The Settlement's Cleaner Than Expected
While America negotiated with the French consul general, the French expeditionary force was expanding its Central American colony.
"Settlement's easier than I thought?"
Places like the Yucatan Peninsula, where pioneering had been straightforward, had already been cleared by the first wave. The second and third waves were now pushing into the Mosquito Coast to the south.
"Once it's done, snag a few acres—no, hectares—of land and plant sugarcane. That'd be nice."
The settlers were petty criminals granted judicial pardons, idle urban laborers, and foreigners who'd fled the overcrowded Lorraine region.
"Ants everywhere. They work their asses off. Can't let ants outdo us. Let's pioneer hard, boys."
"Tokandira! Tokandira!"
"Tokandira? Gaaah!"
The settlers, literally possessing nothing but their own bodies, explored Central America with brute-force methods—charging ahead first and checking for danger later.
"Bitten by a tokandira. I screamed at you to watch out."
"What's a tokandira anyway! Why does it hurt so damn much!"
"Tokandira. In Europe, we call it Paraponera. You don't know?"
Paraponera. The infamous bullet ant of Central America.
"Poison bug? Cut it off? Am I dying...?"
"Not poison. Just tough it out."
But in Central America, that was just your run-of-the-mill insect.
"If it were real poison, you wouldn't be talking right now. You'd be up in front of God explaining how you died—or maybe on your way to hell. The local bugs and snakes look so obviously venomous that dying from them counts as suicide."
The mestizo guide pointed at a nearby frog as he spoke.
"Looks like touching it'd kill you, right? Steer clear of anything flashy. Predators that eat anything tasty or filthy still avoid the bright ones for a reason. Same goes for plants and mushrooms—don't touch the colorful stuff."
Of course, go deep enough and bullet ants did carry neurotoxins. But in this era, if you didn't die or suffer lasting effects, it wasn't poison. Just a really pissed-off bug.
"Ahem! I made a fool of myself. Drank too much rum last night—legs went limp. I'll rest at base camp, so don't follow. I'll walk it off myself."
Pride kept the white settlers from asking the mestizo for help; they just groaned in agony at base camp for days.
"Sir, crush this and rub it on the wound. Not a cure, but it'll hurt less."
The mestizo guide took pity and prescribed a local painkiller.
"Hmph. I'm not so desperate I'd rely on savage witchcraft."
But even homeland rejects were still white. Begging from a person of color was out of the question.
"My father's Governor Oudloop, you know..."
That changed things if the colored man's father was someone important.
"Urgh... fine, I'll trust the governor's wisdom this once."
Loser whites were still losers. Criminals, unemployed, foreigners—they couldn't ignore high-ranking official bloodlines. Even as the fourth son of the governor's seventh native wife, he outranked white rejects.
"Hm? Pain's vanished. Not entirely gone, but I can keep pioneering. What is this stuff?"
"Coca leaves. A specialty sold by mulatto merchants in Nueva Granada. Too pricey for everyday use."
"Mmm. Definitely... mmm... mmmmmmm..."
Once the settlers started begging from people of color, hesitation vanished.
"Damn, bullet ant again. Got any coca leaves? Gotta chew while I go."
In truth, they were getting hooked.
Most settlers, though, never touched coca leaves.
"No pride at all. March like maniacs but barely any results... Figures. Beggars from colored folk are all the same. Honorary people of color."
There was the white pride issue—no asking coloreds first—but the real problem was the addicts' behavior.
"Mmm... more coca leaves?"
"None left. Told you it's expensive."
They got addicted, bit and chewed in cycles, ending up half-dead.
"From our group's budget..."
"Monthly quota's spent. You've mostly lain around lately—no real pioneering. Keep it up, and repatriation orders will come."
This naturally slowed settlement to a crawl.
"Cough! Ack!"
And then the endemic diseases hit.
"Yellow fever, malaria, plus bug bites everywhere. Can't pioneer like this anymore."
Days spent lying around addicted meant endless mosquito bites.
"Quina bark tea. And repatriation orders from the homeland—time to go back."
The French government couldn't entrust settlement to the sick, so it ordered them home.
"Good work. Your dedication will light France's future. Here's severance as comfort money—rest up."
Back home, they got massive expedition bonuses. But addicts blew it all on coca leaves in weeks, doomed to pauper life.
"Hm. Odd."
Yet this was peak-growth hegemonic France. The government didn't ignore the abnormal spending and reintegration failures.
"Slums cropping up again, and young white men? Definitely suspicious."
Northern steel mills and southern factories had kept paupers nonexistent for a while. Seeing repatriated settlers turn pauper triggered a government probe.
"Your Majesty, no cause found. Treasury speculates excessive comfort money killed work ethic. Cutting severance might boost reintegration."
The government blamed pauper laziness, proposing reduced payouts.
"Nonsense. Sure, some get lazy on handouts, but hunger forces work. We gave enough for two years of normal living."
"You're right, Your Majesty. Sixteen percent starving to death among non-reintegrated paupers is abnormal."
"Battle-hardened veterans fear death—settlers accepting starvation after a stint? Soup kitchens give rye bread at least; skipping that screams anomaly. Reject this report. Reanalyze for the root cause."
Louis XVI, irritated by bureaucratic foot-dragging and fudging data, ordered a reinvestigation.
"Your Majesty, truly no cause. We shadowed them daily—watched buys, eats, wears. Nothing. Live like typical paupers: daily wage for daily bread, then suddenly lose all will and die."
The investigators came up empty.
"Public works cleaning a few days, spend earnings loafing and eating, repeat. Classic pauper pattern. No clues. Most income went to pricey foreign tobacco, but that's just pauper habits—not decadent enough to flag."
"Then ban foreign tobacco. Phase in quitting. Make them smoke French stuff and report progress."
Louis XVI still demanded solutions.
"Your Majesty, paupers refuse anything but Spanish tobacco."
His tobacco obsession bore fruit.
"They crave only the finest Andes coca leaves."
"Coca?"
The root of the pauper lethargy revealed.
Louis XVI issued an edict the moment he pinpointed it.
Henceforth, coca leaves are hereby declared illegal.
A targeted tobacco ban.
"Your Majesty, Spain needs exports to repay trade debts. Banning one tobacco variety harms mutual interests."
The Spanish envoy lodged a mild protest, but
"Tobacco's a monopoly item anyway. Just preempting a threat to the French market—don't take it personally. We'll review limited imports as medicine, not luxury."
Lacking pretext, he couldn't push further.
"What's so great they ban it?"
But humans crave the forbidden. Curiosity drove Frenchmen to hunt illegal coca leaves.
"Fifty francs a leaf?"
Way too pricey. Legally imported like regular smokes before, now customs seized them.
"Too expensive."
"Even at this, no profit."
"Then you smoke it."
Andes coca growers turned to smuggling, prices soaring to break even.
"Seeds for a hundred francs—grow your own?"
Smugglers desperately hawked, but Frenchmen shrugged.
"Too busy for a victory garden? Tobacco's tobacco. Shops roll 'em for five sols—why drop fifty on fancy?"
Unlike the modern era with rampant addicts, 18th-century France nipped coca culture in the bud.