Note 12 — Preface
Reading edition
Chocolate was at that time supplied to the Philippines from Nueva España; but the cultivation of the cacao-tree (Theobroma cacao), of which chocolate is a product, was introduced into the islands about 1665 by the governor Diego Salcedo, at the instance of the Jesuit Juan de Avila, according to Delgado (Hist. de Filipinas, p. 535). Blanco says (Flora, p. 420), citing Gaspar de San Agustin, that this honor belongs to a pilot named Pedro Brabo de Lagunas, who brought cacao plants to Manila in 1670.