Chocolate and crime

Cheating consumers isn’t just a ‘modern’ phenomenon. There have always been good and bad citizens in every society throughout history. Evidence for counterfeiting chocolate goes back to Aztec times. The ‘bad’ cacao dealer, according to the Florentine Codex, ‘counterfeits cacao... by making the fresh cacao beans whitish... he treats them with chalk, with chalky earth, with [wet] earth; he stirs them into [wet] earth. [With] amaranth seed dough, wax, avocado pits he counterfeits cacao; he covers this over with cacao bean hulls; he places this in the cacao bean shells. The whitish, the fresh cacao beans he intermixes, mingles, throws in, introduces, ruins with the shrunken, the child-seed-like, the broken, the hollow, the tiny. Indeed he casts, he throws in with them wild cacao beans to deceive the people’ (Florentine Codex, 1961, Book 10: 65).

Pic 2: Cacao seller, Florentine Codex Book 10 (top); using cacao beans to buy goods in an Aztec market, drawing by Gerardo del Olmo L. (bottom)

Most of the crimes did not involve violence; here is one that did:-
December 6th, 1721, stagecoach passenger Sir Edward Lawrence was beaten and robbed by Butler Fox and relieved of his purse and the 6 pounds of chocolate that he carried. Trial testimony revealed that after the robbery Fox took shelter with an accomplice where they prepared and drank the chocolate stolen from Lawrence (December 6th, 1721, trial of Butler Fox. Case #T-17211206-41).
Of the 113 defendants brought to trial 79 (62%) were convicted. Sentences for those convicted could be light or harsh:-
42 cases - Transported/deported (7-14 years) sent to the Americas or location not identified;
13 - Executed (method not identified; probably hanging);
10 - Sent to House of Corrections or Newgate Prison) terms 1-24 months;
9 - Fined: 6 pence to 39 shillings;
6 - Whipped (either in public or in private);
3 - Branded;
1 - Public humiliation (printed apology required); 2 Unspecified.

Pic 4: Highway robbery

Branding:-
If a convict pleaded with benefit of clergy they were branded on the thumb (“T” for thief; “F” for felon, and “M” murderer), and would not receive the death penalty. If after serving their sentence they repeated their crime, their punishment(s) were in accord with the severity of the crime and in accord with judicial practice. According to the Old Bailey punishment record, the criminals were branded in the courtroom in front of spectators. Last convict sentenced to be branded at Old Bailey was in 1798 (Source: oldbaileyonline.org).

Whipping (private or public) – the following information came directly from the Old Bailey web site:-
’Offenders (mostly those convicted of theft) were sentenced to be stripped to the waist and flogged “at a cart’s tail” along a length of public street, usually near the scene of the crime, “until his [or her] back be bloody”’.

Pic 6: Public flogging...

Some of the convicted obviously were professional thieves, perhaps better described as repeat “flim-flam” or con artists who had attempted on more than one occasion to defraud civilians, customers, or merchants. In other instances, criminal teams of husbands and wives worked together as thieves. The most common opportunity for chocolate-associated crime was breaking and entering homes or business establishments.
In contrast to citizen behavior of the 21st century, several of the accused were apprehended by good citizens who responded to the call “stop thief” - who then performed their civic duty and chased down and captured the perpetrators (especially one who could not run quickly), and waited for the police to arrive (Case #T-18011028-14 and Case #T-18160403-154).

Pic 8: Reward offered for information regarding a house burglary, 1806

‘The late King of Prussia was frequently in danger of being poisoned, but never sentenced those to death who made an attempt upon his life. One of his valets-de-chambre mediated the perpetration of this abominable act. The wretch, one morning, carried the King his chocolate as usual; but, in presenting it, his resolution failed him, and the King remarked his extraordinary confusion. “What is the matter with you?” observed Frederick, looking steadfastly at him, “I believe you mean to poison me.” At these words, the villain’s agitation augments; he throws himself at the feet of the monarch, avows his crime, and begs his pardon. “Quit my presence! Miscreant!” answered the King; and this was all his punishment. From that [time on], Frederick, before he took his chocolate, constantly gave a little of it to his dogs’ (Source: The Mail, or Claypoole’s Daily Advertiser, 1792, January 26th, p. 2.).

Pic 10: King Frederick the Great, and his dogs...

‘One of the cooks observed that she mixed with it something from her pocket, and without saying a word to her that indicated suspicion, he warned Bonaparte, in a note delivered to a page, to be on his guard. When the chamberlain carried in the chocolate, Napoleone [sic] ordered the person who had prepared it to be brought before him. This being said Pauline, she fainted away, after having first [being forced to drink] the remaining contents of the chocolate pot. Her convulsions soon indicated that she was poisoned, and notwithstanding the endeavors of Bonaparte’s physician, Corvisart [? spelling garbled], she expired within an hour, protesting that her crime was an act of revenge against Napoleon, who had seduced her when young, under a promise of marriage, but who since his elevation, had not only neglected her to despair, by refusing an honest support for herself and child, sufficient to preserve her from the degradation of servitude... The cook was, with the reward of a pension, made a member of the Legion of Honor, and it was given out by Corvisart that Pauline died insane’. (Source: Massachusetts Spy, or Worcester Gazette, 1807, May 13th, p. 1).
Whether true or not, the story of Pauline Riotti and Napoleon Bonaparte has continued to ring out across the centuries as a classic example of a spurned lover’s attempted vengeance - using poisoned chocolate as her weapon.

Pic 12: 19th century French monastery kitchen

Smuggling:-
In July 1773, Pope Clement XIV ordered the expulsion of the Jesuits from all Catholic countries from Spanish-controlled regions of the New World. Most of the Jesuits departed Mexico from east coast ports and set sail for Cadiz, Spain, taking aboard their material goods and possessions associated with their Order. One account suggests, however, that Jesuit priests sometimes returned to Spain with more than simple possessions, as revealed in this document dated to 1792:-
’A small fleet arrived at Cadiz; it contained upwards of sixty millions of livers [i.e., silver pound/coin] in gold and silver, and twelve millions in merchandise, besides smuggled goods. In unloading the vessels, eight large cases of chocolate were said to have been found ... These cases threatening to break the backs of the porters ... [Customs] officers became curious to know the cause.

Pic 14: The Spanish port of Cadiz

We discovered an even earlier case of smuggling of chocolate and cacao dated to December 20, 1622. The account consists of correspondence between officials of the Casa de Contratación in Seville, Spain, that identified fraud and misrepresentation of ship manifests. The letters commented on problems associated with several ships and summarised the items smuggled into Spain. The primary document addressed to Don Alonso Hurtado was signed by Don Gabriel Ocaña y Alarcón and stated:-
’29 loads [ie, shipments] of sugar, chocolate, cacao, pearls, gold, silver, and other precious things valued in millions [of reales?] that have entered [Spain] without registration’ (Source: Archivo General de Indias, Seville. Indiferente 435, L. 11/1/615).

Pic 16: Statue of Gabriel de Alarcón-Ocaña, Spanish Secretario de Cámara del Supremo de Indias (inset: Casa de Contratación, Seville)

Editor’s Postscript
And finally, we end with an equally appropriate anecdote from Mexican history, recounted by Bertram M. Gordon in Chapter 43 of Chocolate: History, Culture, and Heritage (see above), originally included in the now classic work by Thomas Gage, The English-American, or a New Survey of the West Indies (1648):-
’Thomas Gage tells a much repeated story of Creole women who were so fond of their chocolate that they insisted on drinking it during church services in Chiapas (present town of San Cristóbal de las Casas). Attempting to stop the practice, the bishop excommunicated those who continued to have their chocolate brought into the church. A row ensued and Gage, there as a Dominican missionary, tried to mediate. He failed and the bishop was murdered by chocolate laced with poison, presumably by one of the unhappy local women...’

Pic 18: Interior of the Cathedral of San Cristóbal de las Casas; Thomas Gage; chocolate serving utensils