cacao growers

Reveals the hard economic realities of the cocoa trade, from the thousands of children who work on plantations to the smallholders who harvest the beans.

Upon the death of her father in 1920, Spanish chocolate shop proprietor Maria "Puri" Purificaci?n learns she, along with siblings from her father's clandestine marriage to another woman, have inherited a share of a cacao plantation in Ecuador. During the boat ride to claim her inheritance, Puri and her husband Crist?bal are attacked and Crist?bal is killed. Knowing the attacker was aiming for her, Puri dresses and impersonates her husband for protection while she investigates who wants her dead and what to do with her inheritance.

Describes the travels and work of Englishman Joseph Burtt, who was sent by Cadbury Brothers Limited to investigate if the cocoa it was buying from the Portuguese colony of Sao Tome and Principe was being harvested by slave laborers, and examines his influence on labor recruiting practices in colonial Africa.