European accounts of the early colonial period attest to the appearance of several foods that arrived from Africa. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, a Spanish nobleman who participated in the colonization of Hispaniola and Panama, spent the years 1514-1523 in Hispaniola. An attentive observer of the plants and animals there, Fernández de Oviedo described Guinea yams as a recent introduction to Hispaniola that was 'chiefly grown and eaten by Negroes' (Parry, 1955, p. 1-20). A Catholic priest writing a few decades later claimed that the African guinea fowl arrived in Hispaniola with the first boatloads of enslaved Africans (Donkin, 1991, p. 97). In Brazil, the Jesuit missionary José de Anchieta (1534-1597), who lived in the colony from 1553 until his death, acknowledged the crops introduced from Africa, writing that 'from Guiné there are many squashes and beans, that are better than those from Portugal' (De Anchieta, 1933, p. 23). Bahian sugar-planter Gabriel Soares de Sousa, arriving in Brazil during the 1560 s, mentioned yams, guinea corn (sorghum), rice and plantains among the crops that Africans were cultivating for food (Hoehne, 1937). Other records from the period indicate the presence of many African dietary staples in the colony: okra (Abelmoschus esculentus), pigeon peas (Cajanus cajan), blackeye peas (Vigna unguiculata), millet (Pennisetum glaucum), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), yams (Dioscorea cayenensis), oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), hibiscus (Hibiscus sabdariffa), malagueta pepper (Aframomum melegueta) and tamarind (Tamarindus indica), as well as castor beans (Ricinus communis), which were used medicinally and as a source of lamp oil (Hall, Harrison and Winters Welker, 1987, pp. 228-230, 235 and 241).