The Enslaved Child Who Brought Us Vanilla

The Age of Exploration gave us spices and flavorings found all over the world, and untold wealth for those who were able to produce them. One such flavoring was vanilla, which grew only in Mexico because the plant was pollinated by only one species of bee, which was only found in Mexico. When French entrepreneurs exported the plant to their island territories of Réunion and Mauritius, they found the plants grew well, but did not pollinate. Hand pollination was a laborious task that required a microscope, a skilled hand, and about 20 minutes for each plant. It wouldn't work for a plantation.

That is, until a 12-year-old enslaved worker named Edmond, who later took the surname Albius, worked it out himself in 1841. Plantation owner Ferréol Bellier-Beaumont said Edmond was his "constant companion" in the vanilla orchard. Edmond knew each vanilla flower had both male and female reproductive sacs, which were separated by a thin membrane to prevent self-pollination. He took a small stick, the size of a toothpick, and pierced that membrane, allowing the anther sac and the stigma to meet, and for good measure, squeezed them together. The self-pollinated flowers produced vanilla pods the next year, and his method is still in use almost 200 years later.

What did Edmond get for his breakthrough? It wasn't his freedom. Read about Edmond Albius and the vanilla industry he saved at Nautilus. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Ton Rulkens)