The first reliable record is from the 1650s, by G.A. Cavazzi da Montecuccolo in what is now Congo or Angola. By the late 1600s writers noted three kinds of undergound beans on the Gold Coast. One of these, W. Bosman wrote, "have been known to us but a few Years, and are called Angola Beans, by reason they were transplanted from thence to this place. They are a very agreeable sort of Food, if fryed, as we commonly do Ches-nuts." The other two were probably Bambara groundnuts and tiger nuts (Cyperus esculentus), but this just raises the difficulty of being certain what European explorers were writing about.
Whenever peanuts arrived, there were already two "groundnuts" in Africa. One was the Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea), the other was Kersting's groundnut (Macrotyloma geocarpum, formerly Kerstingiella geocarpa). Both are endemic to Africa and were cultivated before the arrival of the peanut. Indeed the Bijago word for Bambara groundnut -- mancarra -- became the adopted word for peanut in Portuguese territories, where the Portuguese word -- amendoim -- is seldom used, which probably adds to the confusion.
Regardless of when and where the peanut arrived, it is very likely that the pre-existence of these other groundnuts predisposed local people to adopt peanuts. And adopt them they did.
The first movement of peanuts out of Africa was along with enslaved people and slave traders to the Caribbean and the American South, almost as soon as they had been observed in the Gold Coast. These were the ancestors of the Carolina African Runner, and they are unlike any varieties in South America.
The big thing that the Portuguese did for the peanut and West Africa was to bring different varieties from South America, mostly from Brazil. As a result, different kinds of peanut from scattered locations found themselves in the same place. And while peanuts are mostly self-pollinating -- meaning that by and large seeds give rise to plants that are genetically the same as their parents -- crossing does occasionally occur. If the varieties that crossed were from different places, one would expect the offspring of those crosses to be different from either parent and quite possibly to show new and desirable qualities. And that's what happened. West Africa is a secondary centre of peanut diversity because the Portuguese brought all those different varieties together.
The true export trade, which started in the early 1800s, marked a shift in the economies of West Africa, and possibly the start of the modern economic era there. It also helped to established French dominance in the area.
Cultivation began along the Gambia river in the early 1830s and spread rapidly to Senegal and Portuguese Guinea in the early 1840s. The first exports from The Gambia were to the West Indies in 1829 and 1830, and totalled about 100 baskets. By 1835, 47 tons were leaving from The Gambia. Ten years later it was 3534 tons.
The initial bulk market for peanuts from West Africa was Great Britain, but from 1837 to 1841 Americans dominated the market. For some reason, the British and French didn't eat peanuts. Sure, they indulged children with monkey nuts at the zoo, but Americans of all ages liked to eat peanuts, particularly roasted.
This was at around the same time as the first imports from the American South reached the northeast of the country. There, the better class of people disdained the peanut, partly because they were thought of as "slave food". Later, according to one history, peanuts were "synonyms of circus rowdyism ... obstreperousness, and festive occasions of the protelariat". But the proletariat had to be served, and snobbishness wasn't going to hold back Yankee traders, who could source nuts much more cheaply in West Africa than in America.
The traders also quickly realised that nuts travelled much better in their shells than out. Provided that they were well dried, the spongy shell prevented a lot of moulding and spoilage, so that even though nuts in their shells take up twice the space of shelled nuts, the better condition of the nuts when they arrived made it worth shipping them that way.
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