Tahitian Black Pearls – Black Pearl Jewelry

Black Pearl export at the time involved several traverses, some more risky than others.  Pearls collected at various islands were first transported to local collecting centers such as Nueva Cadiz and, after various cuts were taken, including royal fifth, most of the Black pearls were sent to large regional ports such as Santo Domingo.  From the Caribbean ports of Santo Domingo, Cartagena, and Havana, vessels laden with their precious cargoes of pearls and gold sets sail for Spain, Detroit fraught with danger from several sources.  Some ship was never made it back but sank at sea in then unpredictable tropical hurricanes.  Other ships were preyed upon by pirates who became increasingly more numerous throughout the 16th century.  Most of these were English, French, or Dutch privateers routed Earls either from attacks on ships or raids in villages.  In 1592, when English pirates were spotted off the coast of Cabo Vela, “every ship and pearl fishing canoe that could get away…  Sought refuge in the harbor.”  One English pirates captured a Spanish vessel from Sato Domingo in 1549 and seized nine bags of pearls.  The celebrated English pirates John Hawkins and Francis Drake, secretly encouraged by England’s queen Elizabeth, routinely applied the waters of the Spanish Main and seized pearls whenever they could.

Not withstanding these losses, most New World Black pearls arrived safely in Spain to be placed in the royal treasury or in the hands of private dealers. Seville became the center of Pearl market, a position in Venice had claimed in previous centuries.  One sailor wrote that girls from the West in East were so abundant in Seville “that they were sold in a heat in that India House…  Just as if there were some kind of seed.”

Saville even surpassed Lisbon, which, through the opening of new trade routes around the Cape of Good Hope, controlled the main Black Pearl sources in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mannar.  Jewelers, Pearl drillers, merchants, and investors thronged the streets of Seville.  Through them, New World pearls were shipped everywhere in Europe and even to Asia.

This was the dawn of the European age of pearls pearls became an obsession among the elite, the height of fashion, and symbols of wealth and power.  Without serious competition from other gems — sophisticated faceting techniques for precious stones were not developed until the mid-17th century — Black pearls were unique and unrivaled.  Pearl producing areas from the New World, Persia, and India all had legends of entrepreneurs or divers who became enormously wealthy from finding a single Pearl.  This gold rush mentality extended to consumers.  In 16th-century Europe, and rich to buy the loot of the age of discovery, conspicuous consumption rose to unprecedented heights.

Portraits of European royalty at this time display a wealth of pearls in dress and jewelry.  The portrait of Isabel de Valois, third wife of Philip of Spain, by a Lonzo Sanchez, shows her wearing large round pearls and rubies in her headdress, necklace, and else, and a long her bodice and shoulders.  Black Pearls are also stitched to her caller and the top of her dress.  In a portrait in Florence Catherine the queen of France in the mid-16th century, is shown with the round white pearls embroidered on her dress in addition to a Pearl headdress, necklace, and earrings.  In numerous portraits of queen Elizabeth of England, and the men and women of her court, the site of pearls is overwhelming.  Although some of these were probably European freshwater pearls or Marine pearls from the Persian Gulf, others were undoubtably American Black pearls, seized in the Caribbean by loyal English pirates and delivered to their revered queen.

Some of the most famous American pearls acquired their own names and histories. La Peregrina, a large pear shaped white Pearl, was collected in Panamá and acquired an astonishing history of ownership.  The Charles II Pearl was found in 1691 and was said to closely match La Peregrina in size and beauty.  Another Panamanian Pearl called La Huerfana or The Orphan — so named because it was found a loose in the shell beds and not in a Pearl oyster — also became part of the Spanish royal jewels.  Noted for its large size, beautiful luster, and perfect shape, La Huerfana was briefly owned by Isabel de Bobadilla, daughter of the man who sent Columbus back to Spain and irons.

Pearl fishing quickly expanded into other areas of the region including isla Margarita, isla coche, and all along the coast cumana, Morocco, and eventually all the way to Cabo d vela in present-day Colombia.  In 1526, Oviedo y Valdes gave the most complete description of pearl diving at that time:

“Many Indians working in groups… leave the island of Cubagua… and go out in a dugout or boat early in the day to where they think they will find a large quantity of pearls.  There are they anchored the bow, in which one Indian remains, and he keeps the boat as still as he can.  The others and dived to the bottom.  After some time an Indian will return to the surface and deposit in the boat of oysters in which the pearls are found.  He rests a while, takes a bite to eat, and once more he enters the water to stay as long as he can, finally returning with more oysters.  Meanwhile the other Indians, all good swimmers, are doing likewise.  When night falls and they think it is time to rest a return home to the island and turn over the oysters to their masters majordomo.  Period. When he has many, he has them opened… sometimes when this sea is rougher than the Pearl Fisher would like, and also because naturally when a man is working underwater at a great depth, a diverse feat want to rise, it is only with difficulty that the worker can remain on the bottom any length of time.  Under such conditions the Indians used to large stones tied together with a quart, which they place over their shoulders, one on each side, and enter the water… and since the stones are heavy, the Indian can remain on the bottom.  When he wants to rise to the surface he merely dropped the stones.”

Working conditions were age dreamily harsh and mortality rates among divers were very high.  Diving bosses, known as Ranchero’s or patrons, employed teams of four to seven divers per new under the supervision of a majordomo.  They dived to depths of 8 fathoms (48 feet or 14.6 m).  A diver did not last long on a Pearl Coast, especially in the early years.  In 1515, Bartolomeo of Spain, after witnessing the injustices perpetrated against the natives, began a campaign for more than human treatment of the Indians in the gold mines and black pearl fisheries.

His efforts bore fruit in 1516 when Spanish crown, now in the hands of a new cane, Carlos, issued regulations governing pearling operations.  They restricted maximum hours of diving for black pearls per day, the maximum depth, and recommended minimum requirements for food and lodging.  These regulations were eight more often enough that further royal edicts were necessary.  One such edict imposed the death penalty on anyone forcing a free Indian to become a Pearl diver.

“Because report has been made to us that, owing to the pearl fisheries not having been conducted in a proper manner, deaths of many Indians and Negroes had ensued, we command that no free Indian be taken to that said fishery under pain of death, and that the bishop and the judge who shall be at Venezuela direct what shall seem to them most fit for the preservation of the slaves working in that said fishery, both Indians and Negroes and fat the deaths may cease.  If, however, it should appear to them that the risks of death cannot be avoided by the said Indians and Negroes, let the fishing of the said Earls cease, since we value much more highly (as is right) the preservation of their lives and the gain which may come to us from the black pearls.”

The Venezuelan pearls collected in the first half of the 16th century virtually flooded Renaissance Europe. By contemporary accounts, they were mostly small with a maximum weight of five carats, and came in a variety of colors in addition to pure white.  America became known as the land of Earls and pearls from cubagua were as well-known as culture pearls today.  One recent account estimated that “in all probability more black pearls were put into circulation between about 1515 and 1545, chiefly from the cubagua region, then over any comparable period of time either before or since.

The actual number of monetary value of the pearls exported from the Pearl post are difficult to estimate.  Numbers fluctuated from year to year as Pearl oyster beds became exhausted and new ones were found.  From 1513 to 1540, the Spanish crown’s share of pearls (20%, a royal fifth) at cubagua alone amounted to 2375 kg grams.  If this can be considered accurate, the total harvest would have been about 11,877 kg.  However, given the varieties of collecting and inaccuracies of reporting, this probably represents a serious underestimate.  If on average Venezuelan pearl weighed two grains, this weight would have represented over 118 million black pearls.  In terms of today’s market, this number of pearls would be worth several hundred million dollars.

The first to profit from Columbus’s discovery of Venezuelan pearls were his sailors.  Among them, Peralonso Niño, former pilot of the ship’s Santa Maria,, was given royal permission in 1499 to explore the Pearl Coast and retrieve its pearls, in clear contravention of Columbus’s active exclusivity agreement.  Mainly through tray, Niño succeeded in obtaining many fine black pearls, most probably from Margarita and cubagua islands and areas along the coast.  Their chronicler Peter Martyr recorded that Niño brought back “96 pounds of pearls, some as large as hazelnuts, very clear and beautiful, though poorly strung.

At about the same time, with Columbus embroiled in politics, this former sailor Alonzo de Hojeda somehow obtained a Columbus’s map of the South American mainland and planned a return trip.  He was accompanied by the then known Italian Amerigo Vespucci, who represented Medici interests and whose the account of the voyage would later earn him the name of a continent. Hojeda returns to the Pearl Coast and landed on isla Margarita exploring Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao before moving on to Bahamas. He obtained about 150 pearls and 119 macros, approximately 27 k grams or 60 pounds, of pearls through barter and prepared to scale for Spain.  Ominously, Hojeda decided to ensure the success of his voyage by raiding the islands for slaves. Vespucci claimed that Hojeda stopped in to Bahamas lucayans before returning to Spain in the spring of 1500.  While this total profit from the pearls and lucuayan slaves was not great — only 502 ducats (approximately 2000 g of gold) — he was the first to link to these commodities.  This set a precedent that would be eagerly followed by many of his countrymen during the next decade.

The ensuing quest for black pearls expanded to cover the Pacific Coast of central America. Nunez Balboa of Spain explored Panamá in 1513, and upon reaching the Pacific Coast, encountered natives wearing pearls.  When asked about the source of these riches the chief responded that the best pearls came from Tararequi in the Gulf of Panamá, later called isla Perlas as word of Balboa’s discovery spread, other Spaniards headed for the Gulf of Panamá and returned with sac fold of pearls.  Like the black pearls from Venezuela, most Panamanian pearls were destined for Spain.

Together these explorations succeeded in exhausting but supply of American pearls that were in need of hands and available through trade.  As a result, the Pearl trade on the Pearl Coast seems to have slowed for a few years.  The next phase was the organization of Pearl harvesting ventures.  The earliest mention of Black Pearl under Spanish direction is found in a letter of 1509 from the keen to Nicholas Albano, governor of the newly established colony Hispaniola.  The letter discussed diving for pearls and the foundation of a small settlement established for that purpose on isla cubagua.  Most of the divers were probably lucuayan slaves brought from the Bahamas.  Because lucayans were accustomed to diving in search of conchs, their staple food, they fetched a high price from slave traders.  Demand for lucuayan Pearl divers was so high that by 1520, there were no lucayans left in the Bahamas.