Cochineal: a red dye that came off a cactus

By Rafe Calder

Spain wanted a red that did not fade. Mexico had it, and kept the secret of where it came from for almost three centuries. The red was cochineal, and it came from an insect.

This piece goes through what five sources say about the animal, the harvest, the Oaxaca trade and the numbers, which do not agree with each other. We report the disagreements and do not pick a winner.

The insect

Wikipedia describes Dactylopius coccus as a parasitic scale insect native to tropical and subtropical South America through Mexico and the southwestern United States. It feeds on prickly pear cacti, genus Opuntia, mostly on the pads. The females are wingless and about 5 millimeters long. The males have wings, are much smaller, and live only long enough to fertilize eggs. The young, called crawlers, spread to new plants on wax filaments carried by the wind.

Britannica, an encyclopedia, says only the females are used, and that the harvested females are brushed off the pads. The dye power comes from carminic acid, which the insect makes to deter predators, according to Wikipedia. Britannica says the dye is obtained by boiling cochineal in water.

The harvest

Wikipedia says the insects are harvested at about 90 days old, mostly by hand: knocked, brushed or picked into bags. The Collector, a popular history magazine, says farmers on cactus farms called nopaleries knock insects and eggs off the pads with a small brush about every 90 days. Both agree on the interval. The Collector adds that the insects are boiled, cleaned and sun-dried until they weigh less than a third of what they did, then ground and mixed with salts to isolate the carmine, which is used with a mordant.

How the insects are killed changes the color. Wikipedia lists hot water, sunlight, steam and oven heat, and says each produces a different shade. Britannica says the dye gives scarlet, crimson and orange tints. Wikipedia describes making carmine by boiling the powdered bodies in ammonia or sodium carbonate, then adding alum.

Counting insects

This is where the sources split:

Wikipedia: about 70,000 insects make 1 pound (0.45 kilogram) of dye.
Britannica: 70,000 insects make one pound of cochineal.
The Collector: about 70,000 insects for each kilogram of dye.
Encyclopedia.com: roughly 25,000 live insects per pound, or 70,000 dried per pound, and about 150,000 per kilogram according to a food dictionary entry.

A pound is less than half a kilogram, so these figures cannot all describe the same thing. Our reading: the dried versus live distinction and the mix of units explain some of the spread. None of the pages say so for every figure, and we do not resolve it.

Oaxaca

Wikipedia says the Mixtec, Zapotec, Aztec and Otomi peoples used cochineal for fabrics and for amate paper, and dates the use to the second century BC. The Collector says production in Oaxaca is said to go back as early as 2000 BCE. Burlington Magazine, an art-history journal, says the Paracas people of Peru were cultivating cochineal by 200 BC. These are three different claims about three different places and dates.

Wikipedia adds that in the Matrícula de Tributos, eleven Oaxacan towns in Coixtlahuaca, conquered by the Aztecs in the fifteenth century, paid yearly tribute of decorated cotton blankets and 40 bags of cochineal dye each. It says the town of Nochixtlán takes its name from the Nahuatl word for cochineal, nocheztli. The Collector says cochineal was produced almost exclusively in Oaxaca in the colonial era, that some 30,000 workers were employed in dye production in the Oaxaca Valley, and calls Oaxaca “a colonial city practically built by the prosperity of the cochineal trade.” Encyclopedia.com also says up to 30,000 workers were employed in the Oaxaca industry by the mid-eighteenth century.

The Spanish trade

Wikipedia says cochineal reached Spain in the 1520s and that carmine became the region’s second most valuable export after silver. Burlington Magazine says the discovery was reported to Charles V in 1523, that he issued a decree controlling its exploitation, and that cochineal became Spain’s second most valuable import after silver. Encyclopedia.com says by the mid-eighteenth century it was Mexico’s second most valuable export; The Collector places that in the eighteenth century. The word “import” in one source and “export” in the others is a difference in who is counting.

The Collector says Spain kept the details of production secret, that live insects could not legally leave Spanish colonial territory, and that foreigners were barred from the colonies. Wikipedia says Mexico held the monopoly until the Mexican War of Independence, 1810 to 1821, after which production spread to Guatemala, the Canary Islands, Spain and North Africa. Encyclopedia.com says that by 1600, Spaniards shipped 250,000 to 300,000 pounds of Mexican cochineal a year from Veracruz to Spain, and that the Portuguese tried to grow it in the 1760s with limited success.

On canvas and cloth

Burlington Magazine says lake pigments made with cochineal gave strong reds, and that in sixteenth-century Venice, Titian and Tintoretto used it for transparent glazes. It names El Greco’s The Saviour, in the Museo del Greco in Toledo, as showing the dye in transparent layers on a red silk tunic. In Mexico, it says, enconchado painting used a cochineal glaze over mother-of-pearl. Encyclopedia.com says weavers in the Netherlands, Flanders and England used it as a textile dye.

Wikipedia flags one contradiction in its own article: it says Pope Paul II changed cardinals’ robes to red in 1454, yet says those robes were made with American cochineal “by 1558.” That is a century after the change, and only after cochineal reached Spain. We pass the puzzle along without a fix.

After synthetic dyes

Encyclopedia.com says demand fell in the nineteenth century when textile makers switched to cheaper synthetic reds. Britannica says synthetic dyes largely replaced it in the twentieth century but demand has rebounded, and that Peru is now the leading producer, with Mexico, the Canary Islands and Chile smaller. Wikipedia gives 2005 figures, which it flags as out of date. Encyclopedia.com says that today it is produced in Mexico mainly for local artists and craftsmen. These are different eras and different claims.

Britannica adds that carmine is used in foods such as yogurt, confectionery and beverages, and that labels often list it as “carmine” or “cochineal extract,” or E120 in many countries. For anyone who avoids animal-derived ingredients, that label wording matters. We say nothing here about health.

Dates in order

200 BC: Paracas cultivation, according to Burlington Magazine.
Second century BC: Mesoamerican use, according to Wikipedia.
1520s: reaches Spain, according to Wikipedia.
1523: reported to Charles V, according to Burlington Magazine.
By 1600: 250,000 to 300,000 pounds a year shipped from Veracruz, according to encyclopedia.com.
1810 to 1821: the Mexican monopoly ends with the War of Independence, according to Wikipedia.

What kind of sources these are

Wikipedia, which anyone can edit; Britannica, an encyclopedia; Encyclopedia.com, a reference site that reprints older entries; The Collector, a popular history magazine; and Burlington Magazine, an art-history journal. We read no museum page on the dye itself and no producer.

What we left out

Prices and market sizes. Uses beyond food and textiles. Any named workshop or weaver. The Ethiopia and Canary Islands production details. The Wikipedia dispute over where the word “cochineal” comes from. Anything about dyeing technique that we could not source.

Quick answers

What is cochineal made from? Britannica says the dried, pulverized bodies of female scale insects that live on prickly pear cactus. Wikipedia names the species Dactylopius coccus.

Why was Oaxaca important for cochineal? The Collector says it produced the dye almost exclusively in the colonial era and employed some 30,000 workers. Encyclopedia.com gives the same worker figure.

How do I spot cochineal on a food label? Britannica says labels often list it as “carmine” or “cochineal extract,” or as E120 in many countries.

Roam first. Shop later.

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