The King of Vanilla: Edmond Albius
A statue of Edmond Albius in Sainte-Suzanne, one of Réunion’s oldest towns; Source - Face to Face Africa
A procedure now known as “marriage.” A French plantation. Vanilla. An orphaned twelve-year old black enslaved boy. If your supermarket shelves are stocked with teeny dark bottles of vanilla extract, it’s imperative you know about Edmond Albius, the “unlikely hero of nineteenth-century botany,” “the little boy who should’ve disappeared, but didn’t,” the main reason that vanilla is as accessible as it is today. Born in 1829 in Sainte-Suzanne and enslaved on Île de Bourbon, dead in 1880 at the fifty-one, his popularized vanilla pollination method was Edmond’s must famous achievement. And what an achievement it is!
For the longest time, nobody outside Mexico could make vanilla produce beans. Although it captured the attention of many people of note (Anne of Austria, Queen Elizabeth I of England, King Henry IV of France and Thomas Jefferson who discovered it in Paris and wrote America’s first recipe for vanilla ice cream), and demand was high, all attempts to pollinate the orchid was futile without the Mexican insect, Euglossa viridissima. Until Edmond.
Edmond Albius, whose mother had died in childbirth, was sent off to work for his mistress’ brother, Ferréol Bellier-Beaumont, at his plantation in Belle-Vue. Edmond grew up tailing Ferréol, learning botany and horticulture. After twenty years of a barren vanilla vine, Ferréol was shocked to see it bear fruit one day, but further surprised when twelve-year-old Edmond demonstrated how he made this miracle happen. He “pulled back the lip of a vanilla flower and, using a toothpick-sized piece of bamboo to lift the part that prevents self-fertilization, he gently pinched its pollen-bearing anther and pollen-receiving stigma together.” This procedure is now called ‘marriage.’ The French call it le geste d’Edmond. Edmond’s gesture. Soon, Edmond was travelling, teaching his pollination method to other slaves. Ferréol championed Edmond and insisted on the acknowledgment of his role in the narrative, full credit.
Edmond, who didn’t have a last name until he was freed in 1848, improved the economics of his home island. Because of his pollination method, the French colonies surpassed Mexico in vanilla production. Demand for vanilla increased with supply and it is currently the world’s most popular spice after saffron, beans being produced in millions, not only in Mexico but in other countries like Kenya, Madagascar, China and Indonesia
Today, there is a street named after Edmond, and a school, and a bronze statue stands in Sainte-Suzanne, one of Réunion’s oldest towns. It is a statue of Edmond Albius, in a jacket and bowtie, a brazen reminder for us to never forget how this twelve-year-old black boy changed the world.
