CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTHWEST GUATEMALA—McBRYDE op 
PLANTATION CULTURE 
The great plantation crops of Guatemala’s export 
trade today are coffee and bananas. Major planta- 
tion products of bygone eras, such as cacao, nopal, 
and to a lesser extent, cotton, have so declined as 
to be insignificant at present. 
From the standpoint of the landscape of Guatemala, 
both natural and cultural, and of the human occu- 
pants of the area, coffee plantations are of interest 
in that they have brought fundamental changes in 
the plant cover, both cultivated and uncultivated ; 
they have led to a permanent realinement and re- 
distribution of large population masses, foreign as 
well as indigenous; and they have resulted in seasonal 
mass migrations, temporary dislocations of thousands 
of native Highland dwellers (map 12). 
CACAO 
The ancient Maya grew cacao on a large scale, and 
used the “beans” as a form of currency and for a 
highly prized drink, chocolatl, which only the 
wealthy upper class could afford. Their cacao plan- 
tations covered much of the Pacific Coastal Plain up 
to 600 m. (1,968 ft.), from Soconusco (Chiapas) to 
Nicaragua. In the wet savanna and monsoon belt 
(map 11), luxuriance of verdure assures the heavy 
shade and wind shelter so essential to the Theobroma, 
limited above by lowering temperatures, and below 
by excessive soil humidity, diminished rainfall, and 
hence thinner tree cover. Enormous quantities of 
cacao went to the Aztecs in trade and tribute, and 
the Spaniards, acquiring a taste for it and learning 
of its value, even increased the output under terrific 
pressure and at great cost of native lives. The pro- 
duction in El Salvador, estimated as 1,200,000,000 
beans a year on 25 to 30 square miles of scattered 
groves (see p. 11), does not compare too unfavorably 
with modern yields (about 6,500,000,000 beans a year 
on 30 square miles of unbroken plantation ; estimated 
from Barrett, 1928, pp. 94-96). The suggestion 
has been made above that cacao of the Lowlands 
from Soconusco to western Salvador was so prolific 
and superior as to exclude the less lucrative indigo, 
which has similar habitat requirements. 
That some cacao was grown on the eastern versant 
is brought out in the Vera Paz Relacién (Anon., 
Ms. 1574 b, pp. 19, f. 101), but it was limited to small 
groves, often destroyed by floods and eaten by pests, 
for there were no permanent residents then in that 
distant, unhealthy region to take care of it. 
Decline of production in Soconusco in favor of 
Suchitepequez is recorded by Ponce’s companion 
654162474 
(Ponce, 1873, p. 293). No reason is given for this 
shifting of emphasis eastward. 
Indians of the Lowlands, characterized by “lassi- 
tude and laziness,” as distinguished from the ener- 
getic Highlanders, were said by Fuentes y Guzman 
(late 17th century) to depend too heavily upon the 
growing of one crop, cacao, their only economic pur- 
suit, except, perhaps, for a “few plantings of cotton,” 
as a result of which, “if the cacao crop failed, they 
would perish from want and hunger.” Plentiful har- 
vests conversely led to celebration and _ revelry 
(Fuentes y Guzman, 1932-33, vol. 2, p. 66). The 
“one-crop system’ was well rooted. 
The big decline in cacao apparently came about the 
beginning of the 19th century, the result of South 
American competition, notably around Caracas, ac- 
cording to Juarros (Baily trans., 1823, p. 22). 
Cotton and sapuyul were supplementary products, 
but of minor significance, so that the great depend- 
ence was still on cacao. 
With cacao production already on the wane, and 
cotton and cochineal destined to go the same road, 
upon the advent of imported aniline-dyed thread, the 
stage was set for some rejuvenation in the old 
plantation region of the Pacific slope. It came with 
the mid-19th century agricultural revolution, and 
the new crop was coffee, known in Central America 
since the middle of the 18th century, but never before 
produced on a large scale in Guatemala (see p. 92). 
The belt of major coffee production lies immedi- 
ately between the overlapping zones of cacao, below, 
and nopal (for cochineal), above, the latter having had 
its greatest concentration between Amatitlan and 
Chimaltenango. The mushroom growth of coffee 
fincas that took place mainly between 1850 and 
1925, drew on the population from both Highlands 
and Lowlands. Coffee filled in primarily the zone 
between 350 and 1,550 m. (1,148 and 5,085 ft.) 
(map 12); intensive cacao extended up only to 650 
m. (2,132 ft.) (map 11); while nopal culture was 
mostly above 1,200 m. (3,937 ft.). 
The establishment by Highland Indians of many 
Lowland colonies all along the Pacific piedmont 
primarily for the planting of cacao, and also maize, 
is discussed elsewhere (p. 93). The 1574 Vera 
Paz Relacién gives a clue to the climatic require- 
ments of cacao as reflected in its distribution, and the 
modern linguistic map of Guatemala showing lan- 
guage areas extending into the Coastal Plain from 
the Highlands can undoubtedly be explained largely 
upon this basis. It is pointed out, for example, that 
