A History of a Bug's Life
The cochineal (coach-en-neal) is an insect native to Central and South America. The domesticated type, Dactylopius coccus is found on plantations throughout Mexico. There were also the wild type, the sylvestre. The insect only inhabits on a variety of the nopal cactus (also known as the Oputina). The Native Mexicans harvested the cochineal for red dye on plantations to protect them from predators. The domesticated cochineal produced higher quality dye compared to those in the wild. The cultivation began with planting the nopal cactus plant, nopalera. After a period of about eighteen months to three years, the nopalera will mature enough to host the insect. Harvesters then attach cochineal nests filled with the females to the plants. When the insects hatch, they move to other plants and attach themselves to the cactus to feed on its juices. Cochineal remain immobile on the nopal for three to four months.
Harvesting this insect and its dye was a labor-intensive job for the Native Mexicans. They would have to protect the cochineal from predators, extreme weather, and prune the cactus, as it would harm the development of the insect if it grew flowers and fruit. After this period, the laborers scraped the live insects off the plants. They then kill and dry the cochineal, because the dye was contained inside the insect’s body.
When Spanish Conquistadors invaded Mexico in the sixteenth century, they took control over the trade, but not the production, of, what they termed, the grana cochinilla because it resembled a grain when the insect was dry. Soon they started trading it with the English and other European countries. It became a valuable crop as the red dyes were very desired because of their red pigment, especially for cities with textile manufacturing centers. It was more long lasting, high quality, and more vibrant than the ones that they were previously used in Europe. Because it was so in demand, it was also an expensive commodity and monitored by major European cities. Any reports about these items affected their prices on the global market. Behind silver, cochineal was the most valuable export for the Spanish in the Americas in the eighteenth century1.
1. Jeremy Baskes, Indians, Merchants, and Markets: A Reinterpretation of the Repartimiento and Spanish-Indian Economic Relations in Colonial Oaxaca, 1750-1821 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 9-11, 136. Steven Topik, Carlos Marichal, and Zephyr Frank, eds., From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500-2000 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 80, 87. Jeremy Baskes, Staying Afloat: Risk and Uncertainty in Spanish Atlantic World Trade, 1760-1820 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 22. James W. Frey, "Prickly Pears and Pagodas: The East India Company's Failure to Establish a Cochineal Industry in Early Colonial India," The Historian 74, no. 2 (2012): 243.