The plant is indigenous to South America and is said to originate from the area between southern Brazil and Paraguay;[2] however, little is known about the origin of the domesticated pineapple (Pickersgill, 1976). M.S. Bertoni (1919)[20] considered the Paraná–Paraguay River drainages to be the place of origin of A. comosus.[21] The natives of southern Brazil and Paraguay spread the pineapple throughout South America, and it eventually reached the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico, where it was cultivated by the Mayas and the Aztecs. Columbus encountered the pineapple in 1493 on the leeward island of Guadeloupe. He called it piña de Indes, meaning "pine of the Indians", and brought it back with him to Europe, thus making the pineapple the first bromeliad to be introduced by humans outside of the New World.[22] The Spanish introduced it into the Philippines, Hawaii (introduced in the early 19th century, first commercial plantation 1886), Zimbabwe and Guam. The fruit is said to have been first introduced in Hawaii when a Spanish ship brought it there in the 1500s.[23] The Portuguese took the fruit from Brazil and introduced it into India by 1550.[24]