayan people to use cacao beans a form of currency in their trade? Why was it so valuable to them that they felt the need to use this instead of something more traditional such as a precious metal?” With regard to the subject of cacao and how it has been used as a form of currency throughout its history, there is definitely much to be said. One interesting and similar comparison between cacao being used as a form of currency could be how many other people have used other natural resources which were viewed as valuables such as precious metals, instead of what is used today which are pieces of paper which governments enforce through laws mandating them as valuables, used through trades. The reason as to why this example is important to mention is because it brings light to the fact that cacao was that important and valuable to the people who traded with them, namely the mesoamerican civilizations (think of the Aztecs and the Mayans as a few examples.) In this example, gold being exchanged even in a country such as the United States for much of its history would objectively mean that gold is a natural resource, which holds a lot of value to the people, so in the case of cacao, it was incredibly valuable to the Aztecs, and to the Mayans (especially when one remembers how their religions put cacao and chocolate on such a high pedestal). According to an article from www.science.org titled “The Maya civilization used chocolate as money” (this article is authored by a man named Joshua Rapp Learn, on the date of June 27, 2018), he mentions how a study conducted by David Freidel an anthropologist and expert in the study of Mayan culture, that not only did the Mayan people not use coins for money but cacao instead. The article continues to mention something very interesting which was how the Spanish also partook in this to a certain degree. The Spanish did this by paying their workers in cacao beans during the 16th century. This of course makes a lot of sense when one takes into account how the Spanish saw how valuable cacao was to the natives, and after all that is what money is, something of value that creates an incentive for people to produce something in exchange. Some of the Mayan-themed artwork depicted at how the people of the civilization would make payments to the Mayan Kings with chocolate. The article continues to mention that the cacao that was used as currency was in the form of being both dried and fermented. One other reason as to why the Mayan people valued cacao beans in the high regard that they did is partially due to it being so hard to grow, leading to it being a scarce resource. This is because cacao trees during the Mayan era were incredibly vulnerable to not being able to grow as well as they would want them to do, within the territories that the Mayan people had inhabited. One thing that is important for the readers of this blog to remember is that while cacao was one of the most valued resources to the Mayan people, especially since it went so far as to be used as a form of currency, it was not the only form of currency in their civilization, it was just one of them. I do not want to digress into another topic by mentioning the other resources that were used to trade, I just wish to mention this in order to show some more clarification as to how much the value of cacao really was, which was very high, but not the only resource that was held with value. In conclusion of this blog, what readers should take away from it is that the Mayan people valued cacao and chocolate in such high regard that they went to use it as a form of currency, which was of course influenced in part by their religion holding such high regard to cacao and chocolate, and the Spanish being such a powerful empire with the desire of expanding understood this, and so, as a result, they took advantage of this by paying their workers (some of them being Europeans, and some of them being Mayan people) with cacao. 

 Bibliography

https://legacychocolates.com/about-us/blog/articleid/59/money-grows-on-trees#:~:text=In%20Mayan%20civilization%20cacao%20beans,a%20turkey%20cost%2020%20beans.

https://chocolateclass.wordpress.com/2020/03/24/cacao-currency-ancient-civilizations-used-chocolate-as-cash/