 Coffee is not a native South American plant. From its original home in Ethipia it had been transported to Arabia, India and the East Indies. The Dutch took an interest in the plant, and in 1714 donated a coffee tree to the French King Louis XIV. He nurtured it in a hothouse and ordered that seed from it should be sent to the French Caribbean colony of Martinique. The first attempt to grow the seed failed, but in 1723 Captain Gabriel Clieu embarked at Nantes for Martinique with a seedling. After avoiding capture by pirates, surviving hurricanes and a long journey during which he had to share his drinking water with the plant, they both arrived safely and the plant produced a crop three years later. This was the ancestor of the coffee plantations of Central America.
By 1730, coffee was growing in San Domingo, Guadeloupe. Jamaica and Brazil, where it developed into a trade of great importance.
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