Mahogany

Mahogany is a straight-grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus Swietenia, indigenous to the Americas[1] and part of the pantropical chinaberry family, Meliaceae.

The history of the American mahogany trade dates back to the 17th century when the wood was first noticed by Europeans during the Spanish colonization of the Americas.

Initial mentions of the mahogany tree (as opposed to wood) date to 1731, with its first detailed description in 1743, attributed to Swietenia mahagoni by Kemp Malone in 1940.

Lamb proposes that Yoruba and Igbo people brought to Jamaica as slaves identified the local trees of the Swietenia genus as m'oganwo, which developed into the Portuguese term mogano, which first appeared in print as the name of a river in 1661, before finally developing into the English mahogany in Jamaica between that the proposed metamorp 1309 and 1789.

[4] Malone criticized this etymology, arguing hosis from the Yoruba m'oganwo to the Portuguese mogano to the English mahogany was a logical and linguistic stretch relying on the conversion of the singular oganwu to the collective m'oganwo, which Malone finds unlikely considering the tree's generally solitary nature.

[2] Lamb, in turn, criticized Malone's methodology and perceived bias, and maintained that there is no evidence for mahogany as a generic word.

[3] Mahogany is a commercially important lumber prized for its beauty, durability, and color, and used for paneling and to make furniture, boats, musical instruments and other items.

[25] In the 20th century various botanists attempted to further define S. macrophylla in South America as a new species, such as S. candollei Pittier and S. tessmannii Harms., but many authorities consider these spurious.

According to Record and Hess, all of the mahogany of continental North and South America can be considered as one botanical species, Swietenia macrophylla King.

The name mahogany was initially associated only with those islands in the West Indies under British control (French colonists used the term acajou, while in the Spanish territories it was called caoba).

In 1836 the German botanist Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini (1797–1848) identified a second species while working on specimens collected on the Pacific coast of Mexico, and named it Swietenia humilis.

In 1886 a third species, Swietenia macrophylla, was named by Sir George King (1840–1909) after studying specimens of Honduras mahogany planted in the Botanic Gardens in Calcutta, India.

After S. mahogani and S. macrophylla were added to CITES appendixes in 1992 and 1995 respectively international conservation programs began in earnest aided by a 1993 World Bank report entitled "Tropical Hardwood Marketing Strategies for Southeast Asia".

After so many years of mismanagement and illegal logging, Swietenia also suffered from genetic loss thus mutating and weakening the seeds.

[30] In the 17th century, the buccaneer Alexandre Exquemelin recorded the use of mahogany or Caoba (Cedrela being the Spanish name) on Hispaniola for making canoes: "The Indians make these canoes without the use of any iron instruments, by only burning the trees at the bottom near the root, and afterwards governing the fire with such industry that nothing is burnt more than what they would have..."[31] The wood first came to the notice of Europeans with the beginning of Spanish colonisation in the Americas.

A cross in the Cathedral at Santo Domingo, bearing the date 1514, is said to be mahogany, and Philip II of Spain apparently used the wood for the interior joinery of the palace El Escorial, begun in 1584.

[32] However, caoba, as the Taino Natives called the wood, was principally reserved for shipbuilding, and it was declared a royal monopoly at Havana in 1622.

[citation needed] After the French established a colony in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), some mahogany from that island probably found its way to France, where joiners in the port cities of Saint-Malo, Nantes, La Rochelle and Bordeaux used the wood to a limited extent from about 1700.

[citation needed] While the trade in mahogany from the Spanish and French territories in America remained moribund for most of the 18th century, this was not true for those islands under British control.

[34] At the same time, the Naval Stores Act 1721 had the effect of substantially increasing exports of mahogany from the West Indies to the British colonies in North America.

Although initially regarded as a joinery wood, mahogany rapidly became the timber of choice for makers of high quality furniture in both the British Isles and the 13 colonies of North America.

This was sometimes called Providence wood, after the main port of the islands, but more often madera or madeira, which was the West Indian name for mahogany.

The most significant third source was Black River and adjacent areas on the Mosquito Coast (now Republic of Honduras), from where quantities of mahogany were shipped from the 1740s onwards.

[38] The object was primarily to encourage importations of cotton from French plantations in Saint Domingue, but quantities of high quality mahogany were also shipped.

British settlers had been active in southern Yucatan since the beginning of the 18th century, despite the opposition of the Spanish, who claimed sovereignty over all of Central America.

Under Article XVII of the Treaty of Paris (1763), British cutters were for the first time given the right to cut logwood in Yucatan unmolested, within agreed limits.

In the last quarter of the 18th century France began to use mahogany more widely;[40] they had ample supplies of high quality wood from Saint Domingue.

Saint Domingue became the independent republic of Haiti, and from 1808, Spanish controlled Santo Domingo and Cuba were both open to British vessels for the first time.

[42] By the end of the 19th century there was scarcely any part of Central America within reach of the coast untouched by logging, and activity also extended into Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and Brazil.

), a related genus, began to be exported in increasing quantities from West Africa, and by the early 20th century it dominated the market.