The increased prosperity of British and North American Atlantic port cities over the course of the eighteenth century is effectively illustrated by the significant expansion in the production of luxury furniture. Hardwoods such as oak and walnut from the British Isles and Europe had long been popular and demand from a range of industries – from furniture to shipbuilding – greatly outstripped local supplies. Imported hardwood species from South America, Africa and South Asia were introduced to suit the demand, whether for strong wood of consistent grain that took well to carving and finishing, or for inlays and veneers that bore the appearance of their exotic origins. By the mid-eighteenth century, mahogany imported from the Caribbean basin was the standard of quality for the highest grade of manufacture. As the century wore on, accessible sources on Jamaica and other islands became depleted and the British increasingly turned farther west, to the Central American mainland flanking the Bay of Honduras (today’s northern Honduras and Belize).

The chests, dining tables, sideboards, chairs, and secretaries, whether decorated or plain, were always highly polished to expose the rich red colour and distinctive grain that identified the wood as the exotic product of British maritime trade into the farthest reaches of the New World sub-tropical rainforest. The ‘economic solidarity and moral worth’ intrinsic to the furniture of Aldous Huxley’s youth, therefore, embodied not just the ingenuity of British cabinetmakers, but also the labour of those who extracted and transported the massive logs to the coast, as well as those who embarked on transatlantic voyages to waters they perceived as remote and dangerous. The African- Caribbean slaves who had been brought to Central American forest camps to hunt for, cut down, and drag out the massive mahogany trees have been investigated through archives and archaeological sites. But exceedingly little evidence has survived of the voyages made by mariners from many European nations to convey the valuable wood to the cabinetmaker.