Cacao Beans Were Money

As we already know, the Aztecs used cacao to prepare a chocolate beverage they loved. But this wasn't the only use of the cacao beans; they used them as currency next to gold dust. The Aztecs had bags of cacao that contained a specific number of cacao grains.

For Peter Martyr to use cacao beans as circulating money was a brilliant idea as it avoided the temptation of avarice: Cacao beans can neither be hoarded for a long time nor easily hidden.

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