The cochineal insect was brought to Europe by the Spanish in the early sixteenth Century after discovery of America . Until Spanish conquest of Mexico the cochineal dye remained unknown to the rest of the world, although it has been suggested that true cochineal was also known in the ancient world where it was produced from insects native to the Ararat valley in a mountain of Turkey. In the 19th Century its cultivation was started in the Canary Island and elsewhere. The Incas were masters in the production of cochineal-red textiles. For a long time, the Spaniards maintained a trading monopoly for cochineal from Central America . At the beginning of the 19th century, however, breeding was established in the Old World, in 1828 on Java, and in 1835 on the Canary Islands . Extensive information about the regions throughout the world in which species of cochineal and their host plants are cultivated for dye is provided in a comprehensive study by Donkin.
