Following a scientific expedition undertaken during the Dutch occupation of Northeast Brazil (1630-1654), it was claimed that a number of tropical plant and animal species had been introduced from Guinea: a round white eggplant (Solanum macrocarpon), guinea squash (Solanum aethiopicum), sesame (Sesamum radiatum), the lablab bean (Lablab purpureus), guinea fowl (Numida meleagris) and an African sheep bred for meat rather than wool (Marcgrave, 1942; Piso, 1957). African foods also make an early appearance in Caribbean plantation societies. English Puritans established a colony on Providence Island, a shortlived (1630-1641) settlement off the coast of Nicaragua. Enslaved Africans, who accounted for half of the island's population, grew plantains as the dietary staple (Kupperman, 1993, pp. 105-108). Writing of his residency on the island colony of Barbados in the 1640s, the Englishman Richard Ligon (1970, pp. 69, 70-82 and 99-100) counted plantains, bananas, lablab beans, watermelons, tamarind and possibly taro among the novel food crops that he had come across. Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum who lived in Jamaica from 1687-