Sur del Lago, Maracaibo, Venezuela

Category: Theobroma Cacao L.: Cacao Nacional

In the seventeenth century, cacao was traded between the Kingdom of New Spain (Mexico) and Venezuela. There is a record of a trade between Antonio Mendez Chillon, a *crypto-Jew from Portugal who, in 1629 landed in Mexico from Angola as a slave trader. and Antonio de Orozco, a purchasing agent from the Maracaibo coastal town of San Antonio de Gibraltar. The consignment, consisting of 677.5 millares of cacao, was confiscated, along with all other money and property by the Inquisition after Mendez Chillon was arrested for Heresy, his crime being his Jewish faith. The frigate carrying the cacao landed in the port of Veracruz on 9 September 1645. Mendez Chillon entered the Inquisition jail 13 days later on 22 September.
Continued at http://thecacaoworld.com/173/lago-de-maracaibo-cacao-the-jewish-faith-and-the-inquisition/