The Bitter History of Chocolate

What It Covers

Chocolate's $150 billion industry relies on West African cocoa farms where child labor persists despite century-old reforms. The episode traces chocolate from Mesoamerican currency through colonial slavery to modern Ghana's 850,000 struggling farmers.

Key Questions Answered

• •Colonial labor shift: Portuguese moved cocoa production from independent Brazil to Sao Tome island in 1822, using enslaved workers with 12-14% annual death rates from anemia caused by unhappiness and brutal conditions on plantations.
• •Investigative journalism impact: Henry Wood Nevinson's 1905 Harper's Magazine expose followed workers from Angola's desert recruitment routes to Sao Tome, documenting shackles and forced contracts that pressured Quaker-owned Cadbury to relocate sourcing by 1909.
• •Modern supply concentration: Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire produce the majority of world cocoa through 5-6 million small-scale farmers working plots walkable in minutes, paid by weight not labor, creating economic pressure that perpetuates child labor.
• •Healthcare poverty cycle: Cocoa farming families lack savings for medical emergencies, forcing children like Shadrach Frimpong into farm work when parents face bad harvests, despite cocoa generating billions in national revenue for Ghana and Ivory Coast.