Hand pollination of vanilla
Polinización manual de la vainilla
- Date
- 1841 · confidence high
- Place
- Sainte-Suzanne, Reunion, France
- Credited to
- Edmond Albius (12-year-old enslaved boy)
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Albius, enslaved on Reunion Island, found with a thin stick how to fertilise the vanilla orchid by hand outside Mexico, where a specific bee pollinates it. It made cultivation outside its home region possible.
Albius received neither patent nor compensation; he was freed at abolition in 1848 and died poor. His role was only claimed later.
What it led to
- vanilla plantations in Madagascar, the Comoros and Tahiti
- the end of Mexico's vanilla monopoly
- vanilla as a mass flavouring in baking and ice cream