Enlightened alliance
Nature, botany and France’s expansion to the East Indies: the colonization of the Mascarenes (1665-1775)
Elisabeth de Cambiaire
A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
School of Humanities & Languages Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
March 2016 http://doi.org/10.26190/0678-yp06
Table of contents
Acknowledgements p. i
Abbreviations p. ii
One: Introduction p. 1
Two: The management of the world’s diversity during European expansion in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries p.15 1 The botanical content in primary sources 2 The world’s riches: the inventory of exotic flora 2.1 A worldwide inventory 2.2 The search for trade commodities 2.2.1 East Indian goods 2.2.2 Prospecting: plant knowledge on site or ‘colonial’ knowledge 2.2.3 Knowledge acquisition at a distance in scientific centres 2.2.4 The study of commercial drugs 3 Aboard and abroad: the rearrangement of the world’s flora 3.1 Plant supplies along maritime routes 3.2 Naval wisdom 3.3 The spread of plants and maritime life 3.3.1 Fruits 3.3.2 Medicinal plants 3.4 Gardens of trade companies 4 French settlement on the Ile de Bourbon 4.1 An idyllic port d’escale 4.2 The evaluation of the Ile de Bourbon by the Compagnie des Indes 5 The revival of the myth of the Golden Age 5.1 The fantasy of idyllic lands in voyages 5.2 The mythic image of fruits 5.3 Fruitful myths on sea routes 5.3.1 The Mascarenes 5.3.2 The Cape of Good Hope Conclusion
Three: Power and science: The riches of the East Indies within reach (1690–1718) p. 53 1- The historical context in France 2- The mastering of the environment by the French Nation 2.1 The Ile de Bourbon in the global strategy of the French state 2.1.1 The improvement of knowledge acquisition 2.1.2 The improvement of production by plant acclimatisation 2.1.3 The state’s mobilisation for the building of a botanical network with the East Indies
2.2 The delegation of power: colonial management from a distance 2.2.1 The administrators: field managers 2.2.2 The diversification of production and cultivation tests in the Company’s habitations
3- The mastering of natural knowledge in Europe
3.1 Exotic flora and European science 3.1.1 The reliability of knowledge 3.1.2 Knowledge communication at a distance 3.2 Botany in France in the early eighteenth century 3.2.1 The system and the name 3.2.2 Botany in the Royal Garden of Paris 3.3 Dealing with newness: exotic nature imported 3.3.1 Cross-referencing: correspondence, herbaria and plant specimens 3.3.2 The plant specimen 3.3.3 Co-operation for the mastery of natural knowledge: exotic nature transferred Conclusion
Four: The delocalisation of action for the mastery of natural resources: network, patronage and expert knowledge (1719–1740) p. 85 1- The historical context 2- France’s trade strategy in the Indian Ocean 3- The transoceanic management of resources 3.1 The network of the Compagnie des Indes 3.2 The transoceanic network of the Royal Garden 4- The long-term management of the Compagnie des Indes: experimentations and assessments 4.1 The diversification program in the Mascarenes 4.2 The administrative evaluation of exotic products with experiments 4.3 The scientific evaluation of exotic products 4.4 The nation’s engagement: the example of coffee 4.5 Agronomic experiments of the Compagnie des Indes 5- The scientific centre and the circulation of knowledge 5.1 The study of exotic nature at a distance: specimen and history 5.2 The study of exotic nature in the colonies: the correspondents 5.3 The botanical expedition in the East Indies: the voyageur botanist 6- Dealing with otherness: the globalisation of botany 6.1 The botanical garden as the nursery of the world’s resources 6.2 The Royal Garden of Paris as the centre of botany: exotic knowledge legitimised 6.3 Foreign knowledge and European botany: impact on concept and method 6.4 The world’s resources and European expansion: the globalisation of botany Conclusion
Five: Science and politics: the strategic exploitation of the échelle des Indes (1740-1775) p. 128 1- The historical context 2- The political approach to nature in international competition 2.1 Challenges related to the replenishment issue 2.1.1 A colony and a replenishment station: profit and security 2.1.2 The maritime components of Indian campaigns 2.2 Natural resources in global competition: the exploration of the world 3- The rationalisation of nature in the échelle des Indes 3.1 The strategic value of natural resources 3.1.1 Wood 3.1.2 Spices 3.2 The limitation of natural resources 3.3 The improvement of vital supplies 3.4 The strategic place: the garden of the Company 3.5 Forest regulations 4- The Physiocratic management of the période royale in the Mascarenes 4.1 Poivre: the politico-philosophical approach to nature 4.2 The Physiocratic management of the période royale 4.2.1 The King’s instructions 4.2.2 Poivre’s administration 5- Botany in international competition 5.1 Mastery of the world’s diversity: the example of spices 5.1.1 Commercial strategy: acclimatisation and substitution 5.1.2 Bougainville’s circumnavigation 5.2 The strategic study of the world’s resources 5.2.1 Fodder 5.2.2 Medicinal plants 5.2.3 Wood 5.3 The colonial royal garden 5.4 Universal botany, classification and nomenclature Conclusion
Six: Conclusion p. 183
Appendix 1: Botanical index p. 190
Archival sources – Manuscripts p. 192
Bibliography p. 197
Acknowledgement
I wish to thank all the people who have been by my side along this journey, first of all my children who provided me so much support and love, as well as my mother and my close family. The idea of this research has been inspired by two friends, Bernard Leveneur and Olivier Damée, fond of history and gardens, who have always been enthusiastic about my research. I thank them for their support. Special thanks are due to Bernard, who so kindly helped me by providing me with my first archival references and moreover, rare books.
I owe much gratitude and thanks to my principal supervisor, Nicolas Rasmussen. I am fortunate to have had his sound advice and guidance. Thanks to his useful and practical feedback, I have strengthened my ideas and, accordingly, deepened my research in primary sources. Nic has been patient and comprehensive with respect to my language and academic background differences. I also want to thank John Gascoigne, Martyn Lyon, and Katrina Gulliver who have provided me with strong advice as co-supervisors or joint supervisors. They have showed interest in my research and they have commented helpfully upon my chapters in various stages. I am grateful to all for their great help.
I want to give my deepest thanks to my dear friend Judie Cross, who has been encouraging me with my research since the very beginning. Her constant support has been more than helpful during these last few years. She has been an inspiring friend to whom I owe much. In like manner, I want to thank Janet Bell, my other dear friend here in Australia, who spent time listening to me, exchanging points of view and proofreading pieces of work. They both always gave me faith and energy to continue.
I would like to thank the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris. I spent long hours at the Bibliothèque Centrale, where I found the staff very co-operative. I also want to thank Denis Lamy who was at the Laboratoire of Phanérogamie, and who gave me helpful feedback. As well, my thanks go to the staff of the Bibliothèque de l’Académie des sciences.
I wish to acknowledge the University of New South Wales for providing me with such excellent research support and guidance. I especially wish to thank the School of Humanities and Languages and the Graduate Research School as well. With their support, I have been able to complete all necessary research work and to participate, for instance, in the George Rudé and the History of Science Society conferences. My thanks go to the Library and the Learning Centre: all the staff have all been very helpful.
i
Abbreviations
ADR : Archives Départementales de la Réunion
AN : Archives Nationales
ANOM : Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer , Aix-en-Provence
AS : Académie des Sciences
BCMNHN : Bibliothèque Centrale du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
BNF : Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Co : Compagnie des Indes
DFC: Dépôt des Fortifications des Colonies
IF : Institut de France
MNHN : Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
RT : Recueil Trimestriel de documents et travaux inédits pour servir à l'Histoire des Mascareignes Françaises (Compilation of primary source documents)
SHD : Service Historique de la Défense - Vincennes fol : folio
ii
INTRODUCTION
1
Introduction
In his major work, Naturalis Historia, Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) reported that back in 150 BC the Roman senator Cato had presented a fresh fig brought from Carthage to the Senate in order to warn of the threat Carthage posed.1 This city in North Africa, only three days’ sail from Rome on the opposite shore of the Mediterranean Sea, was the centre of an empire. To strengthen his oration and convince his peers of the proximity of the city, Cato showed the fresh fig and urged that Carthage must be destroyed.2 The year after, the Roman Republic put an end to Carthage’s supremacy in the third Punic War. More than Cato’s cleverness, Pliny admired how Carthage’s empire, which had been Rome’s rival for more than a century, ‘had been ruined on the occasion of a fig’.3 In this famed tale, the naturalist explicitly associated imperial expansion with a fruit. The freshness of the fig presented to the Senate illustrated Carthage’s proximity and therefore threat, but above all, it encapsulated the idea of power. Overcoming the obstacles of distance was at the core of imperial expansion, and is central to this research. Plants have always escorted the history of civilisations and have carried an emblematic value representative of feelings, faith, and likewise power. Ancient mythology, sacred texts and epics of conquests were embroidered with names of plants, flowers, precious perfumes and ointments accompanying human destiny, as with incense and laurels used in religious ceremonies and victory celebrations. In the same manner, in accounts related to European expansion, mythic metaphors, names, royal
1 Sivry (de) , Louis (ed.) (1772), Histoire naturelle de Pline (Tome cinquième; Paris: Chez la veuve Desaint), Liv. XV. 2 The story was enlivened in other classical texts with a well-known phrase: Carthago delenda est. See Little, Charles E. (1934), 'The Authenticity and Form of Cato's Saying "Carthago Delenda Est"', The Classical Journal,29/6, p. 432. 3 Sivry (de) (ed.), Histoire naturelle de Pline, Liv. XV, p. 345. 1
INTRODUCTION gifts, costly collections and quests associated with valuable exotic plants a symbolic value of plenitude and abundance, prestige or wealth. They are representative of the importance of plant resources and related knowledge in European expansion.
Florebo quocumque ferar: the motto chosen for the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, when the French state entered East India trade, also associated France’s expansionism with a flourishing plant.4 Moreover, this motto is a symbol for botany’s role in European expansion. The conquest of East India trade by the French Kingdom, from the late seventeenth century to the late eighteenth century, offers a privileged occasion to scrutinise the interconnections between science, trade and, in addition, the French state. Indeed, the riches of the East Indies, which included a great variety of plant commodities and, importantly, highly-prized spices, had been attracting the interest of savants, physicians and traders in Europe for a long time. The French example is specific in that, within the centralised system of the absolute monarchy, the state controlled and sponsored intellectual, scientific and commercial activities. The Royal Garden of Paris, the Academy of Science, as well as the Compagnie des Indes Orientales (later the Compagnie des Indes), were royal institutions in the service of the King and of the nation. In addition, the early eighteenth century is a period when botany started developing as a science per se, separating from medicine in the context of the Enlightenment, and also when renowned botanists, such as the brothers Antoine and Bernard de Jussieu, were studying and teaching botany in the Royal Garden of Paris, the Jardin royal des plantes médicinales then renamed the Jardin du Roy. Furthermore, in the mid-eighteenth century, as debates about state control, slavery, luxury, and the deterioration of the French economy and society became louder, a new economic theory, Physiocracy, arose among the elite of science and of the Enlightenment. In particular, the Mascarene Islands, colonized by France on the route des Indes in the Indian Ocean, became the stage for the application of a Physiocratic management of natural resources. The main purpose of this thesis is to explore the scientific cooperation with the French state and the Compagnie des Indes in the strategic development of the Mascarenes, leading France to secure an Enlightened alliance with nature. This
4 Translation: ‘I shall blossom wherever I shall be carried’, in Charpentier, François (1988), Le Divin Marchand. Relation de la Constitution de la Compagnie Française des Indes Orientales, 1664, ed. Serviable Mario (ARS Terres Créoles edn., Collection Mascarin ; Sainte-Clotilde - Réunion), p. 22. 2
INTRODUCTION dissertation complements the historiography of science and empire by not only examining the circumstances of scientific cooperation but also by exploring Physiocracy and the specific roles botany played both in the metropole and the periphery, in European expansion where distance was a key problem.
The colonisation of the Mascarenes by the French Compagnie des Indes was part of France’s expansion towards the East Indies—mainly the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Subcontinent and South China. This archipelago of three islands east of Madagascar was uninhabited until 1638. That year, Mauritius Island was occupied as a ship stop by the Dutch Republic, and abandoned in 1710 when the Cape of Good Hope became the main Dutch replenishment base; Rodrigues Island and Mascareigne, or Ile de Bourbon (now Reunion Island), were annexed by France. France effectively colonised Bourbon from 1665, then Mauritius from 1721 which was renamed Ile de France, with Rodrigues remaining a replenishment post for tortoises.5 The islands were developed as France’s échelle des Indes, meaning the port of call in the Indian Ocean, half-way between France and the East Indies. In 1664, Louis XIV’s minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert organised East India trade, granting it to the Compagnie des Indes Orientales in 1665.6 Initially, Colbert planned the peaceful colonisation of Madagascar, and thereafter slavery was forbidden in the Company’s ordinances.7 Bourbon was colonised after the French were chased from Madagascar by Malagasy people.8 In addition to the colonists and craftsmen recruited in France, a heterogeneous flow of men and women (English, Indo-Portuguese, and Dutch people) from the colonial sphere settled in the island and formed a mixed population with the very first French and Malagasy inhabitants.9 Unfortunately, slavery became established around 1690 and grew into a component of colonial trade (although slavery
5 Toussaint, Auguste (1977) History of Mauritius (London: MacMillan Education ), pp. 16-22. 6 Pluchon, Pierre (1991) Histoire de la colonisation française (Tome 1; Paris: Fayard), pp. 487-501. See also : ‘Les Compagnies de commerce et la première colonisation de Madagascar (1642-1674)’, Département d'Ethnologie de l'Université de la Réunion, 'Ethnographie Malgache', Anthropologie En Ligne.com
INTRODUCTION is not examined in this research).10 The Company supplied slaves from Madagascar and India, and later Africa, protecting its monopoly against contraband. The Ile de France, advantageous given its natural ports, was developed as the rear post for naval operations from the mid-eighteenth century during a period of wars against Britain in India. This amplified the colonisation with French colonists and traders, but also slaves. After the Seven Years’ War, each island counted more than twenty thousand people and a large majority of them were slaves.11 In brief, the specific organisation of the French Compagnie des Indes was as a joint-stock company based on the model of the Dutch United East Indian Company VOC, but it was a royal company supported by the royal treasury.12 In contrast to royal colonies in the Americas, under the authority of the Ministry of the Navy and of the Colonies, the Company was controlled by the Comptroller General of the Finances. The Company was granted sovereignty of its colonies, had its own fleet and port in Lorient (Brittany), and a monopoly for the selling and the purchase of trade goods in East India trade. It was authorised to have its own military administration and garrisons to defend its possessions. Between the civil and the military administrations referred to as la plume et l’épée, ‘the quill and the sword’, predominance was given to ‘the quill’ or also ‘the pen’.13 The theme of European expansion studied from the late seventeenth century to the late eighteenth requires defining key expressions used in my research. Firstly, the terms ‘nation’ and ‘kingdom’ were employed in contemporary texts, and are used in preference to ‘empire’.14 In general, the choice of ‘European expansion’, instead of ‘colonial expansion’, is more appropriate in the case of the East Indies where European trade companies mostly established trade factories or comptoirs - in India, Japan and China for instance. For its part, France’s expansionist scheme included the development
10 Ibid. pp. 86, 107, 200. The Code noir (legislation of slavery in the Americas) was applied in 1723 in Bourbon due to the increase of slave trade for coffee production. 11 Toussaint, History of Mauritius, p. 38. 12 Weber, La Compagnie Française des Indes (1604 - 1875) ; Haudrère, Philippe, (1989) La Compagnie Française des Indes au XVIIIème siècle (1719-1795) (Paris: Librairie de l'Inde). 13 Haudrère, La Compagnie Française des Indes au XVIIIème siècle (1719-1795), pp. 295-297, 334-338 ; Toussaint, Auguste (1980) Histoire de l'Océan Indien (Collection Que sais-je?; Vendome: Presses Universitaires de France), p. 29. The rule was applied in the Mascarenes in 1727 due to dissensions between agents. 14 In the Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert, the definition of empire is a state governed by a monarch declared emperor. Diderot Denis and d'Alembert Jean (1751-1772) Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, (ARTFL -CNRS ; The University of Chicago) : ‘Empire ; Empire d’Holbach ; Hist. Droit politique’. 4
INTRODUCTION of the Mascarene Islands as colonies, a function that would drive France’s management strategies. The definitions of ‘colony’ and of ‘colony of plantation’ are also noteworthy, as noted by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations: ‘the Latin word (Colonia) signifies simply a plantation’, from Latin colere: to cultivate.15 Related to this function, two French words had a specific meaning in colonies, habitation: establishment made in a colony, and habitant: a farmer.16 As reflected in the colonial vocabulary, agriculture was a major element, leading plant resources and knowledge to become the cornerstone of colonial management.
The appropriation of the world’s resources during European expansion favoured the enhancement of natural knowledge and led to new methodologies and new concepts of nature. Scholars outlined the religious commitment of savants to studying nature.17 In Christian Europe, the mastery of nature was justified by natural theology, a branch of theology aiming to reveal the existence of God through the Creation, a branch that was revived in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries amongst savants such as Ray and Linnaeus. The botanical garden, enriched with a worldwide collection of plants, became a place symbolising man’s control and was meant to recreate the Garden of Eden.18 Historians have examined in particular the methodology of ordering plant collections, which developed in the eighteenth century. They showed that practical motives led botanists to work on taxonomic criteria that were the simplest to observe, and also the most constant — which Linnaeus regarded as the ‘essence’ of the plant, reflecting Linnaeus’ philosophical search for a natural method.19 Foucault analysed this science of ordering as a language which lessened uncertainty by using intrinsic and neutral plant
15 Smith, Adam (1776) An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (The Project Gutenberg Ebook), Book IV, Chapter VII. ‘Of colonies’. 16 Littré, Emile, in J.-J. Pauvert (ed.), Dictionnaire de la langue française (7 vol; Paris: Larousse, Gallimard-Hachette, 1971). 17 Roger, Jacques (1963) Les sciences de la vie dans la pensée française du XVIIIeme siècle (Paris: Armand Colin), pp.240- 247 ; Cassirer, Ernst (1966) la Philosophie des Lumières (Paris: Fayard) Chapter 2: ‘Nature et science de la nature’ ; Larson, James L. (1994) Interpreting Nature. The science of living form from Linnaeus to Kant (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press) ; Koerner, Lisbet, (1999) Linnaeus : nature and nation (Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press) ; Drayton, Richard (2000) Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), Chapter 1. 18 Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World , Chapter 1; Goger, Jean-Marcel, 'Du mythe à l'encyclopédisme: catalogue de jardins-livres', in Comité Des Travaux Historiques Et Scientifiques (ed.), (1999), Le jardin entre science et représentation (Paris). 19 Larson, James L. (1967), 'Linnæus and the Natural Method', Isis, 58/3 ; Scharf, Sara (07/04/2012 2009), 'Identification Keys, the “Natural Method,” and the Development of Plant Identification Manuals', Journal of the History of Biology, 42/1. 5
INTRODUCTION characteristics, to select names and identify plants more ‘transparently’.20 In this thesis, the impetus for this type of taxonomic language will be examined through detailed analysis of botanical identification procedures. According to studies emphasising both the philosophical and the economic aspects of natural history in the mid-eighteenth century, the concept of the economy of nature gained favour among the Enlightened intelligentsia who was eager to work on the improvement of man’s welfare. In Sweden, Linnaeus developed a science he called economics: he intended to understand the natural laws existing in a self-regulated nature, for a balanced use of natural resources respectful of God’s design, according to his own brand of natural theology.21 In France, Physiocracy was an economic theory based on agriculture, applied by the French government to respond to the economic and social crisis in France before the Revolution.22 Physiocrats argued that wealth originated in nature, and the right application of nature’s principles or laws generated a balanced flux of wealth, optimising social welfare and morals. A look at the construction of botanical knowledge and at the management of natural resources in the course of European expansion will highlight how these concepts of the order and the economy of nature were strengthened in scientific thought and applied in classification and agronomic studies overseas. Another aspect in the historiography of European expansion is the history of plant transfers in the colonial sphere, important to consider as part of colonial management as it contributed to botanical knowledge in Europe. Historians have studied the spread of plants during colonisation processes in relation to the ecological impact and alterations on foreign environments.23 A ‘pro-European’ view argues that colonists increased the chances of adapting in foreign climes mainly by reproducing their own environment with European plants. Nevertheless, this view has been challenged because complex plant exchanges have long been occurring worldwide
20 Foucault, Michel (1966) Les mots et les choses (Paris: Gallimard), Chapters 3 and 5. 21 Koerner, Linnaeus : nature and nation, Chapter 5. 22 Vardi, Liana (2012) The Physiocrats and the World of the Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press) ; Riskin, Jessica (13/10/2015 2003), 'The "Spirit of System" and the Fortunes of Physiocracy', History of Political Economy, 35/5. Physiocracy included important economic reforms such as free trade of grain and a simpler tax system. 23 Weiskel, Timothy C. (1987), 'Agents of Empire: Steps Toward an Ecology of Imperialism', Environmental Review: ER,11/4 ; Crosby, Alfred W (2004) Ecological Imperialism. The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 6
INTRODUCTION together with human migrations and trade activities.24 My thesis provides another perspective about daily life in relation to colonial trade, as it examines travel accounts and trade reports about the plant materials regularly transported and transplanted along the sea routes. In the same way as botanical gardens in Europe were compared to the Garden of Eden, European expansion favoured fantasised images of exotic landscapes overseas through descriptions reported in travel accounts, due to exaggeration and vagueness. Scholars in literature and history have drawn upon travel literature and shown that the imaginary of voyages nurtured utopian fictions and revived paradisiacal myths in European thought.25 In his influential study Green Imperialism, Grove emphasized the contribution of travel accounts in the making up of the Edenic island metaphor in English literature.26 There is current scholarly interest in the paradox of the twofold content of travel literature combining fact and fiction.27 Attention to the botanical content of descriptions of such idyllic places in travel literature and accounts will illuminate the rise of myths. Studies have demonstrated the progressive quality improvement of sources of information from the seventeenth century.28 In order to avoid doubtful accounts, sources de visu became increasingly favoured in the eighteenth century; in France, publications by travellers were assessed by the Academy of Science and in journal reviews. In addition, European elites and learned societies fostered the development of foreign correspondence for the study of natural history.29 Moreover, in the eighteenth century Linnaeus in Sweden developed an expert network of students travelling overseas under
24Beinart, William and Middleton, Karen (2004), 'Plant Transfers in Historical Perspective: A Review Article', Environment & History (09673407), 10/1. 25 Grove, Richard (1995) Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860 (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press), Chapter 1 ; Racault, Jean-Michel (2007) Mémoires du Grand Océan: des relations de voyages aux littératures francophones de l'océan indien (Presses de l'université Paris-Sorbonne) ; Kapor, Vladimir (2008) 'Shifting Edenic Codes: On Two Exotic Visions of the Golden Age in the Late Eighteenth Century', Eighteenth-Century Studies,41/2. 26 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, pp. 40-41. 27 Centre de Recherche sur la Littérature des Voyages (CRLV),
INTRODUCTION his aegis. Cook demonstrates that physicians and also members of high-society in the Dutch Republic drove, according to their tastes and fashions, the collection of plants and curiosities by colonial agents, fostering Dutch expertise in exotic flora in the late seventeenth century: for both science and trade, exact identification or the ‘matter of fact’ was also a ‘matter of exchange’.30 In France, savants such as the Jussieu brothers also developed correspondence within the colonial realm and I will draw on these in my study to determine the conditions of partnership with the French state. Science and empire, the research field on cooperation between the scientific community and political power in European expansion, has progressively come into favour. In comparative studies of imperial expansion, scholars have analysed the circumstances where savants participated in the improvement of national wealth.31 European empires undertook in different ways — competition or partnership — the exploration of the world and the inventory of natural resources underpinning colonial trade. A well-known change occurred from the mid-eighteenth century, driven by increasing international competition: common interest in self-sufficiency and public welfare boosted state control and scientific involvements in economic affairs, visible through the deliberate improvement of agriculture and an emphasis on the utilitarian goal of science.32 In Britain, historians have shown the role of Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society of London, who instigated state support for scientific activity in the Kew Gardens for instance, based on the French model. The centralised system of France’s absolute monarchy has been a focus of substantial historical work, as it was a pioneer model of scientific involvement in the state policy and of state support.33 The royal Compagnie des Indes contributed to the
30 Cook, Harold J (2007) Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), Chapters 1, 2. 31 Storey, William K. (1996) Scientific aspects of European expansion (An expanding world ; v. 6; Aldershot, Hampshire, Great Britain ; Brookfield, Vt., USA: Variorum) ; Miller, David and Reill, Peter Hanns (eds.) (1996), Visions of Empire. Voyages, botany, and representations of nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), Part I ; Safier, Neil (2008b) Measuring the New World: Enlightenment Science and South America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). 32 Koerner, Linnaeus : nature and nation ; Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World ; Gascoigne, John (1998) Science in the Service of Empire. Joseph Banks, the British State and the Uses of Science in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge University Press). 33 McClellan, James E. and Regourd, François (2012) The Colonial Machine: French Science and Overseas Expansion in the Old Regime (Isd), and about the Compagnie des Indes, see pp. 142-147 ; Gillispie, Charles C. (1980) Science and Polity in France at the end of the old regime (Princeton University Press) ; Stroup, Alice (1990) A company of scientists: Botany, Patronage, and community at the 17th century Parisian Royal Academy of sciences. (Berkeley: University California Press) ; Letouzey, Yvonne (1989) Le Jardin des Plantes à la croisée des chemins avec André Thouin. 1747-1824 (Paris: 8
INTRODUCTION enhancement of science via its colonial apparatus while benefitting from scientific support. In particular, science in imperial competition plainly took place in the exploration of the world in the late eighteenth century with French scientific teams embarked in circumnavigations, combining botany and colonisation to perform the development of the world, as Bourguet and Bonneuil put it.34 Scholars underline the intricate system of power based on court patronage and prestige which grounded the scientific institutions and contributed to their reputation. Spary shows, at the head of the Royal Garden of Paris, the key roles of Georges-Louis de Buffon and of André Thouin (after the Revolution) who developed a wide social operative system through patronage; in accordance with Enlightenment thought, they expanded the utilitarian purpose of botany to a moral dimension which aimed for betterment of society together with the improvement of nature’s resources.35 The case of the Mascarene Islands complements these major studies on the French colonial system: the following research will shed light on the Royal Garden of Paris and its participation in France’s East Indian strategy and colonial management. A major trend since these last thirty years, in what scholars have called imperial or colonial science, has been the revision of Basalla’s model of a European science exported and diffused centrifugally through the colonial sphere.36 Scholars now agree that European science resulted from a more complex system of intercultural exchanges so that the Eurocentric viewpoint is biased, and the dual organisation centre – periphery or metropolis – colony is fractional, including instead multiple interacting centres.37 In these studies, researchers often refer to Latour and his study in the sociology of science, La science en action.38 Latour demonstrated the cumulative process of the construction
Editions du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle) ; Laissus, Yves (1981), 'Les voyageurs naturalistes du Jardin du roi et du Muséum d'histoire naturelle : essai de portrait-robot', Revue d'histoire des sciences. 34 Bourguet, Marie Noëlle and Bonneuil, Christophe (1999), 'de l'inventaire du monde à la mise en valeur du globe', Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer/ Société française d'histoire d'outre-mer- CNRS, 86/1 ; Kury, Lorelai (1998), 'Les instructions de voyage dans les expéditions scientifiques françaises (1750- 1830)', Revue d'histoire des sciences, 51/1 ; McClellan and Regourd, The Colonial Machine: French Science and Overseas Expansion in the Old Regime , pp. 197-202. 35 Spary, Emma C. (2000) Utopia’s Garden : French National History from Old Regime to Revolution (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press). 36 Basalla, George (1967), 'The spread of Western science', Science, 156. 37 MacLeod, Roy (15/04/2008 2000), 'Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise - Introduction', Osiris, 15/2 ; Müller-Wille, Staffan (2003b), 'Joining Lapland and the Topinambes in Florishing Holland: Center and Periphery in Linnean Botany', Science in Context, 16/4 ; Delbourgo, James and Dew, Nicholas (eds.) (2008), Science and Empire in the Atlantic World (New York: Routledge). 38 Latour, Bruno (2005) La science en action. Introduction à la sociologie des sciences (Paris: La Découverte/Poche - Sciences humaines et sociales). 9
INTRODUCTION of scientific knowledge via networks of circulation of information, compiled and assessed in centres of calculation such as scientific agencies. Several studies emphasise that during the early times of settlements in the West and East Indies, Europeans benefited from local knowledge by establishing contact with indigenous populations, in particular in the search for medicinal products for local cure or for trade.39 In the East Indies, Portuguese and Dutch agents developed a heterogeneous natural knowledge including oriental medicine, in herbaria circulating in the colonial realm and exported to Europe. In my research, I will take into account both the heterogeneity and uncertainty of early information sources, noticed above, to analyse the construction of botanical knowledge in Europe. In the historiography of France’s East Indian strategy in the eighteenth century, authors emphasise the political and strategic role of the Mascarenes islands and chiefly the Ile de France, including studies on two key protagonists, the governor Bertrand- François Mahé de La Bourdonnais and Pierre Poivre.40 In particular, forest regulations in the Ile de France applied by Poivre, an adept of Physiocracy, have been examined by Grove and are central to his pre-environmentalist study.41 Several works related to colonial management describe the development of speculative crops, mainly coffee and spices, dependant on the strategic role of these islands. Complementing a thorough monograph by Lougnon about the launching of coffee production in the Ile de Bourbon, more recent works underline the difficulties of coffee production, and its limitation by food crops to supply the Ile de France, making Bourbon different from a basic
39 Fontes da Costa, Palmira and Nobre de Carvalho, Teresa (2013), 'Between East and West: Garcia de Orta’s Colloquies and the circulation od medical knowldege in the sixteenth century', Asclepio,65/1 ; Heniger, Johannes (1986) Hendrik Adriaan Van Reede Tot Drakenstein 1636-1691 and Hortus Malabaricus (Rotterdam: CRC Press ) ; Schiebinger, Londa and Swan, Claudia (2005) Colonial Botany. Science, Commerce &Politics in the Early Modern World (Philadelphia: PENN - University of Pennsylvania Press), Part II: ‘Translating Indigenous, Creole, and European Botany: local knowledge(s), Global Science’. 40 Wanquet, Claude, 'Pondichéry et/ou Port-Louis, or les incertitudes de la stratégie française dans l' Océan Indien à la fin du XVIIIème siècle', (1987), Relations historiques et culturelles entre la France et l'Inde, XVIIè-XXè siècles (2; Sainte-Clotilde (Réunion): Archives Départementales de la Réunion) ; Haudrère, Philippe (1992) La Bourdonnais: marin et aventurier (Paris: Desjonquères) ; Musée de la Compagnie des Indes et la Société des Amis du Musée (ed.), (1999), Mahé de La Bourdonnais. La Compagnie des Indes dans l' Océan Indien (Cahiers de la Compagnie des Indes, 4; Port-Louis - Lorient) ; Maverick, Lewis A (1941), 'Pierre Poivre: Eighteenth Century Explorer of Southeast Asia', The Pacific Historical Review, 10/2 ; Ly-Tio-Fane, Madeleine (1967), 'Pierre Poivre et l'expansion française dans l'Indo-Pacifique', Bulletin de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient. 41 Brouard, N.R. (1963) A history of Woods and Forests in Mauritius (Port-Louis-Mauritius: J.E. Felix, I.S.O, Govt Printer) ; Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860 , Chapter 5. 10
INTRODUCTION plantation colony producing only export goods.42 The saga of the introduction to the Ile de France of the Moluccan nutmeg and clove spices, under the strict Dutch monopoly, has been carefully examined by Ly-Tio-Fane, using transcripts of official correspondence.43 She showed that this conspiracy was treated as a state affair, involving the French scientific institutions. About scientific activity in the Mascarenes, early works detailed the many correspondents of the Academy of Science, and for this the contribution of Ly-Tio-Fane is also noteworthy, in addition to the major work about French science in the colonial system by McClellan and Regourd cited above.44 Other publications provide details on Commerson, the botanist of Bougainville’s expedition, and his work during his sojourn in the Mascarenes.45 Rouillard and Gueho published a sound reference work on botany and on the history of plants in Mauritius; in addition, a few historical works provide general information on the botanical gardens ‘Réduit’ and ‘Pamplemousses’.46 This thesis will complement these studies by detailing scientific works in colonial management, the forest legislation and the establishment of the botanical gardens in the Mascarenes.
The mutual benefits that botany and European expansion brought one another are at the core of my investigation. I seek to define the parameters of European
42 Lougnon, Albert (1956) L'Isle Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges Boucher et les débuts du café (Paris: Edition Larose) ; Eve, Prosper (2006) Histoire d'une renommée. L'aventure du caféier à Bourbon/ la Réunion des années 1710 à nos jours (CRESOI - Océan Editions edn.; St André) ; Tchakaloff, Thierry Nicolas (2008) Le café à Bourbon (MADOI (Musée des Arts Décoratifs de l'Océan Indien) - Région Réunion) ; Wanquet, Claude, 'Le café à la Réunion, une "civilisation" disparue ', in Claude Wanquet (ed.) (1989), Fragments pour une Histoire des Economies et Sociétés de Plantation à la Réunion (Saint-Denis: Université de la Réunion). 43 Ly-Tio-Fane, Madeleine (1958) Mauritius and the spice trade. The odyssey of Pierre Poivre (Esclapon Limited edn., Publication No 4; Port-Louis: Mauritius Archives Publication Fund) ; Ly-Tio-Fane, Madeleine (1970) Mauritius and the spice trade**. The triumph of Jean Nicolas Céré and his Bourbon collaborators, ed. Ecole Pratique Des Hautes Etudes- Sorbonne. (Paris - The Hague: Mouton & Co). 44 See for instance Ly-Tio-Fane, Madeleine, (1976) Pierre Sonnerat. 1748-1814. An account of his life and work (Cassis, Impr. & Pepeterie Comm.) ; Ly-Tio-Fane, Madeleine (1982), 'Nicolas Céré et l'Académie des sciences. Une correspondance avec le Chevalier de Lamarck, sa contribution à l'Encyclopédie Méthodique.', Le mouvement des idées dans l'Océan Indien Occidental, ; Lacroix, Alfred, (1934) Notice Historique sur les Membres et Correspondants de l'Académie des sciences ayant travaillé dans les colonies françaises des Mascareignes et de Madagascar au XVIIIe siècle et au début du XIXe (Paris: Institut de France - Académie des Sciences, Gauthier-Villars). 45 Centre Universitaire de la Réunion (ed.) (1973), Colloque Commerson (Cahiers du Centre Universitaire de la Réunion, St Denis- Réunion: Académie de la Réunion- Centre Universitaire) ; Monnier, Jeannine et al., (1993) Philibert Commerson le découvreur du bougainvillier (Chatillon-sur-Chalaronne: Association Saint-Guignefort). 46 Quenette, Rivaltz (1978) Le Réduit 1748-1978 (Mauritius: Henry & Cie. LTEE) ; Rouillard, Guy (2010) Histoire du jardin des Pamplemousses et suggestions pour une visite documentée (Grand-Baie: MMX Mauritiana) ; Rouillard, Guy and Gueho, Joseph (1999) Les plantes et leur histoire à l’Ile Maurice (Mauritius: MSM). 11
INTRODUCTION expansion in the period, the constraints savants and traders in Europe had to face in order to access and control natural resources. I intend to delineate the role of botanical knowledge gathered overseas by examining the content and the circumstances of the collection of information, and also to characterise the people involved. In particular, I draw attention to what savants in the metropolis expected from the knowledge of exotic flora, comprising tropical plants despite climatic differences (apart from ornamental purposes) and how this knowledge was incorporated in botany. In turn, I look at how botany fitted local needs of colonial management and how it was adapted and improved by local plant knowledge and practices. Thus, I propose to analyse plant knowledge in the colonial world and simultaneously in Europe: how it was exchanged, transformed and used by both sides— from the European and from the colonial viewpoints. Through the lens of my research the study of plant knowledge casts light on evolutions in the eighteenth century in the conception and mastering of nature, occurring alongside European expansion. Through diverse travel accounts, trade reports, official and scientific correspondence, I analyse how science and trade came to cooperate in order to enhance knowledge and control of natural resources. By considering the global dimension of European expansion, my research attends to the importance of plant resources essential in colonial management so as to sustain daily operations in settlements, shipping and trade. Moreover, my research outlines the paramount constraints of distance and the maritime context since these impeded control of remote resources, and other limiting parameters encountered over time due to international competition. My study focuses on the circulation of botanical materials and related knowledge between peripheral territories and the metropolis, but also within the colonial sphere. By examining information media, techniques, and skills involved in both Europe and the colonial sphere, my aim is to analyse the improvement in the acquisition of plant knowledge and in the production of plant resources. I argue that reliability was the chief issue of control at a distance over natural resources, a problem that mounted with the global extension of communication and exchanges in European expansion. In France, the government had recourse to scientific agencies in colonial management. Botanical activities became increasingly institutionalised and professionalized to enhance reliability of plant knowledge and plant production. Due to growing rivalry with the British nation in the mid-century, the state displaced scientific
12
INTRODUCTION expertise to the periphery, sponsoring botanists working on site, a colonial botanical garden and also a scientific exploration of the globe. Chapter two sets the stage with an overview of plants used and exchanged in European expansion, drawing upon early texts and travel literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It argues that the management of plant resources was mostly a peripheral worldwide activity, undertaken in partnership by seamen and settlers. From the mid-seventeenth century in Europe, scientific centres as well as trade companies increased control at a distance of plant knowledge and resources in the periphery, via a network of correspondents and a network of provision gardens. Fruitful places along the maritime routes, such as the Cape of Good Hope and the Mascarenes, triggered mythic images. Chapter three further explores the impetus of the institutionalisation in control of nature at the turn of the eighteenth century. It shows that imprecision experienced in control at a distance led science and trade to structure knowledge and action so as to increase reliability, exemplified by classification methods, plant specimens and cultivation tests. This chapter examines, in France’s centralised governmental system, the establishment of cooperation between the Royal Garden of Paris and the Compagnie des Indes regarding East Indian drugs, for the purpose of introducing the regulation and assessment of plant knowledge and production Chapter four starts in 1719 with the reorganisation of the Compagnie des Indes, and the launching of coffee production in Bourbon. It argues that the amplification of plant resources and knowledge exchanged in European expansion led to the universalisation of botany. The chapter illustrates the concerted efforts of the Royal Garden of Paris and the Compagnie des Indes to increase reliability in control of nature, for mutual benefits. Distance brought problems of accessibility and efficiency, for instance for the import of living plants and the development of valuable new East Indian goods such as coffee. The royal establishments solicited the King’s patronage to implement delegation and specialisation of knowledge and action in the colonial sphere. The state set in motion an intercontinental botanical network via the naval and colonial systems, as well as a botanical mission in the East Indies. The Royal Garden of Paris thus developed beyond the medical scope of botany as the centre of global exchanges. Chapter five spans the troubled period of international conflicts in the mid- eighteenth century. Strategic foresight, costs and shortages of provisions complicated
13
INTRODUCTION the management of the échelle des Indes meant to supply food, medicines and timber for naval fleets, as well export goods for trade. To maximise reliability, rationalisation of control over nature triggered a political approach: to seal an alliance with nature. Botany came to be a political instrument delocalised in the periphery for the inventory and the production of plant resources. Self-sufficiency being a requisite in the Mascarenes, the French state, advised by the elite of the Enlightenment, entrusted science with the strategic optimisation of plant knowledge and plant management. The conclusion brings together the symbolic references which accompanied the takeover of natural resources during European expansion. It highlights communication, amplified by international exchanges and affected by distance, as an incentive of the enhancement of control over nature. It reiterates the centrality of reliability as the key goal for the systematisation of the circulation of plant knowledge and resources, resulting in a complementary effect of European expansion: localisation in addition to the globalisation of control of nature.
In sum, this thesis offers a history of European expansion towards the remote and coveted East Indies, which spurred on the idealisation of and, later on, an alliance with nature, exploring how the conquest of the East Indies differed from that of the West Indies, and had a stronger impact on the European governance of nature.
14
CHAPTER TWO
2
The management of the world’s diversity during European expansion in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries
The botanical content of sources describing European expansion during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries mirrors the perception of Nature in Europe, which, according to Christian principles, was conceived as a plentiful Garden placed by God at Man’s disposal. The increasing metropolitan knowledge of exotic nature which underpinned European expansion relied on information brought back by travellers, navigators, merchants, surgeons, missionaries and official agents, all involved in and contributing to European trade and conquest in different ways. In spontaneous travel accounts and reports disseminating knowledge about foreign countries, the descriptions of natural history display devoted attention to plant resources. They provide recurrent information with which I shall explore the contemporary aims and modes of amassing botanical knowledge about the colonial world. This chapter argues that the management of plant resources in this era of European expansion was global in extent and based mainly on autonomous activity at the periphery, non-institutionalised and non-specialised. Due to the importance of plants in trade as well as for survival overseas, efforts to control botanical resources from a distance drove Europe’s management towards a more organised system from the mid- seventeenth century. Exploration of the world’s natural resources intensified the circulation of plants and also of information about them. In this increase, the commercial agent, the sailor and the colonist played leading roles in the redistribution of world biodiversity and in the growth of botanical knowledge, both before and during initial efforts to systematise this activity. To secure European expansion, metropolitan initiatives of trade companies and savants gradually began to orient spontaneous plant 15
CHAPTER TWO propagating and prospecting in the periphery, in particular naval supplies and exotic medicinal products. The increasing control of nature on a world scale depicted in this chapter through travel literature sheds light on how European expansion stimulated the development of botany, while at the same time engendering utopian fictions of a prodigal nature becoming an accessible reality in the European imagination. The history of plants in French colonization of the uninhabited Ile de Bourbon (modern day Réunion) will illustrate this characterisation of the period. It includes the global scope, the maritime perspective and the peripheral activity required to comprehend botany in the colonial era. Plants introduced by trade agents and mariners in the course of voyages connecting Europe to Asia via American coasts turned the wild, isolated island into a fruitful port d’escale (port of call), a paradisiacal ‘haven’ compared to Eden by sojourners, although stained by natural and man-made damage (cyclones, pest invasion and fauna degradation). As the island became increasingly embedded in the East Indian trade, by the early eighteenth century metropolitan authorities perceived local management of botanical resources as inadequate. In this chapter, I shall examine the situation that prompted the centralising impulse by French officials and savants to increase control of botanical activity in the periphery, and this will be detailed in the next chapter.
1 The botanical content in primary sources Travel accounts, natural histories and administrative reports of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, which are analysed in this chapter, encapsulate the utilitarian approach of Europeans towards knowledge of the world. During voyages, travellers devoted particular interest to plant species useful to man, and to local customs or savoir- faire related to them (also ‘curiosities and wonders’ which lie beyond the scope of this thesis).1 Within their descriptions of natural history, they provided details about fruits, vegetables, crops and trees used by local populations for medicine, handicraft, clothing and building for example. Among all botanical data collected, the specific plant categories attracting greatest attention were potential trade commodities and supplies for seafaring. The frequency of these records bespeaks the importance granted to these two components of the colonial project.
1 On this topic, see Daston, Lorraine and Park, Katharine (2001), Wonders and the Order of Nature: 1150-1750 (New York: Zone Books) 16
CHAPTER TWO
From these sources, an overall picture of maritime life during ocean voyages can be discerned. As might be expected events such as perilous storms figure prominently; other dangers mentioned with striking frequency include deadly scurvy outbreaks and shortages of supplies, so characteristic of the long voyages in East India trade. These two issues remained critical threats to the success of expeditions until the late eighteenth century and had a severe impact on the tracing of sea routes, as well as on the management of supplies in various ports of call as my analysis will emphasise. Another consequence is that travellers tended to embellish their stay in foreign lands in contrast to the hard conditions experienced at sea, notwithstanding the limited opportunities to observe during short sojourns. As a result, the maritime context that shaped life aboard ship permeates the experience of land described in these texts. Although requiring caution as to accuracy, travel literature and reports represent useful primary sources to delineate the significance of botany for colonial expansion. I will examine their content and discuss throughout this dissertation what might be understood by ‘botany’ in the colonial sphere, labelled ‘colonial botany’ by historians. These documents enable definition of the extent of botanical knowledge necessary in European expansion and colonial trade, including the ‘history’ of plants, in the former sense of botany as a part of natural history. Firstly, from data recorded by travellers from different nations on different continents, it is possible to determine the range of plants that were used and propagated by seafarers around the world. Secondly, the similarity in the categories of plants and their characteristics that were observed in each country reflects the importance ascribed to the reporting of such information; for example, the type and suitability of wood for cabinetmaking and its hardness or length for masts. In particular in the East Indies, this botanical knowledge was essential in ensuring the safety and efficiency of voyages along all trajectories, given the long distances. Travellers noted the presence of any food resource such as rice or coconut trees, as well as those for market demand such as indigo or gums, widely exchanged around the Indian Ocean. By providing valuable details about the daily concerns of life abroad and aboard, the travel narratives complement more expert botanical inventories by naturalists, physicians and the major Iberian or Dutch works on exotic botany. Furthermore, whereas historians have tended to disregard it, this botanical knowledge is important to consider despite imprecision in vernacular names and descriptions, for this imprecision is a clue to comprehend the construction of the science of botany. I will
17
CHAPTER TWO argue that the inconsistency in the skills of reporters, whose works were relied upon by the leading institutions of Europe, later triggered a more systematic approach to gathering information of greater reliability.
2 The world’s riches: the inventory of exotic flora As acknowledged by many historians—such as Drayton, Gascoigne and Cook— botanical knowledge and colonial expansion mutually enhanced each other.2 In this section, I review the way in which the exploration of exotic nature was driven by the search for plant-based trade commodities. This is particularly relevant in the case of the East Indies, rich in commodities exchanged over centuries, and among these, materia medica little known but of great interest to savants. Impeded by distance, metropolitan efforts to acquire such plant commodities spurred the collection of information consulted by trade as well as by science.
2.1 A worldwide inventory Trade agents undertook the first stage of inventory for the world’s natural resources. As these authors were involved in colonial trade, the vision of nature reported to Europe revolved around commercial interests. Guy Le Gentil de la Barbinais, a travel writer who set sail from France for a world tour in 1714, noted that the Tierra del Fuego in South America had been neglected by sea captains since, in their opinion, it was inhabited by savage nations and its climate produced nothing useful to supply their vessels: navigators showed ‘little curiosity and alacrity … for anything without a necessary and absolute connection to their trade’.3 Due to its perceived dearth of commodities and provisions the territory remained essentially unexplored. The homogeneous content of sources related to European expansion reflects the pragmatic purpose that drove the exploration of the world in the search for trade products or substitutes. Here, I must emphasise that at least until the end of the eighteenth century, botanical exploration was further shaped by the belief that similar
2 Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World ; Gascoigne, Science in the Service of Empire. Joseph Banks, the British State and the Uses of Science in the Age of Revolution ; Cook, Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age. 3 Le Gentil de La Barbinais (1728), Nouveau voyage autour du monde, enrichi de plusieurs plans, vûës et perspectives des principales villes et ports du Pérou, Chily, Brésil et de la Chine, avec une description de l'Empire de la Chine..., (Tome 1 ; Amsterdam: P. Mortier), pp. 22-23. 18
CHAPTER TWO climates (and soils) nurtured similar plant species. Georges-Louis Lecler, Comte de Buffon explained this phenomenon as due to heat: ‘… generally, the same temperature, that is to say the same degree of heat, produces the same plants everywhere ...’4 As I will show, products of both the East and the West Indies—combined under the common term ‘Indies’, meaning non-European—were sought at opposite ends of the Earth as a result of this biogeographical premise. Herbaria of the Old World and the New World were consulted everywhere. At the end of the sixteenth century the Spanish physician Nicolás Monardes advised travellers that many plants with properties similar to East Indian medicines and spices grew naturally in the Spanish ‘Indies’ in America, requiring a greater diligence to find them through the intermediary of Indians for Spain’s great profit (as Bleichmar points out, Monardes, who never travelled overseas, relied on informers).5 We find a similar mindset expressed by French botanist Antoine de Jussieu, in an anonymous review of his study of simarouba (a South American bark locally used against dysentery), published by the Academy of Science in 1729. Taking as reference the ancient macer, an unfamiliar Oriental bark used to combat dysentery as described by Dioscorides, Jussieu stated that this macer might be a bark mentioned in accounts of the East Indies with a close name macre, and also the bark simarouba from the West Indies, all having a great ‘conformity’, i.e. the same property. However, Jussieu expected more information from the country to identify the plant, a procedure that will be examined in the following chapters. The anonymous reviewer added:
It would not at all be surprising that [macer] might also be in America under another name. Asia and America have several plants which are common to them to the exclusion of Europe, and perhaps there will be one the means of which will one day help to determine if America is a colony of Asia.6
2.2 The search for trade commodities Knowledge of the plant resources related to colonial trade favoured the development of botany. In particular, the riches of the ‘fabulous Indies’ aroused eagerness in Europe to
4 Buffon, Georges-Louis (1817), Oeuvres complètes de Buffon, ed. Lacépède Bernard (Comte de) (Tome 2; Paris: Rapet et Cie) : “Histoire Naturelle; Cinquième Epoque”, p. 526. 5 Bleichmar, Daniela, 'Books, Bodies, and Fields', in Schiebinger Londa and Swan Claudia (ed.), (2005), Colonial Botany. Science, Commerce &Politics in the Early Modern World (Philadelphia: PENN - University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 90-91. 6Anonymous (1729), 'Sur le simarouba', Histoire de l’Académie des sciences…tirée des registres de cette académie, pp. 28-29. 19
CHAPTER TWO gather knowledge from the other cultures that had been trading plant commodities for centuries. This point clarifies the Dutch Empire’s pre-eminence in the study of exotic botany that paralleled its rise to leadership in the East Indian trade from the seventeenth century onwards.7 In fact, Monardes, also a merchant, hoped to equal the East Indian market then under Portuguese domination by requesting wider prospecting in America. Harold Cook has focused on exotic medicines and curiosities as ‘matters of exchange’ to demonstrate that natural knowledge developed in the Netherlands in accordance with the needs and tastes of the merchant society.8 Here, though, I add that in this development the East Indies were particularly important, given the number of plant products, combined with their trade value and medicinal properties, compared with the fewer and lesser known products of the New World. Therefore, Dutch botany was mostly concerned with the offerings of the East Indies, despite colonies in the two parts of the world, a distinction that Cook has not fully examined and to which we return in later chapters9 Analysis of the travel literature extends the study of botanical knowledge beyond the needs of European markets, as trade in the East Indies was not only towards Europe but also around the Indian Ocean, or commerce d’Inde en Inde in French.10 This part of East India trade must be taken into account: in a complex system of exchanges, a great variety of natural products, textiles and foodstuffs, such as rice and wheat, were traded within and between Asian countries in addition to European products, fewer in number and rarely in high demand.11 Some exotic drugs that are little known nowadays are worth detailing here, for they are often mentioned in travel accounts, in commercial reports and also in scientific documents, underlining their importance at that time in both Asia and Europe. Through attention to them in this chapter I will illuminate some of the incentives which led to co-operation between trade and science.
2.2.1 East Indian goods
7 Bhattacharyya, P.K. (1982), 'Beginning of modern botany in India by Dutch in 16th-eighteenth century (basic features and characteristics)', Indian Journal of History of Science, 17/2. 8 Cook, Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age. 9 Ibid. chapter 8. 10 See Chaudhury, K.N (1985), Trade and civilisation in the Indian Ocean. An economic history from the rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge University Press) ; Ashin Das Gupta, Pearson Michael N. (ed.), (1987), India and the Indian Ocean 1500-1800 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press). 11 Chaudhury, Trade and civilisation in the Indian Ocean. An economic history from the rise of Islam to 1750, pp. 17-19. 20
CHAPTER TWO
An information source at the turn of the seventeenth century that greatly influenced trade to the East Indies was the travel account by Jan Huyghen Van Linschoten published in 1596: Itinerario, or the travel book of Jan Huygen Van Linschoten to the East or Portuguese Indies.12 It was translated into French, English and circulated throughout Europe. The importance of botany in the East India trade at the time is expressed by the large part devoted to the flora. Specifically, Itinerario describes a wide variety of trade products mainly of plant origin and their use by native populations. These sections were strengthened through additional data on their medical properties by the Dutch physician Bernardus Paludanus, gathered from ancient texts of Arabic physicians and works by the Portuguese physicians, Garcia de Orta and Cristobal d’Acosta, on the natural history of the East Indies.13 Aside from the main commodities such as indigo or sugar, many drugs of the Asian materia medica had a significant value in the East Indian market.14 Van Linschoten listed several widely used scented gums such as incense and myrrh produced in Arabia, and benzoin gum (benjoin in French) from southeast Asia, the most fragrant and expensive gum used for medicine throughout the region. Van Linschoten mentioned ‘other drugs and herbs of the Indies’, such as aloe, scented rush (squinante) used in the pharmaceutical panacea of the ancient Greeks theriac, cubeb or tailed pepper (cubebe) grown in Java, and two roots brought from China, rhubarb and China root (Chine or squine).15 Above all, spices were the chief goal of the East Indian trade identified as the ‘spice trade’: pepper, ginger, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg.16 They were matters of exchange sought after in the Occident and the Orient, and they were granted medicinal virtues too. The Dutch East India Company VOC attempted to set up spice monopolies to earn great profit. It took control over Portuguese production of cinnamon native to Ceylon (the best commercial species), but failed regarding black pepper. Propagated in Malabar (south-western India) and in Indonesia, pepper was a money-making bulk
12 Linschoten, Jan Huyghen van (1610), Histoire de la navigation de Jean Hugues de Linscot, Hollandois et de son voyage aux Indes Orientales... / avec annotations de Bernard Paludanus.. ([Reprod.]), (Amsterdam: H. Laurent ) 13 Cook, Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age, pp. 121-128. 14 About these drugs, see the botanical index in appendix 1. 15 Linschoten, Histoire de la navigation de Jean Hugues de Linscot, Hollandois et de son voyage aux Indes Orientales... / avec annotations de Bernard Paludanus.. ([Reprod.]), pp. 175, 177, 179, 184, 187. 16 Delaveau, Pierre (1987), Les épices. Histoire, description et usage des différentes épices, aromates et condiments. (Paris: Albin Michel), pp. 54-57. 21
CHAPTER TWO commodity that also served as ballast.17 Above all, nutmeg and clove were the two most speculative spices native to the Moluccas and grown there exclusively. By prohibiting their propagation the Dutch controlled the monopoly fiercely, keeping prices high to sustain the huge costs of seafaring and fortifications and maintain their leadership of the East Indian trade.18 The strategic value of these spices illustrates how the trade company VOC was an active partner of the expansionist scheme of the Dutch state, as Cook emphasised.19 Spices were at the centre of colonial competition. A member of the first diplomatic expedition sent to the East Indies in 1665 to launch France’s commerce at the creation of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, Urbain Souchu de Rennefort, argued in his account Histoire des Indes Orientales in 1688:
… one can make but unprofitable voyages, if one cannot find the secret to bring back pepper, clove, nutmeg and cinnamon. Silk, cloth, drugs, gums, perfumes, sugar and saltpetre are unable to compensate the costs of these enterprises …20
As my research will demonstrate, spices not only exemplify the economic, but also the political importance of plant resources and botany in colonial expansion. Competition increased between European nations either to discover or transplant in their colonies pepper, cinnamon and especially nutmeg and clove. Their value in international strategy led the French state to call for scientific support to improve prospecting as botany developed during the eighteenth century.
2.2.2 Prospecting: plant knowledge on site or ‘colonial’ knowledge An analysis of travel accounts and reports evidences the mercantile approach towards exotic nature. These documents provide clues to the basic botanical knowledge acquired overseas and to the commercial bias shared with elites in Europe. As noted earlier, a recurrent botanical content is characteristic of the worldwide exploration related to colonial trade. Some homogeneity resulted from identical names related to well-known commodities given to plants endemic to the East and West Indies. For instance American capsicum was named ‘pepper of the Indies’ and also chilli
17 Ashin Das Gupta (ed.), India and the Indian Ocean 1500-1800, pp. 228-229. 18 Chaudhury, Trade and civilisation in the Indian Ocean. An economic history from the rise of Islam to 1750, pp. 20, 88, 191. 19 Cook, Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age, p. 225. 20 Souchu de Rennefort, Urbain (1988), Histoire des Indes Orientales – 1688 (Ars Terres Créoles edn., Collection Mascarin ; Sainte-Clotilde - Réunion), Livre 6, chapitre IV, p. 371. 22
CHAPTER TWO pepper;21 aromatic and dye trees growing in the French Antilles and in the Mascarenes had the same name bois de cannelle (cinnamon tree) and bois rouge (red wood).22 Reference books on the flora of the Indies were brought along in the discovery of new settlements in French colonial expansion in the mid-seventeenth century. During the first colonization attempt in Madagascar, the governor Etienne de Flacourt undertook a study of the flora. In his book Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar published in 1661, he reported on the great variety of plants used by the Malagasy people, providing the indigenous name, the description and the usage, evaluating their commercial exploitation.23 Flacourt noted in particular the fruit of the tree ravensara, one of the best spices of the country because of its clove flavour. Referring to Van Linschoten, Paludanus and Acosta (probably Cristobal d’Acosta), he identified several trade commodities such as tamarind, indigo, benjoin and white pepper, some as the ‘true’ species or a close one.24 Similarly, in the French West Indies, the Dominican missionary Jean-Baptiste du Tertre listed in his Histoire générale des Antilles, published in 1667, common products from the New and Old Worlds by referring to several authors including Monardes and Garcia de Orta (the latter about the East Indies). His descriptions include, for example, the endemic guaiac wood as well as indigo, ginger and cassia trees actually introduced from the East Indies.25 Despite imprecision, it is worth noting a certain competency in the inventory of exotic nature by those who travelled and acquired experience de visu. A few French agents exiled from Madagascar to the uninhabited Mascareigne in 1649 (later called Ile de Bourbon) recognised several endemic wild plants as medicinal plants of Asian trade, such as aloe, cubeb and squine.26 According to modern botany, all of these plants, though of different species, belong to the same genus as does the genuine East Indian
21 Monardes, Nicolas (1574), De simplicibus medicamentis ex occidentali India delatis quorum in medicina usus est /Auctore Nicolao Monardis.Interprete Carolo Cliusio Atrebate, (Antwerp: Ex officina Christophori Plantini), pp. 70-74. 22 Rochefort, Charles de (1658), Histoire naturelle et morale des iles Antilles de l'Amérique . (Rotterdam), pp. 72, 80 ; Du Bois (1674), Les voyages faits par le Sieur D.B [Dubois] aux isles Dauphine ou Madagascar, et Bourbon ou Mascarenne des années 1669, 70, 71 et 72, (Paris: Claude Barbin ), pp. 165- 166. 23 Flacourt, Etienne (de), Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar - 1661, ed. Claude Allibert (Paris: INALCO - Karthala, 1995). 24 Ibid. pp. 200, 205. 25 Du Tertre, Jean-Baptiste (1667-1671), Histoire générale des Antilles habitées par les Français, (Tome 2; Paris: T. Jolly), pp. 94, 107, 144, 175. 26 Flacourt, Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar - 1661, p. 308. 23
CHAPTER TWO drug to which they are related respectively.27 Botanical knowledge enabling such recognition circulated within the colonial realm.
2.2.3 Knowledge acquisition at a distance in scientific centres As an outcome of European conquest overseas, travel enabled observations of living plants, so that European people overseas gained knowledge directly or de visu, highly valued at that time. In the mid-seventeenth century, scientific institutions created in France and England increased control over the acquisition of knowledge by nurturing correspondents in foreign countries. In France, a first botanical inventory of the world resulted from colonial enterprises in America and Madagascar in the seventeenth century. Historians attest to an early stage of scientific activity being carried out by autodidacts or amateurs in the New World, partly driven by mercantile motives. In the French Antilles, both McClellan and Regourd point out the attention devoted specifically to botany by French missionaries such as du Tertre.28 If Regourd does not relate his inventory to purposes of colonial trade, McClellan underlines the economic aspect of the work of this ‘autodidact’ naturalist, which ‘was valued and relied on as a solid piece of applied economic botany’.29 In addition, my study will show that Flacourt’s book on Madagascar was a reference tool consulted by savants in Europe as well as by French officialdom. In the second half of the century, it is well known that state control increased under the absolute monarchy characteristic of the reign of Louis XIV. The Royal Academy of Science was created in 1666 on the impulse of the Minister of Finances Jean-Baptiste Colbert with the aim to advance science. Savants sponsored by the Crown developed correspondence in French colonies.30 I will examine the involvement of science in colonial affairs in the next chapter.
27 Botanical names of the exotic drugs and the related endemic plants in Bourbon (see Appendix 1): Aloe (Asphodelaceae): Aloe succotrina Lam.; Aloe macra Haw. Cubeb (Piperaceae): Piper cubeba; Piper borbonense (Miq.) C.DC. Squine (Smilacaceae): Smilax china L.; Smilax anceps Willd. (The name squine comes from ‘Chine’). 28 McClellan, James E. (1992), Colonialism and Science. Saint Domingue in the Old Regime (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press), pp. 111-115 ; Regourd, 'Science et colonisation sous l'Ancien Régime. Le cas de la Guyane et des Antilles Françaises, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles'. 29 McClellan, Colonialism and Science. Saint Domingue in the Old Regime, p.112 ; Regourd, 'Science et colonisation sous l'Ancien Régime. Le cas de la Guyane et des Antilles Françaises, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles', p. 181. 30 Stroup, A company of scientists: Botany, Patronage, and community at the 17th century Parisian Royal Academy of sciences, pp. 13, 27. 24
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In the British Empire, scientific interest prompted the Royal Society of London to compile foreign information from travel accounts, thus following Bacon’s view on the acquisition of knowledge in natural history on a world scale according to Gascoigne.31 Besides, since its creation in 1660 the Royal Society and many fellows had taken an active part in colonial trade by investing in trading companies, as Stearns emphasises in his study of the British colonies of America.32 Botanical data in Stearns’s book illustrate the analogy between early archives of the Royal Society and travel literature. The Society required attention in prospecting for plants of medicinal or commercial value, such as aromatic species and dyewoods. Economic issues were also included regarding the cultivation and preparation for staple commodities, such as sugar cane in the West Indies.33 And, in addition to the consultation of travel accounts, British savants oriented the collection of information. They elaborated on ‘inquiries’, sets of numbered questions, though listed without a thematic order, sent to colonial correspondents.34
2.2.4 The study of commercial drugs Any plant which was worth reporting on in a prime inventory is worth considering in the history of science to explore the connections between European expansion and scientific activity. I argue that identification practised de visu and in situ by naturalists enabled not only the improvement but also the assessment of European botanical knowledge. Reference books on exotic medicines of America and Asia of the late sixteenth century were compilation works that contained imprecision and ambiguity: those by Monardes, Orta and Cristobal d’Acosta, and their Latin translations by Carolus Clusius (himself translated in French and English). Historians show that these authors on ‘the Indies’ referred to previous authors and also greatly relied on indigenous knowledge and local correspondents.35 About Orta, Fontes and Nobre underline his criticism of
31 Gascoigne, John (2009), 'The Royal Society, natural history and the peoples of the 'New World(s)', 1660-1800', The British Journal for the History of Science,42/4, pp. 542-544. 32 Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America, pp. 94-95. 33Ibid. pp. 178, 180, 213, 216, 230. 34Ibid. pp. 213, 699 (appendix IV). 35 See for instance Bleichmar, 'Books, Bodies, and Fields', pp. 83-99 ; Kochhar, Rajesh (2012), 'Early modern natural history: Contributions from the Americas and India', Journal of biosciences, 37 ; Huguet- Termes, Teresa (2001), 'New World materia medica in Spanish renaissance medicine: From scholarly reception to practical impact', Medical History (pre-2012), 45/3 ; Fontes da Costa, Palmira and Nobre de 25
CHAPTER TWO ancient and modern authorities expressed through emphasis on his direct experience in situ in India, though limited given the diverse origins of Asian drugs.36 Indeed, some drugs were not clearly identified given that the market product was the only accessible reference. Clusius, who updated these Iberian books in successive editions, addressed this problem by describing different opinions without personal judgement: about China root, he could only point out in his annotations the difference of the plant description by Monardes (a reed) compared to that of Orta (a shrub).37 Colonial agents and naturalists prospected for East Indian drugs and analogous indigenous remedies, and assessed natural knowledge de visu. In the French Antilles, du Tertre noted that the real cinnamon tree grew wild, the bark being similar to the remedy he saw in apothecary shops in France, though with a ginger fragrance. However, he rejected the name ‘China root’ given locally for a plant while he underlined great divergences among the botanists to whom he referred (probably Monardes and Orta). He stated: ‘All the authors who made the description of China root talked about it so diversely that they make clear they only saw the root and not the plant.’38 In the same way, two aromatic species were the first described in Philosophical Transactions in 1691 by Dr Hans Sloane, a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, from his rich collection of plants of Jamaica collected during his stay as a physician: ‘Wild Cinamon- Tree’ [sic] and ‘Jamaica Pepper-Tree’.39 According to Sloane, both were used as remedies in the colony and in Europe. Contrary to du Tertre, Sloane identified wild cinnamon as another bark described by other authors under the name ‘White Cinamon’ [sic].40 He considered pimienta or ‘Jamaica pepper’, an aromatic fruit yielded from wild trees (contrary to pepper, a creeper) and sent in great amount with profit to Europe, to be:
Carvalho, Teresa (2013), 'Between East And West: Garcia de Orta’s Colloquies and the Circulation of Medical Knowledge in the Sixteenth Century', Asclepio,65/1. 36 Fontes da Costa and Nobre de Cavalho, 'Between East And West: Garcia de Orta’s Colloquies and the Circulation of Medical Knowledge in the Sixteenth Century', p. 4. 37 Monardes, De simplicibus medicamentis ex occidentali India delatis quorum in medicina usus est /Auctore Nicolao Monardis.Interprete Carolo Cliusio Atrebate, p. 37; Orta, Garcia (da) [1563] translated by Markham C. (1913) Colloquies on the simples & drugs of India (London - H. Sotheran and co.), pp. 118- 125, 387. 38 Du Tertre, Histoire générale des Antilles habitées par les Français, pp. 96, 145. 39 Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America, p. 238. 40 Sloane, Hans (1686), 'A Description of the Pimienta or Jamaica Pepper-Tree, and of the Tree That Bears the Cortex Winteranus: Communicated by Hans Sloane, M. D. and Reg. Soci. S', Philosophical Transactions (1683-1775),16, pp. 465-467. 26
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… the best and most moderate, mild and innocent of common spices, and fit to come into greater use, and to gain more ground than yet it hath of the East India commodities of this kind, almost all of which it far surpasses [regarding medical properties] …41
Another inventory in the Ile de Bourbon exemplifies the botanical work undertaken on unknown plants in a wild environment. In 1703, an Italian physician Giovanni Borghesi observed flora along with the ship’s apothecary. From the first he was surprised by the biodiversity: in the forest, he found not a single European tree and only a few ‘Indian’ plants among the many he had observed in European botanical gardens. Borghesi studied some drugs according to the leaf, the flower and the fruit of the plant. He estimated a wild aloe to be identical to the best aloe growing on Socotra Island (off the coast of Somalia) and described its preparation by the colonists.42 He also examined the gum prepared from the bark of a tree that he identified as benjoin (in fact a similar appearance but a different tree).43 However, in doing so he was ‘amazed by so many and so diverse opinions of authors on this region’, including Monardes.44 Thus, the acquisition of knowledge at a distance in Europe was based on experience built in situ by intermediaries. In their inventories naturalists undertook the assessment of botanical knowledge including the name given to plants, their properties and preparation techniques; that is to say, the ‘history’ of a plant. As du Tertre and Borghesi could state by observation in situ, imprecision in plant descriptions was also a feature of European reference works.
3 Aboard and abroad: the rearrangement of the world’s flora The process of European expansion was characterised by an extensive transfer of plant species accompanying colonial settlements and commercial activities. Until the late seventeenth century, plant propagation derived mainly from the spontaneous activities of seafarers in the interests of ensuring vital provisions for the entire journey. As I will show, the navigator played as great a role as the farmer, the colonist, the trade agent and the savant—metropolitan and colonial agents of ‘improvement’ in the empire described
41 Ibid. p. 464. 42Lougnon, Albert (1958), Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725) (Paris: Edition Larose), p. 128. Borghesi was serving on a pontifical mission to the East Indies sponsored by France. 43 Benzoin gum trees are part of the family Styracaceae. The Benjoin tree in Bourbon is part of Combretaceae. See appendix 1. 44 Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725), p. 121. 27
CHAPTER TWO by Drayton.45 Following maritime routes, a complex movement of plants took place from one continent to another. Company gardens established in overseas territories represent strategic sites for my research that studies the transoceanic exchange of plants carried out for the sake of the seaman, and for the sake of the nation. Colonial expansion attests to the mastering of nature by the appropriation of the world’s plant resources. In the Torrid Zone on which this dissertation focuses, the exploitation of new territories started with a set of domestic plants transported from the Old World, which Crosby treats as allies of imperial expansion.46 European colonists tended to reproduce a familiar European landscape in other places in order to enhance their chances of adaptation. However, European expansion was associated with a wider multidirectional exchange of plants during human migration, as noted by historians such as Beinart and Middleton.47 Yet another perspective taking into account the maritime context of colonial trade complements the history of plant transfers. Indeed, my analysis of the botanical content of travel accounts reveals the connection with maritime traffic. Plant strains propagated along sea routes indicate the diet of seamen as a vector in the global exchange of plants. In support of the argument for the impact of seafaring on botany in the colonial realm, my dissertation will elaborate on this facet by comparing with ports of call around the world.
3.1 Plant supplies along maritime routes A complex transfer of plant species from all continents occurred for they were common food supplies essential to ships’ crews. The plants that benefitted reflected not only the ordinary European diet, but also the incorporation of foreign foods and customs by settlers in their new environment. In their accounts, travellers often detailed the foodstuffs available at replenishment stops—the ‘refreshments’ for the sick people included animal flesh, dry fruits, fresh vegetables and medicinal herbs.48 Interestingly, most of the plants cited by Crosby in his ‘eco-historical’ analysis of European imports in the Canaries are recorded
45 Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World, pp. 55- 59. 46 Crosby, Alfred W (1993), Ecological Imperialism. The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge University Press). 47 Beinart and Middleton, 'Plant Transfers in Historical Perspective: A Review Article'. 48 In the Ile de Bourbon, records of refreshments for vessels and the hospital listed onions, lemons, pumpkins or giromons (giraumonts) and other vegetables, for instance in ADR Compagnie des Indes – Marine- Co 1513: ‘ Etat des rafraichissements fournis aux différents vaisseaux – 1748’. 28
CHAPTER TWO in settlements worldwide: wheat, barley, melon, grapevine, sugar cane and bananas.49 During European expansion these were the basic crops transferred wherever they would grow. A French travel account by Minim Father Louis Feuillée, sent to the Canaries on a scientific mission in 1724, expands the Crosby view. In his Voyage to the Canary Islands…, Feuillée depicted the fruitfulness of these islands producing all sorts of staple crops and plants common in Europe, but also plants native to America: papaw, guava, sweet potato and maize used for bread making.50 Three non-European crops — rice, maize and manioc — were spread throughout the tropics where wheat could not grow, in the French West Indies as in the port of call Bahia on the Brazilian coast described by a ship’s surgeon Charles Dellon in 1676.51 These crops were produced as staple food for slave populations in particular, while wheat was imported from the mother country or elsewhere closer in the region. It can be supposed that all these plants were part of the colonial and naval diet, at least in warm climates.
3.2 Naval wisdom The vital issue of food resources fostered more deliberate plant acclimatisation by seamen along maritime routes. It was an old naval custom to propagate plants and leave behind animals to secure provisions for future travels. This far-sighted measure emphasises the central role of helper species in European expansion and conveys an unexpected image of the ‘sailor gardener’ both on board and on land. As George Anson noted while in the Juan Fernandez Islands (near Chile) during his circumnavigation between 1740 and 1744:
… having with him garden seeds of all kinds, and stones of different sorts of fruits, he for the better accommodation of his countrymen who should hereafter touch here, sowed both lettuces, carrots, and other garden plants, and set in the woods … plum, apricot, and peach stones …52
49 Crosby, Alfred W (1984), 'An Ecohistory of the Canarian Islands: A Precursor of European Colonization in the New World and Australasia', Environmental Review: ER, 8 /3, p. 223. 50 BCMNHN ms 38 : ‘Voyage aux Isles Canaries ou journal des observations physiques, mathématiques, botaniques et historiques faites par ordre de Sa Majesté par le Père Louis Feuillée, Religieux Minime mathématicien et botaniste du Roy’, pp. 43-44. 51 Regourd, 'Science et colonisation sous l'Ancien Régime. Le cas de la Guyane et des Antilles Françaises, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles', pp. 137-138 ; Dellon, Charles (1685) Relation d'un voyage des Indes Orientales...Traité des maladies particulières aux pays orientaux et dans la route et de leurs remèdes (Paris: Claude Barbin ), p. 255. 52 Anson, George (1781), A voyage round the world, in the years 1740-44, ed. Richard Walter (1; Edinburgh: Campbell Denovan), p. 131. 29
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In particular, the establishment of gardens in new settlements is significant of the importance of plant resources for survival, as occurred in the uninhabited Mascarenes in the seventeenth century. Away from human migration routes, the flora of the Mascarenes—with a high rate of endemic species—had been preserved from any ancestral process of plant domestication that preceded agriculture, and no known edible plants were found. Early travel accounts compiled by Pierre Vérin in Maurice avant l'Isle de France provide the first descriptions of Mauritius, a stop for Dutch ships before the permanent settlement of the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. During the second Dutch expedition to ‘the Indies’ in 1598, the fleet commanded by Admiral Jacob Van Neck stopped at the island for the first time. He set up an enclosed garden, with ‘peas, broad beans etc., in order that those who will come later find green vegetables’, according to a map caption.53 The account of the voyage of Admiral Cornelis Matelief in 1606 highlights sailor’s gardening tasks, with the example of oranges propagated from seedlings in addition to seeds:
[Mauritius Island] is uninhabited and is covered to the summit with trees which do not bear fruit … On the coast the Dutch found … a few wild fig trees and a few coconut trees, as well as herbs. They planted seven or eight small orange trees and sowed orange pips in many places. They set up … an orchard where they planted cotton and several fruit trees.54
The year after, Admiral Steven Van der Hagen, homeward bound, visited ‘the small garden … where pineapples, orange trees and vegetables grew well, though without care’.55 The Dutch, English and French trading companies in these peripheral territories continued to develop the gardens first planted by seamen. ‘Company gardens’ along the sea routes therefore became a vital feature of European expansion from a very early date, albeit informally.
3.3 The spread of plants and maritime life
53 Verin, Pierre (1983), Maurice avant l'Isle de France, ed. Centre D'etudes Et de Recherche Sur L'océan Indien (Fernand Nathan), pp. 8, 12. 54 Ibid. p. 19. 55 Ibid. p. 24. 30
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Two plant categories in particular show the impact of the maritime context in the history of plants in colonial expansion: fruits and medicinal plants—vital supplies for colonists and navigators. They consist in a common patrimony shared in the colonial sphere.
3.3.1 Fruits The range of fruits regularly cited around the world by travellers is representative of the cosmopolitan botanical mix connected with maritime traffic. When comparing descriptions of ports of call between Europe and the East Indies—Cape Verde, St Helena, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, Madagascar, Mauritius or Batavia (modern day Jakarta, Indonesia)—mostly the same fruits were recorded, even though they originated from different continents: bananas, grapes (important for wine, the basic drink), pineapples, pomegranates, coconuts, melons, watermelons, lemons and oranges.56 Already propagated across the Old World through centuries, they were spread worldwide with the development of colonial trade.57 Pineapple imported from Brazil to India by the Portuguese and scattered in the tropics was, in contrast, a curiosity in European gardens.58 Two common features can explain the dispersal of these particular fruits: easy propagation, and long preservation, a key criterion in seafaring. Melons and watermelons, ‘those kept fresh for quite a while’, were loaded on board in Mauritius, as François Leguat reported in the 1721 chronicle of a Huguenot expedition to the Mascarenes.59 More interestingly, the presence of coconut trees, also naturally carried to shore by oceanic currents, is regularly noted in travel accounts. Coconuts were described by Van Linschoten as the most helpful and the most used by native
56 Origin of fruits: watermelon and melon from Africa; banana and citrus fruits from Asia; pineapple from South America; pomegranate from Middle East; coconut: Pacific Islands. 57 All these fruits are cited in China by Prévost in his compilation of travel accounts, published between 1746 and 1752, see Prévost, Antoine François (1746 -1801), Histoire Générale des Voyages, ou Nouvelle collection de toutes les relations de voyages par mer et par terre qui ont été publiées jusqu’à présent dans différentes langues... Tome 6, (various cities), pp. 455-456. 58 Linschoten, Histoire de la navigation de Jean Hugues de Linscot, Hollandois et de son voyage aux Indes Orientales... / avec annotations de Bernard Paludanus.. ([Reprod.]), p. 136 ; Cook, Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age, p. 327. Pineapple was grown for the first time in 1687 in the Netherlands in a private garden, and in royal gardens such as Versailles in France for the King’s table. 59 Leguat, François (1721), Voyage et aventures de François Leguat et de ses compagnons en deux isles désertes des Indes Orientales...dans l’isle Maurice, à Batavia, au Cap de Bonne Espérance, dans l’isle de Sainte Hélène…… (Londres: David Mortier) Tome 1, p. 136. Leguat was part of the project to establish a Huguenot colony in the Mascarenes in the 1690s. 31
CHAPTER TWO populations in the Indian Ocean region. The nut provided both food and drink, and the fibre or ‘coir’ provided cables and ropes.60 Specific records of propagation testify to its importance for maritime life, for instance in the early stages of Dutch settlement. In Mauritius in 1638, the first governor, Simonsz Gooyer, reported planting several coconut trees to the Directors of the VOC.61 At the Cape of Good Hope, after an initial attempt at planting in 1653, the Extraordinary Councillor of India in transit in 1657 ordered the first governor Jan Van Riebeeck to persevere, the coconut tree being ‘the best and the most useful tree for mankind.’62 Citruses are the primarily cited fruits in travel accounts: sweet and bitter oranges and lemons, limes and pummelos (pompelmoes in Dutch, pamplemousse in French), the biggest citrus fruit native to Southeast Asia.63 They were among the pioneer plants grown in new settlements, certainly the most used as ‘fresh supply’ and therefore widely spread.64 Oranges imported early to the New World were described by Joseph d’Acosta as ‘the most common in the Indies’ at the end of the sixteenth century.65 And the Dutch naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumphius in describing pompelmoes, added: ‘it is an excellent fruit for sea voyages, for it is long preserved without rotting’.66 Lemons in particular were a common component of the maritime diet on board and on land, evidenced in the records of trade companies. In 1679 in St Helena, the English East India Company EIC imposed a penalty to control the gathering of lemons, as ‘a great scarcity of lemons had arisen … to the great inconvenience of the ships that touch here expecting refreshments’.67 Among supplies for the hospitals in Bourbon in
60Linschoten, Histoire de la navigation de Jean Hugues de Linscot, Hollandois et de son voyage aux Indes Orientales... / avec annotations de Bernard Paludanus.. ([Reprod.]), pp. 149-150. 61 Verin, Maurice avant l'Isle de France, pp. 9, 23, 65. 62 Karsten Mia C (1951), The Old Company's Garden at the Cape and its superintendents (CapeTown: Maskew Miller), p. 59. 63 Pummelo (Citrus maxima), shaddock in English, was introduced by English sailors in the West Indies by the end of the seventeenth century. Grapefruit, a hybrid species, comes from the natural crossbreeding of pummelo with an orange species which occurred in the West Indies in the 1750s. See: Kumamoto J., Scora R. W., Lawton H. W., Clerx W. A. (January 1987 ), 'Mystery of the forbidden fruit: Historical epilogue on the origin of the grapefruit, Citrus paradisi (Rutaceae)', Economic Botany 41/1. 64 A map of a French fort in Madagascar in the 1650s indicates orange trees planted beside a garden of tobacco and a corral: “L’islet ou Fort d’Anossi dressé sur le lieu par le Sieur de Flacourt. 1656”, in Flacourt, Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar – 1661. 65 Acosta, Joseph (1979), de l'Histoire naturelle et morale des Indes Occidentales -1589 (Paris : Payot), p. 208. 66 Jacquemin, Daniel (2001), 'Pomme de Médie', Hommes et Plantes. Revue trimestrielle du Conservatoire français des collections végétales spécialisées (CCVS), /37, p : 20. 67 Quoted from Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, p. 105. 32
CHAPTER TWO the 1730s, lemons were the most often recorded.68 Lemon juice was also part of the naval pharmacopeia used to prevent and cure scurvy.69 Scurvy declined by the late eighteenth century, when after experiments such as James Lind’s trial of 1747, fresh food was experienced as an effective preventative.70
3.3.2 Medicinal plants In addition to staples, medicinal plants were propagated worldwide. Crosby cites two species spread along the path of human displacement, yet regarded as common weeds: plantain and dandelion.71 Furthermore, I argue that many other medicinal plant species can also be labelled as allies of colonization as they form the basis of naval pharmacopeia and were intentionally acclimatised. They are ubiquitous nowadays and even naturalised in many continents, though not invasive. Several are regularly noted in the travel literature, in particular those assigned antiscorbutic properties such as purslane, watercress, horseradish and scurvy grass (Cochlearia). During Anson’s circumnavigation in the 1740s, sailors found on the Island of Juan Fernandez, probably introduced by previous ships:
… almost all vegetables which are usually esteemed to be particularly adapted to the cure of those scorbutic disorders which are contracted by salt diet and long voyages. For here we had great quantities of watercress and purslain, with excellent wild sorrel, and a vast profusion of turnips and Sicilian radishes…if the ground is anywhere accidentally turned up, it is immediately overgrown with turnips and Sicilian radishes.72
Two other medicinal species—tamarind and cassia—are also often reported in descriptions of the natural history in the East and West Indies. These commodities, common in the East Indies had already been dispersed throughout the Orient and Africa by caravans or boats sailing the seas. They were, moreover, part of European naval
68 ADR Compagnie des Indes Co, No 10: ‘Hôpitaux’; ‘Etat de vivres fournis à l’hôpital…’, no 1468 to 1470 ; no 1469 is entitled: ‘Etat de fourniture de citrons à l’hôpital de St Paul en 1736’. 69 Dellon, Relation d'un voyage des Indes Orientales...Traité des maladies particulières aux pays orientaux et dans la route et de leurs remèdes, pp. 288-289. 70 Baron, Jeremy H. (2009), 'Sailors' scurvy before and after James Lind: a reassessment', Nutrition reviews,67/6. Lemon was included with other products (sea water, malt and vinegar) in different experiments for scurvy. The real cause of scurvy, vitamin C deficiency, became known in the twentieth century. 71 Crosby, Ecological Imperial expansion, p. 168-169. 72 Anson, A voyage round the world, in the years 1740-44, Book I, p. 130. 33
CHAPTER TWO pharmacopeia, and this contributed to their spread along the sea routes.73 The botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort confirms their import to America in his study of the tamarind, Histoire des tamarins, published in 1699.74 He noted that the Spaniards had introduced the tamarind used as a purgative to the ‘American islands’, as well as cassia, ginger and other utilitarian (usuelles) plants. Indeed, du Tertre noticed a great number of cassia trees ‘probably natural to the country’ in the French Antilles in the 1650s.75 Cassia and tamarind were introduced early to the Ile de Bourbon. In 1705, a traveller named Durot reported tall trees ‘bearing the tamarind fruit, which is appropriate to prepare a kind of lemonade with sugar, good for men sick with scurvy’.76
3.4 Gardens of trade companies A study of places where position on the world map rendered them crucial replenishment stations for long distance voyages—for example, St Helena, the Cape of Good Hope and the Mascarenes—shows that the securing of supplies for vessels was a determining factor in plant transfer. The maritime context is as great a clue to understanding the creation of company gardens as is their development over time. These gardens around the world shared common characteristics in their enrichment and in their evolution into botanical gardens. The creation of the VOC’s garden at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 highlights the control of plant resources attempted by the headquarters of the Dutch company, demonstrating how the management of these resources was a vital feature of the East Indian trade. This metropolitan control was coupled with self-management in the new settlement. Indeed, Dutch management rested upon decentralisation and strong autonomy conferred on local governments in colonial territories, as in the example of Batavia, the control centre of the East Indies.77 This certainly favoured initiatives and
73 According to a French treatise of materia medica in 1773, tamarind was “prescribed in almost all seamen’s diseases”. See Romieux, Yannick, (1986), de la hune au mortier ou l’histoire des Compagnies des Indes, leurs apothicaires, et leurs remèdes (Nantes: Edition ACL), Appendix 1: naval pharmaceutical codex, pp. 421-423. 74 MNHN ms 437: Joseph Pitton de Tourrnefort, Histoire des tamarins; the manuscript was read at the Academy of Science, 3 June 1699. Cassia fistula L. and Tamarindus indica L. had been used in Africa, India and Europe for centuries. Tamarind comes from Arabic tamr hidī (literally, Indian date). 75 Du Tertre, Histoire générale des Antilles habitées par les Français, p. 175. 76 Borghesi (1705), Durot (1705) in Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725), pp. 120, 135. 77 Crump, Thomas, 'The History of the Dutch East Indies Company- a series of two lectures', The Dutch East Indies Company - The First 100 Years (Gresham College, 2006). 34
CHAPTER TWO innovations on the periphery to adapt to a foreign environment. A port of call at the Cape was established by Governor Van Riebeeck: a former surgeon of the Dutch company, who had advocated using the site at the halfway point in voyages.78 Given the reason for the settlement was for stocking supplies, a master gardener and an assistant were engaged for the purpose. Moreover, Van Riebeeck had to carry out experiments to begin agriculture in this unhospitable place occupied by pastoralist Hottentots. In an ‘almanac’ (or diary, transcribed by Mia Karsten in 1951) the governor Van Riebeeck kept a precise record of all the different places and times for acclimatisation and cultivation tests he conducted, including sowing and ripeness seasons for each plant.79 During the first year in 1652, he established a fort and a garden planted with various vegetable seeds from Holland. He gradually created several more gardens surrounded by hedgerows to protect against strong winds, and from 1656 extended other inland gardens sheltered from the harsh climate for cereals and fruits, later to become the cornfields and orchards of the colony.80 Daily notes, entered into the ‘almanac’ for his successors, demonstrate an autonomous management of plant resources in connection with maritime life characteristic of a port of call: namely, the cultivation of a wide variety of plants, herbs and vegetables used for ship replenishments; the combination of seed imports from Holland with the introduction of plants by ships from other countries; and the synchronisation of sowing with the seasonal arrivals of fleets. Examples amongst his notes illustrate all these points: a ship brought seeds of scurvy grass from Holland in 1656 with the specific order to grow it; Van Riebeeck himself asked East Indian factories for ‘Indian seeds’ to test in May 1652—sweet potato, pineapple, watermelon and melon, orange, lemon, pompelmoes, Indian radish, coconut, and bamboo (given the lack of forests for a supply of wood). In July of the same year, with synchronisation in mind, the first garden was extended:
78 Kolbe, Pierre (1741), Description du Cap de Bonne Espérance où l’on trouve tout ce qui concerne l’histoire naturelle du pays…usages des Hottentots; et l’établissement des Hollandais (Amsterdam: Jean Catuffe), Tome 1, pp. 23-25. 79 Karsten Mia C, The Old Company's Garden at the Cape and its superintendents . 80 Ibid. p. 11. 35
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… we hurry to get the gardens ready for the seeds expected from home, which, if sown in time, may yield fruits against the arrival of the return fleet for its necessary replenishment.81
Resulting from this management required for provisioning, fruit trees and vines were propagated in both the Company’s and in the governor’s orchards, while settlers preferred the faster production of grain instead. In particular, these orchards were planted with lemons and oranges, apples and quince, the most advantageous fruits according to Van Riebeeck, as the ripening season matched the arrival of both the return and outward-bound fleets.82 Interestingly, due to serendipity of the naval calendar, abundance of these fruits in the Cape prompted the fantasy of the Garden of the Hesperides, which will be discussed in the next section. Replenishment stations on sea routes were also hubs for the propagation of useful plants. Crosby states that the Canary Islands turned out to be botanical nurseries for the New World.83 According to Van Riebeeck’s ‘almanac’, hundreds of apple and lemon young trees from St Helena had been received at the Cape over a period of time.84 And Governor Simon Van der Stel on his voyage to the Cape in 1699 brought grapevines and coconut from ‘St Jago’ (the largest island of the Cape Verde) in addition to other plants from Europe.85 Batavia, the main Dutch outpost and entrepôt of the Indian Ocean, might also have filled a key role as a botanical hub.
It can be stated that the provisioning role of the company gardens laid the foundations for their development into scientifically informed botanical gardens. In the late seventeenth century, the Dutch pioneered the establishment of gardens and pharmaceutical laboratories in the East Indies to produce remedies on site, an important point which will be developed in the next chapters. For instance, on the impulse of the Dutch governor Hendrik Van Reede, himself an amateur botanist, a botanical garden was set up around 1664 in Malabar (India) to grow medicinal plants, according to
81 Ibid. p. 25. 82 Ibid. p.50. 83 Crosby, Alfred W. (1994), Germs and seeds and animals. Studies in Ecological History, ed. Reilly Kevin (Sources and Studies in World History; Armonk, New York, London: M.E. Sharpe). 84 Karsten Mia C, The Old Company's Garden at the Cape and its superintendents, pp. 35- 36. 85 Vigne, Randolph (1999), 'The Company's Garden under the Van der Stels: a contemporary English account', Quarterly Bulletin of the South African Library, 3/53, p. 65. 36
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Heniger.86 The maritime context of colonial trade, although it was peculiarly restrictive, has not been fully examined in the historiography of botany in the colonial world. Juhé- Baulaton points out the role of seamen and of colonial gardens for plant acclimatisation, but without referring to the victualing function.87 Grove notes a botanical garden in Mauritius in 1690 established by the Dutch Governor Isaac Lamotius, another amateur naturalist, in fact this was probably the first garden set up to provide supplies.88 And Grove emphasises the increased medical and botanical functions of the gardens at the Cape of Good Hope.89 Nonetheless, the prime function of company gardens as provision gardens remained important over time: a wide variety of grains, fruits, vegetables, and medicinal herbs were introduced, grown and sold for the replenishment of ship stores.90 Thus, the function of provisioning was the reason why company gardens were privileged locations for the introduction of plant strains and acclimatisation trials when these began to be conducted; and why they continued being enriched upon in an unplanned way by ships with diverse provenance, fostering their growth as botanical collections. To sum up, the botanical content of travel narratives, foregrounding supplies and the dispersal of specific fruits such as citrus and coconut, reveals the maritime context of long distance trade as a determining factor in European knowledge of plants.
4 French settlement on the Ile de Bourbon The example of the Ile de Bourbon (earlier Mascareigne) demonstrates the strategic approach required for managing plant resources to further European expansion in the East Indies. Far more than in the West Indies and due to the longer sailing routes, self-
86 Heniger, Hendrik Adriaan Van Reede Tot Drakenstein 1636-1691 and Hortus Malabaricus , pp. 29-30, 37-38. 87 Juhé-Beaulaton, Dominique, 'Du jardin royal des plantes médicinales de Paris aux jardins coloniaux: développement de l'agronomie tropicale française', in Comité Des Travaux Historiques Et Scientifiques Cths (ed.), (1999), Le Jardin entre science et représentation (Paris). 88 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860 , pp. 136-137, 148. 89 Ibid. p. 128. 90 For example, a shipping invoice for provisions loaded on a French vessel at the Cape in 1779 listed dried beans, peas and fruits (almond, nut, peach, apricot, grape), potatoes, cabbage, onions, lemons, garlic, sorrel, green beans and other vegetables (and processed products, flour, mustard, wine, beer), see AN MAR B/4/150, fo 362: ‘Etat à Monsieur Dorves, Capitaine des vaisseaux du Roy, commandant l’Orient, des provisions faittes au Cap de bonne Espérance’. 37
CHAPTER TWO sufficiency was a key criterion for the development of this fruitful, isolated Ile de Bourbon midway on the route des Indes.
4.1 An idyllic port d’escale In the earliest accounts of the seventeenth century, travellers and agents of the Compagnie des Indes marvelled at the ideal nature of Mascareigne convenient to refresh crews and restock vessels, even though it was without a port. All narratives emphasised the availability of ample fresh water, wild fauna and game, and fertile land. Most of all, they praised the mild climate and the ‘bounty of the air’ which enabled the quick recovery of sailors — the belief was that many diseases were provoked by a bad air, in particular the confined and insalubrious air on ships was thought to be one cause of scurvy. And Mascareigne was devoid of disease and fever (malaria) unlike most tropical countries including Madagascar. Unfortunately, man’s intrusion associated with the introduction of pigs, dogs, cats, rats and ants provoked ecological damage on fauna.91 Abusive hunts on the occasion of ships’ arrivals accelerated the depletion of giant turtles and tortoises—the best ‘refreshments’ as a cure for scurvy and for the provision of fresh meat on ships. As early as 1690, ordinances limited turtle hunting.92 At the start, the island was used as a convalescent station for French agents from the settlement in Madagascar. Under the command of Etienne Regnault (from 1665 until 1671), these agents together with Malagasy people started a settlement with the introduction of diverse plant strains; only a few edible wild fruits and palm hearts were found.93 Plantations or habitations were established in the ‘best’ areas, such as in ‘the beautiful country (le beau pays) where it was found that vegetables and grains that we have in Europe grew well’.94 An agent named Dubois, who stayed to recover (probably from malaria or scurvy) for one year in 1671, listed in detail all useful resources in his 1674 account Travels… to the Islands of Dauphine or Madagascar, and Bourbon or
91 Cheke, A.S. and Hume, J.P. (2008), Lost land of the dodo: an ecological history of Mauritius, Réunion & Rodrigues (Yale University Press). 92 Turtle hunting by settlers was limited to two per week. In 1713, tortoise hunting was restricted to ship’s refreshments only at a rate of fifty for one hundred sailors—also because the easy hunting lifestyle on the island diverted colonists from their work. ANOM COL F/3/208 : fol 31 : ‘16 janvier 1690. Ordonnance du gouverneur sur la chasse et qui defend de tuer ou prendre plus de deux tortues de mer par semaine’ ; fol 91 : 27 février 1713 ‘Ordonnance portant deffense…de faire la chasse de la tortue de terre…’. 93 ANOM COL C/3/2 : ‘ Mémoires circonstanciers sur l’Isle de Bourbon en général’ ; RT 9ème année - 1941- no4: (short title) ‘ mémoire d’A. Boucher sur l’Ile Bourbon en 1710’, article no 27, p. 334. 94 F. Martin (1665- 1696) in Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611- 1725), p. 40. Beau pays was the expression used in accounts or on maps to mention fertile lands 38
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Mascarenne…95 Dubois noted huge trees in the forests suitable for house or ship building, some of which could be commercially exploited: he documented a tree called benjoin that oozed a fragrant gum similar to benzoin gum, and trees with high-quality timber, black, red and yellow in colour. Dubois detailed the first stage of agricultural production, consisting in a mix of plants from different countries. ‘Gardening’ included varieties from Europe and ‘the Indies’: cucumber, horseradish, chicory, purslane, parsley, pumpkin, lettuce and so on. A ‘King’s Garden’ was established as well, an account mentioning the case of soldiers condemned for stealing fruit from there in 1671.96 Food staples were rice, maize, a ‘broad bean from Brazil’, taro and a variety of roots and beans with Malagasy names.97 Rice, the staple food in Madagascar, was not sown but planted in holes ‘in the Blacks’ way’. Usual European crops were tried: grapevine, oats, and barley. But wheat first grown on the island was not a European but an Indian species, which Regnault tested in 1671 by sowing seeds left over from a shipment ‘from the Indies’. Thus, any plant strain acclimatised to this tropical climate would enhance the chances of survival. So, as Beinart and Middleton have stated in describing the spontaneous and miscellaneous plant transfer by colonists, ‘“colonization by gardening” was a ubiquitous, everyday settler activity’.98 To compare the Ile de Bourbon to the French Antilles around 1640, the same European plants were introduced and the colonists relied on botanical resources of the area—rice and manioc—in incorporating local customs.99 However, the example of wheat loaded as ship supply from India is significant: it is probably this Indian crop that succeeded on Bourbon, whereas wheat from Europe failed in the West Indies. This import is reminiscent of the origin of rice in South Carolina, sowed from leftover provisions of a slave ship from Africa according to Camey.100
95 Du Bois, Les voyages faits par le Sieur D.B [Dubois] aux isles Dauphine ou Madagascar, et Bourbon ou Mascarenne des années 1669, 70, 71 et 72 ; Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725), pp. 60-80. 96 F. Boyer (1698) in Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725), p. 81. 97 Du Bois, Les voyages faits par le Sieur D.B [Dubois] aux isles Dauphine ou Madagascar, et Bourbon ou Mascarenne des années 1669, 70, 71 et 72, pp. 184-196; Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725) , pp. 62, 73-77. 98Beinart and Middleton, 'Plant Transfers in Historical Perspective: A Review Article', p.14. 99 Regourd, 'Science et colonisation sous l'Ancien Régime. Le cas de la Guyane et des Antilles Françaises, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles', p. 140. 100 Carney, Judith, 'Out of Africa', in Londa Schiebinger and Claudia Swan (eds.), (2005), Colonial Botany. Science, Commerce &Politics in the Early Modern World (Philadelphia: PENN - University of Pennsylvania Press), p. 211. 39
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4.2 The evaluation of the Ile de Bourbon by the Compagnie des Indes According to surveys of the late seventeenth century, further development of the island as a participant in Asian trade depended on three important factors: firstly, production of export goods as well as food supplies to sustain the colony and shipping; secondly, slavery to provide a workforce; and thirdly, trade opportunities around the Indian Ocean and in Europe. In one of the earliest documents, for example, François Martin, a trade agent in Madagascar who travelled to Bourbon in 1665 and 1667, wrote that the island was ‘one among the excellent replenishment locations existing in the world.’101 In his opinion, it produced nothing of use to trade naturally, except a wild aloe. Sugar and indigo if cultivated successfully could be the best goods to trade with France and in the Persian Gulf, as long as slavery was implemented as in the American islands (since both required considerable manpower to operate). In addition, and compared to the West Indies, he argued that its fruitfulness could guarantee self-sufficiency, an important argument for this isolated territory:
The Isle of Mascareigne has the advantage, depending on its exploitation with what it already has, that colonists could get everything necessary for a living and will not be obliged to import food supplies from elsewhere as it is practised in the American islands.102
At the same time, the Commandant Regnault, who had returned to in France in 1671, drew up a colonization proposal for the Company entitled Advice…about the considerable settlement which the king wishes to establish in Bourbon Island and its utility…103 In his view, the island could be a convenient replenishment station, allowing French vessels to avoid stops along the Indian coastline where supplies and hygiene were uncertain. To establish the settlement, he requested that the Company organise the transfer of edible plants or plantages, stressing that those currently on the island had been brought on his initiative. So the naval custom of provisioning was to be
101 F. Martin (1665- 1696) in Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725), pp. 43-44. Martin (1634-1706) was the governor of Pondicherry, the main French trading factory in India which he founded in 1674. 102 Ibid. p. 45. 103 ANOM COL C/3/1 : ‘Mémoire contenant les advis de ce qu’il conviendroit de suivre pour l’establissement considérable que le roy désire faire en l’isle Bourbon, et son utilité, dressé par Etienne Regnault cy-devant commandant ladite isle, pour le service de Sa Majesté et celuy de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales, depuis le mois d’Aoust 1665 jusque en Juin 1671’. 40
CHAPTER TWO institutionalised by the Company. In addition, Regnault suggested various export products. Flacourt’s book was his reference when observing flora. Indigo and pepper should be introduced from the Indies given that wild species grew on the island; wild pepper was the one named poivre in Madagascar by Flacourt to whom the Company had to refer. Regnault also proposed trade possibilities within the Indian Ocean: rice to the Red Sea and Persia, wheat to Batavia, sugar to Persia or wood to Surat (as it was rare in the Mogul Empire).104 Therefore, the colonial enterprise controlled from the metropolis rested upon reasoning on an intercontinental scale as much as on experience built locally. The acclimatisation of diverse plants strengthened the reputation of the Ile de Bourbon as a fertile island, a fact significant to the potential development of this convalescent station into a colony.
5 The revival of the myth of the Golden Age The descriptions of botanical resources abroad accompanying European expansion nurtured the revival of myths. The fantasised images of fruitful lands that permeate the travel literature of the time all relate to the myth of the primitive ‘Golden Age of Humanity’ expressed through the Garden of the Hesperides, the Fortunate Islands, the Elysium or the Garden of Eden. They reflect the ideal of happiness and harmony with bountiful nature, still existing and accessible in isolated territories discovered through European expansion. This section argues that the rise of these myths drew on the enrichment of territories with living botanical resources essential to sustain European conquest across oceans, creating actual abundance overseas.
5.1 The fantasy of idyllic lands in voyages In many travel narratives prior to the eighteenth century, Europeans described nature and life in new territories as paradisiacal, particularly in tropical islands such as the Mascarenes. When considering the value of travel accounts as primary sources, scholars acknowledge the tendency towards exaggeration.105 However, although weakening the
104 RT 2ème année-1933-no1: (short title) ‘Mémoire d’E. Regnault premier commandant de l’Ile Bourbon. Juillet-Aout 1665 - Juin 1671’, pp. 129-137. 105 Marcil, 'Le voyageur dans la presse périodique du XVIIIe siècle ' ; Racault, Mémoires du Grand Océan: des relations de voyages aux littératures francophones de l'océan indien. 41
CHAPTER TWO credibility of the discourse, this exaggeration also reflects the maritime context. In that sense, my research concurs with Grove’s Green Imperialism: emphasis on the sojourns on land magnifies by contrast the harshness and the dangers of life at sea and the question of survival.106 However, whereas Grove grounds his argument about the vulnerability of Europeans abroad in water issues and deforestations, my research accentuates the transfer of plants required for survival in the course of imperial expansion under maritime constraints. A traveller’s perception of an island as a paradise is partly biased by the surrounding perilous ocean, in the same way that an oasis surrounded by the desert is idealised. This was the case for the Mascarenes. In his novelized account, Some yeares travels into divers parts of Asia and Afrique …, Thomas Herbert, part of an English diplomatic fleet sent to Persia, expressed the nostalgic memory of his sojourn to the Mascarenes in 1629, in particular Mauritius, comparing it to Utopia:
… a fit place for Sir Thomas Moore to have seated his Utopia in … We must to sea again, but not without a grateful farewell to those healthy and well placed islands, prepossessed with a felicitated memorial, yea enriched with so great choice, such plenty of victuals, that the vast and churlish Ocean became less distasteful to us; contemplating the jocund exercises and pleasures we were so late possessor of.107
In this quotation, the maritime context associated with the abundance of natural resources is an evident factor in the rise of the fantasy—two intertwined issues at the core of the myth of the tropical island.
5.2 The mythic image of fruits The importance of botanical knowledge to European expansion, as shown in earlier sections, provides arguments for the construction of myths in English poetry studied by Grove. My interpretation developed here completes his analysis of the process of idealisation of the islands.
106 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860. 107 Herbert, Thomas (1638), Some yeares travels into divers parts of Asia and Afrique: Describing especially the two famous empires, the Persian and great Mogull ... With a revivall of the first discoverer of America, (London: Printed by R. Bip. for I. Blome and R. Bishop ), pp. 351-352. 42
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Grove underlines the popularity of English travel accounts that conveyed a stereotypical image of exotic nature, ‘dwelling especially on the vegetable products of tropical islands.’108 Although he mentions the high botanical content of descriptions, he does not relate the awareness and the idealisation of nature, advocated in his ecological approach to imperial expansion, to the importance of plant resources for it. However, a greater attention to botanical data in the poems inspired by a travel account about the Bermudas, quoted by Grove, casts light on the origin of the myth. Indeed, the fruits listed are those commonly cited in travel accounts, oranges, lemons, melons, pineapple, pomegranate and figs, for instance in the poem Bermudas by Andrew Marvell, written in 1653:
He hangs in shades the orange bright, Like golden lamps in a green night, And does in the pomegranates close Jewels more rich than Ormus shows; He makes the Figs our mouths to meet; And throws the Melons at our feet But Apples, plants of such a price, No tree could ever bear them twice …109
In particular, the record of citrus fruit in travel literature engendered the myth of the Garden of the Hesperides in the poem The Battle of the Summer Islands, written by Edmund Waller in 1665:
That happy island where huge lemons grow, And orange trees, which golden fruit do bear, The Hesperian Garden boasts of on so fair …110
Oranges and lemons have a prominent place in these two poems quoted by Grove. In a European society immersed in classical education, the orange was a luxury item assigned a high symbolic value: it was considered to be the Golden Apple of the
108 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, p. 39. 109 Marvell, Andrew (1653), ‘Bermudas’, The works of Andrew Marvell, [online text], http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/marvbib.htm. “Apples, plants of such a price” could stand for pineapples. See Grove, Green Imperialism, p. 40. 110 Waller, Edmund (1665), ‘The battle of the Summer Islands’, Poetical works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham. Quoted from Grove, Green Imperialism, p. 40. 43
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Garden of the Hesperides of Greek mythology.111 It was associated with several myths, mainly with one of the Labours of Hercules, who had to retrieve Golden Apples from the Garden of the Hesperides. Hercules was a favourite figure in garden statuary in Europe, especially in the garden of William III, Prince of Orange, in the Netherlands.112 In addition, the fashion of orange trees as decorative evergreens with fragrant flowers and golden fruits was brought from Italy and developed in gardens across Europe. Orange and other citrus trees were sheltered in expensive orangeries in botanic gardens and royal gardens of the great courts of northern Europe.113 In modern botany as well, the myth of the Golden Apple is brought to mind: the citrus fruit is a type of berry called hesperidium, and the bitter orange is Citrus x aurantium from Latin aurum, meaning gold.114 The twofold value of citrus fruit, symbolic as a high-priced natural item and essential as a supply for ships, certainly led to its dispersal. Sweet orange species from China were still rare and much esteemed in the late seventeenth century. They were carefully nurtured for instance in a convent’s kitchen garden in the French Caribbean, and on the Ile de Bourbon in 1704.115 In 1738, the military engineer Jean-François Charpentier de Cossigny, a correspondent of the academician René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, sent him pips from oranges ‘of extreme sweetness’ received from China, to share with Jussieu.116 Whereas citrus trees were luxury items in Europe, travellers overseas admired them growing wild and were impressed by their abundance. To quote Le Gentil de la Barbinais:
111 Ferrari, Giovanni Battista (1646), Hesperides sive de Malorum Aureorum cultura (Romae sumptibus Hermanni Scheus).The symbolic value of orange is expressed in allegorical illustrations of the arrival of the Golden Apples in Italy, pp. 51, 447. 112 Haley, K.H.D, 'William III as Builder of Het Loo', in John Dixon Hunt (ed.), (1990), The Dutch Garden in the Seventeenth Century (Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium of the History of Landscape Architecture XII; Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection), p.8. 113 Guarrigues, Dominique (2001), Jardins et Jardiniers de Versailles au Grand Siècle (Seyssel: Champ Vallon), pp. 144-147. Oldenburger-Ebbers, Carla, 'Notes on Plants Used in Dutch Gardens in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century', in John Dixon Hunt (ed.), (1990), The Dutch Garden in the Seventeenth Century (Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium of the History of Landscape Architecture XII; Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection), p.164. 114Delange, Yves (2001), 'Nommer les agrumes', Hommes et Plantes. Revue trimestrielle du Conservatoire français des collections végétales spécialisées (CCVS), /37, p. 8. 115 Labat, Jean Baptiste (1724), Nouveau voyage aux isles de l' Amérique... (Tome 1; La Haye: P. Husson) p. 42. ANOM COL C/3/2 : ‘Ordres de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales au Sr Fillye, Lieutenant de son vaisseau le Marchand des Indes…’ ; RT 8ème année-1939-no1: (short title) ‘Mission à l’Ile Bourbon du Sr Feuilley en 1704’, p.16. 116 RT 8ème année-1939-no3 : ‘Treize lettres de Cossigny à Réaumur ‘, p. 262. 44
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It seems that [Nature] is a mother for Barbarians only, and punishes us. Orange and lemon trees, these precious trees, thrive without any care in almost all America.117
Thus, the concern for food supplies, above all, nourished the fantasy of the fruitful island paradise, and citrus fruits in particular contributed to the myth of the Garden of the Hesperides in European thought, as reflected in literature.
5.3 Fruitful myths on sea routes Two specific cases in travel literature evidence the creation of myths in connection with ports of call along the sea routes, where a fruitless wild environment was turned into a bountiful paradise. By reference to the naval custom of ensuring food supplies with plant imports as discussed previously, I argue that the sailor, embedded in a hazardous maritime environment, played an active role in the construction of myths related to the Golden Age in the wake of imperial expansion.
5.3.1 The Mascarenes The Mascarenes are among the islands that undoubtedly made a significant impression upon the European imagination. These uninhabited islands, midway between East and West, were enriched by sailors with plants from all horizons, and thereafter were compared to mythic places in seventeenth century travel accounts. Since Antiquity, the ‘Island’, viewed as an isolated place preserved from the turmoil of humanity, had been the support of idyllic myths such as the Fortunate Islands; later ones such as Thomas More’s Utopia—a criticism of social, political and religious customs—were nurtured by discoveries of new lands in colonial expansion.118 The Mascarenes inspired such myths, for example Thomas Herbert quoted above compared Mauritius to the setting-up of Utopia in his 1638 chronicle. Yet most narratives evoke the Paradise more appropriate to these uninhabited islands (the Dutch sparsely settled in Mauritius from 1635 to the 1710s). Grove argues that a change in the perception of nature in the seventeenth century was a prelude to the Enlightened environmental movements of the eighteenth century and was related to idealised images
117 Le Gentil de La Barbinais, Nouveau voyage autour du monde, enrichi de plusieurs plans, vûës et perspectives des principales villes et ports du Pérou, Chily, Brésil et de la Chine, avec une description de l'Empire de la Chine..., p. 10. 118 Pohl, Nicole (2008), 'The Quest for Utopia in the Eighteenth Century', Literature Compass,5/4, pp. 685-687, 693. 45
CHAPTER TWO of oceanic islands like the Mascarenes and St Helena, with a beautiful environment less hostile than in Europe—Paradise accessible on Earth.119 My reading of travel accounts testifies to this perception through the details of natural history. In addition, I argue that the reason why European expansion impacted upon the approach to nature and to myths was the overarching issue of control over man’s survival during voyages, entailing attention to environmental assets and their improvement. The Ile de Bourbon did certainly fulfil the search for Paradise on Earth. In the contemporary belief, Paradise was somewhere in ‘Asia’ (which stretched from Mesopotamia to China), probably in the Middle East.120 It was associated with the idea of abundance and diversity according to the unique Creation in Christianity. Tournefort, for instance, stated in the account of his voyage into the Levant in 1700, that it most reminded him of the fertile plains of Armenia ‘where one yields so many foodstuffs at once.’121 The paradisiacal image arose from the first descriptions of nature that were made in Mascareigne. Inspired by those of the French agents exiled from Madagascar, Flacourt named it Ile de Bourbon as the most fitting homage to Louis XIV when taking possession of it in the King’s name in 1649, ‘not being able to find any name which could better tally with its bounty and its fertility’.122 In his book, Flacourt reported their sojourn in the 1640s. They lived by hunting and fishing, and growing tobacco and melon.123 They described the abundant wild fauna; birds captured by hand; rivers full of fish; no dangerous animals, rats, flies nor mosquitoes; immense forests—though lacking in fruit—with palm trees (providential for producing a watery sap and an edible heart), fragrant gum trees, precious timber trees like ebony; a fertile soil; no disease. With a healthy and hot climate but cooled by breezes, Flacourt asserted that ‘the island could rightly be called an earthly paradise’.124 However, I would stress that the island’s reputation benefited from the introduction of plants that complemented the hospitable environment and thereby
119 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, pp. 35, 48, 51. 120 See the article ‘Paradis terrestre’ in Diderot Denis and d'Alembert Jean, 'Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'. 121 Tournefort, Joseph (Pitton de) (1718), Relation d'un voyage du Levant: fait par ordre du Roi... (Aux dépens de La Compagnie), Lettre XIX, p. 140. 122 Flacourt, Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar - 1661, p. 306. 123 Ibid. pp. 306-308. Tobacco easily grown could be bartered with sailors. 124 Ibid. p. 308. 46
CHAPTER TWO inspired the ideal vision of Paradise. In describing the very first stage of settlement in 1666, a French trade agent Carpeau du Saussay wrote:
I have no name to give to Mascareigne Island which could better suit than a Paradise on Earth. Its climate is so healthy and the air so salutary that sick persons who are disembarked recover as soon as they inhale it. There is neither venomous beast nor others harmful to man. It is fertile for all sorts of vegetables: everything grows in plenty, like pumpkins, melons, cucumbers, cabbages etc … tobacco is among the best. Rice grows there as well …125
Compared to difficult conditions in Europe, people praised the healthy and warm climate that allowed for several harvests per year: two for wheat and rice and up to four for maize.126 In addition, exotic plants amazed the Europeans. Dubois remarked in his descriptions that the banana was also called ‘Adam’s fig’—the long leaf was supposed to have covered Adam’s nudity and the fruit marked with a cross inside.127 Borghesi was impressed during his stay in 1703: grains were sown at any time in this ‘perpetual spring’; sugar cane grew ‘up to the size of a leg’; orange and lemon trees sprouted and grew ‘without any care of cultivation or need of grafting’; people lived simply and abundantly ‘without work or fatigue’ from harvesting and hunting.128 All of this echoes the happy and bountiful life in the Christian Paradise exempt from fear and labour. The myth was indeed accessible to man. The idyllic image of Ile de Bourbon described in travel accounts as Eden was emphasised in a propaganda campaign to develop a new Huguenot society on the island. After the 1685 Révocation de l’Edit de Nantes banning the Protestant religion in the French kingdom, the Marquis Henri du Quesne, a French refugee in Holland, anonymously published a brochure entitled Collection of a few reports for the establishment of the Isle of Eden in 1689.129 Rather than Utopia related to an imperfect
125 Carpeau du Saussay (1722), Voyage de Madagascar, connu aussi sous le nom de l'Isle de Saint- Laurent par M. de V. ... (Paris: Jean-Luc Nyon. ), p. 86. 126 Du Bois, Les voyages faits par le Sieur D.B [Dubois] aux isles Dauphine ou Madagascar, et Bourbon ou Mascarenne des années 1669, 70, 71 et 72, p.184; Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725) , pp. 73, 155. 127 Du Bois, Les voyages faits par le Sieur D.B [Dubois] aux isles Dauphine ou Madagascar, et Bourbon ou Mascarenne des années 1669, 70, 71 et 72, p. 189, 190 ; Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725), p. 74. 128 Borghesi (1705) in Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725) … , pp. 124, 127-128. 129 Anonymous, (1689), Recueil de quelques mémoires servans d’instruction pour l’établissement de l’Isle d’Eden (Amsterdam: Henry Desbordes) ; see also Sauzier, Th (ed.), (1887), Un projet de république 47
CHAPTER TWO societal ideal (with slavery and war), Eden adequately fitted the Christian ambitions of this project and the reputation of the island. Du Quesne gathered information from travel accounts, among them certainly the account by Dubois published in 1674. Du Quesne argued:
This island has been known under different names … others have named it “l’Isle d’Eden” and it is this one which has been kept as the most suitable, for its bounty and its beauty could be compared to a paradise on earth, and it is so that it is described by several authors …130
An expedition of eight Huguenots reached Rodrigues Island (north of Mauritius) in 1691, since the French had settled in Bourbon. The narrative by François Leguat of the whole voyage, Voyage et aventures de François Leguat … en deux isles désertes des Indes Orientales… published in 1707, depicted their idyllic sojourn in the island, ending after two years in solitude and disillusion for the project was not pursued. 131 According to Racault, the authenticity of the account, which seemingly partly inspired Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe in 1719, was however subject to doubt for many years in Europe.132 The ideal reputation continued to flourish in the early eighteen century. Travellers noted that the Creoles (meaning Europeans born overseas) were healthy and well built.133 Contrary to the general belief that Europeans did not acclimatise to foreign countries, they prospered on this Blessed Island, an exception evoked by Charles-Louis Montesquieu in Lettres Persanes, published in 1721, proving the fame that the Ile de Bourbon had acquired in France.134
5.3.2 The Cape of Good Hope
à l' Ile d' Eden (l' Ile Bourbon) en 1689 par le Marquis Henry Du QUESNE (Paris: Librairie Ancienne et Moderne de E. Dufossé). 130 Anonymous, Recueil de quelques mémoires servans d’instruction pour l’établissement de l’Isle d’Eden …, pp.101-102. 131 Leguat, Voyage et aventures de Francois Leguat et de ses compagnons en deux isles désertes des Indes Orientales...dans l’isle Maurice, à Batavia, au Cap de Bonne Espérance, dans l’isle de Sainte Hélène…… 132 Racault, Mémoires du Grand Océan: des relations de voyages aux littératures francophones de l'océan indien , pp. 95-102. 133 Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725) , pp. 123, 156, 176. 134 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis (1721), Lettres Persanes (Cologne: Marteau P.), Tome 2: ‘lettre CVII’, pp. 189, 192. 48
CHAPTER TWO
The other instance of myth created en route to the East Indies was the main garden of the VOC in the Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope, a place first regarded as inhospitable. It perfectly exemplifies the importance of botanical resources in European expansion and the impact on European thought. Travellers to the Cape emphasised the rich collection of plant species brought from the East and the West that were gathered in this garden. Sir William Temple, an English ambassador to the Netherlands in the 1670s, expressed his thoughts from information he received about the Cape from these travellers:
The picture I have met with in some relations of a garden made by a Dutch Governor … is admirable … so as in this one enclosure are to be found the several gardens of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. There could not be, in my mind, a greater thought of a garden, nor a nobler idea of a garden … and may pass for the Hesperides of our age.135
The account by Pieter Kolben (Kolbe in French) who, from 1705, spent ten years in the Dutch colony, provides a great amount of information including a map of the main garden, divided into several squares and planted with all sorts of trees, herbs, vegetables, ‘all curious species of fruits and flowers existing in the four corners of the world.’136 Other accounts report in particular orange and lemon trees planted on either side of the main walk. In his popular account published in 1726, François Valentijn (or Valentyn), previously an employee of the VOC, drew the comparison with the Hesperides:
One of the finest creations here at the Table Bay is the unequalled Garden of the Hon. Company. All that the Ancients wrote of the Gardens of the Hesperides with their golden apples … can in no wise compare with the unequalled Garden of the Cape.137
135 Temple, Sir William, Of Gardening (London, 1686), quoted in Vigne, 'The Company's Garden under the Van der Stels: a contemporary English account', p. 67. 136 Kolbe, Description du Cap de Bonne Espérance où l’on trouve tout ce qui concerne l’histoire naturelle du pays…usages des Hottentots; et l’établissement des Hollandais, Tome II, p. 116. 137 Valentyn François (1971), Description of the Cape of Good Hope with the matters concerning it - Amsterdam 1726, Prof. P. Serton, Maj. R. Raven-Hart, Dr. W.J. de Kock, Final Editor Dr. E.H. Raidt (Part I, second series no 2; Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society), p. 99. 49
CHAPTER TWO
Therefore, at the Cape of Good Hope it was the abundance of fruits grown particularly as naval fresh supplies—including apple and citrus—which especially inspired reference to the Golden Age. Hence, in the case of the Mascarenes and The Cape, the spread of the world’s plant resources essential to European expansion transformed wild environments into fruitful landscapes and favoured the revival of myths. It is mainly by a combination of the maritime context and of botanical data that travel accounts circulated information that fostered a fantasised vision of exotic nature among the European intelligentsia.
Conclusion
European expansion entailed the exploitation of nature overseas. Since uncertainty threatened survival and efficiency, knowledge of local biota abroad was essential and necessitated prospecting of natural resources. Efforts to master nature transcended colonial boundaries to proceed in a global dimension in the seventeenth century, evolving from mostly non-institutionalised and non-specialised peripheral activities to a more centralised and planned enterprise. This formalising trend is exemplified by the creation of the Garden of the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope with cultivation tests of various plants for the replenishing of ship’s supplies. Plant resources as well as knowledge from foreign cultures around the world were appropriated and circulated. Thus, ‘colonial botany’ encapsulates the long-term takeover of the world’s biodiversity by Europe. The colonization of the Ile de Bourbon is representative of the strategic context and the intercontinental dimension necessary to understand European expansion. For French advancement of the East India trade, the potential value of this island rested upon its dual function as a port of call and a colony to ensure self-sufficiency as well as profit. Fertility of the land was a chief criterion for these two factors affecting colonial management in the East Indies to a greater extent than in the West Indies. Improvement of European prospects from a distance required accuracy of information, and thereafter cooperation between the metropolis and the periphery. Agents of colonial trade such as sailors, colonists, or traders acquainted with exotic flora served as sources of botanical knowledge more than dedicated naturalists. In travel
50
CHAPTER TWO accounts, information media, records of export commodities and supplies available in countries visited express two major concerns informing thinking about plants: survival and efficiency associated with maritime colonial trade. Prospecting for the world’s riches was part of the mercantilist strategy of nations. The variety of drugs and spices from the East Indies promoted the inventory of exotic nature, in which science and trade had a mutual interest. Prospecting was undertaken on a global scale, with the belief that similar plants grew in similar climates. As manifested in travel accounts, basic knowledge circulating overseas demonstrates some practical competency on the one hand, yet, on the other hand, an imprecision in plant identification noticeable by a modern reader, for example plant homonymy due to trade prospecting. In addition, inventories based on observation of plants in situ overseas reveal the inaccuracies of European reference books of the day. Metropolitan control over the collection of information increased both with the creation of scientific centres in Europe and the development of correspondence with colonial communities overseas. The management of plant resources was aimed chiefly but not exclusively at the needs of trade. The maritime wisdom of planning for supplies to include plant strains gathered from along the sea routes enhanced the chance of success not only of the voyages, but also of the new settlements. In that sense, ‘colonial botany’ reveals an informal partnership outside Europe between the colonist and the sailor to counterbalance the remoteness of the metropolis. This corresponds with Drayton’s view that rather than an expansion of Europe, ‘imperial expansion’ led to the contraction of the world, where exchange and interdependence bonded separated communities.138 The specific creation of gardens in the replenishment station at the Cape of Good Hope evidences the increase of control over supplies, crucial for sustained European expansion. Important features can be delineated regarding the history of plants. My analysis complements Crosby’s argument of European adaptability abroad by highlighting the significant role of seafaring. Among plants that acted as agents of colonization, medicinal specimens such as antiscorbutic remedies hold a prime place. The distribution of European plant strains was increased worldwide with a wide variety of species transported by sea, and as a result the history of plant propagation reflects the
138 Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World, p. xiv. 51
CHAPTER TWO intercontinental pattern of maritime traffic within the limits of acclimatisation. This point clarifies the paradoxical characteristics of plant transfer: on the one hand the diversity of origin and on the other hand the homogeneity of the panel of plants first introduced by ships to settlements all over the world. To counterbalance Weiskel’s statement regarding the current impoverishment of crop resources due to globalisation, this management on a world scale, or early ‘globalisation’ of botanical resources, consisted in the apportionment of a common natural legacy shared around the world for humanity’s sake.139 Through the botanical data found in travel literature, one can perceive that the vulnerability of man increased in the course of remote conquest by sea. This vulnerability is reflected in the attention given to plant resources in travel accounts portraying an Edenic vision of tropical nature at the end of the seventeenth century: an inimical and harsh environment in Europe – and worse at sea -- is contrasted with the preservation or possible recreation of bountiful places overseas. Particularly in the southwestern Indian Ocean, where ships stopped at maritime crossroads midway between Europe, Africa, America and Asia, plants from the four corners of the world were gathered. Myths of the Golden Age, anchored in the harsh ‘dictate of the sea’, emerged from the planting and nurturing of bountiful gardens along sea routes. Enlightened thought about nature and plants in Europe emerged from this experience of the pitfalls of autonomous expansion at the tropical periphery, and from the search for remedies.
139 Weiskel, 'Agents of Empire: Steps Toward an Ecology of Imperialism'. 52
CHAPTER THREE
3
Power and science: The riches of the East Indies within reach (1690–1718)
By the late seventeenth century, amidst the abundance of information and floral resources that became available during European expansion, European elites faced a problem of ambiguity in reference sources. Indeed, complaints were common that different sources of plant knowledge contradicted each other: the same plant often had different names in botanists’ herbaria alongside local names in different countries, while many foreign plants did not have the expected desirable properties, often due to fraud or perhaps misidentification. To better control nature and knowledge from a distance, they organised the circulation of more reliable, standardised information, attempting to systematise knowledge they had gathered from books, reports, catalogues and collections. According to Antoine de Jussieu in 1718, the new interest among savants to directly study nature, ‘the grand Book’, together with their traditional focus on the lore of nature, was triggered by exchanges with foreign countries and excursions, which in the Levant revealed: ‘these Ancients regarded as their masters had been so inaccurate that they had neglected in their History an enormous number of plants of their own country’.1 The mutual reinforcement of European expansion and botany during the period is reflected in well-known events, such as the enlargement of collections in botanical gardens, the establishment of scientific correspondence with the colonial world, the parallel leadership of the Netherlands in colonial trade and in exotic botany, as well as in the mounting effort of botanists to develop classification methods pertinent to exotic
1 BCMNHN cote 103 980: Jussieu, Antoine (de) (1718), Discours sur le progrès de la Botanique au Jardin Royal de Paris, suivi d’une introduction à la connaissance des plantes, prononcés à l’ouverture des démonstrations publiques, le 31 May 1718 (Paris : Etienne Ganeau), p. 6. 53
CHAPTER THREE flora.2 However, the circumstances leading to such developments deserve clarification. In this chapter I will illustrate how particular concern about the reliability of information was a key driver. In the 1660s the Kingdom of France entered into the competition for East Indian trade. The Compagnie des Indes Orientales struggled to secure its presence in the Indian Ocean and to take hold of exotic trade commodities directly. The colonization of the Ile de Bourbon was implemented within the overall strategy of colonial trade in the East Indies, according to maritime and financial imperatives specific to it and in which the state was involved to a greater extent than was the case in the West Indies. Complementing the discussion of a global control of natural resources, this chapter investigates more closely the nature of Europe’s management of the colonial environment and of botanical knowledge at the turn of the eighteenth century. It will describe efforts in England and in France to collate and curate information reported in travel literature and trade correspondence. It will discuss what both savants and trading companies, such as the French Compagnie des Indes, expected from this knowledge collected on the periphery, and how they attempted to benefit from its examination. As shown in the previous chapter, distance was a pervasive problem in European expansion and a lack of precision in information impeded the acquisition of natural knowledge about exotic flora. In this chapter I will detail the efforts of metropolitan savants and traders to impose rigour and standardised procedures on peripheral botanical activities in order to improve their control over distance. I will argue that, due to a confusing diversity of data and sources, a shared concern for reliability led the scientific and commercial agencies to a similar project of systematising the collection and circulation of knowledge through newly codified botanical methods, language and skills, entailing methodical referencing and ordering of information. Moreover, the need for reliability prompted them to work in partnership regarding plants of common interest—mainly medicinal species prominent in the East Indian trade. As for science, metropolitan savants began to engage in regular correspondence with skilled overseas intermediaries, to supervise the prospecting of exotic flora and to complement commissioned collecting expeditions. My examination of knowledge acquisition in scientific institutions will highlight this process of centralisation, the development of classification schemes for the information, and the increasing
2 Cook, Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age ; Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World. 54
CHAPTER THREE importance attached to the name and the specimen (living or dried) of a plant as reference elements. Given the still intimate association of botany with the materia medica, a great deal of savants’ attention went towards the discovery and testing of plants considered similar to already known herbal remedies. The expansion of botany’s scope beyond these medical interests, however, was accelerating. The colonization of the Ile de Bourbon illustrates many of these changes, including the centralisation of command in French governmental and scientific institutions, coupled with the delegation of competency on-site to manage and inventory local resources. Co-operation between the Compagnie des Indes Orientales and metropolitan savants was orchestrated by the state in the early eighteenth century, bringing commercial prospecting into close association with scientific botany. Bourbon’s role as a ship stop (escale) raised the problem of self-sufficiency to one of prominence, leading the Compagnie des Indes to organise the transfer and acclimatisation of various plant strains for local consumption. In addition, the concern for efficiency led the Company, in order to produce lucrative exotic commodities, to enhance the reliability of botanical knowledge by initiating two systematic procedures: cultivation tests as well as the scientific assessment of product samples and plant specimens captured by floral prospecting.
1 The historical context in France In the early eighteenth century, the Compagnie des Indes strengthened investigation regarding the value of Ile de Bourbon; the need for a port d’escale had become more obvious during wartime when the Dutch Cape of Good Hope was closed to French fleets. However, having been seriously weakened by heavy losses during the War of the League of Ausbourg (1688–97) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), the Company remained reluctant to invest large amounts of money to develop an island that was devoid of a port, with few trade goods, but also away from the main sea route, which lay along the East African coast through the Mozambique Channel.3 From 1706, it renegotiated its monopoly in the East Indies, Bourbon excluded, with the private French Compagnie de St Malo, reaching an agreement with compensation on profit and
3 About the maritime routes, see Haudrère, La Compagnie Française des Indes au XVIIIème siècle (1719- 1795), pp. 640-645. 55
CHAPTER THREE royalties paid back to the Compagnie des Indes.4 In particular, from 1708 the Compagnie de St Malo undertook expeditions to the Kingdom of Yemen to enter the coffee market, principally due to the fact that European consumption had been increasing since the late seventeenth century as a result of imports from the Red Sea by Dutch and English ship merchants. Nonetheless, keen to keep control of East India trade, the failing Compagnie des Indes organised trade missions to East Indian factories as well as the evaluation of its lands in Bourbon. During the Regency (1715–23) after the death of Louis XIV, changes occurred in France.5 From the end of the seventeenth century, aristocratic and merchant circles had been criticising mercantilism and the absolutist system, initiating liberal ideas. The Regent Duc d’Orléans, concerned to reduce French debts and to return power to the aristocracy, undertook several reforms. A new governmental system, known as the Polysynody, replaced the ministries: it included six councils led by the Council of Regency (albeit too complex and hence, ending in 1718). The Council of Regency increased state control on commerce —‘Given that Commerce is almost equally related to Finance and to the Navy’, as specified in legal texts, it required the three relevant offices, and particularly the Councils of Finance and of the Navy, managing colonial affairs to meet to discuss important matters.6
2 The mastering of the environment by the French Nation From 1700 onwards, the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, under the supervision of the French state, tightened control on the Ile de Bourbon, as this island was an emerging key element in the Compagny’s global strategy regarding East Indian trade. To govern with rationality, the Company orchestrated the exchange of precise information to and from the island. Since Bourbon was fertile, from 1714 the Secretary of the Navy and the Colonies supported its development as a replenishment station and as a colony sensu stricto; that is to say, a provider of extra commodities to bring wealth to the kingdom, a raison d’'être on which this section focuses. The diversity of wild plants similar to East
4 Lougnon, L'Isle Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges Boucher et les débuts du café, pp. 57-59 ; Weber, La Compagnie Française des Indes (1604 - 1875), pp. 215-216, 278-279 ; Haudrère, La Compagnie Française des Indes au XVIIIème siècle (1719-1795), pp. 28-31. 5 Weber, La Compagnie Française des Indes (1604 - 1875), pp. 302-306 ; Grenier, Jean Yves (2007), Histoire de la pensée économique et politique de la France d'Ancien Régime (Paris: Carré Histoire - Hachette Supérieur), pp. 130-147, 152-167. 6 Brillon, Pierre-Jacques (1727), Dictionnaire de jurisprudence et des arrêts, ou nouvelle édition du Dictionnaire de Brillon. Tome 5 - de Quadraniers à Revues, (Paris: Guillaume Cavelier Père, Michel Brunet, Nicolas Gosselin, Guillaume Cavelier Fils), p. 729. 56
CHAPTER THREE
Indian flora, including pepper and aloe species and, above all, the discovery of a species of coffee, increased expectations for producing valued Asian commodities. In 1717 together with the Council of Regency, the Company implemented three complementary actions concerning human and natural factors which determined the ongoing development of the colony: a stronger management of plantations associated with a diversification of production, a botanical inventory and cultivation experiments of exotic plants in the Company’s gardens, as well as a transoceanic network for the transfer of plant strains based on the colonial trade pattern.
2.1 The Ile de Bourbon in the global strategy of the French state During the first decade of the century, the failing Compagnie des Indes collected information about a possible development of Bourbon, including the acclimatisation of various plant strains and the creation of a port, forwarded to the Secretary of the Navy, the Comte Jérôme Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain. The Company framed a more effective collection of information on site from its executives and colonists, with a new communication method for greater precision: directives and inquiries with numbered sections relating to the local situation and commerce in the Indian Ocean. Additionally, the Company initiated cultivation trials regarding new exotic commodities, an agronomic practice still rare in France, complemented with technical knowledge developed by producer countries in the colonial periphery.
2.1.1 The improvement of knowledge acquisition While the central assessment of the kingdom’s wealth was typical of France’s absolute monarchy and mercantilist politics, this thorough accounting was even more important for a remote colony, exemplifying the need for control, which was a requirement that is at the core of my dissertation.7 The Compagnie des Indes, sovereign of the lands with colonists its servants, implemented the supervision of natural and human resources, recurrently assessing settlement parameters by surveys and censuses. In its virtually feudal organisation, concessions were allocated with an annual tax cens paid in kind (farm products) and work days or corvées owed to the Company.8 Metropolitan
7 Grenier, Histoire de la pensée économique et politique de la France d'Ancien Régime, pp. 142-147. 8 Weber, La Compagnie Française des Indes (1604 - 1875), pp. 200-205 ; Barassin, Naissance d'une chrétienté. Bourbon des origines jusqu'en 1714, pp. 181-182. 57
CHAPTER THREE management emphasised the replenishment function that would condition the colonization of the Mascarenes, together with an overarching commercial approach to nature in a colony meant to be profit-making. Management decisions attest to the centrality of medicinal products in East India trade, the link connecting colonial expansion to botany in France. On the impulse of a director named Foucherole, the Company investigated the value of the Ile de Bourbon. Local executives had to render a precise account of population and production. In 1704, it sent a skilled pilot, Feuilley, to carefully examine the island.9 In his orders the Company requested details regarding demography, topography, agriculture and natural history, in formats such as a census, charts and samples of products, soils and woods (for quality). It also sent cereals and fruit seeds from France— wheat and citrus plants growing well according to the first commandant, Regnault— and organised the transfer from ‘the Indies’ of speculative crops such as indigo and pepper. In 1706, the Company directly delegated one of its business directors, Guillaume Hébert, to assess Bourbon as part of a trade mission to the East Indies.10 In addition to management issues such as colonists’ contracts and land concessions, Hébert investigated potential natural resources, including woods appropriate for shipbuilding that were important to inventory in a ship stop. He estimated local products for medicine or tincture, from tobacco to ginger and terramerita (turmeric or curcuma); also woods suitable for dyes.11 For instance, an endemic plant, similar to scented rush (squinante) from the Levant, sold for up to ten écus a pound (to compare, five pounds of tobacco sold for one écu) was worth sampling in order to identify it with reference to ‘Pomey’ (the apothecary Pierre Pomet published Histoire Générale des drogues in 1694).12 Interestingly, since the island naturally produced medicinal plants or simples, Hébert proposed to study them in situ employing a surgeon he knew, who had been trained in Paris. This surgeon was certainly Jacques
9 ANOM COL C/3/2 : ‘Ordres de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales au Sr Fillye, Lieutenant de son vaisseau le Marchand des Indes, qu’il exécutera pendant son séjour dans l’Isle Bourbon, conjointement avec [les administrateurs], de concert avec ceux des habitans les plus antiens et les mieux instruits. Et en marge de chaque article, led. Sr Fillye écrira ses observations, lèvera un plan général de toute l’Isle …’ ; RT 8ème année-1939-no1: (short title) ‘Mission à l’Ile Bourbon du Sr Feuilley en 1704’, pp. 3-56. 10 ANOM COL C/2/13 ; RT 9ème année-1940-no1: ‘Rapport de G. Hébert sur l‘Ile Bourbon en 1708, avec les apostilles de la Compagnie des Indes’, p. 34. 11 ANOM COL C/2/13 ; RT 9ème année-1940-no1: ‘ Rapport de G. Hébert…’, pp. 46, 49, 64. Dyewoods were main exotic commodities, on the example of sappanwood or Brazil wood. 12 Pomet, Pierre (1694) Histoire générale des drogues, (Paris: Medic@). 58
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Macé who corresponded with Bernard de Jussieu.13 Thus, Hébert’s suggestion highlights the search for medicinal commodities at the origin of resort to scientific knowledge. The system of ordered directives and inquiries bore fruit in a more realistic way than earlier accounts. Feuilley’s mission in 1704 confirmed Bourbon’s bountiful reputation, but it was blurred by reckless degradation of fauna and the poor state of the colony.14 He reported colonists’ complaints about the Company’s neglect of the colony and the lack of merchandise in its warehouses, as a response to the Company criticising their laziness in developing plantations.15 In 1710, the warehouse-keeper, Antoine Boucher, sent a survey on each colonist (in addition to censuses), entitled Report to know each colonist of Bourbon Island particularly....16 He depicted the rich, the poor, the hardworking, the debauched and the lazy colonists, who lived there merely by hunting (around one thousand people in all, with half of them slaves).17 Besides, Boucher described the state of agriculture and also championed the ‘bounty’ of Bourbon. Colonists grew mostly tobacco and food crops. Wheat was planted in holes like rice and maize, but harvested as practised in France. With a few roots and peas from Madagascar and India, European vegetables and herbs were now grown. Boucher added that two medicinal herbs were invasive: parsley and purslane—the latter choking up new wheat or rice plantations. However, since others, such as lettuce, degenerate with time, fresh seeds needed to be sent from France. Imports by seamen continued, Boucher noting new beans (including peanut) brought from Peru by Hébert’s expedition.18
2.1.2 The improvement of production by plant acclimatisation The Compagnie des Indes, convinced of Bourbon’s fertility, reinforced control over its natural resources to attain both self-sufficiency and profit. Ignorance of the environment and exotic plants necessitated resort to local experience, and also triggered closer supervision of plantations and a new management technique—namely cultivation trials.
13 ANOM COL C/2/13 ; RT 9ème année-1940-no1: ‘ Rapport de G. Hébert…’, p. 64. 14 RT 8ème année-1939-no2: (short title) ‘Mission à l’Ile Bourbon du Sr Feuilley en 1704’, pp. 101-167. 15 Ibid. pp. 165-167. Foucherole forwarded the survey to Pontchartrain, in vain (likely due to the war context). 16 BNF, naf 9346 : ‘Mémoire de l’administrateur Antoine Boucher sur les habitants de l’Ile Bourbon, vers 1710, contenant les productions de l’ile’. 17 About Boucher’s report, see Barassin, Naissance d'une chrétienté. Bourbon des origines jusqu'en 1714, pp. 308-312. 18 BNF, naf 9346 : ‘Mémoire de l’administrateur Antoine Boucher..’, fol.108-112. 59
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In 1711, the Directors of the Company sent a development survey to the local governor named Parat. Containing more than sixty sections, it was entitled Survey on the Ile de Bourbon, to be answered in detail with certainty and exact knowledge of each section … to make this island useful to the inhabitants and to the Kingdom.19 The Directors insisted on the accuracy of Parat’s answers ‘to be rectified in these views about things extremely far from France’. In their opinion, the island could at the same time be an entrepôt for Asian trade (on the example of Batavia in Java), and provide the Company with products of ‘the North and the South’. Indeed, the variety of hot and cold climates due to the mountainous geography broadened acclimatisation possibilities, an important criterion to achieve self-sufficiency which was strengthening the paradisiacal image. The Directors argued:
The Ile de Bourbon …yields the same fruits as …the Promised Land, and here is what Sir Carré says about it in his voyage of the Indies printed in Paris in 1699: “the Ile de Bourbon looks more like the Paradise on Earth of the Holy Scripture than any other country which we know…”’20
Therefore, the survey detailed a wide range of tropical and temperate plants to test for acclimatisation so as to ensure that Bourbon was indeed a suitable port of call in the Indian Ocean, and worth spending effort on to develop further. All sorts of seeds of European vegetables, fruit trees and cereals were sent.21 Parat was reminded to pay special attention to shipyard items, such as local tree gums appropriate for pitch or tar, hemp for cables and coconut trees, to propagate by any means, for the coir that could supply Pondicherry too.22 As the most innovative measure, the Company entrusted Governor Parat with the supervision of plantation improvements, with samples to be sent for commercial assessment to France. Various exotic commodities, either grown or still to introduce, were envisaged; for example, tobacco, tamarind, cubeb, cinnamon and cotton.
19 ANOM COL C/3/3 : ‘Mémoire sur l’isle de Bourbon, en marge duquel on prie de répondre par détail, avec certitude et sur connaissance exacte de chaque article, en sorte qu’on puisse se déterminer en France sur ce qu’on peut entreprendre pour rendre cette isle utille à ceux qui l’habitent et au Royaume’; RT 9ème année-1940-no3: (short title) ‘Mémoire… au Gouverneur Parat le 17 février 1711’. 20 Ibid. article 27. See the account by Abbé Carré (1699) in Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725), p. 54. 21ANOM COL C/3/3 : ‘Mémoire sur l’isle de Bourbon, en marge duquel on prie de répondre par détail …’, articles 49, 52, 55-57, 60, 61. 22 Ibid. articles 38, 40, 46, 48, 50, 58, 64, 69-71. 60
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Moreover, the Company implemented a new practice of cultivation trials for wild drug species found in the island. It ordered Parat to run experiments on aloe, China root (squine) and scented rush (squinante) in the garden of the Company specifically— meaning on a small scale—to test quality improvements that could be gained by cultivation.23 The Company demanded colonists’ co-operation to diversify export products, which highlights the importance attached to knowledge gained in the periphery. On this, it took example from the Dutch, citing coffee production launched in Indonesian plantations of ‘Caianos’ and Java. Blaming tradition and comfort for taking precedence over innovation in France—‘this is the French genius’, added ironically—the Company stressed that the opposite resulted in Dutch trade leadership, due to all sorts of undertakings and experiments.24 Relying on the example of aloe growing in both Bourbon and Arabia, despite their climatic difference, the Company envisaged the introduction of the ‘trees producing coffee’ as the market increased in Europe, and solicited the opinion of colonists regarding its cultivation.25 In comparison, the organisation of the Dutch East India Company VOC rested upon strong autonomy, conferred on the government in the East Indian centre Batavia. Pioneer of this system based on feudal sovereignty and monopoly rules, the VOC established commercial treaties with foreign princes, instead of an onerous colonial conquest. The Dutch management can be regarded as conservative for it adapted to local rules and productions or as more coercive by imposing crops and prices— above all in the Spice Islands (Moluccas) under strict monopoly.26 In Java, trade diversification required seeking collaboration with the Indonesian rulers, who had authority over local labourers to increase cotton and indigo productions and, moreover, to plant little known crops such as coffee, as Kemasang argues.27 Yet, the Dutch supervision process of coffee acclimatisation, cultivation and preparation, as well as the circulation of information, needs more research.
23 Ibid. articles 29, 66. 24 Ibid. article 39. 25 Ibid. article 36. 26 Taylor, Jean G. (2012), Global Indonesia (Routledge contemporary Southeast Asia series, 57; New York: Routledge), p. 57 ; Adams, Julia (1996), 'Principals and Agents, Colonialists and Company Men: The Decay of Colonial Control in the Dutch East Indies', American Sociological Review, 61/1, pp. 18-20. 27 Kemasang, ART (1981), 'Overseas Chinese in Java and their liquidation in 1740', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 19, p. 128. 61
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2.1.3 The state’s mobilisation for the building of a botanical network with the East Indies In order to strengthen the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, the entire royal apparatus became involved in harnessing the riches of the Orient in the Ile de Bourbon. A botanical network was set up where seamen and agents in India could transfer both seedlings and associated technical knowledge, with expert oversight. As ship traffic increased, the exploitation of the island went beyond local needs to fit trade demands. In 1712 the Company submitted, to Minister Pontchartrain, a new colonization plan, in which the two problems the Company would struggle to manage from then on are clearly expressed: food supply and cash crops. This document was entitled Evaluation of the Ile de Bourbon and what could be undertaken for the utility of the Royale Compagnie des Indes and the good of its colonists.28 Self-sufficiency was described as an ‘indispensable necessity’. Slavery had to be increased to expand plantations of wheat, rice and maize in order to supply vessels using a large amount of provisions. Diverse speculative crops were suggested to ensure profit to colonists, the most promising being coffee and pepper. Orders were given to the command in Pondicherry to gather as many pepper plants as possible from the Malabar Coast, and
…to send on boats stopping in Bourbon some of coffee plants that they have in their gardens in Pondicherry [Coromandel Coast] and Hooghly [Bengal], which have already produced coffee.29
This confirms that the Company was already using its gardens as nurseries and cultivation sites for valued exotic species, just as it was planning for Bourbon. In the meantime in Paris, Director Foucherole ‘researched’ the Kingdom of Yemen and coffee plantations so as to complete the enrichment of the Ile de Bourbon, while the Company organised another trade mission to the East Indies in 1713. A series of exchanges occurred between Foucherole, Secretary of the Navy Pontchartrain, and a trade agent of the Compagnie de St Malo named Lagrelodière, recently back from Mocha.30 Lagrelodière championed the King of Yemen’s wish to establish diplomatic relations with Louis XIV, together with an agreement to give coffee, myrrh, incense
28 RT 1ère année-1932-no1: (short title) ‘Etat présent de l’Isle de Bourbon, 9 septembre 1712’, pp. 71-78. 29 Ibid. p. 73. 30 Lougnon, L'Isle Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges Boucher et les débuts du café, pp. 59-71. The circumstances of these events are extensively described by Lougnon. 62
CHAPTER THREE plants and ‘all which grows in Happy Arabia to be planted in the Ile de Bourbon’.31 This agreement between kings attests to the value of exotic plants at this time. As a result, in 1714 Pontchartrain implemented, by the king’s order, the transfer of East Indian plants to Bourbon using St Malo’s ships (granted the trade monopoly) under the supervision of the Compagnie des Indes. Pontchartrain also ordered taking possession of Mauritius Island, recently deserted by the Dutch in favour of the Cape. According to a template among correspondence, the Directors forwarded ministerial instructions to St Malo captains.32 From the Kingdom of Yemen, they required the transport of myrrh and incense plants, of coffee seedlings and fresh seeds as well as a report on its cultivation. From the Malabar Coast, they sought pepper and cinnamon, adding that Hébert (governor there) had ordered the preparation in Calicut of pepper plants for Bourbon. In addition, during the journey the captains were ordered to collect all useful seeds, plants or animals. As an incentive for the loyalty of the captains of the private Compagnie de St Malo, the Directors stated:
…it is to serve one’s fatherland to enrich one of these islands … with useful things for life and arts, such as animals … plants for medicine, and woods and drugs for tincture.33
The naval custom of transcontinental exchanges was thus formalised in a botanical network between overseas territories.
2.2 The delegation of power: colonial management from a distance Pontchartrain’s impetus to the development of the Ile de Bourbon through introduced plants soon began to bear fruit. The possibility to expand profit became even more plausible when colonists discovered wild coffee trees in 1715, thanks to their resemblance to the first coffee plants introduced from Mocha by a St Malo ship. This discovery was deemed worthy of an in-person announcement to Company headquarters in Paris, by Governor Parat and a colonist named Dalleau, in 1716.34 The Council of Regency responded by planning, in collaboration with the Compagnie des Indes
31 ANOM COL C/3/3 : ‘30 aout 1713, arabie heureuse. Signé Lagrelodière’, fol 209. 32 ANOM COL C/4/1: ‘Mémoire pour M. [ ] capitaine du vaisseau [ ] qui va de St Malo à Mocha’. 33 Ibid. The captain received the orders from a letter by Pontchartrain, the document from the Directors arriving after his departure according to Lougnon. 34 Lougnon, L'Isle Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges Boucher et les débuts du café , pp. 74-78. Another version was given by Director Hardancourt back from a trade mission in India, who identified this wild coffee during his stop in the island in 1711. 63
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Orientales, the diversification of production, including the prospecting and the experimentation of new trade products. Official instructions emerging from this plan evidence the organisation of action from a distance through delegation of power and the structured exchange of information and material.
2.2.1 The administrators: field managers The Company strengthened its control in 1717 by entrusting several administrators with the diversification of colonists’ plantations. It drew up a development plan based on information gathered from former administrative reports, books and travel accounts. Two surveys containing guidelines were issued, with more than fifty numbered sections. These documents display a pre-occupation with reliability inherent in efforts to exert control from a great distance. To express official expectations as clearly as possible, the Company issued directives to four officers chosen as administrators departing for Bourbon in a lengthy document entitled Instructions and orders of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales …35 The Company stressed that, because of previous vague, contradictory or false reports, it would now, by request of the King’s Council (the Council of Regency), commit more resources and expertise by nominating not one, but four military officers to assess the value of the island. The explicit motive for this measure—‘the good of the State requiring a perfect knowledge of the fruits which the Ile de Bourbon can yield … and of the utility the Kingdom can hope from it’—reveals the degree to which plant knowledge was now deemed essential to the colonization process.36 Distinct directives in the report highlight the importance of the colonial servant and of the system of information, intermediaries over which control had to be strengthened to improve knowledge. The need for precision was specifically stressed in a section that underlines the intellectual handicap in the colonial enterprise, due to distance. The Company acknowledged its disadvantage in ‘not being on the spot and not knowing the facts in detail’, so that it was only able to ‘speak’ generally. The role of the agents, the Directors underlined, was to observe and report anything they might notice in addition to the Company’s inquiries. It urged them to answer each section in detail
35 RT 1ère année -1932-no 1 : ‘Instructions et Ordres de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales pour Messieurs de Beauvollier de Courchant, gouverneur, Boucher, lieutenant, Etienne de Champion, major, et du Rongouet le Toullec, ayde-major de l’Isle de Bourbon, 10 Novembre 1717’, pp. 4-11, 48-60, 86-90. 36 Ibid. p. 5. 64
CHAPTER THREE and with related circumstances (par détail circonstancié) rather than ‘with imagination and without order’, as was typical in older travel accounts or administrative reports.37 To ensure loyalty, the Company stressed the ‘public good of the Kingdom’ as the utmost objective, and their duty to the growth of the colony and resulting commercial benefits, to be rewarded with favours by the King.38 First, the Company’s project for Bourbon reflected the intercontinental organisation of East Indian trade and the effort to make use of the world’s resources. The officer’s mission en route to Bourbon included the observation of an important way station, Tenerife Island (Canaries), while replenishing there. They had to acquire all sorts of seeds and animals, especially acclimatised grain and grapevines (as both were the basis for naval food and drink provisions).39 Therefore, the Company planned to reproduce this model in Bourbon and to benefit from extra-European resources adapted to an insular environment. In accordance with Crosby, who states that the Canary Islands turned out to be ‘colonial botanical nurseries’ for the New World, my research provides evidence of the role they played on a global scale.40 In the island, the three additional officers, chosen to work with the one nominated governor, were to be field managers. Each agent had to pay attention to the cultivation of lands in his district in order to work out the agricultural characteristics, such as the best sowing and harvesting seasons. The Company entrusted these agents with the improvement of colonists’ plantations (habitations) in addition to those of the Company. They would appeal to the colonists by example concerning the exploitation of crops and livestock and the benefits harvested from the Company’s plantations, instead of uselessly exhorting the colonists to work. These administrators were authorised to own plantations provided that work priority was given to that of the Company. This measure, an incentive to stay in the colony, had a twofold effect: a greater involvement of agents, but also several cases of personal enrichment and abuses (for instance, the use of slaves owned by the Company on personal plantations); therefore it was restricted several times.41 That this measure also applied in the West
37 Ibid. article 41, p. 60. 38 Ibid. pp. 4-5. 39 Ibid. article 40, p, 59. In fact, few grapevine plants survived the long voyage and Bourbon produced very little wine because of irregular ripeness, see Lougnon, L'Isle Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges Boucher et les débuts du café, p. 147. 40 Crosby, Germs and seeds and animals. Studies in Ecological History. 41 Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française, p. 609. 65
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Indies shows that the delegation of power had limited effectiveness and how distance hindered colonial management.
2.2.2 The diversification of production and cultivation tests in the Company’s habitations The diversification plan included an innovative agricultural practice: the management of the Company’s habitations as experimental stations for endemic drug species. The Company’s plantations were normally used to provide food supplies for employees and slaves of the Company, for the garrison and provisions for ship crews.42 At that time colonists in the island were producing small quantities of aloe, benjoin, ginger, curcuma, and cotton as export commodities.43 As we will see, the Company focussed efforts on different plant commodities. Together with the directives, a set of instructions entitled Report on the Isle de Bourbon detailed the work assigned to the three additional administrators to maximise the diversification of production.44 It specified goals of boosting the production ‘of coffee, pepper, cotton plants and all other trees, plants, roots and seeds useful and proper for commerce...’45 (Another part of this work was devoted to the inventory of flora in association with the Royal Garden of Paris, which will be examined in a later section.) All trial observations and results had to be sent to the Company together with samples. In particular, the three agents had to take the lead in testing new medicinal crops with support from information from producer countries and books. They were told to refer to Pomet to identify wild species with a potential commercial value correctly: two pepper-type species, similar to cubeb and long pepper, and the best squine among three different types.46 But coffee and pepper came first. The Directors promised their managers a bonus each year in proportion to the progress ‘of these two fruits.’47 Two long sections headed ‘Peppers’ and ‘Coffee’ detailed the tests of cultivation and preparation to undertake in different locations, such as trimming, plough and propagation by cutting. The Company advised the cultivation on its habitations of the wild creeper, similar to pepper of the Malabar Coast, to the surgeon Macé and
42 ADR Compagnie Co 2518 : ‘Du 18 juin 1726’. 43 Lougnon, L'Isle Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges Boucher et les débuts du café , p. 127. 44 ANOM COL C/3/4: ‘Mémoire sur l’Isle de Bourbon, 1717’. 45 Ibid. article 2. 46 Ibid. articles 31, 44. 47 Ibid. articles 9. 66
CHAPTER THREE others.48 It provided information from Flacourt’s book (related to a Malagasy pepper), and from Java Island about the harvest seasons and the drying process for pepper grains.49 Regarding coffee however, the Company ordered the planting of as many coffee trees as possible, of both Mocha and wild species, meaning on a great scale.50 Colonists would incur the loss of their concessions should they fail to follow the order. The directive provided descriptions of cultivation practices in Arabia, such as irrigation and shade tree coverage — Arabia had been ahead in agricultural innovation to acclimatise to the drier climate coffee native to Ethiopia – and also bean harvest and preparation. Nevertheless, the Directors made the officers’ responsible for experimenting with variations on the practices, for instance regarding shade trees since the island was more fertile and perhaps more temperate than Arabia. The experimental work on coffee will be treated in the next chapter.
However, when the Superior Council of Bourbon met to apply the directives in November 1718, it deemed it necessary to loosen the coercive management of the Company. The colonists, the administrators reported, were ‘liable to revolt’ over the Company’s orders.’51 In particular, controversy arose surrounding taxes imposed and prices paid by the Company for plantation products. The Company conceded, for instance, that each colonist would plant at least ten wild coffee trees in exchange for a higher price (ten cents instead of six per livre) and lower levy (one tenth instead of one fifth on coffee harvested). Protests and even riots had already occurred against the excessive power of the Company and abuses by governors in Bourbon. In the royal colonies in the French Antilles in 1717, directives for the supervision of plantations were also stipulated for two new administrators. In these directives, partially transcribed by Auguste Lacour, the government required that they focus on the diversification of production to prevent an excess of sugar mills, and similarly ordered each colonist ‘to plant [trees useful to commerce], such as cocoa,
48 Ibid. article 44. 49 Flacourt, Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar - 1661. Pepper production started in the 15th C in Sumatra. The port of Bantam in Java, controlled by the Dutch in the late seventeenth century, supplied Asiatic and European markets, see Jacobs, E.M., (2006) Merchant in Asia: The Trade of the Dutch East India Company During the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: CNWS Publications), pp. 60, 64. 50 ANOM COL C/3/4: ‘Mémoire sur l’Isle de Bourbon, 1717’, article 19. The Ethiopian origin of Mocha coffee was reported in 1722 in a letter by the Reverend Gaubil, see Lougnon, Sous le signe de la tortue. Voyages anciens à l'Ile Bourbon (1611-1725), p. 177. 51 Lougnon, L'Isle Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges Boucher et les débuts du café, p. 129. 67
CHAPTER THREE cotton …’52 Until then, according to Lacour, a managing policy of laissez-faire was applied, instituted by Colbert, to handle settlers gently so as to better develop new colonies. However, these measures were stopped after a planters’ revolt, also due to administrators’ abuses.53 Given that private companies operated in the Atlantic trade, it may be assumed that the impact of royal authority on trade issues was not significant. Autonomisme, as Pluchon characterises the state of mind in the Caribbean colonies, developed over the century in reaction against royal power and the exclusif regime it imposed on trade.54 Thus, the study of plants on the Ile de Bourbon sheds light on the French state’s colonial strategy in response to commercial and maritime imperatives. The issue of self- sufficiency for Bourbon, embedded in the scheme to increase control of East India trade, as well as floral diversity, entailed greater involvement of the French state in the enrichment and the management of nature.
3 The mastering of natural knowledge in Europe In the second half of the seventeenth century, when savants paid increased attention to studying nature directly, scientific centres of Europe put greater efforts into the organisation of knowledge, and of knowledge acquisition. They established an information network based on co-operation with colonial actors inside and outside Europe to overcome the distance from exotic flora. In France, the government sponsored scientific expeditions (which lie beyond the scope of my own research). Royal botanists were sent to study the natural history of foreign countries, largely on the impulse of Guy-Crescent Fagon, the Superintendent of the Royal Garden of Paris (from 1693 until 1718): the Minim Father Charles Plumier to America in the 1690s, and Joseph Pitton Tournefort to the Levant around 1700.55 Savants set up new procedures not only for the collection, but also for the compilation of information. The increase in the amount of data and of number of sources led plant naming and classification to
52 Lacour, Auguste (1855), Histoire de la Guadeloupe (Tome 1; Pointre à Pitre, Fort de France: E. J. Kolodziej), pp. 214-218. 53 Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française, pp. 133-135. 54 Ibid. pp. 573-579. 55 McClellan and Regourd, The Colonial Machine: French Science and Overseas Expansion in the Old Regime , part III ; on the role of the superintendents of the Royal Garden, see Laissus, Yves and Torlay, Jean, (1986) Le Jardin du Roi et le Collège Royal dans l'enseignement des sciences au XVIIIème siècle (Hermann éditeurs des sciences et des arts), pp. 291-299. 68
CHAPTER THREE become new challenges, and the plant specimen to become a more prominent element in botanical practice.
3.1 Exotic flora and European science As seen in the previous chapter, travel accounts and colonial correspondence were consulted by scientific elites in Europe, notably for the description of plants out of reach of botanists or for drug preparations. Although not reported by expert naturalists, this pioneer work in ‘colonial botany’ was part of the foundation of botany in general, and a precursor to economic botany as implemented later by imperial states with the formal involvement of naturalists in commerce. Its content, often underestimated, brings some understanding of the problems and circumstances of the scientific work carried out at a distance on exotic flora from various data brought from abroad, which emphasises referencing as a chief procedure in the development of the science of botany. Before the mid-eighteenth century, knowledge of exotic flora was highly uncertain. For example, among other reasons, it was often the case that only the processed commercial commodity could be observed by botanists in Europe and by trade agents in foreign market places; in such cases the identity of the source plant remained a mystery. Also, plants in foreign countries were often named according to their resemblance to usual trade commodities, or listed with local names different from one country to another. Seemingly authoritative descriptions by botanists were often inaccurate, having been drawn from previous authors or travel accounts. The great diversity of plant species and varieties, the extent of which was unknown and generally underestimated, made their identification difficult too.
3.1.1 The reliability of knowledge The diversity of data compiled from different information sources, such as trade inventories, herbaria and catalogues, raised confusion about the knowledge of plants, inasmuch as plant samples or careful drawings were rarely available. The same problem of identification relating to plant names occurred for skilled botanists in Europe and in situ for prospectors. Advice given by the botanist John Ray to Dr Hans Sloane ready to go to Jamaica in 1687 (mentioned in the previous chapter), evidences the problem of plant names. The savant expected from the traveller ‘no less than the resolving all our doubts about the
69
CHAPTER THREE names we meet with of plants in that part of America …’56 As part of his studies, Sloane committed to referencing all designations ever published by naturalists and botanists. For example, on the Jamaican ‘Wild Cinamon-Tree’ [sic] in his first publication in Philosophical Transactions in 1691, he gave its different names such as Lignum aromaticum (by Monardes), and Cortex Winteranus for its bark in London shops. He concluded according to his observation and other authors that it corresponded to another bark sold in Europe called ‘White Cinamon’ [sic] and added relevant names related to it, such as Canella alba quorundam (by Clusius).57 When Sloane completed his catalogue of Jamaican flora in 1696, he provided an exhaustive list of designations in Latin, Spanish, French and English.58 It listed around thirty names for ‘White Cinamon’—the catalogue being sorted according to Ray’s method.59 In parallel, the lack of reliability in plant knowledge affected neighbouring domains connected to medical practice, such as pharmacy and the drug market. The need for clarity was put forward by the apothecary Pierre Pomet, who denounced common frauds and abuses and carried out a review of all drugs sold in France of the three kingdoms of natural history. Pomet’s book, Histoire Générale des Drogues, was published in 1694 under the aegis of Guy Fagon, his former teacher.60 His work was based on his large collection of drug products or droguerie, his correspondents in the ‘Indies’ and other authors. Spary underlines the utilitarian content of his book, and that his collection shows the link between commerce and science; however, she does not investigate the medical purposes and Pomet’s concern about uncertainty.61 In fact, Pomet’s book became a reference as it was cited in documents of the Compagnie des Indes, certainly advised by the Royal Garden of Paris. In the preface, the apothecary emphasised that utility being his goal, he organised the drugs according to the part used from the plant and under the French commercial name instead of a botanical
56 Derham, William (ed.), (1718), Philosophical Letters Between the Late Learned Mr. Ray and Several of His Correspondents, Natives and Foreigners. (London: Innys), p. 209. Also quoted in Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America, p. 241. 57 Sloane, 'A Description of the Pimienta or Jamaica Pepper-Tree, and of the Tree That Bears the Cortex Winteranus: Communicated by Hans Sloane, M. D. and Reg. Soci. S'. 58 Sloane, Hans (1696) Catalogus plantarum quae in insula Jamaica sponte proveniunt (etc.) adjectis aliis quae in insulis Maderae, Barbados, Nieves et Sancti Christophori nascuntur., (Londini: Brown), pp. 165-166. 59 National History Museum, 'A Specialist's Guide to the Sloane Database',
CHAPTER THREE classification, the book thereby fitting the market. Its content illustrates the complexity of botanical drugs mostly through the great diversity of commercial names, of origin and of products related to a same plant. As an example, Pomet described the Caribbean tree known in France as bois d’Inde, also bois de Campesche or de Jamaique, of which merchants sold the wood as a dye, the aromatic leaf as a medicine named Laurier des Indes, the fruit as a spice named Poivre de Jamaique in English, Amomi in Dutch, graine de gerofle in French.62 These names or products are wrongly associated according to today’s botany: bois d’Inde and poivre de Jamaique are two species of the same genus, while bois de Campesche (logwood) belongs to a different family.63
3.1.2 Knowledge communication at a distance When examining why science and trade felt a shared need for guaranteeing the ‘matter of fact’ (to paraphrase Harold Cook) and co-operated, I emphasise that both were confronted by the problems of distance, a primary factor that increased the need for control and at the same time boosted the circulation of knowledge. Distance and the circulation of knowledge are two characteristics of the development of scientific institutions—‘centres of calculation’—according to Latour, associated with long networks of accumulation of knowledge enabling action at a distance.64 The scientific elite in Europe integrated knowledge from multiple sources acquired in the colonial world, including indigenous knowledge.65 ‘Colonial’ and indigenous knowledge consisted of local networks that were merged with European knowledge, another local network, in a cumulative process characteristic of science as described by Latour.66 The heterogeneity of these local networks had two consequences: it impeded the acquisition of knowledge and at the same time communication in and between Europe and the periphery.
62 Pomet, Histoire générale des drogues, pp. 120-121. Pomet certainly referred to Father du Tertre who described bois d’Inde or laurier aromatique in the Antilles: the fruits and leaves were used as a condiment and the wood in carpentry, see Du Tertre, Histoire générale des Antilles habitées par les Français, p. 157. According to Father Labat, bois d’Inde was the other name given to wild canella, in Labat, Nouveau voyage aux isles de l' Amérique...', p. 343. 63 Jamaica pepper, pimento or allspice: Pimenta dioica L. Myrtaceae. Bois d’Inde: Pimenta racemosa J.W. Moore Myrtaceae. Campeche wood or logwood: Haematoxylum campechianum L. Leguminoseae. 64 Latour, La science en action. Introduction à la sociologie des sciences, pp. 556-557. 65 Schiebinger, Londa, 'Prospecting for drugs', in Schiebinger Londa and Swan Claudia (ed.), (2005), Colonial Botany. Science, Commerce &Politics in the Early Modern World (Philadelphia: PENN - University of Pennsylvania Press) ; Kapil Raj (2000), 'Colonial Encounters and the Forging of New Knowledge and National Identities: Great Britain and India, 1760-1850', Osiris, Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise,15/2nd Series. 66 Latour, La science en action. Introduction à la sociologie des sciences, pp. 547-550. 71
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Opinions expressed by John Ray on Sloane’s work highlights the issue of reliability in the overall process of identification in Europe and overseas. Ray praised Sloane’s catalogue of Jamaican flora in the preface he wrote for it.67 His opinion was also published anonymously as a book review in Philosophical Transactions in 1695, in terms that cast light on the intellectual approach and the practical obstacles when acquiring knowledge by compilation.68 To Ray, Sloane firstly observed plants in their native countries: authenticity of information; secondly, he reduced the number of species by identifying those with different names: categorisation of information; thirdly, he recorded all names mentioned in literature (including sources by Flacourt and du Tertre) so that people travelling overseas could find their exact description by skilled botanists: referencing of information; and fourthly, he advised of plants related to names used in England subject to doubt, for instance logwood being Lignum Campechianum: verification of information. Quoting Ray:
The author hath done great service … in cutting short the number of species … those who have published [descriptions of America] … for want of sufficient skill in botaniks … have given us such lame, imperfect and obscure descriptions of such as they took notice of, and of the same tree or herb many times under different names, that the compilers of general histories of plants meeting with these descriptions, and having no other knowledge of such plants then what they derived from them, have repeated one and the same species, found in far distant countries by various observers, and differently described, once, twice, thrice …; over, for different kinds … This work is of great use to those who [read] the relations and accounts of navigators and travellers…to inform them concerning the names of American and Indian plants … The author … having read the most part of the books of voyages and travels extant, referred the plants he met with therein, named or described to their proper genera, or title, … by which they are denominated and characterised by the most learned and skilful herbarists …69
The methodology set forth by Ray brings out the complex work that was required to assimilate multiple data, which made the science of botany arduous. Therefore, as much as the diversity of plants, the diversity of names demanded greater reliability.
67 Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America, p. 241. 68 Anonymous (1695), 'Account of a Book', Philosophical Transactions,19 no. 215-235, pp. 293-296. 69 Ibid. pp. 294-295. 72
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Nevertheless, and despite scientific identifications, the recording of local and commercial names remained essential to gain reliability. Botanists followed this method; for instance, Father Plumier, part of a scientific expedition to the Antilles in 1687. Plumier published in 1693 Description des plantes de l'Amérique, a catalogue in which he referenced local names in a table in addition to a botanical index.70 Drayton also noted the juxtaposition of names in different languages (including Latin) on botanical plates of 1683 Hortus Malabaricus by the Dutch botanist van Rheede, a means by which, Drayton argues, extra- European and European knowledge were merged.71 In fact, the aim was to provide the type of information relevant to the local network where it was meant to be used; that is, the local name to assure reliable collection in situ, with reference to the botanical name to assure correct identification in Europe. Thus, the problem of order arose anew, when control at a distance in Europe required the circulation of plants and of related knowledge between diverse local networks located in the metropolis and in the peripheral territories. In other words, interchange through long distance was an incentive underlying this concept of order.
3.2 Botany in France in the early eighteenth century Science was founded on the principle of the uniformity of nature, and on analogical reasoning.72 With the growth of plant collections, European savants from the late seventeenth century onwards tried to establish principles to identify, name and classify species. Through opinions expressed in French scientific institutions, I will examine the concerns and the aims of botany in France in the early eighteenth century. At the time, the Academy of Science intended to publish a general natural history of plants. According to Stroup who examined the different options, this broad botanical research triggered controversies amongst savants, who explored new research fields such as nutrition or generation in connection with other sciences, zoology, chemistry and mechanics.73 As Stroup emphasised, the question remained how to study the plants, given unsatisfactory results and unsolved problems; for instance, in chemistry, the failure of distillation in the study of inner constituents to determine the
70 Plumier, Charles (1693) Description des plantes de l'Amérique, avec leurs figures,... (Paris). 71 Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World, p. 16. 72 Cassirer, la Philosophie des Lumières, pp. 86, 90. 73 Stroup, A company of scientists: Botany, Patronage, and community at the 17th century Parisian Royal Academy of sciences, Chapter six, p. 87 73
CHAPTER THREE properties of plants. Stroup argues that Tournefort took priority with his publications such as Eléments de Botanique in 1694, and Histoire des plantes qui naissent aux environs de Paris in 1698, delaying the Academy’s general project. For this work Tournefort concentrated on the revision of mistakes in botanical literature and the use of plants in medicine, and elaborated a rational classification and nomenclature of plants.74 Despite Tournefort’s achievement, Stroup does not further investigate the importance of the classification method in the enhancement of botany. I suggest that, in the absence of technical improvement to determine plant properties, classification and naming became prominent since botanists could only rely on traditional knowledge and experience (part of the history of plants) which the name labelled. Before further discussion of this period, when savants in the Royal Garden of Paris drew attention to classification in addition to the knowledge of the plant itself, we must recall what botany was at the time. Tournefort defined botany in his Institutiones Rei Herbariae published in 1700 (a complement of his 1694 Eléments de Botanique):
The science of plants, commonly named botany, is divided in two parts, the first one is made of exact knowledge of plants and the second one of their best usage. Knowing plants well is nothing else, it seems, than getting one’s hands on the names which have been correctly established.75
Tournefort’s definition included both the basic and the utilitarian aspects of the study of plants, and at the core of both aspects of botany was the name.
3.2.1 The system and the name In the early eighteenth century, many European savants working on classification thought an order of nature difficult to define and still hypothetical. The definition of the ‘species’ entity was unclear. Opinion of savants diverged regarding the value of features enabling the classification of similar plants and revealing the true essence of living beings, such as the reproductive parts.76 Without delving too far into the extensive literature on the intellectual history of plant classification, a look at contemporary
74 Ibid. pp. 113-115. 75 Quoted from Gallot, Emile (1965), 'Système et méthode dans l'histoire de la botanique', Revue d'histoire des sciences et de leurs applications, 18/1, p. 46. 76 Atran, Scott (1987), 'Origin of the species and genus concepts: An anthropological perspective', Journal of the History of Biology, 20/2, pp. 250- 253. 74
CHAPTER THREE documents serves to highlight the practical problem of reliability as experienced at the time. Tournefort’s system of classification became the official one used in the Royal Garden until 1774. His method in Institutiones Rei Herbaria was reviewed in the Histoire de l’Académie des sciences in 1700.77 According to this anonymous critique, an existing ‘system’ in Nature being doubtful, classification should only consist in establishing ‘an arbitrary order which facilitates plant knowledge’, which had therefore to be evaluated according to ‘convenience, clarity…’ rather than ‘reason’. Tournefort’s system was judged perfectible, and the most useful and universal so far. The grouping of similar plants into genera and classes, made them ‘easier to name’, requiring memorisation of just a few main types. Thus, the genus entity was seen as a mnemonic tool, and the classification system was conceived as a practical technique of identification in which the name, established as a ‘definition’, was deemed to encapsulate la connaissance des plantes, i.e. the knowledge of plants.78 Here I refer to Cook who gives the definition of connaissance as opposed to savoir, meaning ‘knowing by acquaintance rather than by reasoning’, a kind of knowledge based on experience, comparison or analogy, common in natural history.79 In the same way, Atran’s anthropological analysis of the origin of the genus and species concepts relates plant grouping to folk intuition.80 Since a natural system was inaccessible and no artificial system could guarantee accuracy, Tournefort’s system could at least guarantee reliability in enhancing acquaintance with plants – recognition -- through names. The multiplication of systems and of names prompted debate, as much as botanical names were phrasal names before Linnaeus’ binomial system. In 1718, for instance, the physician academician, Michel-Louis Reneaume de la Garanne, was entrusted with the revision of Tournefort’s system by the Academy. An anonymous article disclosed his opinion in the Histoire de l’Académie des sciences with the title ‘About systems of botany’.81 To him, the flaw was the length of botanical names which rendered them difficult to remember and inconvenient for medical practice. Therefore,
77 Anonymous (1700), 'Diverses observations botaniques', Histoire de l’Académie des sciences…tirée des registres de cette académie, pp. 70-78. 78 Ibid. pp. 73-74. 79 Cook, Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age, p. 15. 80 Atran, 'Origin of the species and genus concepts: An anthropological perspective', pp. 210-215, 252- 258. 81 Anonymous (1718), 'sur les sistemes de botanique', Histoire De L’académie Royale Des Sciences…Tirée Des Registres De Cette Académie, pp. 45-47. 75
CHAPTER THREE the improvement of any system would consist in a simplification of both names and classification criteria. In particular, Reneaume advised keeping old folk names, for ‘plant names are a tradition which is precious, and which must not be interrupted’, to avoid ‘language confusion’ between collectors of plants, apothecaries and doctors who prescribed them.82 Likewise, given the great diversity of systems and names creating confusion and mistakes, a unique system was deemed suitable, which would include drawings, descriptions and all different names for a plant to ensure correct identification. Again, reliability was a chief criterion for a system of classification mainly used for medicine. Thus, as plant knowledge was built on tradition and experience and passed on through names, the systems were used for communication, as well as for teaching in the classroom and in the field.
3.2.2 Botany in the Royal Garden of Paris In the Royal Garden of Paris, dedicated chiefly to the practice of medicine, medical doctors taught botany as an element of materia medica. Courses included both the identification and properties of plants by the professor of botany, also known as the démonstrateur de l’intérieur des plantes, a title held by Tournefort and Antoine de Jussieu. Lessons were complemented by botanical excursions by a sous-démonstrateur de l’extérieur des plantes responsible for plant collections too, such as Bernard de Jussieu.83 A glance at the introductory address to Antoine de Jussieu’s course, Discourse about the progress of botany in the Royal Garden of Paris … 31 May 1718, sheds light on prime matters with regard to the science of botany.84 Due to the short duration of the course—six weeks in summer to study all living plants—Jussieu advocated focusing on the best ways to identify any plant, and this by using Tournefort’s system. In spite of a focus on medicinal plants (plantes usuelles), his main goal was to demonstrate useful and non-useful plants all together, for some are often similar, so as to perceive their
82 Ibid. pp. 46-47. 83 Laissus and Torlay, Le Jardin du Roi et le Collège Royal dans l'enseignement des sciences au XVIIIème siècle, pp. 308-314, 325-333. 84 BCMNHN cote 103 980: Jussieu, Antoine (de) (1718), Discours sur le progrès de la Botanique au Jardin Royal de Paris, suivi d’une introduction à la connaissance des plantes, prononcés à l’ouverture des démonstrations publiques, le 31 May 1718 (Paris: Etienne Ganeau). In an additional part of his discourse, Jussieu acknowledged that such progress in botany had been achieved by means of a simple method using established principles, thanks to observations during travels in foreign countries (meaning, Tournefort’s travel in the Levant). 76
CHAPTER THREE distinctions. With the same aim, demonstrations during excursions to the countryside were meant to strengthen identification from the exterior aspect, to recognise plants in the wild compared to their cultivated state. Furthermore, Jussieu argued that knowledge of usage and virtues was deemed to complement the basic part of botanical identification: ‘this so necessary a part of botany … which truly can be seen as practical and utilitarian Botany (Botanique pratique et usuelle)’.85 For Jussieu, practical botany no longer consisted in mystic qualities or analogies, but in (therapeutic) observations certified by many expert doctors, a change fitting Foucault’s account of the eighteenth century ‘classical episteme’.86 Thus, it is because botany was related to medical practice that attention was focused on diversity in the plant kingdom. It was important to distinguish the variety in species and in external appearance, entailing the use of a standard system of classification for recognition and for teaching in order to ensure the correct usage of plants in therapy.87 Therefore, when considering the origin of the eighteenth century concept of the Order of Nature, I argue that, in addition to the diversity of nature and the diversity of knowledge, the circulation of knowledge was a cause for the search for a system of order in natural history.
3-3 Dealing with newness: exotic nature imported At the beginning of the eighteenth century (before the era of classical taxonomy), botanical identification was made reliable by a method of multiplying references the closest to nature. A close look at the scientific work of Antoine de Jussieu demonstrates the need to study nature itself, leading to the use of a new medium brought from abroad—the plant specimen— bringing again to the forefront the problem of distance and access to exotic flora. Thereafter, scientific agencies and the colonial apparatus established a greater collaboration to enhance, as a mutual interest, the mastery of exotic nature.
3.3.1 Cross-referencing: correspondence, herbaria and plant specimens
85 Ibid. pp. 14-15. 86 Foucault, Les mots et les choses, pp. 71, 79, 141-143. 87 Lamy Denis- Honorary Attaché of the MNHN. Personal communication. I thank Denis Lamy who underlined the use of systems for the teaching of botany in the eighteenth century. 77
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Exotic flora, oriental commodities such as coffee, tea, and spices, had a deep impact on European culture and commerce, as explored by Schivelbusch and McCabe.88 Coffee beans from Arabia attracted interest as much among scientific elites as among merchants, including the Compagnie des Indes Orientales. Regarded as a drug, savants had been discussing the medical properties of the coffee drink for more than a century, drawing upon Arabic literature and tradition.89 However, the nature of the plant was still ambiguous. In the process of identification of exotic plants transferred to a scientific ‘centre’, the acquisition of knowledge called on a multi-partnership. The living coffee plant, first brought to the Netherlands around 1690, was a curiosity in Europe worthy of serving as a royal gift. In 1714, after the War of the Spanish Succession, Amsterdam gave a coffee plant to King Louis XIV, kept in the Royal Garden in Paris. The year after, Antoine de Jussieu presented A History of Coffee to the Academy of Science.90 This followed his reading at the Academy in 1713 of an account by a surgeon of the first expedition to Arabia, transmitted to him by Gaudron, the chief apothecary of the port of St Malo.91 Jussieu’s history highlighted the diversity of descriptions and names related to coffee. From observation of the leaf, fruit and flower of the plant, Jussieu could rectify former botanists’ opinions about the nature of coffee, variably described as a tree, a bindweed or a leguminous plant. He confirmed that it was a tree, which he classified in the genus Jasmine, following the Dutch botanist Caspar Commelin. Jussieu argued that he guaranteed accuracy by relying on his own observation of the living plant, kept in a hothouse—a new tool for exotics—‘in the Dutch way’, and also on accounts by sailors who would travel inland to coffee plantations. Both sources were necessary to assert the authenticity of the gift. Jussieu’s emphasis testifies to the importance of multiple knowledge sources when acting from a distance, in particular plant specimens and information collected de visu and in situ. The discovery of the wild species in Bourbon,
88 Schivelbusch, Wolfgang (1992), Tastes of Paradise. A social history of spices, stimulants and intoxicants (New York: Pantheon Books) ; McCabe, Ina Baghdiantz (2008), Orientalism in Early Modern France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism and the Ancien Regime (Berg Publishers). 89 Law, William (1850), The history of coffee, including a chapter on chicory, (London: William and George Law), pp. 14-15. 90 Jussieu, Antoine (de) (1713), 'Histoire du café ', Histoire De L’académie Royale Des Sciences…Tirée Des Registres De Cette Académie, pp. 291- 299. 91 The answer by the apothecary of the Company, is in the Procès-verbaux de l’Académie des Sciences, année 1713, 18 novembre : ‘extrait d’une lettre écrite de St Malo à Mr de Jussieu au sujet du caffé’, p. 339. 78
CHAPTER THREE of great importance for France, was also reported to the Academy via Gaudron again in 1716.92
3.3.2 The plant specimen Most of all, the ‘specimen’—from the Latin specere, meaning ‘to look at’ (also ‘species’ and ‘spice’)—came to be a key feature in botany for savants attentive to reading Nature in complement to ancient authors regarded as imprecise. In a draft manuscript titled Report about the search for the origin of several drugs drawn from unknown plants, probably written before 1720, Jussieu stressed the shameful ignorance of widely used drugs, including myrrh, incense, galbanum and rhubarb, for while these gums and roots from the Levant and the Orient were passed around to trade, no one knew their true provenance.93 Underscoring the confusing differences between indigenous and European names, Jussieu requested that travellers collect a set of a branch with leaves and seeds along with a drug sample. To lend weight to his point, Jussieu added that the discovery of coffee and ginseng illustrated the success of this procedure, as did the botanical work by Father George Camelli in the Philippines. Here, Jussieu was referring to Jesuit missionaries’ observations that circulated among savants. Indeed, much as coffee was discovered in Bourbon thanks to Mocha plants brought there, another species of ginseng was discovered in Canada after Father Pierre Jartoux described the plant in Tartary (China) in 1711 during a scientific expedition authorised by Chinese Emperor Cheng-tsou.94 This clarifies Jussieu’s justification that the recognition of these drugs was ‘a duty which the Republic of Letters could owe to … missionaries … bestowed privilege to enter countries closed to
92 Anonymous (1716), (no title), Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences…tirée des registres de cette académie, (Paris: Imprimerie Royale), p. 34. 93 BCMNHN ms 1140: ‘Mémoire pour la recherche de l’origine de plusieurs drogues tirées des plantes qui nous sont inconnues’. 94 The Reverend Camelli (or Camel) was a correspondent of the Royal Society of London, see: Reyes, Raquel A. G. (2009), 'Botany and zoology in the late seventeenth-century Philippines: the work of Georg Josef Camel SJ (1661–1706)', Archives of Natural History,36/2. The Reverend Jartoux set forth the description and a drawing of ginseng in a letter to his Superior, published in 1713 in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. 28, no 337, section XXV, pp: 237-247, see Han Qi (1998), 'Sino-British scientific relations through Jesuits in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries', La Chine entre amour et haine (Actes du VIIIème colloque de sinologie de Chantilly publiés sous la direction de Michel Cartier edn.; Paris: Desclée de Brouwer), p. 56. Canadian ginseng ,discovered in 1715 owing to the account by Jartoux, was sent to the Abbé Bignon in 1717 by Sarrazin, see: Young, Kathryn A (1993), 'Crown Agent- -Canadian Correspondent: Michel Sarrazin and the Academie Royale des Sciences,1697-1734', French Historical Studies, 18/No. 2, p. 427. 79
CHAPTER THREE all other professions.’95 Thus, with awareness of name unreliability, the new procedure of the plant specimen collected together with the drug sample increased the reliability of botanical identifications and thus enhanced the science of botany.
3.3.3 Co-operation for the mastery of natural knowledge: exotic nature transferred To sharpen knowledge, the French scientific establishments and the Compagnie des Indes Orientales initiated formal co-operation around 1710. The case of the Ile de Bourbon evidences the mutual interest at the origin of this co-operation founded on materia medica of Asian flora. Taking what was probably the first initiative, in 1708 the director of the Company Hébert suggested a study of Bourbon’s flora by a surgeon from Paris, Macé, as noted above.96 In 1711, a member of the Académie des Sciences in turn made a request to the Company. The chemist-apothecary Simon Boulduc, studying purgatives and certainly aware of aloe production in Bourbon, solicited the company for a plant sample; local governor Parat (in charge of cultivation tests) was asked to fulfil the order and to send a dried plant to France to the Academy of Science.97 Moreover, after the discovery of the endemic coffee, a common interest in the flora of the Ile de Bourbon producing ‘East Indian’ species intensified cooperation. When in 1717 the Compagnie des Indes strengthened the diversification of plantations with cultivation experiments detailed earlier, at the same time it ordered the inventory of the flora in the set of instructions entitled Report on the Isle de Bourbon.98 The prospecting was obviously implemented under botanists’ directives, for samples of all the parts of a plant were requested in order to perform the assessment. The first directive, headed ‘Trees, plants, roots’, clearly required the collection to be conveyed to Paris:
Plenty of trees, plenty of plants, herbs, roots and seeds have been found, but neither shapes, nor names, nor uses, nor properties are known, as the example of coffee proves it, which was only discovered in October 1715 although the French have been living
95 BCMNHN ms 1140: ‘Mémoire pour la recherche de l’origine de plusieurs drogues tirées des plantes qui nous sont inconnues’, fol 1. 96 ANOM COL C/2/13 ; RT 9ème année-1940-no1: ‘Rapport de G. Hébert…’. 97 ANOM COL C/3/3, article 29 ; RT 9ème année-1940-no3: ‘Mémoire… au Gouverneur Parat le 17 février 1711’, p. 209. Simon Boulduc (1652-1729) was an Academician chemist and first Apothecary of the King. See also: Histoire de l’Académie des sciences de Paris, année 1708, p. 55. 98 ANOM COL C/3/4: ‘Mémoire sur l’Isle de Bourbon, 1717’. 80
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here since 1665. [Each administrator] will carefully collect seeds of each [one], with a piece of branch, leaf, stem and root; to each of them he will put the local name … he will send [the box] to the Company … because in Paris the Directors of the Royal Garden will reveal their properties …99
Contact had been tightened between the Company’s surgeon Macé and the Royal Garden of Paris. In the margin of a section headed ‘Gums’ requiring the collection of any sort found, it was added: ‘send as much as possible of the green gum that Macé named tacamaca and that he had given to Sir de Jussieu to test’.100 To enhance accuracy for the discovery of new trade commodities, the report provided Pomet’s reference pages to ascertain the identity of local plants.101 An article entitled ‘Red woods’ requested observation of dyewoods or bois de couleur, with reference to Brazil wood or sappanwood, two major red dyes.102 On the example of the coffee species found in the island, the Company suggested that myrrh and incense, similarly present in ‘Happy Arabia’, could perhaps be identified by comparing local plants to their descriptions by Pomet. In the same way, given several pepper species found there, the Directors suggested that nature might provide other spices as it provided them in similar islands: drawings of nutmeg and clove (native to the Moluccan archipelago) and cinnamon (from Ceylon) were added to the directives.103 During the early period of its colonization, the Ile de Bourbon did not benefit from scientific expeditions supported by the French crown as happened in the New World. However, the Company had established contact with the Royal Garden around 1708 via the surgeon Macé. I suggest that hesitation and financial costs with regard to the overall East Indian strategy had delayed interest in this remote island used principally as a replenishment post. During the Regency, the new political orientations and financial restrictions explain the choice of an economically focused mission corresponding to the needs of the Company, with plant prospecting in addition to field trials. The enhancement of natural knowledge, centrally organised, was delegated to four administrators and a surgeon rather than to a botanist, while the Company and the Royal Garden of Paris attempted to improve accuracy by reference books and botanical
99 Ibid. article 11. 100 Ibid. article 32. 101 Pomet, Histoire générale des drogues. 102 ANOM COL C/3/4: ‘Mémoire sur l’Isle de Bourbon’, article 18. Brazil took its name from Brazil wood. Sappanwood from Asia had been used since the Middle Ages. 103 Ibid. article 44. The drawings probably came from Dutch herbaria. 81
CHAPTER THREE drawings sent from on site and, in exchange, samples sent to the Royal Garden. This circulation of information media was a key part of the metropolitan efforts to manage nature more closely. To sum up, in the early eighteenth century, French scientific and commercial agencies collaborated to obtain knowledge on exotic nature, with encouragement by the state. Therefore, in agreement with Cook, my research demonstrates that the connection between science and trade was triggered by a common interest in the precise identification of valued natural objects, mostly medicinal products. ‘Matters of fact’ and ‘matters of exchange’ were issues shared by science and trade in the early eighteenth century colonial enterprise.
Conclusion By the mid-seventeenth century, European expansion resulted in an accumulation of reference sources of diverse origin, content and quality regarding plants and other natural resources in foreign environments. European institutions became concerned about imprecision in travel literature, trade correspondence and botanical works as well. One reason for inaccuracy in natural knowledge was due to distance, for it impeded both the direct observation of nature and the assessment of information recorded in foreign places. I argue that the problem of distance, paramount in the world dimension, had a significant consequence in that it prompted the organisation of the acquisition of knowledge to regularise global trade. Traders and savants shared the same issues and the same goals that favoured collaboration to improve control of natural knowledge. Indeed, both relied on local tradition and experience overseas; they requested the exchange of information, knowledge being a cumulative process in botany and a key element for control in trade; East Indian drugs were valuable items worthy of inquiry and inventory; also, the multiplication of plant products and of names on the drug markets inside and outside Europe required disambiguation for their reliable use and exchange.
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Identical measures were undertaken to respond to these common issues in the early eighteenth century. They consisted in the improvement of skills and techniques to carry out the collection as well as the transmission of information: the search for skilled and trustworthy agents and correspondents on the periphery, the ordering of the information circulating, and the collection of data in situ with the exchange of both reference books and samples. Most importantly, this systematic improvement initiated two new procedures applied by trade on the periphery and by science in Europe, which would develop from thereon—agronomic experimentation and data classification. These measures both speak to the importance of reliability for European elites when acting at a distance. My research casts light on the acquisition of knowledge in scientific centres, and the establishment in the early eighteenth century of an open partnership for the collection of information on the colonial periphery. Multiple references, that were the closest to nature and to the plant provenance, i.e. the product, the specimen, the local names, travel accounts and herbaria, provided a whole set of information—the ‘history’—necessary in botany as a part of natural history at this period. Additionally, through methodology set forth by Ray of the Royal Society of London and Reneaume of the Academy of Science, referencing was the catalyst in the construction of the science of botany, i.e. the centralisation of heterogeneous knowledge sources coupled with homogenisation in a more precise scientific language (yet not universal). Identification was made possible by the circulation of information relevant to the user, either in a foreign place, an apothecary’s shop, or a botanist’s laboratory. For this, recording of different plant names used was primordial. The ultimate aim was reliability necessary in a botany still focused on the knowledge of medicinal plants for the practice of medicine. Hence, the main reform in early eighteenth century botany was the interconnection of diverse networks acting in Europe and in the colonial world as well as the interchangeability of botanical knowledge, instead of a single expert network centring initiative in Europe. In the French Kingdom, co-operation between science and trade was eased by the centralised political system. Access to the riches of the East Indies particularly fostered a joint action between the royal institutions and the state. The colonization of the Ile de Bourbon testifies to the necessity of a global vision of the colonial enterprise, amplified in the East Indies by constraints of distance. Moreover, it evidences the
83
CHAPTER THREE importance of botany by the sharpened control of botanical knowledge and resources characteristic of the East Indies: the economic purpose of inventories and the network of plant transfers implemented by the kingdom were paramount.
Thus, my study sheds light on the motives and exigencies that stimulated co- operation to control nature and knowledge of plants. For trade as well as science, action at a distance relied on the delocalisation of skill, knowledge and nature, with respective intermediaries circulating, agent, book and sample. That exchange was adopted and systematised as the solution to the perceived problem of reliability and the keystone for the global system of control over nature and knowledge by Europe at the turn of the eighteenth century.
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4
The delocalisation of action for the mastery of natural resources: network, patronage and expert knowledge (1719–1740)
In the wake of France’s trade expansion, the state increased its control over East and West Indian commerce. The reorganisation of a more powerful Compagnie des Indes in 1719 enabled the mobilisation of the whole Kingdom, including the Navy and the scientific institutions, so as to profit from the colonies more effectively. A reading of scientific, government, and colonial archives highlights common elements that constrained the transmission of natural items and knowledge data. The problems of distance, amplified by the maritime context, spurred novel responses: new reasoning, procedures and structures were deemed necessary for Europe’s appropriation of global resources. Science and political power made a concerted attack on distance, in efforts to overcome limits on the accessibility of remote natural resources, as well as reliability and efficiency in their exploitation. The Compagnie des Indes, in expanding commerce towards China (Canton), reinforced its intercontinental shipping infrastructure in the East Indies. It developed the Mascarenes’ function as an échelle des Indes, bringing supplies and plant strains from elsewhere in the network to complement the natural resources in these colonies. The diversification of production with unfamiliar Asian plants required greater control over the circulation of information to limit investment risks in the colonies, and to ease decisions in the metropolis. The state strengthened the practice, established by the former Compagnie des Indes, of local agronomic experiments coupled with scientific assessments in Paris. In this chapter in particular, coffee experiments on the Ile de Bourbon exemplify concern for the reliability of information that was at the core of management from a distance: all levels from the highest authorities in France to the
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CHAPTER FOUR farthest posts in India were involved in acquiring the most accurate knowledge so as to make France a coffee producer through the Company and its colony. In France, the study of exotic flora— especially from living specimens—brought with it organisational innovations and new scientific perspectives to better read the ‘Book of Nature’. For example, obstacles limiting access to nature overseas led Antoine de Jussieu to seek the King’s intercession and support in order to ensure the transfer of foreign plants and related information. The period is characterised by the establishment of an intercontinental botanical network based on the seaborne apparatus under state control. Furthermore, savants took advantage of the colonial system to exchange correspondence with colonial agents and physicians in foreign countries and thereby broaden access to specimens and knowledge acquired in situ. In the East Indies, particularly, the richness of flora and ancestral knowledge of oriental civilisations spurred closer cooperation between government and scientific centres. In addition to the delegation of action in situ, the Company and savants implemented—under the state’s control—the specialisation of activity: to supplement the reporting of resident correspondents, a botanist physician was sent to India to enhance reliability in the acquisition of knowledge on useful plants, mainly medicinal and dyeing plants, together with local uses and techniques. And another important new practice developed in tandem with comparative methods of classification during this phase of European expansion: systematic agronomic experimentation. Here I shall illustrate the ways such experiments were planned, mainly but not only in Paris, and executed on site in the Ile de Bourbon. Moreover, my analysis of documents in the archives of Antoine de Jussieu highlights the importance attached by the savant to the body of surrounding knowledge or the ‘history’ of a plant, i.e. the description, habitat, growth and usage, to be transferred together with the specimen—ideally, a living sample. Further, by examining a controversy in the Royal Garden of Paris, I shall illustrate the new ways in which foreign flora became interesting for European botany. I shall clarify the reason why the Jussieu brothers, Antoine and Bernard, insisted on developing foreign correspondence and on expanding botanical study and collection beyond usual medicinal species, thus redefining the prime medical function of the Royal Garden. To them, botany comprised all aspects of knowledge about plants, acquired by observation, experience and tradition, which could be gathered to identify new species and to benefit from the
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CHAPTER FOUR world’s resources. To these brothers, the living world’s great diversity required comparison and distinction between plant species for the purpose of achieving greater reliability in the governance of nature. In sum, due to several differences such as the great distance from Europe and the huge seafaring costs involved, as well as the richer variety and higher value of both Asian trade goods and Asian ancestral knowledge, I argue that the East Indies had a stronger impact than did the West Indies on the management of the colonial enterprise and on the development of botany in France in the eighteenth century.
1 The historical context The Regency was characterised by several political and economic reorganisations. From 1716, the Scottish financier John Law, appointed Controller General of Finances, initiated important reforms to relaunch the national economy. Among them were the creation of a central bank with the use of paper money and shares, and the centralisation of a large part of the French colonial trade. In 1719, several companies, including the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, the Compagnie de Chine, and the Compagnie du Sénégal, were merged with the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales (owner of Louisiana) into a unique Compagnie Perpétuelle des Indes. To restore monopoly, the Compagnie de St Malo was ousted from East Indian trade. After the collapse of the financial ‘System of Law’ in 1720, the new Company, undermined by the economic crisis which it had provoked, was put under greater state control with the nomination of commissioners in the King’s Council in charge of financial supervision.1 The Compagnie des Indes (as it was also called) was a state company with private shareholders, managing a huge territory: from West Africa and India to China and America (Louisiana was returned to the King in 1732).2 It was granted a monopoly on the sale of tobacco and coffee in France, as well on slave trade, bringing back an unpopular mercantilist policy relaxed earlier by Colbert.3 When Louis XV accessed the throne in 1723, the Secretary of State of the Navy and the Colonies again became head of colonial affairs, while the Company remained under the authority of the Controller General of Finances.4 Soon after, the state once again increased control with the
1 Weber, La Compagnie Française des Indes (1604 - 1875), pp. 302-307, 329-331. 2 Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française, p. 582. 3 Ibid. p. 134. 4 Haudrère, La Compagnie Française des Indes au XVIIIème siècle (1719-1795), pp. 195-197 ; Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française, pp. 580-582. 87
CHAPTER FOUR creation of the Council of the Indies headed by the First Minister and including the Controller General, the King’s Counsellors, as well as naval officers in charge of military matters and merchants for the administration of the Company.5 In 1727 the Company organised the general regulation of the colonial, civil and military administrations giving pre-eminence to ‘the quill’ over ‘the ‘sword’. In the Mascarenes, a Superior Council, gathering local administrators and delegate colonists, was established in Bourbon in 1723 and in the Ile de France in 1730, the latter becoming the administrative centre from 1735 as its importance grew. Correspondence, supplies and commodities were also directly exchanged between the Mascarenes and the trading posts in the East Indies, under the supervision of France.6 The period is characterised by uncertainty for the state regarding the value of the Mascarenes due to delays, natural disasters and excess expenses. This testifies to the difficulty developing these remote islands with the twofold function of replenishment stations and plantation colonies. The Ile de France, rich in natural ports, was colonised from 1721 as a maritime base, but for more than a decade it hardly developed; general opinion was that it was worthless for plantations because of poor rocky soils and an infestation of rats and monkeys (introduced). The Company organised the improvement of the colonies by financing the construction of warehouses, hospitals, fortifications and a port. In 1732 it employed a royal engineer, Jean-François Charpentier de Cossigny, to conduct the project, and in 1735 nominated a seaman (not a merchant) as governor, Bertrand François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, whose action is acknowledged as contributing to the development of the Mascarenes as a ship stop from then on.7 Effort first focussed on Bourbon and coffee production. In the 1730s, several catastrophes such as cyclones and diseases affected agriculture and population of almost ten thousand people, impeding the development of the colony.8 Additionally, coffee prices were dropping in Europe partly due to competition from the royal colony
5 Weber, La Compagnie Française des Indes (1604 - 1875), p. 429. The first minister was Cardinal Dubois. 6 Lougnon Albert (ed.), Correspondance du Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon et de la Compagnie des Indes (Saint-Denis; Paris; Port-louis: Lougnon Albert) Tome 1, pp : XLI-XLV ; Lougnon, L'Isle Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges Boucher et les débuts du café, p. 309. 7 Lougnon Albert (ed.), Correspondance du Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon et de la Compagnie des Indes, pp. XLIX – L ; Toussaint, History of Mauritius, p. 29. 8 Mazet, Claude (1989), 'L'Ile Bourbon en 1735: les hommes, la terre, le café et les vivres', Fragments pour une Histoire des Economies et Sociétés de Plantation à la Réunion (Saint-Denis: Publications de l'Université de la Réunion). 88
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Martinique in the West Indies from 1732.9 The Company lost its monopoly on coffee sale in 1736. Several times it required the administrators to expand coffee exports to the Asian market (Persia) and crop diversification.10
2 France’s trade strategy in the Indian Ocean After the creation of the new Compagnie Perpétuelle des Indes in 1719, the government intended to reorganise the whole colonial domain it held. An uncredited ministerial report of 1720, titled Report on the profit which the Compagnie des Indes may make in a year, sheds light on the way global colonial strategy was shaped by distance and the need for accurate information, argued as core problems in this research.11 Projections were set forth regarding colonial markets in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. It was argued that the royal Company—different from private companies— should not only work for quick profits, but also for all that could improve the commerce of the Kingdom. The report emphasised that adequate management of long-term planning relied on information collected abroad. The best opportunities would be identified, provided that experienced executives ‘were sent on site with good instructions on this aim’; these instructions to be given to naval officers as well. This thinking demonstrates the central role of agents and intermediaries in colonial expansion. Officialdom envisaged reproducing the successful organisation of the VOC in the Indian Ocean, funded with high-priced spices and centred in Batavia, used as a depot to despatch European and Asian goods. The document suggested the advantages that the Mascarenes could offer to the Kingdom, illustrating the intrinsic objective of a colony; that is, existing only to serve metropolitan interests—a wide-spread opinion. They would be the French entrepôt for trade within the Indian Ocean, known as commerce d’Inde en Inde. Moreover, much closer to France, they could produce Asian commodities at lower prices which, paid to colonists by means of French manufactured goods with one hundred per cent profit to the Company, would spare money outgoings from France. Cotton, pepper, and most of all coffee, headed the list of speculative commodities. Thus, this document clarifies the motivations behind the long-term
9 Eve, Histoire d'une renommée. L'aventure du caféier à Bourbon/ la Réunion des années 1710 à nos jours, p. 93. The Compagnie des Indes and the Secretary of the Navy and the Colonies, the Comte Jean Frédéric de Maurepas, attempted to forbid coffee plantations on Martinique. 10 Lougnon Albert (ed.), Correspondance du Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon et de la Compagnie des Indes Tome 3, pp. XIV - XIX ; Tome 4, pp. X - XVI. 11 ANOM COL C/2/15: ‘Mémoire sur ce que la Compagnie des Indes peut tirer de bénéfices au commerce année commune -1720’. 89
CHAPTER FOUR management plans, including crop diversification trials, implemented in the Mascarenes by the royal Company.
3 The transoceanic management of resources Distance and maritime conditions affected the management of the world’s natural resources necessitating specific actions and organisation to secure and maximise trade. In East Indian trade in particular, the management of resources was a permanent and intricate concern resulting in the selection of the most suitable plants to enhance efficiency. The Compagnie des Indes used ship traffic patterns in the Indian Ocean to complement the resources in the Mascarenes. In parallel, the Royal Garden took advantage of the entire intercontinental colonial network to acquire exotic plants, with resort to royal patronage to overcome shipping disruption.
3.1 The network of the Compagnie des Indes As ship traffic increased with India and China from 1724 and population developed in the Ile de Bourbon, the Compagnie des Indes remained vigilant to enhance local food resources. It benefited from the worldwide territory attributed to it for trade in 1719 to continue the enrichment of the Mascarenes with specific plants from the West and East Indies. Granted the monopoly on imports and exports in its colonies, the Company organised shipments of supplies and manufactured items from France, avoiding replenishment in foreign countries to limit costs. Forward planning of food stocks, as much for ship crews as for the colonies, was difficult as it depended on local production, shipping durations and fleet schedules. The Company regularly complained about insufficient production on Bourbon, whereas the colonists complained about insufficient support, favouring ‘alternative traffic’, also known as ‘interlope trade’, with French, Dutch, English or Portuguese vessels. To restrain fraud and such interlope trading, the Company implemented stricter control on the length of sojourns in the islands and on the supplies loaded. It also planned to obtain additional provisions from countries closer in the Indian Ocean by using the local trade network, for example
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CHAPTER FOUR ordering Pondicherry to send rice and wheat from Bengal in 1726 while Bourbon also imported cattle and rice from Madagascar.12 The Company took advantage of the spread of the world’s resources along the maritime routes to continue plant acclimatisation. After a harsh famine in Bourbon, between 1733 and 1735, provoked by grasshopper invasions, drought and cyclones, in 1738 the Directors sent an order to a ship sailing to Bourbon for the transfer of manioc (probably from Africa according to the trajectory) as well as ears of wheat, various seeds, grapevines, fruit trees and sheep to be bought at the Cape.13 Indeed there were several attempts at the introduction of manioc—the processed root of which served as the staple food for slaves in the West Indies—to take the place of maize in the Mascarenes.14 The local administration highlighted the advantages of this plant. The Superior Council of the Ile de France also requested its import in 1740, given that it required fewer workers than maize, thus allowing the production of other food, as part of an argument to convince the Company that this island, actually fertile, could provision its vessels (mainly with wheat).15 The specific advantage of manioc was that it provided a plentiful in addition to a secure food supply, as its roots were sheltered from cyclones and rats. La Bourdonnais emphasised these important advantages to officialdom to boast about his own transfer of several species from Brazil in 1741.16 The increase of diseases coming along with the growth of population demanded greater attention to herbal remedies in the colonies. An anonymous report on Bourbon in the 1730s advised the Compagnie des Indes to send a physician, but also a botanist and an apothecary, to study local herbs or simples and grow them in a garden, arguing that some invasive weeds were medicinal herbs—certainly referring to parsley and
12 Lougnon Albert (ed.), Correspondance du Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon et de la Compagnie des Indes Tome 1, pp. XX-XXI, XXX. 13 ANOM COL C/2/28, années 1738-1739: fol 300, article 14 ; ADR Compagnie Co 81: ‘La Compagnie aux Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon, Paris le 10 7bre 1738’. Manioc was transported by two ships from Africa to Bourbon and to the Ile de France in 1740, see RT 7ème année-janv-mars 1939-no 4: ‘Voyage de La Bourdonnais de France à Mahé en 1741’, p. 351, footnote 5. 14 RT 3ème année-1934-no3: ‘six documents touchant l’introduction et les débuts de la culture du manioc à l’Ile de Bourbon’, p. 424. For some species, the poisonous root is edible after being grated and cooked in the preparation of cassava. 15 ANOM COL C/4/4: ‘A Mrs les Syndics et Directeurs Généraux de la Compagnie des Indes, au Port- Louis Ile de France 15 Janvier 1740’. 16 ANOM COL C/4/4: ‘11 Xbre 1741, lettre de M. de la Bourdonnaye à M. le Contrôleur Général et à la Compagnie des Indes’ ; RT 4ème année-1935-no1: ‘Lettre de La Bourdonnais du mois d’aout 1741…à Ms. les Conseillers des Isles de France et de Bourbon’, p. 51. 91
CHAPTER FOUR purslane mentioned in the 1710 survey by Boucher.17 Yet, vegetable and herb seeds were regularly sent from France to the peripheral territories since some naturally degenerate with time. But in 1730, Pondicherry asked Bourbon to keep the European seeds meant for India and instead to provide them with fresh seeds yielded on the island, explaining that the length of a voyage altered seed conservation.18 Thus, Bourbon, used as a replenishment stop for seamen, became a hub for plant resources on the Indian route, an important point in light of the obstacle of distance and of the maritime context. The role of the Mascarenes as relay stations similar to the Cape of Good Hope,this would eventually develop, as will be examined in the next chapter. With respect to exotic commodities, the Compagnie des Indes several times ordered its peripheral administrations to organise transfers to the Mascarenes. Bourbon was asked to propagate ravensara from Madagascar, confusingly described as ‘bearing a kind of nutmeg’, in France named cannelle géroflée (meaning ‘clove-flavoured cinnamon’); Pondicherry was required to send the most pepper plants and a few ‘wild cinnamon’, a lower quality species from the Malabar Coast.19 And from China now too, in 1728 and 1729, the director in Canton sent China root, rhubarb, tea tree and the Chinese lacquer tree to Bourbon along with documentation about its cultivation and preparation.20 Yet the most profitable and challenging transfers— by piracy—were those of nutmeg and clove protected by the Dutch monopoly. This entailed risk that required a state mandated strategy organised later.
3.2 The transoceanic network of the Royal Garden The establishment of a network for plant transfers from overseas to the Royal Garden of Paris mobilised the highest authorities to thwart carelessness during shipping. While following the colonial trade trajectories, the network also necessitated a new infrastructure, the relay botanical garden, for acclimatisation. The Royal Garden took advantage of the enhancement of resources occasioned by colonial management in the Mascarenes to acquire Asian plants.
17 ANOM -DFC V/ Mémoires/16/V/8, pièce 38: ‘Mémoire pour la Compagnie touchant l’Isle de Bourbon’, article 80. 18 RT 13eme année-avril-juin 1944-no1: ‘Correspondance des administrateurs de Bourbon et de ceux de l’Ile de France. 1ere série, 1727-1735’, p. 200. 19 Lougnon Albert (ed.), Correspondance du Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon et de la Compagnie des Indes, Tome 1, pp. 135, 154 ; Tome 2, pp. 50, 100. 20 RT 6ème année-avril-juin 1937-no1: ‘Introduction à l’Ile Bourbon de l’arbre à thé et de l’arbre à vernis’. 92
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Plant survival at sea rested in the hands of the French naval crews.21 An official request addressed to the Council of the Navy (headed by the Comte de Toulouse) by Jussieu in 1721, demonstrates the concern for accessibility to exotic nature on a global scale.22 The botanist asked that each sea captain sailing to foreign countries, and especially to ‘the different parts of the Indies’, be required to collect and bring back items of natural history useful to the arts and medicine, such as minerals, metals, plants, resins and woods. In his search for support regarding these shipments, officially addressed to S.A.S. (Son Altesse Sérénissime or His Most Serene Highness), Jussieu appropriately presented advantages first for trade, then for the state, then for science. The increase of natural knowledge would result in more effective trade for France, with a better knowledge of commodities or of substitutes to purchase foreign markets firsthand, rather than via English or Dutch ones. It would be useful to health, Jussieu argued, as well as for evaluating the skills of correspondents by the quality of their samplings and reports, thus proving the reality of the problem of reliability in colonial affairs. In a margin note, the Comte de Toulouse responded that such a general order (i.e. addressed to every sea captain) would be impossible and useless: any parcel would not be refused by vessels when addressed to him or to the Council via colonial administrators. He therefore organised orders to be sent to administrators to assist with plant transfers. Thus, the establishment of a network of natural history set in motion the whole French colonial apparatus under the highest authorities in France and in overseas territories too. In the same period, the Apothecaries Garden in the Atlantic port of Nantes, which provided remedies for merchant fleets, was developed into an annexe of the Royal Garden of Paris, and used as a nursery for acclimatisation. This measure is acknowledged as an important step in the French network of botanical gardens, for instance by McClellan, Romieux and others.23 An examination of the procedure of plant
21 In a short non-dated draft (prior to 1719), Jussieu complained about the reluctance of naval officers to ship ‘curiosities’. He solicited the Regent’s support for a surgeon named Albert in Pondicherry, so that the latter could obtain assistance from the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, in BCMNHN ms 1140, fol 5 : ‘Mémoire au Régent, réclamant des instructions aux officiers de marine, qui peuvent être très utiles à l’avancement des sciences...’. 22 ANOM COL F/2C/2, fol 373-375 : ‘ Conseil – M. de Jussieu, professeur en Botanique, 21 septembre 1721 ’. The request was supervised and signed by L. A. de Bourbon: Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, Comte de Toulouse, a legitimate son of Louis XIV and member of the Polysynody. 23 McClellan, Colonialism and Science. Saint Domingue in the Old Regime , p. 149 ; Romieux, Yannick (2004), 'Le transport maritime des plantes au XVIIIe siècle', Revue d'histoire de la pharmacie, 92e année, /343 pp. 406-408 ; Laissus and Torlay, Le Jardin du Roi et le Collège Royal dans l'enseignement des 93
CHAPTER FOUR importation to France shows, besides colonial correspondents, a broad network of plant suppliers including the Navy. In 1719, a decree by Pierre Chirac, the superintendent of the Royal Garden of Paris, requested that naval surgeons on voyages de long cours to the East and West Indies, import ‘at least four plants in their soil and all seeds available’ with names on tags, and inquire about remedies abroad (which underlines the medical function of the Royal Garden at the time). For example, this decree was addressed in 1726 by royal ordinance to sea captains of Nantes sailing to America, who thereafter received lists of useful plants, mostly to gather when stopping in West Africa or in the West Indian colonies. Jussieu provided a catalogue of foreign plants already in the collection of the Royal Garden in 1727 to organise imports.24 Moreover, the Royal Garden took advantage of the botanical network which the Compagnie des Indes had organised to enrich the Ile de Bourbon, the island then becoming a relay station for the transfer of Asian plants to France. For example, in 1735, on the request of the Garden, the Company asked the Superior Council to send seeds of Bourbon’s flora, and in addition plants introduced from India, the Malabar Coast and China with their names and a description of their cultivation.25 Voyages, though, compromised plant survival, leading the Superintendent of the Royal Garden, Charles François de Cisternay du Fay, to again solicit the Secretary of the Navy and the Colonies, Jean Frédéric de Maurepas. Alerted in 1738 that a shipment of rare plants of India, prepared by La Bourdonnais, leafless and supposedly dead, had been thrown overboard, the minister assured that orders were given via the Directors of the Company, to keep shipments whatever their state.26 In comparison, since the late sixteenth century the Netherlands had been collecting exotics in medical or private gardens by establishing botanical networks with trade agents.27 Plants following the shipping routes, the Cape gardens soon served as a relay station, increasing the botanical collections there. The Dutch gained expertise in exotic flora. At the end of the seventeenth century, a new botanical garden in sciences au XVIIIème siècle, note: 2 ; Juhé-Beaulaton, 'Du jardin royal des plantes médicinales de Paris aux jardins coloniaux: développement de l'agronomie tropicale française' . 24 Juhé-Beaulaton, 'Du jardin royal des plantes médicinales de Paris aux jardins coloniaux: développement de l'agronomie tropicale française', p. 272. 25 ADR Compagnie Co 65: letter by the Company to the Superior Council of Bourbon, Paris, 5 March 1735. 26 AN MAR B/2/304 : ‘Registre des ordres du Roy et dépêches concernant la Marine du Ponant du 1er jan. au 4 juillet 1738’, fol 189 : ‘à M. de Premenil, à Versailles le 29 juin 1738 ’ , fol 201 : ‘A Versailles le 4 juillet 1738, à M. Du Fay’ ; AN MAR B/2/305 : ‘M. de Premenil Directeur de la Compagnie des Indes à Lorient, à Compiègne le 18 juillet 1738’. 27 Cook, Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age. 94
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Amsterdam was devoted to species of special interest. The Dutch commissioner of the garden, Joan Huydecoper, also used his contacts within the VOC to get sea captains and governors involved in the supply of Asian plants, despite opposition from directors fearful of the risk for trade competitiveness (detailed later).28 Indeed, coffee, which throve in French Martinique from the gift to Louis XIV, is an illustration, whereas cinnamon native to Ceylon, clove and nutmeg remained protected. The request for high patronage in France highlights the problem of accessibility to exotic nature, dependent on intermediaries. Spary emphasised the role of Georges- Louis Leclerc de Buffon, the superintendent of the Royal Garden of Paris from 1739 to 1788, and the importance of patronage in the growth of the institution as ‘a system of powers’.29 However, earlier in the Royal Garden, savants in the service of the Kingdom solicited governmental intervention to increase the royal collection. Civilian sea captains and the navy played a central role in the botanical network connecting the Royal Garden to French colonies —a network started under Chirac’s administration, as also underlined in the literature.30 Moreover, I would suggest that Jussieu gave the impetus in relation to the new practice in botany of the study of living or dried specimens, rather than Chirac (mostly living at Court as the King’s First Physician). The function of teaching in botany assigned to the Royal Garden, also the fashion and propagation of ornamental and useful exotics in gardens and landscapes (not treated in my dissertation), amplified the need for living specimens, and consequently the establishment of a transoceanic botanical network. Hence, for the Royal Garden, as for the Compagnie des Indes, the management of natural resources required the organisation of an interoceanic network based on the maritime apparatus, including a new intermediary feature, the relay station or garden, for preservation.
4 The long-term management of the Compagnie des Indes: experimentation and assessments The new Compagnie Perpétuelle des Indes, supervised by the King’s Council, kept to the goal of testing all sorts of East Indian goods in the Mascarenes. Colonial
28 Ibid. p. 320. 29 Spary, Utopia’s Garden : French National History from Old Regime to Revolution, p. 7. 30 Juhé-Beaulaton, 'Du jardin royal des plantes médicinales de Paris aux jardins coloniaux: développement de l'agronomie tropicale française', pp. 268-272 ; Romieux, Le transport maritime des plantes au XVIIIe siècle, pp. 405-407. 95
CHAPTER FOUR management from the metropolis was guided by the experience of local executives and reinforced by the scientific assessments of the Royal Garden of Paris. As many species were barely known in France, the results were unpredictable and success depended on acclimatisation, the mastering of the milieu and techniques, and the involvement of administrators and colonists; again human and natural factors had to be taken into consideration. The most promising, coffee production in Bourbon, was the centrepiece of a complete improvement plan illustrating the complexity of the task, in which the transmission of quantitative data reveals the effort of reliability for management at a distance.
4.1 The diversification program in the Mascarenes The crop diversification program was a long-term and risky management move, not only for the Company but also for its colonists. The sovereignty of the Company over the land facilitated control of production through regulations to impose cultivation of new plants. Due to uncertainty of results, adjustments on production, prices and taxes were constantly necessary. For instance, at the settlement on the Ile de France in 1721, the Company intended to levy ‘the tenth in kind of coffee, pepper, cinnamon, drugs, fine spices, and other plants, trees and shrubs used for tincture and medicine which could grow on [settlers’] lands’.31 In 1727 it reduced taxes to four ounces of each épicerie (drug species) per acre to boost diversification in the two islands. However, in 1729 the Company had to restrict coffee plantations to Bourbon alone, due to growing competition and price decrease in Europe.32 Diversification continued with a focus on more established products, such as cotton, indigo and silk, delegated to trusty colonists and agents.33 In particular, the Company encouraged indigo, production of which was difficult to launch, as it necessitated material investment and an increased workforce. At the start, in 1734, it gave special credits for the purchase of slaves.34 And in 1738 it brought two slaves from St Domingue to teach indigo preparation on the two islands,
31 ANOM COL C/4/1: ‘Modèle de concession pour l’Ile de France -1721’, article 2. 32 Lougnon Albert (ed.), Correspondance du Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon et de la Compagnie des Indes, Tome 1: ‘à Mrs du Conseil Provincial de L’ile de France, à Paris le 27 7bre 1729’, p. 91. 33 Eve, Histoire d'une renommée. L'aventure du caféier à Bourbon/ la Réunion des années 1710 à nos jours, p. 94. 34 RT 4ème année-avril-juin 1935 : ‘L’indigo à Bourbon’. Introductive notes, p. 373. 96
CHAPTER FOUR showing the importance of knowledge gained by slave populations in colonial management.35 A greater involvement of administrative agents in the colonies had been favoured through authorisation given to privately owned plantations, which encouraged the agents to test new cultivation methods on their properties. In fact, historians have often emphasized the initiatives of these agents in the development of new crops in the royal West Indies as well as the Mascarenes.36 They were actually following official directives, often mixing private business and colonial management for their benefit. An example is Governor La Bourdonnais who, on his arrival on the Ile de France in 1735, bought a habitation in the ‘Pamplemousses’ district, which the Company, in turn, purchased from him in 1738 to establish a hospital.37 According to a map, his plantation was mainly producing foodstuffs as required by all concessions, including fruits and vegetables—pamplemousse trees planted along a pathway gave the name to the district.38 In addition, La Bourdonnais had run indigo and cotton trials with good results, which, he said, colonists could not afford to do.39 The Superior Council emphasised to the Company his involvement in acclimatisation trials to test the fertility of the Ile de France.40 The Compagnie des Indes nevertheless condemned La Bourdonnais for his maladministration and his personal enrichment while in the islands.
4.2 The administrative evaluation of exotic products with experiments The first stage of diversification with unfamiliar products exemplifies experience acquired by the local executives as important for decision-making in Paris. Precision brought with the experimentation evidences the transmission of reliable information as a concern to address.
35 Lougnon Albert (ed.), Correspondance du Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon et de la Compagnie des Indes Tome 3, p. XVIII. 36 Regourd, 'Science et colonisation sous l'Ancien Régime. Le cas de la Guyane et des Antilles Françaises, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles', pp. 253-255 ; Musée de la Compagnie des Indes et la Société des Amis du Musée (ed.), Mahé de La Bourdonnais. La Compagnie des Indes dans l' Océan Indien. 37 ANOM COL C/2/28 : ‘Au Conseil Supérieur de l’Isle de France’, fol 72, article no 20. La Bourdonnais called the plantation ‘Monplaisir’. 38 BNF Cartes et Plans -Portefeuille 220 : ‘Plan et élévation de l’habitation des Panplemousses appartenant à la Compagnie des Indes céddée par Monsieur Mahé de la Bourdonnais’. 39 ANOM DFC V/ Mémoires/ 16/ V/8 pièce 52 : ‘Mémoire touchant l’Isle de France et de Bourbon pendant la régie de Mr Mahé de La Bourdonnais…présenté par lui-même à Mr Orry de Fulvy Conseiller d’Etat Intendant des Finances - Xbre 1740’. 40 ANOM COL C/4/4 : ‘A Messieurs les Syndics et Directeurs de la Compagnie des Indes, au Port-Louis Isle de France, Janvier 1740’, fol 31, 32. articles indigo, cottonier [sic]. 97
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To inform the new Compagnie des Indes about the situation in Bourbon, the four officers in charge of diversification reported the development of all cultivation. In 1720 in a general report entitled Report Ile de Bourbon, Lieutenant Antoine Boucher or Desforges Boucher, evaluated all potential products, including tamarind, coconut trees (for cable and oil), wood, squine, tobacco, and cotton.41 In his opinion, for instance, aloe and benjoin, which were difficult to harvest, seemed unprofitable. He optimistically recommended coffee first, the success of its cultivation enabling Bourbon to undoubtedly soon supply the entire lucrative European market. Desforges Boucher rendered a precise account of his observations and agronomic experiments. The two species of coffee differed with respect to fruit and leaf shapes, but the flowers were similar. The Bourbon coffee native to the mountains did not grow well when transplanted at a low altitude and was thought to have male and female plants since some did not yield, leading colonists to prefer to grow the Mocha species. The infusion of the endemic species was estimated as good as Mocha coffee, as we shall soon see, more bitter probably because of unripened beans, and stronger, which could be corrected with one third less coffee powder. Regarding Mocha coffee, seedlings from only one plant that had survived the transfer and the transplantation, had been shared amongst a hundred colonists. Boucher had proceeded to an annual census of beans harvested and seedlings planted on each habitation to foresee production. He underlined the rapid growth and multiplication of the Mocha coffee plant, his results being hard to otherwise believe. The first harvest in 1719 was around 500 seeds for each plant; 15,000 seeds were counted in 1720, yielding 7,000 new seedlings. From sowing tests, Boucher already concluded that manure, as well as excess sun and damp, caused failures. He advised growing seedlings in shaded nurseries for one year before transplanting them. He also reported on his tests of grafting on wild coffee, of cutting to increase the speed of multiplication, and on the best sowing and harvest seasons. Thus, he suggested growing the Mocha species preferentially, emphasising that he personally undertook and supervised the trials.
4.3 The scientific evaluation of exotic products
41 SHD - Vincennes - Département de la Terre, A1 2592: ‘ Mémoire l’Isle de Bourbon ’, 1720, fol 156- 175. Lougnon, L'Isle Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges Boucher et les débuts du café, pp. 150-152. 98
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To limit investment risk, the state turned to science to maximise accuracy in the evaluation of exotic drugs from Bourbon. This is an early example of economic botany in that the market value was assessed in parallel with the medicinal value by a botanist. Thanks to the personal contact of a member of the King’s Council with the Royal Garden of Paris in the new organisation of the Compagnie des Indes , almost certainly it was Louis Fagon, the son of the late Superintendent, who instigated the evaluation of Bourbon’s drugs by Antoine de Jussieu.42 The savant assessed samples of coffee, pepper, aloe, curcuma, benjoin and tacamaca gums, confirming that these drugs were valuable trade products or close substitutes, and all useful for medicine. He started with wild coffee, ‘the most interesting one as regards the potential consumption in France’, and which he knew the best, owing to his study of coffee from Arabia. From a branch sample and from agents’ reports received earlier from Bourbon, he identified the wild plant as a tree, of the same genus as Mocha coffee, but of a different species. Nonetheless, Jussieu argued, the usage was the decisive point rather than visual comparison, the medicinal—and commercial—value being preponderant over the botanical value. He proceeded to several tests of coffee infusion. The smell and the taste of the Bourbon type were found to be almost the same, though a little stronger and more bitter, which he saw as an advantage since less powder was necessary. On Fagon’s suggestion, certainly drawn from Boucher’s 1720 report, Jussieu mixed one third of Bourbon with two thirds of Mocha, and found no difference. From a test with seeds sent to him five years earlier, he concluded a longer preservation was possible as compared with Mocha coffee, stale after one year. Moreover, he added, Bourbon coffee would be a much cheaper, and therefore a better source of this drug ‘as necessary as tobacco’ for consumers accustomed to it. As a result, he asserted the medicinal value of the coffee species from Bourbon and concluded: ‘it is up to you, Monsieur, to use these observations for what concerns the good of the colony, the interest of our Compagnie des Indes and that of His Majesty’.43 To finish, he noted that he had received from the surgeon Macé in Bourbon on the order of the old Company, many other drugs (endemic or imported) such as terramerita, schinante, squine, tamarind and woods, usually
42 BCMNHN, ms 3501or Ms Jus 2/2 - correspondance scientifique: Lettre à un agent de la Compagnie des Indes. In the letter, addressed to Monsieur, Jussieu referred to the late Superintendent of the Royal Garden, that is, Guy Crescent Fagon (1638-1718), as his correspondent’s father. About the King’s Council, see Weber, La Compagnie Française des Indes (1604 - 1875), p. 427, note 2. 43 BCMNHN, ms 3501 or Ms Jus 2/2 - correspondance scientifique: Lettre à un agent… 99
CHAPTER FOUR brought from the East Indies and Arabia. Thus, the island being suitable for plants native to Arabia, he concluded that the Company had a ‘sensible interest’ in helping them thrive to achieve huge profits.
4.4 The nation’s engagement: the example of coffee The Company and the state developed coffee plantations in Bourbon, utilising the colonial trade network in the East Indies for the transfer of plants, material and expert knowledge. All stages of cultivation, preparation, storage and packaging were carefully worked out in order to reach the quality of the commercially traded Mocha so valued in Europe.44 In 1723, following the experiments by Desforges Boucher and the assessment by Jussieu, the first export of wild coffee was sold in France and the Council of the Indies received a first sample of ‘creole Mocha coffee’, i.e. grown on the island. This was judged good although unripe. Thereafter, the Council urged Boucher, promoted that year to governor, to obtain information regarding drying methods and packaging fabrics (to cheaply manufacture them on the island) from ships returning from Mocha: ship crews once again becoming the key link in the colonial enterprise.45 The same year, a royal declaration bestowed the monopoly of coffee sold within France on the Compagnie des Indes, with coffee from the Levant routes being sold to the Company or on foreign markets.46 Yet plantations were slow in progressing to meet Boucher’s promise to provide a first cargo of Mocha coffee in 1724.47 That year, the Superior Council tightened control over the colonists: a quota of two hundred Mocha plants per (slave) capita was to be planted in all habitations, on penalty of land seizure.48 In 1725, the Company requested the Commandant General of the Indies Pierre Lenoir to undertake an evaluation of the
44 For the history of coffee in Bourbon, see: Lougnon, L'Isle Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges Boucher et les débuts du café ; Eve, Histoire d'une renommée. L'aventure du caféier à Bourbon/ la Réunion des années 1710 à nos jours ; Tchakaloff, Le café à Bourbon . 45 ADR Compagnie Co 19 : ‘Le Conseil des Indes à Desforges-Boucher, Paris, 23 avril 1723’. 46 BNF F- 23622 (855) : Arrêt du Conseil d’Etat concernant le privilège de la vente du café à la Compagnie des Indes. ‘Déclaration du Roi, qui règle la manière dont la Compagnie des Indes fera l’exploitation de la vente exclusive du café, à Versailles le 10 octobre 1723.’ 47 ANOM COL C/3/4 : ‘Extrait de la lettre écritte le 18 9bre 1724 de l’Isle de Bourbon à M. Hardancourt par M. Desforges Boucher gouverneur de la d. isle’, fol 106. 48 ADR Compagnie Co 2519 : Délibération du Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon, 1er décembre 1724 ; Lougnon, L'Isle Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges Boucher et les débuts du café, p. 272. 100
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Mascarenes, particularly Bourbon, and of the governor’s work on coffee.49 Lenoir assured the Company that the quantity, now considerable, would soon cover needs. Several documents attest to active cooperation between the Ile de Bourbon and the Indies and the use of expert foreign knowledge to improve all stages of coffee production. As Shiebinger and Swan state, ‘the story of colonial botany is as much a story of transplanting nature as it is one of transferring knowledge’.50 Much of the transplantation, acclimatisation and preparation was conducted within the colonial periphery with direct correspondence exchanged between Pondicherry, Mocha and Bourbon. In 1727, the Superior Council of Pondicherry sent, along with a mill, a document detailing harvest and shelling methods practised in Arabia.51 In turn, in 1731, the Council of Bourbon sought advice from agents in Mocha about cultivation, drying and storage practices on the island.52 The executives in Mocha replied, detailing techniques used and the different kinds of coffee grown in Arabia. Moreover, they took the initiative to improve coffee strains by sending seeds and later seedlings of the best sorts of coffee to test in Bourbon’s soils (propagation by seeds failed due their short lifetime, a point also noted by Jussieu in his 1715 History of coffee, which made the coffee plant a ‘curiosity’ in Europe worth being a royal present). In addition, they sent for testing a plant called jot (jute) used to make the Indian packaging fabric gunny, as French cloth was thought to alter the taste of coffee beans during shipping. Repeatedly, samples of coffee beans produced in Bourbon and Arabia were exchanged for quality in comparison. Over the years, experience was gained from Arabic and Indian savoir-faire. Two Arab workers with an interpreter were even hired in 1732 and sent to Bourbon to teach and improve packaging.53
4.5 Agronomic experiments of the Compagnie des Indes
49 ANOM COL C/3/4 ; ANOM DFC V/Mémoires/ 16/V/8 ; RT 4ème année-1935-no4: ‘Instructions de la Compagnie des Indes à Pierre Christophe Lenoir concernant l’Isle de Bourbon. Ensemble les réponses de Lenoir’, article 2. 50 Schiebinger and Swan, Colonial Botany. Science, Commerce &Politics in the Early Modern World, p.15. 51 RT 3ème année-1936-no2 : ‘Méthode qu’on observe dans l’Arrabie pour cueillir et égrainner le caffé ’, pp. 290-291. 52 ANOM COL F/3/162 : ‘ Mémoire concernant le caffé envoyé par Messr du Conseil de l’Isle Bourbon aux employés du Comptoir de Moka en l’année 1731 – Réponse au dit mémoire’. 53 Ibid. fol 7,8 ; RT 13ème & 14ème années-1944 & 1945-no2, Correspondance des administrateurs de Bourbon et de l’Isle de France. 1725-1735 : ‘Au Fort Louis à Pondichéry le 8 octobre 1731’, pp. 204, 206, 211 ; ‘à l’Isle de Bourbon, may 1732’, pp. 213, 216. 101
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The example of coffee production consisted in an agronomic program with cultivation trials and product assessments by science. Such control over the development of a new crop by an official institution had probably never before been practiced in France. McCabe gives the example of silk and the propagation of mulberry trees around 1600 supported by King Henri IV, but without a centralised state control.54 According to scholars, economic botany and the science of agronomy developed as a tool of economic politics in European nations from 1750.55 McClellan sets the starting point in the French colonies in the late eighteenth century with botanical gardens and in situ botanists.56 For his part, Schaffer states that agronomy favoured the functioning scheme of the centre of expertise, coupled with the peripheral territory, and for this, surveillance was the key feature.57 Here I will examine why this bipolar centre-periphery organisation was required and why it occurred earlier overseas, on the Ile de Bourbon. The first stages of the management of Bourbon under the ownership of the royal Company clearly illustrate, as Schaffer points out, that ‘agronomy mixed scientific with political work’.58 A number of new challenges in colonial expansion required control and hastened collaboration with science to ensure accuracy. Firstly, environmental parameters demanded investigation: a new tropical climate; a new exotic crop; remote plantations and experiments impossible in Europe. Secondly, economic parameters demanded effectiveness: heavy costs of colonial management; and the search for a high- profit crop. Thirdly, social parameters eased control: the royal status of the institutions in the French absolute system; the sovereignty of the Company, assigned the governance of the colony and the ownership of lands close to a feudal system; the trade monopoly. However, to discuss Schaffer’s argument, in the early eighteenth century, expert knowledge was acquired overseas and consulted by metropolitan savants and officialdom. In this bipolar system, effective management from a distance relied upon skilled intermediaries in the peripheral territory, i.e. colonial agents. If colonial expansion imposed control over nature, nature in turn imposed constraints on colonial expansion.
54 McCabe, Orientalism in Early Modern France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism and the Ancien Regime, pp. 212-213. 55 Ambrosoli, Mauro (1997): The wild and the sown. Botany and agriculture in Western Europe: 1350- 1850. Cambridge University Press, pp. 204-222 ; Boulaine, Jean, (1992) Histoire de l'Agronomie en France (Paris: Tec & Doc- Lavoisier). 56 McClellan, Colonialism and Science. Saint Domingue in the Old Regime, p.147. 57 Schaffer, Simon (2003), 'Enlightenment Brought Down to Earth', History of Science,41, p. 6. 58 Ibid. p. 5. 102
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In the royal West Indian colonies where the state was not involved in trade, it appears that coffee production did not benefit from such official support, despite a previous but unsuccessful transfer with other useful plants organised from the Royal Garden.59 Coffee was launched on the initiative of Chevalier de Clieu, a naval officer settling in Martinique, from a single plant given to him by Jussieu in 1723. In 1726, colonists replaced their cocoa plantations, destroyed after an earthquake and a hurricane, with coffee seedlings. It seems that no plant transfer from Mocha occurred, perhaps because the West Indies competed with the Compagnie des Indes and because the necessary propagation by seedlings was impeded by long sea journeys.60 Further research is needed, notably during the first stages, with respect to trials in plantations or gardens and the circulation of knowledge for instance, to determine the role of the state— marginal according to Regourd.61 Nevertheless, the cultivation of coffee spread and became a major crop in Martinique, coming into intense competition with Bourbon.62 Certainly the higher profit expected from this new crop boosted its propagation more than any official incentive. One can add that market prices set by French private trade companies also contributed to make the rules. With the main cash crops of sugar, coffee and indigo as the base of Atlantic trade, colonists were reluctant to expose themselves to risky changes, despite decrees or encouragement from officialdom. To illustrate, Thibault de Chanvalon, a member of the Superior Council in Martinique and a correspondent of the Academy, noted in 1763 that the personal interests of traders eager for quick enrichment impinged on the development of the American colonies.63
59 Regourd, 'Science et colonisation sous l'Ancien Régime. Le cas de la Guyane et des Antilles Françaises, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles', p. 470. 60 Scientific data confirm historical ones. Recent research on wild and cultivated populations of Coffea arabica in the world demonstrates among the cultivated ones, the greater genetic variability of the “Bourbon” variety in Réunion Island (previously Bourbon); by comparison, the “Typica” variety cultivated in other countries was propagated from a single plant introduced in the botanical garden of Amsterdam in 1706. See Anthony F., Lashermes P. (2001): ‘ Analyse moléculaire du génome du caféier Arabica… ’ Des modèles biologiques à l’amélioration des plantes. IRD Ed, cited in Tchakaloff, T. N. (2008), pp. 15-16. 61 Regourd, François (1999), 'Maitriser la nature: un enjeu colonial. Botanique et agronomie en Guyane et aux Antilles (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles)', Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer/ Société française d'histoire d'outre-mer, 86/322-323, p. 51. 62 Martinique was authorised to supply the foreign market from 1732 to 1736, and again in 1746, in Lougnon Albert (ed.), Correspondance du Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon et de la Compagnie des Indes 1950 Tome V, p. XVI. 63 Chanvalon, Jean-Baptiste Thibault de (1763 ) Voyage à la Martinique, contenant diverses observations ... faites en 1751 & dans les années suivantes. Lu à l'Académie royale des sciences de Paris en 1761, (Paris: C.-J.-B. Bauche), dedication to the Duc de Choiseul. 103
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Therefore, the entire apparatus of the French Kingdom participated in the development of new cultivation methods performed in the periphery with the circulation of information and expert knowledge from France and foreign countries.
5 The scientific centre and the circulation of knowledge In France, the scientific centres grasped the opportunity presented by the colonial trade network to increase knowledge of nature. The question is, though, as to how foreign flora was integrated into European botany still connected to medicine, and if access to a wider diversity of plants spurred new concepts and practices in the early eighteenth century. In particular, savants designed nomenclature and classification systems, but other matters either underlying or resulting from botanical works also shaped the new science of botany. Some relevant events of the period must be outlined. Mercantilist ideas encouraged attention to the transfer of foreign knowledge and flora by the French state, more directly involved than any other European nation in colonial trade through its royal Compagnie des Indes. French colonial trade in the Indian Ocean facilitated access to Indian trade goods used in medicine and arts, fitting the utilitarian purposes of the Academy of Science. In the Royal Garden of Paris, plant collections promised a greater understanding of Nature. Drawing from Jussieu’s work, I will investigate the motives leading the botanist and his brother Bernard to gather foreign flora and knowledge related to them, particularly from the East Indies, his justification of the increase of collections in the Royal Garden of Paris, and impacts on the scientific work. It is noteworthy that during this period, in the 1730s, the name of the ‘Royal Garden of medicinal plants’ changed to the ‘Garden of the King,’ reflecting a reconceived scope for the science of botany.
5.1 The study of exotic nature at a distance: specimen and history Jussieu’s archives attest to exchanges of service between the savant and the new Compagnie des Indes regarding territories in the East and West Indies.64 In particular, the floral inventory in Bourbon enabled Jussieu to ask for state patronage to acquire samples. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, in 1722 the King’s Commissioner Fagon
64 BCMNHN ms 3502 or Ms Jus 3: ‘Moyens de rendre utiles dans le Mississipi les nouveaux établissements qui se sont faits dans plusieurs concessions’, fol 87-88 ; ‘Mémoire pour Surate, pour Mahé, pour l’isle de Bourbon...’, fol 93-94 ; ‘Mémoires pour les plantes des iles d’Amérique’, fol 89-91. 104
CHAPTER FOUR directly solicited Antoine de Jussieu regarding medicinal drugs on the Ile de Bourbon. 65 Jussieu made the most of this contact to obtain plant samples essential to his botanical studies. In his reply to Fagon, commercial arguments judiciously underlined his point concerning the kinds of benjoin and tacamaca gums on Bourbon. They might be good substitutes for the two very high priced medicines, but their botanical identification could be an even more useful discovery, enabling new knowledge about the trees producing these genuine products. He argued that no such expensive gums were to be neglected. Thereafter, Jussieu requested that the Company provide him with a branch with leaves and flowers to complement each gum sample, and also a description of the harvest process and of the usage determined by islanders. In the same way, when assessing local aloe and pepper drugs, Jussieu referred to their usage in Madagascar described by Flacourt. Thus, the acquisition of natural knowledge rested as much on drug analysis and plant observation as on tradition and experience about properties or uses forged in native countries—just as important to collect given that botany was part of medicine. The ‘history’ of a plant, including ancient and lay knowledge, remained necessary to determine a botanical identity. Jussieu’s methodology contradicts Foucault’s statement that, in the science of the order, plants were named by means of analysis, and the search for the difference, fundamental to establish identities, entailed the separation between the history of plants and science.66
5.2 The study of exotic nature in the colonies: the correspondents It is a well-known fact that European savants established a network of informers in the colonial world to complement their research.67 In addition to the collection of specimens of natural history, cooperation with correspondents enabled studies of environments in situ. This correspondence procedure consisted in the delegation of action in order to master control of nature from a distance. The same research interests applied in the metropolis as in the periphery, particularly for the study of drugs and exotics in cooperation with the Compagnie des Indes. In 1726, the Academy of Science reported the discovery of the origin of several species of rhubarb in China and the first description of the plant by the Jesuit missionary
65 BCMNHN, ms 3501 or Ms Jus 2/2: Lettre à un agent de la Compagnie des Indes. 66 Foucault, Les mots et les choses, pp. 68-70. 67 McClellan and Regourd, The Colonial Machine: French Science and Overseas Expansion in the Old Regime ; Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America. 105
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Dominique Parennin.68 Introduced in 1729 in Bourbon, rhubarb was studied and tested at the same time in the Royal Garden and in the colony on the Company’s request. In 1732, Jussieu analysed a plant brought to him by an agent, which he judged of good quality; the Company then ordered a cultivation test for quality improvement in collaboration with chemists. The agent, a member of the Superior Council and colonist, Jean-Baptiste de Lanux, was responsible for rhubarb cultivation.69 He would take charge of silk production in the 1750s, exchanging with the academician René-Antoine de Réaumur, and becoming an official correspondent of the Academy of Science in 1754.70 In another example, the royal engineer Charpentier de Cossigny already had connections with Réaumur in France.71 He was his correspondent for climate measurements in the Mascarenes, and he undertook other studies notably in entomology by referring to Réaumur’s books. In 1739 he took an interest in the parasites that devastated maize plantations in Bourbon (a cause for the introduction of manioc), informing the savant that maize was ‘the main and most necessary harvest … without which it would not be possible to survive on this island…’ 72 In addition in 1734, Cossigny practiced experiments on endemic wood species. Wood was an important issue in France where forests decreased due to over consumption. The Academy of Science had published an essay by Réaumur on the enhancement of French forests in 1721, where he suggested comparison tests on weight in relation to age to maximise the exploitation of wood.73 Cossigny displayed to the savant the motive of his experiments undertaken on his own initiative. Stating that it was known that woods in hot climates were very compact and hard, he wanted to understand the ratio of their weight compared to the weight of woods of France; for example, oak. Cossigny reported his
68Anonymous (1726), 'Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences…tirée des registres de cette académie', p. 19. 69 Lougnon Albert (ed.), Correspondance du Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon et de la Compagnie des Indes 1932 Tome II : ‘à Mrs du Conseil Supérieur de Bourbon le 17 9bre 1732 ; à l’Ile Bourbon le 12 Xbre 1733 ’, pp. 99-100. 70 AS: Dossier de Lanux. Lanux corresponded with Réaumur, and also with Abbé Pierre Boissier de Sauvages, providing information on the cultivation of mulberry plants and silk production. See Lacroix, Notice Historique sur les Membres et Correspondants de l'Académie des sciences ayant travaillé dans les colonies françaises des Mascareignes et de Madagascar au XVIIIe siècle et au début du XIXe, pp. 29-31. 71 Ibid. pp. 7-12. 72 RT 8ème année-1939-no3: ‘Treize lettres de Cossigny à Réaumur’, p. 283. 73 Réaumur, René Antoine (de) (1721), 'Réflexions sur l'état des bois du royaume et les précautions qu'on pourrait prendre pour en empêcher le dépérissement et les mettre en valeur', Histoire de l’Académie des sciences…tirée des registres de cette académie, pp. 284-300. 106
CHAPTER FOUR measurements: logs of natte, benjoin, and tacamaca were dried and weighed, and the first was found much heavier than oak, with tacamaca close to pine.74 The botanists Antoine but mostly Bernard de Jussieu were exchanging information with several colonial physicians, often trained in the Royal Garden and nominated through its patronage. Their brother Joseph de Jussieu, who was a surgeon involved in la Condamine’s scientific expedition to Peru in 1736, spent thirty five years in South America, often struggling to send plants and local knowledge from remote areas.75 In Bourbon, the physician Macé and another named Noel provided samples of endemic medicinal drugs.76 In Louisiana, Louis Prat appointed royal botanist doctor of New Orleans hospital and responsible for a medicinal garden in 1724, together with his brother Jean Prat, also sent studies and specimens of plants.77 Letters by Jean Prat in Bernard de Jussieu’s correspondence archive shed light on his work in Louisiana, which again evidences the problem of reliability created by distance, for instance in the use of a referencing order. Jean Prat was actively collecting but also studying botany in collaboration with the savant. The botanical task paralleled the medical one, yet it was not officially planned. Replacing his brother in 1735, Jean Prat requested the colonial administration for another garden.78 In 1736 he solicited Jussieu and Superintendent du Fay to intervene towards minister Maurepas ‘for the advancement of botany’, arguing that the garden would give him time to observe plants and prepare specimens.79 In 1738 he was allocated a garden ‘to grow usual (usuelles) plants and use it as a nursery to keep new plants … for the Royal Garden’.80 Regarding his studies, he advised Jussieu in 1734 that he kept in the same order a copy of dried plants that had been sent together with their seeds, and requested his opinion ‘on the characteristic (caractère) of each species’. He underlined that by this procedure he
74 RT 8ème année-1939-no3 : ‘Treize lettres de Cossigny à Réaumur’, pp. 224-226. 75 Safier, Neil, 'Fruitless Botany: Joseph de Jussieu's South American Odyssey', in Delbourgo James and Dew Nicholas (eds.), (2008a), Science and Empire in the Atlantic World (New York: Taylor & Francis). 76 MNHN Bibliothèque du Laboratoire de Phanérogamie – Correspondance de Bernard de Jussieu – Noel : ‘de l’Ile de Bourbon, 3 Janvier 1730’. Noel sent samples of a gum similar to incense, and of ravensara bark brought from Madagascar. 77 Langlois, Gilles-Antoine (2003), 'Deux Fondations Scientifiques à la Nouvelle-Orléans (1728-30): La Connaissance à l'Epreuve de la Réalité Coloniale', French Colonial History,4/1. Jean Prat was provided with an aptitude certificate from Jussieu, in ANOM COL E//341- Personnel colonial ancien: Prat Louis 78 MNHN Bibliothèque du Laboratoire de Phanérogamie – Correspondance de Bernard de Jussieu – Prat ; fol 20, ‘à la Nouvelle Orléans le 18 juin 1735’. The first garden was probably neglected, since many remedies were shipped from France. 79 Ibid. fol 15, ‘à la Nouvelle-Orléans, le 8 7bre 1736’. 80 Ibid. fol 28, ‘à la Nouvelle-Orléans, le 2 Mai 1738 ’. 107
CHAPTER FOUR aimed to take advantage of Jussieu’s lessons despite the distance.81 Moreover, he welcomed Jussieu’s ‘new method of botany’ in 1740, grateful to the savant for his involvement in the development of botany.82 Thus, collaboration between the metropolis and the colonies grounded ‘the colonial machine’ as stated by McClellan and Regourd.83 The work of Prat and Cossigny demonstrate that correspondents took an active part in the construction of European science, with botanical studies undertaken in situ and in France simultaneously.
5.3 The botanical expedition in the East Indies: the voyageur botanist Driven by savant or commercial motives, the Royal Garden of Paris and the Compagnie des Indes shared a common interest in the inventory of flora in trading territories of the Indian Ocean. The expedition of a royal botanist, conjointly organised by these two institutions, attests to the problem of accuracy in exotic knowledge, impeded by distance. Reflecting mercantilist logic, the Compagnie des Indes in a letter to minister Maurepas in 1727 appealed to the Crown for funding for a botanical mission to India:
The knowledge of plants and drugs is of so much importance for the kingdom, it cannot be researched with too much attention. The Indies produce a prodigious quantity of different drugs and plants suitable for medicine and tincture. The Compagnie des Indes judges that it would be necessary for the public good that the King pays a skilled botanist physician, who could explore the different states of India, where he could get enough to work … [The Company] could even employ him very effectively for the knowledge he could give to its colonies of the method of growing and transplanting drugs and plants. It could also set up a garden of plants on the Ile de Bourbon, as other European nations run in their colonies.84
Money being a limiting issue in colonial affairs, the argument presented that botanical knowledge was economically crucial not just for the Company but for the
81 Ibid. fol 18, ‘à la Nouvelle-Orléans, le 20 février 1734’. 82 Ibid. fol 40, ‘à la Nouvelle Orléans le 2 juin 1740’. 83 McClellan James E. and Regourd François (2000), 'The Colonial Machine: French Science and Colonization in the Ancien Regime ', Osiris,15/2. 84 AN COL C/2/18: fol 80. Another letter to ‘Monseigneur’, Mr Robin, by the Directors of the Compagnie des Indes is dated 23 January 1727, fol 84. 108
CHAPTER FOUR whole kingdom. The mission to India was certainly related to the fashion of colourful Indian clothes called indiennes or printed chintz—which royal legislation prohibited to protect the French manufactures.85 Several endeavours to India and Bourbon were planned to cover the cost of a botanist’s expedition. The practical results, the Company argued, could be self-production of dyes and medicines in French colonies and a ‘garden of plants’ (probably the measure suggested in relation to the increase of diseases in Bourbon) The organisation of this botanical mission in the East Indies illustrates the hierarchical functioning of the colonial administration and the system of patronage in France. A doctor named Couzier, trained in the Royal Garden, sailed to Bourbon and India in 1727. In September 1728, he was officially granted a certificate of ‘botanist doctor of the King’, essential to secure his work overseas as he claimed before receiving it.86 According to different funding requests, the Royal Garden and Superintendent Chirac had officially instigated the botanist’s mission. Costs were shared: the voyage was paid for by the Company, and the salary by the royal treasury as previously done for Louis Prat, when the botanist physician was sent to Louisiana in 1724.87 During his journey, Couzier was in correspondence with both the Compagnie des Indes and the Royal Garden, which exchanged his work. In Jussieu’s archives, there is a set of guidelines to be added to a general report requesting the collection of natural items specific to each trading post in the East Indies: mineral gems and medicinal drugs found in Surat (Gujarat) and in Mahé (Malabar Coast), and plants used for food and medicine in Bourbon. These guidelines were most likely designed for Couzier, as in a letter before departing in 1727 he informed Jussieu that he was still waiting for the general report to be dispatched by the Company.88 Besides, Couzier also corresponded with Maurepas, an Enlightened amateur of science, keeping the minister informed about his mission and the curiosities he was commanded to supply to him.89
85 Nantois, Olivier (2006), 'Le commerce des toiles peintes et imprimées "indiennes" en France au temps de la prohibition (octobre 1686-septembre 1759) ', Doctorat d'Histoire Moderne, 86 AN MAR B/3/318, fol 103 ; B/3/326, fol 98 ; B/3/334, fol 118: Dossier ‘Service Général. Correspondance des Ministres, Clergé, Parlement.’ 87 AN COL C/2/18: fol 80, 84, 86 ; ANOM COL E //98 - Personnel colonial ancien: ‘Couzier’, fol 255, 260. 88 BCMNHN ms 3501 ou Ms Jus 2: letter by Couzier to Jussieu, ‘Lorient, 22 février 1727’. 89 Lamontagne, Roland (1996), 'L'influence de Maurepas sur les sciences : le botaniste Jean Prat à La Nouvelle-Orléans, 1735-1746 / Maurepas' influence on science : the botanist Jean Prat in New Orleans, 1735-1746', Revue d'histoire des sciences. 109
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The first part of the mission proceeded on the Ile de Bourbon. Notably, the authorities had been alerted to a kind of leprosy, which caused huge numbers of casualties in the population.90 Couzier stayed one year to study diseases as well as indigenous flora, sending numbered samples of plants and seeds to the Royal Garden.91 In correspondence with the Jussieu brothers, dated 1729, he detailed his observations on mostly unnamed indigenous plants used as remedies, and on his treatment of leprosy, requesting Jussieu’s opinion. As requested in Jussieu’s guideline, he also provided descriptions of local alimentary customs, crops, fruits, kitchen herbs and medicinal plants.92 Couzier supplied information collected in situ to the Parisian agencies. A document entitled Report regarding the Ile de Bourbon … described the natural history of the colony, including a transcription of the letter above, the active volcano, minerals and animals.93 Couzier advised that Jussieu could see local remedies sent to the Company in Paris, including squinante and the four healing gums in use on the island: aloe, benjoin, tacamaca, and the ‘balm of the yellow flower tree’ as well as drawings of this tree. Couzier specifically drew Jussieu’s attention to this balm, previously sent to him because its effectiveness was locally attested, a point again underlining the importance of folk knowledge in medicine at this time. Couzier also described this golden balm used for wounds and ulcers in a letter to Maurepas in 1730.94 In the meantime, in another letter to the directors of the Company, forwarded to and found among Jussieu’s correspondence, Couzier added an economic component to his work by evaluating the colony and its valuable commodities, including coffee, tobacco, curcuma. The four healing gums could yield great profits, above all the ‘yellow flower’ one, and despite tacamaca and benjoin not being the true drug species, these species
90 ANOM COL F/3/206, fol 43, fol 47. 91 ANOM COL C/3/5 : Letters by Couzier to Maurepas, fol 44 : ‘Monseigneur, Ile de Bourbon, 3 décembre 1727’; fol 56 : ‘Monseigneur, Ile de Bourbon, 28 mars 1728’. 92 MNHN Bibliothèque du Laboratoire de Phanérogamie - Correspondance de Bernard de Jussieu – Couzier - Maladies de l’Ile de Bourbon : Letter by Couzier, ‘Pondichéry - 26 janvier 1729’. This study of diseases was published in Paris in 1757 : Couzier (1757), 'Description des maladies les plus communes, auxquelles sont sujets les habitans de l'Isle de Bourbon', Recueil périodique d'observations de médecine, de chirurgie et de pharmacie n° 07. 93 BCMNHN ms 1765: Relations des Indes Orientales. ‘Mémoire concernant l’Isle de Bourbon qui m’a été communiqué par M. Bernard de Jussieu’, fol 332-339. 94 AN COL C/2/75, letter by Couzier to Maurepas, fol 6: ‘Monseigneur, Pondichéry, 24 janvier 1730’. 110
CHAPTER FOUR showed that the true ones could grow if introduced there —a clue for the interest of prospecting worldwide.95 In India, a special task was to look for dyes and to examine dyeing techniques for cotton fabrics. Couzier directly transcribed information collected from Indian people. In his correspondence, a report sent to Jussieu described tincting methods from thirteen plants with samples of dyes and indiennes. The copy recorded native names only, some being identified later with Linnaean names in footnotes, for instance Indian nihila meyrendon identified as indigo.96 In this example, indigenous knowledge was integrally transferred before being studied and converted into European standards. Thus, through Couzier’s work practised on site for both the Company and savants, botany consisted in prospecting, sampling and writing the history of plants including descriptions, local names, usage and commercial values.
From the examples of Louisiana and the Ile de Bourbon, I suggest that if medicinal gardens were established for hospital use, botanical gardens or rather ‘gardens of plants’ implied extra expenses that needed justification. In Louisiana, via Jussieu’s intervention, the garden was used for plant exchanges seemingly organised more in favour of the metropolis to enrich the royal gardens. But compared to Bourbon the motives differed: no economic function was envisaged. This may have been due to their status, as Louisiana was given back to the Crown in 1731 and not exploited by the Company. Yet, the organisation of a ‘garden of plants’ in Bourbon, which the Company had suggested to the Ministry in Couzier’s mission, was not carried out. Nonetheless, I argue that the 1727 project went beyond the goal of a peripheral garden meant to supply medicinal plants for the colony and specimens for the metropolis, as in Louisiana. It encompassed an agronomic function, since the Company expected Couzier, a botanist, to develop agricultural production in its colonies. This project will be realised later in a garden of the Compagnie des Indes, to be discussed in the next chapter. Therefore, by a concerted appeal to the state, both the Royal Garden and the Compagnie des Indes benefited from a botanical mission associated with a medical one, paid for by royal funds similar to those in ‘American’ colonies.97 McClellan argues that
95 MNHN Bibliothèque du Laboratoire de Phanérogamie - Correspondance de Bernard de Jussieu – Couzier : Letter by Couzier to the Compagnie des Indes, ‘ Messieurs, Pondichéry, 9 janvier 1729’. 96 BCMNHN ms 2132: ‘Copie d’un mémoire envoyé en 17.. à M. de Jussieu par M. Couzier avec une caisse qui contenait les treize drogues dont il est ici parlé ’. 97 McClellan, Colonialism and Science. Saint Domingue in the Old Regime, p. 130. 111
CHAPTER FOUR royal botanists attest to the importance attached to botany by the French Kingdom, and economic botany particularly, which became further institutionalised in the colonial administration. To him, in the first stages of colonial expansion, the economic goal, with its search for major colonial crops, prevailed over ‘scientific botany and natural history or the disinterested pursuit of knowledge’ of royal expeditions in America.98 And a ‘shift in emphasis’ occurred when science became more involved in economic botany in situ, as embodied by royal botanists and botanical gardens present in peripheral colonies in the late eighteenth century99. However, as seen here, the Compagnie des Indes collaborated with the Royal Garden in a way where economic or practical botany was inseparably blended with ‘scientific’ or basic botany, and even spurred on by it. In fact, economic botany and basic botany were not distinct practices in the early eighteenth century, as evidenced in Tournefort’s definition of botany quoted earlier. Since the enhancement of botanical knowledge mainly consisted in the study of medicinal goods, many of them brought from Oriental markets, savants came to arrange and guide plant prospecting, so that ‘economic’ botany in the colonial realm partly resulted from ‘basic’ botany in the metropolis. The status of the royal botanist doctor sent overseas to study dyes and medicines exemplifies the utilitarian purpose of the French scientific institutions framed by Colbert in the late seventeenth century. Besides, the network of foreign correspondents of the French scientific institutions, coupled with the expedition of botanists on site, exemplifies the action at a distance characteristic of the ‘centre of calculation’, described by Latour.100 Spary discusses Latour’s emphasis on the normative centre, as it is subject to interpretations and changes occurring in the system of networks.101 In fact, the network of correspondence evidences the issue of accessibility in science as impacted by distance: this concern is particularly relevant in botany, a science dealing with environment and climate conditions, underlying the consultation of reports and travel accounts, as well as the transoceanic botanical network of correspondents, botanist travellers and plant shipping. Environmental constraints on the study of botany resulted in the displacement of ‘centres of calculation’ overseas in peripheral botanical
98 McClellan and Regourd, The Colonial Machine: French Science and Overseas Expansion in the Old Regime, p. 305. 99 McClellan James E. and Regourd François, 'The Colonial Machine: French Science and Colonization in the Ancien Regime ', pp. 41- 42. 100 Latour, La science en action. Introduction à la sociologie des sciences, Chapter 6. 101 Spary, Utopia’s Garden : French National History from Old Regime to Revolution, p. 97. 112
CHAPTER FOUR gardens in the late eighteenth century, a practice which the Compagnie des Indes initiated earlier on the Ile de Bourbon with cultivation tests undertaken in its gardens.
6 Dealing with otherness: the globalisation of botany The expansion of plant collections with medicinal, curious and foreign plants entailed controversies concerning above all the devotion of the Royal Garden of Paris to medicine. These disputes highlight in particular the circumstances and role of savants in the early eighteenth century in the establishment of the French scientific apparatus as applied to botany. They also provide clues about the way the study of exotic flora affected European botany, evolving to a global science of plant life.
6.1 The botanical garden as the nursery of the world’s resources The Royal Garden was keen to increase plant collections by means of seeds or living specimens sent through the transoceanic botanical network in the 1720s. Utility was the ultimate purpose of the Royal Garden’s acquisition of living plant strains. To illustrate, while assessing foreign drugs, Antoine de Jussieu also envisaged the acclimatisation of related plants in France. In his History of coffee detailed earlier, Jussieu judged that further observation of the cultivation of coffee—so far sheltered in a hothouse—would be more valuable than its botanical identification, if ever so important a plant were to be propagated in France.102 In the same way, when requesting plant samples and seeds from travellers to study Oriental drugs such as myrrh, he also envisioned that these plants could be grown in Europe, making the comparison with foreign fruits and vegetables now commonly grown in that manner in gardens. In a non- dated working draft (probably around 1725), Jussieu again sought to take advantage of trading posts of the Compagnie des Indes in Bengal and Pondicherry to obtain valuable Indian species, like the fast-growing horse chestnut tree or marronnier d’Inde (probably originating in Turkey) already common in France.103 He requested fresh seeds of trees or garden plants, valuable regarding their fruit, flower or fragrance, or use as a remedy, food or spice in these countries. Spices in particular occupied his attention as, he stressed, they would complement those in collection in France: the highly esteemed ginger, curcuma, the true pepper of Mahé (a French factory on the Malabar Coast), and cubeb of the Ile de Bourbon.
102 Jussieu, 'Histoire du café ', 103 BCMNHN ms 1140, fol 8: ‘Note sur certains arbres de Pondichéry’. 113
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6.2 The Royal Garden of Paris as the centre of botany: exotic knowledge legitimised The controversies happening in the Royal Garden of Paris shed light on the functioning of the institution and on important changes that occurred around 1730.104 Spary outlines that, in the early eighteenth century in France, opinions diverged about the study of foreign plants as opposed to indigenous ones: religious convictions in natural theology favoured a local approach, God’s beneficence providing suitable remedies in each climate.105 She elaborates on the rise of a moral discussion from the 1730s about the naturalisation of exotics and the exploitation of luxury products, as much as medical works asserted a link between diseases and luxury. In addition, my research provides evidence of another discussion related to the aim of botany in the Royal Garden of Paris. The gathering of a wide diversity of living species, which went beyond the medical function of the garden in the teaching of botany and the production of remedies for the poor of the capital, fuelled discord between Superintendent Chirac and the botanist ‘officers’ of the Royal Garden. In 1729 Antoine de Jussieu drew up a proposal entitled Motives for a regulation regarding the Royal Garden of Medicinal Plants, seemingly in response to a project initiated by Chirac and probably intended for the Ministry of the Bâtiments du Roi supervising the Garden.106 This was related to new regulations being discussed to resolve the general disorder in faculties of medicine in the Kingdom. By and large, Jussieu complained about the overall state of neglect of the garden due to Chirac’s disinterest in botany, the superintendent being a physician but not a botanist, he noted, and about more hierarchical control proposed by Chirac.107 Jussieu advocated preserving botanists’ freedom in the direct management of the collections and plant exchanges with amateurs and foreign botanists, underlining the personal investment made to date by himself and his brother Bernard. In particular, he stressed that Bernard
104 About the history of the Royal Garden of Paris, see Deleuze Joseph, (1823) Histoire et description du Muséum Royal d'histoire naturelle (Paris chez M.A. Royer au Jardin du Roi), pp. 20-26 ; Laissus and Torlay, Le Jardin du Roi et le Collège Royal dans l'enseignement des sciences au XVIIIème siècle , pp. 292-294. 105 Spary, Emma C. (2003), '"Peaches which the patriarchs lacked": Natural History, Natural Resources, and the Natural Economy in France', History of Political Economy, 35, Annual Supplement , pp. 25-27, 30. 106 AN AJ/15/509 - Archives du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. Cartons - Jardin du Roi : ‘Motifs pour un Règlement concernant le Jardin Royal des Plantes Médicinales’. 107 Ibid. fol 2, 3, 14, 15, 20. 114
CHAPTER FOUR de Jussieu, the sous-démonstrateur in charge of the inspection of plant cultivation and of foreign correspondence, had paid for most of his own travels and plant purchases. To respond to Chirac’s critique of these plant exchanges as useless, he argued that propagation in many private gardens had enabled the conservation of species, and that the Royal Garden could each year acquire a considerable number of plants for a nominal postage cost via these free exchanges, without which it would collapse. More interestingly, against the project of another garden restricted to herbes usuelles, Jussieu attested to the legitimacy of the large diversity of species gathered in the Royal Garden for the teaching of botany. In addition to the variety of species per genus, which increased the number of plants to display in a botanical lesson or démonstration, his diatribe emphasised the global reach to impart upon botany, in relation to the fame of the Royal Garden. Given that visitors of all nations attended the lessons, that so many foreign books, authors and travel accounts described the properties of all sorts of plants, and that these plants were in other public gardens, the démonstrateur needed to acquire knowledge of any useful plant and maintain it in the Royal Garden, ‘the magnificence of which requires that it has to be seen there’.108 Otherwise, not being different from the Garden of Apothecaries or other such gardens, the botanical garden would not be worthy of the King’s support. A new regulation at the Royal Garden of Paris published in April 1729, preserved Chirac’s authority but also the botanists’ work.109 It stipulated the study of the history of ‘useful and curious’ plants. The duty of the sous-démonstrateur would be to keep up correspondence with foreign botanists for the expansion and the ornament of the garden, and the supervision of all exchanges of seeds or plants would be by the Superintendent, to whom parcels should be addressed and opened in his presence. Additionally, the role of professors of botany would be to increase the Cabinet of Natural History with rarities brought from foreign countries together with plants. This thus demonstrates the impetus the two Jussieu brothers gave to the development of botany in France. Moreover, I argue that the change in the management of the Royal Garden after Chirac is the consequence of the divergence in scientific viewpoints regarding botany and medicine, which occurred around 1730, more than
108 Ibid. fol 26. 109 SHD – Vincennes - Département de la Marine, ms 73 : Recueil d’ordonnances, édits, arrêts …sur la marine, la pêche, les ports, les colonies… (1207-1779), Tome 28, Janvier - Juin 1729. ‘Règlement au sujet du Jardin du Roy, à Compiègne le 28 avril 1729’, p. 261. 115
CHAPTER FOUR poor maintenance. Its chief function shifted from medicine to natural history, and the garden was brought closer to the Academy of Science with the appointment in 1732 of an academician as superintendent, Charles-François du Fay, a chemist responsible for the study of tinctures.110 As evidence, the zeal of Antoine and Bernard de Jussieu at that time was acknowledged by the Academy on the occasion of du Fay’s eulogy in 1739:
[The garden was neglected despite that] excellent professors of botany … Messrs de Jussieu … [had taught] with … all the more zeal that their science, only supported by them, requested it … One thing which contributed greatly [to the superiority of botanical exchanges with other gardens] was the correspondence established with doctors or surgeons who, having been taught in the Garden by Messrs de Jussieu, spread in our colonies.111
The personal role of savants, instigating economically oriented botanical missions, makes the practice of science in France closer to science in other countries where savants were involved in trade companies, as in the Royal Society of London. In particular, the Jussieu brothers were early protagonists of the growth of the Royal Garden as a centre of global botany, which nuances the prominent image of the superintendent Buffon in the eighteenth century.
6.3 Foreign knowledge and European botany: impact on concept and method It was not only curiosity that triggered the establishment of a network for the collection of exotic, even tropical, species in Europe. I argue that because knowledge of plants was acquired by acquaintance and experience, it depended on the exchange of information and tradition, which explains savants’ interest in increasing contact with foreign cultures. In addition, access to a great variety of foreign species and related foreign knowledge resulted in changes in the theory and process of botanical assessment. Around 1730, Antoine de Jussieu presented the Academy of Science with a justification for foreign correspondence in the practice of botany in a manuscript entitled Advantages … of correspondence with foreign botanists.112 Perhaps the new
110 Deleuze Joseph, Histoire et description du Muséum Royal d'histoire naturelle, p. 25. 111 Fontenelle, Bernard (de) (1739), 'Eloge de C. F. de Cisternai Du Fay', Histoire de l' Académie royale des sciences..tirée des registres de cette académie, pp. 76-78. 112 BCMNHN ms 3502: ‘Avantages que nous pouvons tirer d’un commerce littéraire avec les botanistes étrangers’. 116
CHAPTER FOUR regulation of the Royal Garden prompted him to mobilise support from his peers. Jussieu centred his argument on the enhancement of botany since the exchange of seeds, specimens and descriptions of foreign plants should ultimately increase the knowledge of European plants. For him, beyond mere curiosity, garden ornamentation or a new fashion in drinking (i.e. coffee), sounder views should lead a French botanist to justify the king’s support for foreign correspondence. Jussieu asserted that after examination of foreign plants and comparison with European ones, the closest to them could allow the determination of the properties of the latter (on the postulate: same genus, similar properties):
On these relationships one must base conformity of usage of those of same genus with the virtues of foreigners, and with the manner to use them in medicine and in arts, manner that we could even improve.113
By this method, ipecacuanha from ‘America’, scammony from the Levant, and Japanese paper plants had already been found to be related to violet, bindweed and white mulberry or marshmallow respectively, all of which could be used as substitutes. In addition, Jussieu underlined that foreign correspondence was even more useful for learning about cultivation and care conditions, to avoid seeding failures and the loss of foreign strains. He stressed that by such cultivation tests, botanists had been taught, as a result of their correspondence over the past two centuries, to grow many foreign crops and kitchen plants now familiar in fields and gardens, including ‘Turkey or India wheat’ (maize), peas, beans, lettuce, cabbage and chicory species. To demonstrate the interest in foreign exchanges, Jussieu drew upon five accounts sent to him by colonial surgeons from the East Indies following exactly the instructions of the Compagnie des Indes, underlining the need for reliability. Citing first the account on the Ile de Bourbon by Couzier, Jussieu took the example of the healing balm yielded from a ‘tree with yellow flowers’ found in the mountains—with cold temperatures.114 According to Couzier’s description and drawing, and a branch sample, Jussieu stated that the tree could be compared to St John’s wort (millepertuis), and that it could be acclimatised in France. The second account on Bourbon by Macé taught, for instance, that the cultivation of curcuma required dry and light soils. From the third
113 Ibid. fol 96. 114 See Appendix 1, Botanical index. 117
CHAPTER FOUR account by another surgeon, Nicolas L’Empereur in Bengal, Jussieu noted that many wild exotics were kitchen garden plants in Europe, as cultivation had changed their taste.115 From a report on the Malabar Coast, Jussieu stated that he identified a jasmine plant, used locally to cure eye inflammations, which prompted him to suppose the same property in European jasmine. Other European species regarded as non-useful could share similar properties known in plants of the same genus used by people from India. In her study of botany at the Academy of Sciences in the late seventeenth century, Stroup emphasised the perceived limits of the use of analogy, which led to cross-disciplinary studies (mechanics, physics, chemistry), and to the transformation of analogical reasoning into comparative methodology.116 In addition, I argue, with the enlargement of sources of knowledge accompanying European expansion, the method of botanical assessment evolved: comparison was systematically added to observation to enable the recognition of relationships (rapports), ‘affinity’ or analogy between known and unknown plants. This strengthened the eighteenth century concept of the link between property and analogy, i.e. between ‘the interior’ and ‘the exterior’ on the genus level, in order to work out the virtues of unknown plants. As a result, comparison fostered the search for methods of classification that best reflected these genus level affinities, and consequently the distinction of characteristics among species to define a genus. Bernard de Jussieu, responsible for the ‘exterior of plants’ undertook this selection work in a classification meant to be the closest to nature. Unfortunately, he never published his theory or his classification. However, in a letter written in 1736 to his correspondent physician in Cayenne, Jacques François Artur, he outlined his method for the search for selective features. He encouraged Artur to observe all the different parts of a plant and their characteristics, then to highlight in the ‘sentence’ (phrasal name) given to a species its distinctive character rather than comparative terms traditionally used: ‘express … the specific note you will see in a species, which could distinguish it from those you already know.’117 By his method, the specific character became prominent to recognise and to highlight in nomenclature in
115 L’Empereur’s correspondence has been studied by Kapil Raj: Kapil Raj, 'Surgeons, Fakirs, Merchants and Craftspeople: Making L'Empereur's Jardin in Early Modern South Asia', in Londa Schiebinger and Claudia Swan (eds.), (2005), Colonial Botany. Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World (Philadelphia: PENN University of Pennsylvania Press). 116 Stroup, A company of scientists: Botany, Patronage, and community at the 17th century Parisian Royal Academy of sciences. , Chapter 10, p. 145. 117 The letter is quoted in Flourens, Pierre (1857), Recueil des éloges historiques lus dans les séances publiques de l'Académie des sciences, (Paris: Garnier), pp. 86, 87. 118
CHAPTER FOUR response to the increase of plant species, which again demonstrates the underlying problem of reliability. Therefore, the study of ‘the exterior of plants’ became an essential procedure for the study of ‘the interior of plants’, i.e. their properties, based on the principle of analogy. Jean Prat, in expecting success based on Bernard de Jussieu’s research, stated that if plants of the same genus had same properties in most cases, this rule would be of great advantage to easily find substitutes.118 Research on classification methods, together with an Order of Nature per se, fuelled the controversy of the eighteenth century about their finality. As Augustin Pyramus de Candolle wrote in 1816 (certainly referring to Antoine de Jussieu) in his essay on medical properties of plants, while noting that the study of chemistry was still in its infant stages:
It is entirely on the law of analogy between properties and external shapes that interesting works are founded by physicians who tried to substitute indigenous [European] medicines for exotic medicines. Would we well know the emetic properties of our violets, without ipecacuanha; the purgative properties of our bindweeds … without scammony …? … It is that way that Americans will become every day more independent of the old world … If it is a country where the theory of analogy, between shapes and properties, can be eminently useful, it is Northern America, which, situated at the same latitude as Europe, is filled with analogous plants.119
In the same way that Europe attempted to centralise foreign knowledge to free itself from foreign products, foreign colonies in turn attempted to centralise European knowledge to free themselves from European products.
6.4 The world’s resources and European expansion: the globalisation of botany My analysis of the different arguments developed by Antoine de Jussieu casts a new light on the benefit that the gathering of foreign species in Europe could provide to botany, as colonial trade intensified the introduction of utilitarian and decorative plants.
118 MNHN Bibliothèque du Laboratoire de Phanérogamie – Correspondance de Bernard de Jussieu – Prat : fol 48, ‘à la Nouvelle Orléans, le 4 8bre 1741’. 119 Candolle, Augustin P (de) (1816), Essai sur les propriétés médicales des plantes, comparées avec leurs formes extérieures et leur classification naturelle, (Paris: Crochard), p. 8. 119
CHAPTER FOUR
In Nature’s Government, Drayton sets forth the twofold impact of world biodiversity put within Europe’s reach, which changed the physiognomy of countryside and gardens. From the sixteenth century on, botanical and ornamental gardens developed in European countries, ‘theatres for the demonstration of wealth and civility’ in which collections of rare plants conveyed an image of prestige to middle or upper classes and royal courts.120 Additionally, the cultivation of foreign crops spread at home and in colonies, triggered by mercantilist politics of European states. In all that, savants steeped in religious principles or in natural theology played an active role in striving for a better use of nature for the sake of humanity. In France, science was supported by the Absolute Monarchy to serve the economic politics of the kingdom, a model imitated in the British Empire in the late eighteenth century on the impulse of Joseph Banks for whom ‘France had a particular fascination,’ as Gascoigne points out.121 In my research, a close examination of the Royal Garden of Paris through Jussieu’s work illustrates these occurrences by providing evidence of interest in exotic flora. In accordance with the literature, the Royal Garden of Paris, like other major botanical gardens, was meant to demonstrate mastery over nature’s diversity. In addition, in accordance with Jussieu’s assertiveness, its leadership in Europe aimed to symbolise the power of the King in the same manner as the other royal ornamental gardens of Versailles or Marly, a status which Buffon developed from then on with royal support.122 Overall, Jussieu’s work underlines the importance attached to data in reports and accounts accompanying plant specimens, based on European local experience or on indigenous knowledge. This encouraged all botanists to look for skilled foreign correspondents. Skott emphasises that Linnaeus relied on foreign knowledge and requested his students ‘to ask about everything’ when travelling; however, she overestimates Linnaeus’ leadership in arguing that his method of inquiry was uniquely Swedish.123 Indeed, to be of interest in botany, the transfer of foreign plants had to be coupled with the transfer of information collected in situ with respect to description,
120 Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World, p. 32. 121 Gascoigne, Science in the Service of Empire. Joseph Banks, the British State and the Uses of Science in the Age of Revolution, p. 153. 122 Mukerji, Chandra, 'Dominion, Demonstration, and Domination.', in L Schiebinger and C Swan, Ed (eds.), (2005), Colonial Botany. Science, Commerce &Politics in the Early Modern World (Philadelphia: PENN - University of Pennsylvania Press) ; Spary, Utopia’s Garden : French National History from Old Regime to Revolution, pp. 22-23, 36-38. 123 Skott, ''Ask about everything!' Clas Fredrik Hornstedt in Java, 1783-4.', p. 163. 120
CHAPTER FOUR name, cultivation and use, that is to say the ‘history’ of plants. Yet when Jussieu praised foreign correspondence to the Academy, he added that work was still needed for a better use of foreign plants in medicine and the arts, thus promoting European science. Thus, my study lends weight to several works about ‘colonial botany’ in the eighteenth century that demonstrate the enhancement of European natural knowledge with the input of foreign cultures. Most scholars oriented their studies to the incorporation and framing of foreign flora into a European standard knowledge, which eased exchange and communication.124 With such normalisation in classification and nomenclature systems, what Cook calls the ‘objectification’ of nature into a ‘matter of fact’, indigenous knowledge and tradition faded away.125 However, despite classification procedures tending to simplify information within European criteria, other European scientific activities necessarily drew upon details of the history of plants in correspondence, which were therefore taken into account: the plant description, different names, location, cultivation, habitat and uses. As Jussieu stressed, since the sixteenth century botanists had been relying on observations exchanged between botanical gardens about cultivation conditions of new useful plants, and they leaned on foreign knowledge in order to perform their acclimatisation tests. This aspect of botany circulating in the Republic of Letters has been somehow overlooked in the history of science. Indeed, it is known that economic botany related to exotic flora was mostly practised in medicine with the study of materia medica and in horticulture with decorative plants; also, economic botany developed with agronomy from the mid- eighteenth century, notwithstanding earlier major publications on husbandry and gardening.126 But botanical gardens, which included kitchen gardens, vineyards and orchards, had long served the economic functions of nurseries for acclimatisation of useful foreign plants.127
124 Furtado, Junia Ferreira, 'Tropical Empiricism: Making Medical Knowledge in Colonial Brazil', in James and Dew Delbourgo, Nicholas (ed.), (2008), Science and Empire in the Atlantic World (New York: Routledge) ; Regourd, 'Science et colonisation sous l'Ancien Régime. Le cas de la Guyane et des Antilles Françaises, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles', 125 Cook, Harold J, 'Global Economies and Local Knowledge in the East Indies', in Schiebinger Londa and Swan Claudia (ed.), (2005), Colonial Botany. Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World (Philadelphia: PENN - University of Pensylvania Press). 126 Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World , Chapter 3, in particular pp. 66, 71-74 ; Boulaine, Histoire de l'Agronomie en France , pp. 159-163. 127 For instance, see the description of the Royal Garden of Paris in 1636 in Brosse, Guy (de la ) (1636) Description du Jardin Royal des Plantes Médicinales, (Paris: BIU santé), pp. 21-24 ; see also the wheat field in the illustration of Gerard’s Herbal (1596) in Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World, pp. 48-49. 121
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Moreover, if foreign flora were incorporated and framed in European botany, European flora itself was in turn framed with reference to foreign knowledge. The history of non-European plants was employed by savants to study the history of European plants. In that sense, I concur with recent authors such as Kapil Raj, who asserts that botanical science was not the prerogative of European countries, but that they relied on the highly developed knowledge of Asian peoples who were not simply purveyors of natural resources.128 Moreover, I stress that indigenous foreign knowledge built on age-old tradition parallels the tradition of the Ancients to which botanists referred as regards plant virtues. My work provides evidence that science in France was keen to take advantage of the sophisticated East Indies, its valuable commodities and savoir-faire more than it did of America or Africa, as underlined in contemporary documents. As proof, in 1777 members of the Academy of Science reviewed before publication the travel account by the royal astronomer Guillaume Legentil (1760-1771) sent to India for two matters, as they stressed, the transit of Venus and:
…the observations on the country, on its inhabitants who are not known enough and who, owing to their ‘antiquity’, deserve the attention of enlightened Europe.129
My research also complements more recent historical approaches concerning colonial science. Basalla’s theory of a diffusionist Western science and the centre- periphery model, both proving unsatisfactory, have given way to scholarship stressing complex systems of communication and exchange within different spaces and between different cultures all around the world.130 Yet, Kapil Raj and McCabe stress that Jussieu’s view was local, i.e. to find French (European) substitutes; he did not foster the use of exotic remedies overseas, as the expert intermediary of the Compagnie des Indes, by circulating the knowledge collected by his correspondents.131 In fact, Jussieu’s arguments show that the appropriation of foreign flora and related knowledge resulted
128 Kapil Raj, 'Surgeons, Fakirs, Merchants and Craftspeople: Making L'Empereur's Jardin in Early Modern South Asia', p. 268. 129 AS - Procès-verbaux de l’Académie Royale des Sciences: ‘Mercredi 11 Juin 1777’. 130 MacLeod, 'Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise - Introduction', p. 5 ; MacLeod, Roy (1980), 'On Visiting the 'Moving Metropolis': Reflections on the Architecture of Imperial Science', Historical Records of Australian Science, 5/3 ; Basalla, George (1967), 'The spread of Western science', Science, 156, 611-22. 131 Kapil Raj, 'Surgeons, Fakirs, Merchants and Craftspeople: Making L'Empereur's Jardin in Early Modern South Asia', pp. 267-268 ; McCabe, Orientalism in Early Modern France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism and the Ancien Regime , p.123. 122
CHAPTER FOUR in a study wider than exotic nature, leading botanists to observe and evaluate their own environing European flora, including plants without ‘usage’. Therefore, I argue that the collection of foreign plants in European botanical gardens extended botany not only to the knowledge of foreign flora, but also to the knowledge of European flora itself. Botany was universalised. Above all, considering that, as I have argued, botany mixed the study of foreign flora and European flora together, and was used as much in Europe as in the colonies, the definition of ‘colonial botany’ becomes unclear. In the same manner, correspondents such as Prat and Cossigny studied the same research topics—plant characters and wood properties—as in Europe. I suggest that the result of these reciprocal interactions that are now emphasised in the history of science requires reconsidering the expression ‘colonial botany’, in the same way that ‘periphery’ and ‘centre’ have been revised as well as the notion of ‘locality’.132 For instance, would the botanical study of American maize, potato or tomato, have only been part of colonial botany? Therefore, if it is well established that the increase of plant species in Europe fostered the development of botany, my work demonstrates the importance that botanists attached to information gathered together with plant samples by foreign correspondents. Opinions defended by Antoine and Bernard de Jussieu clarify the circumstances where botany broadened out to include the study of the world’s resources. With the use of comparison, the study of foreign flora reinforced the principle of analogy, which grounded the process of botanical identification and classification. Hence, knowledge of exotic flora was integrated into European botany, and therefore legitimised.
Conclusion In the process of mastering the world’s natural resources, the constant drive for reliability when facing issues of distance, which both government and scientific institutions in France experienced, led them to strengthen control on knowledge acquisition. Imprecision and uncertainty were reduced by the circulation of expert information from the metropolis and from overseas via guidelines, methods and letters
132 Chambers, David Wade and Gillespie, Richard (2000), 'Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge', Osiris,15 p. 240. 123
CHAPTER FOUR as well as by resort to experts on site, trade agents, foreign workers and slaves, and above all a botanist. For both the state and science, the delegation of action and the circulation of knowledge (including specimens) represented fundamental priorities. My research provides evidence that the East Indies, rich in drugs and dyes traded for centuries, attracted the keen interest of the Compagnie des Indes as much as the Royal Garden and the Academy of Science, entrusted with the enhancement of medicine and the arts. The value of East Indian goods combined with the challenge posed by distance to reach them encouraged collaboration to acquire and master floral resources and knowledge of the Orient. While the scientific and trade companies conjointly solicited state support and drove the expert inventory of Indian flora to presumably profit commerce, the impetus came from science eager to gain from its floral diversity. In the Mascarenes, the management of natural resources was an intricate issue revealing of the problems of efficiency - limiting distance. Firstly, recurrent food shortages due to natural calamities, but also to excessive ship provisioning, were a weak point in the supply chain and jeopardised colonial trade. This led the Compagnie des Indes to organise a provisioning network within the zone and to secure supplies locally with the introduction of appropriate productive food species, such as manioc. Secondly, the production of the most profitable East Indian commodities led to a rational diversification scheme based on agronomic trials and scientific product testing. The development of innovative cultivation of exotic drug species exemplifies the cumulative process of the acquisition of natural knowledge grounded in communication and exchange, beneficial simultaneously to science and trade. In the case of the Compagnie des Indes and its collaboration with Antoine de Jussieu, utilitarian purposes of botany took precedence. A twofold objective applied in the assessment of medicinal drugs from Bourbon: the value in medicine and in commerce. Moreover, natural knowledge gathered in the Royal Garden via the royal trade company evolved to a broader goal for science than the usual pursuit of medical and agricultural utility: profit and prestige to the Kingdom. Jussieu was eager to acquire both living specimens and knowledge of East Indian plants for his Paris collection, such as expensive gum species or ‘esteemed’ spices benjoin and cubeb. In the Mascaregnes coffee encapsulates the incentive of value, both symbolic and economic, as a motivation for ‘improvement’ (technical or agronomic), as Pastoureau argues in the history of the
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CHAPTER FOUR colour indigo.133 The botanical identification by Jussieu of two species from Arabia and Bourbon provided—in addition to an economic value—a symbolic value to coffee: its authentication bestowed authority and prestige to the savant, the King and the Compagnie des Indes as owners of true species in the Royal Garden and in Bourbon. With the example of coffee production in Bourbon, my research confirms the current view of a cross-cultural legacy in the making of science in the eighteenth century, particularly relevant in botany due to climate constraints. From the metropolitan view, the botanical identification of coffee required information brought from Arabia with descriptions of the plant on site, enabling Jussieu to guarantee the identity of the plant specimen in Paris. From the colonial perspective, the mastery of coffee cultivation was based on the appropriation of the whole patrimonial aggregate of knowledge, technique and materials from the East Indies (which included Arabia). Acclimatisation was calculated and knowledge increased as a result of local experience, gained in situ where plants could grow. Competency in natural knowledge resided as much outside Europe as within, or in the intermediate colonial world. Therefore, botany was a distributed science where both the periphery and the metropolis contributed to knowledge. The worldwide variety of plants available to study, as the result of European expansion, had repercussions on the activity and organisation of the scientific institutions in France in the early eighteenth century. To improve accuracy, Antoine de Jussieu attempted to narrow the distance separating him from foreign flora by obtaining dried and living specimens. Thanks to Jussieu’s impetus, the issue of accessibility to exotic resources, in particular East Indian flora, led to the institutional organisation of plant transfers together with details of their habitat and uses, i.e. their history, into the Royal Garden. Exotic knowledge was imported along with exotic plants. Living plants were collected along with dried samples, correspondence, herbaria, books and travel accounts, as discussed in my previous chapters, all in the interest of enhanced reliability and accessibility. Obstacles due to shipping conditions and sea captains’ neglect, which impinged on the collection and the transfer of living plants, required the creation of a formal transoceanic botanical network under the authority of the King. The role assigned to naval crews and colonial agents and the function of the peripheral botanical garden in
133 Pastoureau, Michel (2006) Bleu. Histoire d'une couleur, ed. Editions Du Seuil (Points Histoire; Paris) pp. 68-69. 125
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Nantes, which came to complement foreign correspondence and botanical expeditions, all demonstrate the multi-partnership system for prospecting and acclimatising exotic nature. These human and structural intermediaries were enrolled to overcome the constraints of distance. In the French Kingdom, the metropolitan institutions appealed to the King’s authority through royal titles to botanists, ordinances and funding to ensure their efficacy in overseas territories. Overall, royal support evidences both the state’s interest in botany and the problem of accessibility to nature, and is again revealing of the maritime context, the dictate of the sea affecting the governance of the world’s resources. The creation of a botanical garden on site, in the colony, will be examined in the next chapter. The enlargement of the collections beyond the traditional medicinal function of the Royal Garden of Paris entailed changes in scientific work. In requiring study of the specimen, the search for accuracy led botanists to practice correspondence and plant exchanges, develop classification concepts by adding comparison, then distinction, to determine a botanical identity. The entire history was necessary for the growth, propagation and study of living plants in the Garden, and potentially for their cultivation in France. In particular, the properties and local uses contributed to the identification of unknown exotic plants, but also of related European ones by means of comparison. Botany became more and more the science of all plant life, not chiefly of medicinal plants. With respect to the teaching function of the Royal Garden, the increasing diversity of species in the collection required a simple and standard method of classification emphasising the distinction of specific characteristics to facilitate identification, and enhance reliability, if not accuracy, in the use of plants for medicine or the arts. This change occurred in concert with the separation of the science of botany from medicine, when the name of the ‘Royal Garden of medicinal plants’ changed to the ‘Royal Garden of plants’, and the direction of the Royal Garden of Paris was separated from medicine, becoming more closely connected to the Academy of Science. Jussieu’s actions in the Royal Garden of Paris demonstrate that science took an active part in the establishment of the French scientific model originally conceived by Colbert. And the state’s involvement with the colonial trade thus remade botany into a general science of plant life. In this process, it can be seen how European expansion created the demand for a universal plant classification system that botanists would soon fill.
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Early practices of economic assessment by savants coupled with agronomic trials based on foreign knowledge were connected to the exploitation of East Indian drugs on the Ile de Bourbon owned by the royal Compagnie des Indes. Furthermore, in justifying the study of exotic flora in botany, and using East Indian examples, Jussieu argued that their value rested as much on the plants as on the knowledge transferred from foreign countries, enabling a better understanding of European flora. Europe admired the sophisticated civilisations of the East Indies, rich in valuable indigenous plants and plant lore. Therefore, France’s trade expansion towards the East Indies had a stronger impact on the internal and external functioning of the French Kingdom —and its interaction with the world and its natural resources, compared to France’s expansion towards the West Indies.
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5
Science and politics: the strategic exploitation of the échelle des Indes (1740-1775)
From the mid-eighteenth century, a period of political instability in Europe as well as in India, France and Britain struggled to extend their power and conquer the colonial markets of the West and East Indies. With rivalry growing in India, the French Kingdom reinforced its strategy in the Indian Ocean based on the Mascarene Islands. French efforts to develop these islands, where independence from foreign provisioning and luxury imports in the course of the East India trade had been the prominent reason for their colonisation, testifies to the handicap of distance and the importance of considering botanical resources in the East Indies. Again all sections of the French government, including its scientific apparatus, were involved. This new strategy aimed for two objectives. The first objective, military, was to secure a French presence in the Indian Peninsula with the Mascarenes used as a fortified outpost and relay station for military and commercial fleets: the islands regarded as an échelle des Indes could ensure France’s autonomy from any foreign replenishment stops such as the Cape of Good Hope. The second objective, economic, was to produce the most valuable commodities in the French colonies, the state now plotting the introduction of Moluccan spice plants protected by the Dutch. The key role of the islands for self-sufficiency led the state to delocalise scientific activity in the periphery for the better development and exploitation of natural resources in situ. Botany became an explicit element of political strategy for colonial expansion by the French. International competition fostered a focus on self-sufficiency in Europe, as the more populous nations, like England and France, sought to reduce dependence on foreign sources of food, timber and luxury commodities such as spices, resulting in 128
CHAPTER FIVE greater attention to the management of natural resources.1 This strengthened two main procedures for controlling nature: the inventory and the rational exploitation of natural resources. Learned societies and savants in several countries participated in the improvement of agriculture, expanding the science of botany to include a new research field, agronomy. (Research on classification systems was also intensified, but this is not treated here). The involvement of botanists in economic matters at that period is represented for historians by Carl Linnaeus in Sweden who was committed to studying nature so as to enrich his nation, for example through import substitution.2 In addition, trade expansion became associated with the exploration of the world for the discovery of new territories and natural riches, for which France mainly competed with Britain, seeking advice from the scientific community to organise the first scientific circumnavigations. In parallel, the Enlightenment movement nourished debates against mercantilism, colonial expansion, luxury and corruption of society, trade monopolies and slavery. In France in particular, the Compagnie des Indes, entangled in onerous commercial and political struggles in India, was subject to criticism among French philosophers and politicians.3 Around 1760 several members of the Enlightenment community developed the economic theory of Physiocracy, privileging agriculture over commerce as the source of wealth and advocating free commerce in grain and tax reforms. They believed in an order of nature that must be respected for the harmonious development of society, pleading a closer connection to natural laws to administer national territory.4 This chapter will explore the political dimension of plant knowledge and resources in European expansion in the mid-eighteenth century. By examining France’s strategy in the East Indies and the circumstances of specific actions sponsored by the state on local and global scales, my research will demonstrate the twofold strategic value, economic and political, of botanical resources. It will bring to light how distance, money, and now space impacted on the management of nature. Firstly, regarding plant resources, I will show how in the war context French authorities paid new and special attention to medicinal plants, timber and food staples, to ensure adequate military
1 Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World, pp. 64- 67. 2 Koerner, Linnaeus : nature and nation. 3 Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française, p. 681 ; Weber, La Compagnie Française des Indes (1604 - 1875), p. 582. 4 Vardi, The Physiocrats and the World of the Enlightenment. 129
CHAPTER FIVE supplies in the Indian Ocean zone. Further, analysis of the decision-making process for the selection of Moluccan spices by the state will reveal the strategic rationale for secret botanical expeditions. Secondly, regarding plant knowledge, I will study the motives which led the metropolitan institutions to relocate aspects of scientific practice and expertise to the periphery in order to increase effectiveness and reliability, demonstrating how the core problem to overcome was distance. In 1752, the state financed the post of a botanist apothecary and the creation of a botanical garden in the Ile de France, and again in 1770, took advantage of the botanist on board in Bougainville’s circumnavigation to increase knowledge of natural resources in the zone. The botanical garden created in the colony became a strategic site where interlinked projects in basic and economic botany were undertaken to enhance self-production. Thirdly, regarding control over nature, I will investigate how, through a quest for local self-sufficiency, agriculture became the keystone of colonial management in the Mascarenes within the war context, leading the government to institute a Physiocratic, instead of a mercantilist, policy in order to achieve a balanced and sustainable exploitation of natural resources in the colony. With the politicisation of colonial trade, the optimisation of control over nature at a distance in France resulted in administrative, structural and professional innovations. All botanical activities became institutionalised. Circumnavigation with a botanist on board, representative of the takeover of the world’s botanical resources by the state, encapsulates the way in which issues of distance, reliability and efficiency were addressed by France in the eighteenth century.
1 The historical context In this period, Europe was rocked by two major conflicts: the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and, above all, the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), a major event involving most European nations, which extended to colonial territories of the Americas and India. In the Indian subcontinent, dynastic struggles following the Moghul Empire’s decline increased tension between the Dutch, English, French and Danish nations who wished to secure their commercial enclaves with Indian princes.5 Rivalry between the British and the French Kingdoms gave rise to the three Carnatic Wars between 1746 and 1763.
5 Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française, pp. 174-208. 130
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The war context entailed a general reinforcement of defences at sea and on land by means of military convoys, fortifications and garrisons protecting colonies, factories and merchant fleets. In both countries, a secret committee involving the ministry of the Navy dealt with naval operations and the safety of ships and factories overseas.6 Great Britain opted for a maritime strategy and acquired supremacy at sea by enhancing the Royal Navy from 1747. In France, Maurepas had implemented the development of the French Navy from 1735, assisted by the Academy of Science. However, the government privileged continental politics, preferring to protect France’s terrestrial borders and restrict naval investments in a climate of fiscal restraint.7 In naval campaigns, the French Royal Navy depended on the administrative and logistical system of the Compagnie des Indes, in which the military administration, l’épée (‘the sword’) was subordinated to the civil one, la plume (‘the quill’).8 During the Seven Years’ War in India, large expeditionary forces under the command of General Thomas Comte de Lally-Tollendal were engaged against the British, together with a naval squadron led by Admiral Anne-Antoine Comte d’Aché. Indecision and opposition among French military and administrative leaders in India, the non-conquering vision for the Compagnie des Indes and naval inferiority resulted in a debacle as regards France being able to maintain its influence.9 At the end of the war, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France lost most of its territories in the West and East Indies, Canada, Louisiana as well as its Indian factories, but kept the Mascarenes and the profitable sugar islands in the Antilles. The 1730s choice of the Mascarenes as the rear base for the French presence in India (discussed in the previous chapter) resulted in an effort to enhance the supply of naval resources. François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, governor between 1735 and 1747, played a key role in the growth of the Mascarenes as the échelle des Indes after his success against the British in India: Madras was taken in 1746 with a squadron which
6 Philips, C. H. (1940), 'The Secret Committee of the East India Company.', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies,10/02, pp. 300, 309. For the French Secret Committee, see BNF, naf 9225 - Comité Secret, fol 1 :’Arrêt du Conseil d’Etat du Roy, qui ordonne l’exécution du règlement général pour l’administration de la Compagnie des Indes du 11 juin 1748.’ 7 Villiers, Patrick and Duteil, Jean-Pierre, (1997), L'Europe, la mer et les colonies XVIIè - XVIIIè siècle (Carré Histoire; Paris: Hachette Supérieur), pp. 73, 78-86, 93-94 ; Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française, pp. 161-165, 206-208. 8 Haudrère, La Compagnie Française des Indes au XVIIIème siècle (1719-1795), pp. 334-338. 9 Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française, pp. 241-267. 131
CHAPTER FIVE departed from the Ile de France with a local fleet and a militia of Bourbon’s colonists.10 The Compagnie des Indes managed the two islands in a complementary way while trade continued during conflicts, with a separate government in Bourbon in 1746 to ease the administration.11 Bourbon, well defended by inaccessible coasts and more developed as a plantation colony, mainly produced grain and coffee. In the Ile de France, the Company established two ports, fortifications and civil buildings. The forests were cleared to produce wood, food crops and export goods.12 The paradisiacal reputation of these islands faded away with frequent cyclones and droughts, land exhaustion due to deforestation and inadequate cultivation techniques as well as the many pests introduced, such as grasshoppers, rats and aphids. Thus strategic reinforcement altered the environment and put self-sufficiency at risk.
2 The political approach to nature in international competition The maritime constraints on which I focus generated intricate problems of refreshment and provisioning in seafaring and, in this period, underscored the importance of self- sufficiency, an aim which the French state struggled to reach in the Indian Ocean. The function of the Mascarenes as a rear post necessitated careful management of natural resources and of plantations to produce food, both for subsistence and for ship provisioning, and cash crops. The Enlightened elite participated with the French state to maximise and optimise control over nature. Wood and spices were at the centre of international competition for which the Seven Years’ War is acknowledged as a turning point regarding the increase of government control in European nations.
2.1 Challenges related to the replenishment issue To support the war effort in India in the 1750s, the French state revised the role of the Ile de France on the Indian route. The increase of military forces in the Indian Ocean complicated the management of supplies, which the Company was meant to provide. Evidence of this can be seen in the Mascarenes which were the scene of dysfunction, belatedness and scarcity affecting military operations in India in the Seven Years’ War.
10 Haudrère, La Bourdonnais: marin et aventurier ; Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française , pp. 152-159, 197-199. 11 Haudrère, La Compagnie Française des Indes au XVIIIème siècle (1719-1795), p. 297. 12 BNF fr 8984, fol 61: ‘Copie d’une lettre du Comité à M. Magon à l’Isle de France du 12 février 1757’. 132
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2.1.1 A colony and a replenishment station: profit and security The development of the Ile de France had many implications on financial costs, trade, land exploitations and population. Concerned by the military expenses, the Compagnie des Indes studied the management of natural resources to increase production on site. Several surveys circulating in official bureaus in the 1750s discussed the challenges and options to make the most of the Ile de France as the ‘boulevard des comptoirs des Indes’.13 The problem was to combine security and efficiency. As regards the question whether to establish a rear post such as Batavia, or a ship stop such as St Helena, opinion was that France’s strategy of conquest necessitated a secured replenishment station to resist the British, compared to the neutral Danish and Swedish trade companies replenishing anywhere.14 The defence role required intensifying the settlement: land clearing, increasing population with colonists also being potential soldiers, and increased numbers of slaves. Excessive expenses incurred by the Company through advances made to colonists to start a habitation, through the supply of wood and by cattle imports from Madagascar—associated with contraband slave trade—drew new attention to these matters. A solution was the exploitation of the forests by the Company or by entrepreneurs before granting a concession to colonists who mostly burned the trees to clear the land. Also, the extension of livestock for naval supplies required the development of meadows on common land or small plantations, as well as fodder stocks.15 A report forwarded in 1752 to the King’s Commissioner for the Compagnie des Indes, Etienne de Silhouette, highlighted another constraint specific to the Ile de France: commerce was to be ancillary; in consequence any cash crop utilised to launch in habitations was not to compete with food crops, nor to expand the slave workforce which would increase local consumption as had happened in ‘America’.16 The Compagnie des Indes was to challenge this restrictive characteristic of management, fostering a sharper exploitation of natural resources as the colony developed.
2.1.2 The maritime components of Indian campaigns
13 ANOM - DFC IV/Mémoires/10/6, pièce 29 : ‘Mémoire pour accompagner le projet de fortifications pour l’Isle de France - 1751’. 14 ANOM - DFC IV/Mémoires/10/6, pièce 38 : ‘Mémoire sur les Isles de France et de Bourbon - Juin 1752’. 15 ANOM COL C/4/7 (2) : ‘Observations sur l’Isle de France, servant en meme temps de réponses à un mémoire sur cette isle - Aout 1752’. 16 ANOM – DFC IV/Mémoires/10/6, pièce 40 : ‘Mémoire sur l’Isle de France – Aoust 1752’. 133
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After La Bourdonnais’ success in Madras, the French and British governments considered the Mascarenes in their campaign plans. The British Secret Committee envisaged assaults on the Ile de France in 1747 and 1760, described (in 1747) as ‘of infinite importance, as it is the enemy’s grand magazin [sic] and nursery…and a secure retreat…’17 Given the size of military squadrons, the length of the voyages, and the navigation schedule limited by the monsoon and hurricane seasons, tactical missions required anticipation and coordination between the civil and the military staff. Correspondence exchanged between French naval staff hint at the problem of distance which the war context exacerbated. Commercial traffic and military expeditions in the Indian Ocean amplified health problems in the Mascarenes, resulting in a new focus on the supply of medicines and fresh meat for the hospitals.18 The large number of sick people disembarked from France or from India affected expenditure significantly. For example, a first squadron of seventeen vessels was sent in 1747 to anticipate a British assault by a fleet commanded by Rear-Admiral Edward Boscawen.19 To justify the increase of expenses in 1748, Governor Pierre David stressed the construction in a healthier area of another hospital to cure up to five hundred scorbutic men, together with extra imports of cattle from Madagascar and tortoises from Rodrigues Island.20 Moreover, most remedies were sent from France, even East Indian ones.21 An important fact is that long transport distances altered the conservation of drugs, as happened with seeds. Deterioration at sea, in particular, had been noticed earlier by Monardes and Orta: for instance cinnamon.22 In 1750, via a general survey on provisioning operations in the Indian Ocean, the Company urged all peripheral staff first check with apothecaries regarding which remedies were spoilt during a voyage by the
17 The quote can be found in a letter from the Committee to Sandwich, Hinchinbrooke Papers, in Richmond, H. W., (1920) The Navy in the War of 1739-48 (The Cambridge Naval and Military Series, Volume III; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 219, footnote 1. 18 Two hospitals for four hundred beds had been established by La Bourdonnais in 1740. ANOM - DFC V/ Mémoires/16/V/8, pièce 52 : ‘Mémoire touchant les Iles de Bourbon et de France pendant la régie de M. Mahé de La Bourdonnais…, Xbre 1740’, pp. 26-29. 19 ANOM COL C/2/33 : ‘22 décembre 1747- addition au premier mémoire sur les opérations que pourra faire dans l’Inde l’escadre du Marq. d’Albert’. Boscawen abandoned the attack of the Ile de France to privilege the Indian campaign. The French squadron commanded by Bouvet,departing from the Ile de France, succeeded in relieving Pondicherry in 1748. 20 ANOM - DFC IV/Mémoires/10/6, pièce 30: Journal du Gouverneur David -1748. 21 Romieux, de la hune au mortier ou l’histoire des Compagnies des Indes, leurs apothicaires, et leurs remèdes, pp. 271-274. 22 Monardes, Nicolás et al. (1619), Histoire des simples médicamens apportés de l'Amerique, desquels on se sert en la medecine, (A Lyon: Aux despens de Iean Pillehotte ...), p. 244 ; Orta, 'Colloquies on the simples & drugs of India ', p. 126. 134
CHAPTER FIVE hot climate at the Equator, so that possible substitutes could be ordered instead, especially since some preparations, such as salts, were onerous.23 The cost and preservation of remedies in the periphery made production on site a necessity with the creation of a botanical garden and a laboratory in 1753, as detailed later. During the Seven Years’ War, provisioning became a key challenge, worth detailing given its consequences for French strategy. In India, General Lally lacked naval assistance from Admiral d’Aché when seizing Madras in 1759 and in defending Pondicherry in 1760.24 In both cases, d’Aché had left India to repair his fleet in the Ile de France and was delayed in his return due to insufficient supplies. This occasioned disputes between the civil and military staff in the periphery. In the Ile de France in 1760, the hospital’s apothecary complained of insufficient remedies produced locally and requested a long list of drugs from France, arguing that his laboratory had to supply all the French posts in Bourbon, Madagascar, Rodrigues, Pondicherry and the squadron as well.25 Another list of drugs from India was added, including aloe and cubeb — meaning that endemic drugs were not at this time used in official pharmacopeia despite earlier assessments. More importantly, in 1759 the Superior Council and d’Aché argued about the limited grain stocks and the risk of famine provoked by the squadron crew of seven thousand men, almost doubling the population in the island. In turn, d’Aché criticised the lack of naval supplies.26 In 1760, conditions became more critical after a cyclone devastated plantations and damaged warships in port while, adding to anxieties, British troops were posted nearby in Rodrigues Island.27 D’Aché had received orders from the King to defend the island. Given precedence of la plume over l’épée, in both instances the Superior Council forced a part of the military fleet to depart in order to
23 ANOM COL F/3/206: ‘Sur le commerce d’Inde en Inde et des Isles de France et de Bourbon – 29 janvier 1750’, fol 201. 24 Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française , p. 253 ; Dull, Jonathan R, (2005), The French Navy and the Seven Years' War (University of Nebraska Press), p. 141. 25 ANOM COL C/4/87 : ‘Etat des drogues simples et médicaments composés pour l’approvisionnement de l’hôpital de l’Isle de France’; ‘Observation du Sr Grévy, Maitre Apothicaire de Paris, en chef à l’Isle de France’. 26 ANOM COL C/4/86: letter by Mr d’Aché and Magon to Mr de Lally, ‘à l’Isle de France le 12 may 1759’. 27 Ibid. Letter by the Superior Council of Pondicherry to the Superior Council of the Ile de France: ‘A Pondichery, le 28 février 1760’, fol 101; ANOM COL C/4/87: ‘Lettre du Conseil de l’Ile de France à celui de Pondichery, mise en chiffres, cottée x’. 135
CHAPTER FIVE ensure survival of the colonies, while the governor afterward sought approval from the metropolitan ministries about the decision.28 Provisioning in foreign countries included hazards and was subject to diplomatic agreements, making self-sufficiency crucial in wartime. In 1759, the Superior Council advised d’Aché to fetch refreshments at the Cape for instance, the voyage itself requiring most of the grain stocks. Eventually fifty per cent of the men left for the Cape.29 However, the Cape government restricted the massive purchase of wheat and flour by the French fleet so they could keep sufficient stocks for the Cape Colony and Batavia.30 After the cyclone in 1760, the Council solicited the Dutch entrepôt at Batavia to obtain food and naval equipment to repair the ships.31 Then in 1762, fearing a British assault, the Council also considered the Portuguese in Goa and the Danish in Bengal to receive supplies in time. Weighing up enemy movements, the seasons and durations of navigation, the Cape remained the best option.32 Distance affected coordination and survival on the British side too. A fleet commanded by Admiral Cornick had left India in mid-1761 for Rodrigues Island to meet an expedition from Britain, and from there to besiege the Ile de France. However, because of changes in the wider scene of the Seven Years’ War, Cornick waited in vain for two months before returning to India.33 According to French correspondence, food shortage and diseases weakened the troops, with more than fifteen hundred of the English force lost in Rodrigues’ campaign.34
28 ANOM COL C/4/12: letter by the Syndic and the Directors to Admiral d’Aché, ‘A Paris le 6 février 1760’, fol 113; Letters exchanged between d’Aché and the Superior Council: ‘Au Port-Louis Isle de France le 30 aout 1760’. 29 ANOM COL C/4/10 : ‘Copie de la lettre du Conseil du 20 Octobre 1758 écrite à M. le Comte d’Aché’ ; ‘Réponse de M. le Comte d’Aché à la lettre du Conseil ci-contre’; ‘Réponse du Conseil de Marine le 24 octobre 1758 à la lettre de l’autre part addressée à M. le Comte d’Aché’. The sick people and the local garrison were sent to Bourbon, see ADR - Compagnie Co 512, 513 : ‘Passage à Bourbon de malades de l’escadre de d’Aché en 1759’. 30 ANOM COL C/4/11: Letter by the Company’s clerk Mondion to the Secret Committee, ‘au Cap de Bonne Espérance le 19 mars 1759’. 31 ANOM COL C/4/12: Deliberation of the Superior Council of the Ile de France regarding an expedition to Batavia by a private trader M. Desblotiere, ‘Du 16 avril 1760’ ; ANOM COL C/4/87 : Deliberation of the Superior Council, ‘Du 27 Juin 1761 (Expédition de 3 vaisseaux pour Batavia)’ ; The Superior Council to the Governor of Batavia, ‘A son Excellence, Monsieur de Monel, Gouverneur général des Etablissements hollandais aux Indes…Isle de France le 4 Juillet 1761’. 32 ANOM COL C/4/14 : Governor Desforges to the Directors of the Compagnie des Indes, ‘A l’Ile de France le 18 janvier 1762’ ; ‘Délibération du Comité du 11 Janvier 1762’; ‘Copie de la lettre écrite par M. le Président Ogier ambassadeur de France au Danemark à M. Desforges, Gouverneur à l’Isle de France, à Copenhague ce …8bre 1761’. 33 Middleton, R. (2002), The Bells of Victory: The Pitt-Newcastle Ministry and Conduct of the Seven Years' War 1757-1762 (Cambridge University Press), pp. 176-177. 34 ANOM COL C/4/14 : ‘Délibération du Comité du 11 janvier 1762’ ; ‘Copie de la lettre de M. de Maudave à M. Desforges – à Negapatam ce 20 avril 1762’. 136
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After the Seven Years’ War, French military officers and colonial administrators debated about the East Indian strategy and the establishment of the military base either in Pondicherry or in the Ile de France, the latter being chosen given its strategic advantages.35 For example, Jean-François de La Pérouse appointed as a royal officer in the Ile de France in the 1770s praised the healthy air where crews were refreshed and healed from scurvy and from tropical diseases caught in India; also due to the remote location of the island, ship movements for provisioning could be kept secret.36 Thus, self-sufficiency in the échelle des Indes turned out to be of utmost importance to secure a French presence in the East Indies against the British nation. As the governor of the Ile de France, Antoine Desforges Boucher (the son of the former governor), stressed in 1762: ‘hunger has always been feared more than the British’.37 This led the state to take back control of the Mascarenes after the Seven Years’ War and to call for further scientific support to maximise the management of natural resources on site.
2.2 Natural resources in global competition: the exploration of the world To a significant extent, wood and spices drove European exploration of the world in the mid-eighteenth century. Wood consumption was a general concern as naval arsenals developed, Russia and Sweden being the main providers of pine in Europe.38 Sailors’ mention of lands in the South Seas, such as New Holland (Australia), revived the hypothesis of a southern continent Terra Australis where wood could possibly be found.39 Besides, the opening of markets in China prompted the exploration of new sea routes in South Asia and in the Pacific Ocean. Spices were part of these investigations, as one would expect in Asian trade. Competition stimulated the enhancement of Great Britain’s and France’s global strategy to search for new territories and riches. Due to their relay position in the Indian Ocean, the Mascarenes became more and more involved in France’s international politics.
35 Wanquet, 'Pondichéry et/ou Port-Louis, or les incertitudes de la stratégie française dans l' Océan Indien à la fin du XVIIIème siècle'. 36 AN MAR B/4/150, fol 73: Report by La Pérouse (undated). La Pérouse was in the Ile de France between 1772 and 1778. 37 ANOM COL C/4/14: Governor Desforges to the Directors of the Compagnie des Indes, ‘A l’Ile de France le 18 janvier 1762’. 38 Villiers and Duteil, L'Europe, la mer et les colonies XVIIè - XVIIIè siècle, pp.74-78. 39 Martin-Allanic, Jean-Etienne (1964), Bougainville navigateur et les découvertes de son temps, 2 vols. (1; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France), pp. 15-17. 137
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France and Great Britain organised several voyages of exploration and prospecting. One difference was that the French state sought advice from science, a move later adopted by its rival on the impulse of Joseph Banks.40 The British, however, were first to undertake circumnavigations by Commodores George Anson (1740-1744) and John Byron (1764-1766).41 In addition, around 1760, the British East India Company official, Alexander Dalrymple, advocated a new itinerary across the unchartered South Asian area, new settlements to produce spices as well as a British entrepôt.42 In the meantime, in France, the Minister of the Navy César de Choiseul, Duc de Praslin, investigated expansion to the Southern and Pacific zones, seeking involvement of the intellectual and scientific community.43 Among these members were Buffon, the Superintendent of the Royal Garden of Paris since 1739, and Guillaume- Chrétien de Malesherbes, the director of the Library (for royal censorship) and a Physiocrat. The aim was to combine the enhancement of science with objectives of discovery and of commerce. Academician Pierre Moreau de Maupertuis, for instance, suggested in 1756 that the finding of islands in the Pacific could enable the discovery of the nutmeg and clove species growing there.44 Furthermore, official reports alerted the French government to the increased British influence in India and to British ships cruising around the Moluccan Archipelago.45 The Enlightenment community embraced the competition. As envisioned in the Encyclopédie de Diderot,
if…Enlightened jealousy [la jalousie éclairée], a vigilant industry, offers to another country the cultivation of these so much envied spices, then [the VOC] will struggle to sustain the enormous costs of its [fleets, troops, fortifications and factories].46
40 Gascoigne, Science in the Service of Empire. Joseph Banks, the British State and the Uses of Science in the Age of Revolution. 41 Frost, Alan, 'Shaking off the Spanish yoke', in Margarette Lincoln (ed.) (2001), Science and Exploration in the Pacific: European Voyages to the Southern Oceans in the Eighteenth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell Press), pp. 21-26. The circumnavigations aimed to dispute Spain’s hegemony in South America and Manila. 42 Fry, Howard T. (2013), Alexander Dalrymple (The Royal Commonwealth Society, Imperial Studies Issue XXIX; Abingdon, New York: Taylor & Francis - Routledge), pp. 16-19, 25, 138. 43 Officialdom consulted accounts by sea captains, and trade agents while spying on Byron’s mission, in Martin-Allanic, Bougainville navigateur et les découvertes de son temps, pp. 29-32, 54, 306-309 ; Ly- Tio-Fane, 'Pierre Poivre et l'expansion française dans l'Indo-Pacifique' ; Taillemite, Etienne (1977), Bougainville et ses compagnons autour du monde 1766-1769 (Voyages et Découvertes; Paris: Imprimerie Nationale), pp. 4-15. 44 Taillemite, Bougainville et ses compagnons autour du monde 1766-1769, p. 7. 45 Martin-Allanic, Bougainville navigateur et les découvertes de son temps, p. 300. 46 Diderot Denis and d'Alembert Jean, 'Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers', - Article: Inde - Indes (Compagnie Hollandaise des), Auteur : Jaucourt. 138
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The first French circumnavigation between 1766 and 1769 examined in this chapter was a political and scientific expedition commanded by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville.47 A team of savants was employed to undertake the exploration of the world, to improve maritime charts and to study natural history, a task assigned to the royal botanist, Philibert Commerson. However, the several objectives of the voyage via a Western sea route limited its success.48 Bougainville failed to explore the Southern lands and the Moluccan Archipelago; the lack of provision, combined with the navigation seasons in South Asia, led him to shorten the voyage. As he noted in his travel account, ‘unfortunately, the cruellest of our enemies was aboard, hunger.’49 The development of the Mascarenes as a keystone of the East Indian trade was both a cause and a result of these global considerations of French expansion. Pierre Poivre, one of the advisors of the French government, played a central role well detailed by Ly-Tio-Fane.50 Poivre was sent in 1748 by the Compagnie des Indes on a trade mission in Cochinchina (Vietnam) coupled with a secret voyage to the Spice Islands. While in the Mascarenes in 1754, he became a correspondent of the Academy of Science.51 In Paris, Poivre was a member of learned societies as a naturalist, orientalist and Physiocrat. He was consulted on the Mascarenes, the Moluccan spices and the first circumnavigation.52 Then in 1767 Poivre was nominated royal administrator of the Mascarenes, and charged with enhancing agriculture and organising another expedition to the Moluccas. Poivre’s work is acknowledged as a more watchful management influenced by his Physiocratic ideals, resulting in forest regulations that Grove interprets as the first environmentalist measures.53 Nonetheless, my research will cast new light on conditions surrounding the management of forests and plantations in the Ile de France. The ultimate reason, political, went beyond the conservation of resources: to secure the French presence in East India trade. Nature was treated as a raison d’état.
47 Martin-Allanic, Bougainville navigateur et les découvertes de son temps. France had to give back the Iles Malouines (Falkland Islands offshore of South America) to Spain. 48 Taillemite, Bougainville et ses compagnons autour du monde 1766-1769, p. 97, 105-106. 49 Bougainville, Louis-Antoine (1982), Voyage autour de monde par la frégate du Roi la Boudeuse et la flute l'Etoile. 1771, ed. Jacques Proust (Folio Gallimard edn.; Paris), p. 303. 50 Ly-Tio-Fane, 'Pierre Poivre et l'expansion française dans l'Indo-Pacifique'. 51 Lacroix, Notice Historique sur les Membres et Correspondants de l'Académie des sciences ayant travaillé dans les colonies françaises des Mascareignes et de Madagascar au XVIIIe siècle et au début du XIXe, pp. 33-53. 52 Martin-Allanic, Bougainville navigateur et les découvertes de son temps, pp. 297- 305, 461 ; Ly-Tio- Fane, 'Pierre Poivre et l'expansion française dans l'Indo-Pacifique', p. 458. 53 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, Chapter 5. 139
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3 The rationalisation of nature in the échelle des Indes From 1748, French efforts to enhance control over nature were defensively oriented. The dual purpose of the Mascarenes, as plantation colonies and also as a rear base, complicated the exploitation of lands. Resources for survival, defence and trade were all important. The state role in managing use of concessions and forests was strengthened with new regulations.54 Further, the government in co-operation with the Royal Garden of Paris transferred scientific activity on site with the creation of a botanical garden and a laboratory to enhance provisioning, an important step pioneered by the Dutch VOC and later copied by the British nation, but often overlooked in the historiography of imperialism.
3.1 The strategic value of natural resources By adding strategic criteria to economic ones, the French state focused on those natural resources necessary to sustain military action in India as well as in the islands. Wood now became as important as spices in the rational management of the échelle des Indes.
3.1.1 Wood In the Ile de France, the war effort generated new industries to produce munitions and building materials for both India and the colony. After iron deposit was discovered around 1750, the Company agreed to construction of a foundry which two entrepreneurs named Rostaing and Hermann started managing in 1752, cutting trees on their habitations to use for the smelting (iron was also a commodity for the Indian market in peace time).55 In addition to the fortification works, a powder mill, a lime kiln and, most importantly, the furnace required wood and charcoal. These industries entailed a huge consumption far beyond purely local needs. Wood was a persistent issue for the entire eighteenth century European economy, so it naturally formed a part of the French Kingdom’s mercantilist policy. Civil and military officers provided reports on wood stock and quality in the colonies. Attention to timber resources was amplified by competition with the British nation. In 1759, the King’s Commissioner, Silhouette, formulated an inquiry into the different
54 Brouard, A history of Woods and Forests in Mauritius, pp. 10-25. 55 ANOM – DFC IV/Mémoires/16/5/8, pièce 75, p. 35. The foundry was established on a plantation named ‘Mon Désir’. Philippe Comte de Rostaing was an engineer and military officer in artillery. 140
CHAPTER FIVE woods in India and the Mascarenes, which the Compagnie des Indes forwarded to its administrations.56 For this, the Company requested samples with names; furthermore, it asked for branches with leaves and seeds preserved in wax, as well as answers to a questionnaire on growth and height, habitat, multiplication and local usage. The Company now included natural history in inventories, certainly encouraged by the botanists of the Royal Garden. It especially sought information on trees for shipbuilding including the famously long-lasting one used in Surat (India), probably teak. After the Seven Years’ War around 1770 in the Mascarenes, Governor François Chevalier Desroches provided, by order of the Ministry of the Navy, a catalogue of wood samples from trees locally exploited, detailing the uses (including the highly esteemed local ‘ebony’).57 Desroches first listed the trees useful for shipbuilding and construction, which he compared to equivalent European trees (oak, elm): tacamaca and bois puant (stinking wood) which supplied long straight pieces, and also benjoin, bois d’olive. In parallel Poivre, newly appointed as Commissioner of the Navy in the island, ordered the botanist Commerson to conduct a survey (examined in detail later). The Company proceeded with the introduction and propagation of timber trees in the islands, which also benefited from transfers by agents. The fuelling of the forges was coupled with the exploitation of new species. In 1756, Governor René Magon reported to the Controller General that the owners had multiplied teak to supply the foundry by planting several thousand trees.58 But Magon advised that replantation had become essential, warning that forest depletion around the port was increased by accidental fires in a large introduced grass called esquine that invaded cleared lands. In addition to teak, Hermann imported two other Indian fast-growing species suitable for charcoal, porcher and agati (probably Agathis), praised by Poivre in 1767.59 A member of the Superior Council, Etienne Lejuge, also contributed to plant acclimatisation. In two lists of trees in 1763, he noted that oak and chestnut trees from the Cape were
56 ANOM COL C/4/11: ‘Mémoire’. Associated with wood for shipbuilding, the Company again requested samples of pepper, cinnamon and all épiceries of the Indies. 57 AN MAR/D/3/10, fol 150-152: ‘Catalogue raisonné des échantillons de différents bois de l’Isle de France remis par le Chevalier Desroches aux ordres du Ministre’. Ebony was exported to Europe and China. However the governor complained that, despite his efforts, timber was wasted during clearing, also because of transportation difficulties. 58 ANOM COL C/4/9 : ‘Lettre de M. Magon à M. le Contrôleur Général – par le dragon volant, 1756, 7 mars’. 59 ANOM COL C/4/18, fol 398-401 : Letter by Poivre to the Duc de Praslin, ‘à l’Isle de France le 30 9bre 1767’. Poivre supported the exploitation of the foundry which was questioned by the government during the royal administration. Agathis is a conifer from the Australasian area. Teak was not exploited later due to vulnerability to cyclones, see Rouillard and Gueho, Les plantes et leur histoire à l’Ile Maurice, p. 414. 141
CHAPTER FIVE multiplied in the garden of the Company and on plantations; having himself planted oaks to exploit on his properties, he requested specimens from France.60 In 1767, Joseph François Charpentier de Cossigny, a royal engineer and a correspondent of the Academy of Science like his father, brought bois noir from Bengal for collection, which he later exploited for charcoal production.61 The harnessing of nature with a defensive aim was of great importance in insular colonies distant from the metropolis, to limit military expeditions and budgets. Specific plants with prickly and fast-growing features were included in military schemes. A main example is paddle cactus or raquette (Opuntia), introduced in the Antilles in 1733. In 1752, the Compagnie des Indes requested one of its directors to import seeds of this cactus, ‘one of the most difficult obstacles to beat’.62 According to Lejuge in 1763, a variety of raquette from Brazil, growing as a weed, was planted before fortifications.63 In 1774 again, several surveys presented to general military officers outlined defensive options to enhance the fortification of the Ile de France. They assessed the pros and cons of this cactus regarded as a natural ‘cheval-de-frise’ hampering attacks but also circulation—similar to today’s use of barbed wire; bamboo and cassis (mimosa bush) were also suggested.64
3.1.2 Spices The acquisition of nutmeg and clove species, strictly protected by the Dutch monopoly, required a state strategy.65 As Pondicherry had warned in 1729, ‘absolute secrecy’ in the
60 ANOM– DFC/IV/ Mémoires/11, pièce 136 : ‘Etat des arbres fruitiers et autres…du Sieur Lejuge conseiller à l’Isle de France’ ; pièce 137 : ‘Etat des arbres fruitiers de France demandés …par le Sieur Lejuge’. 61 BMNHN ms 1995 – Recueil de lettre de F. J. Charpentier de Cossigny à L.G. Lemonnier : ‘Paris le 16 Aoust 1772’ ; BMNHN ms 357- Papiers provenant de L.G. Lemonnier : pièce XXXIII : ‘Propositions faites à M.M. les Administrateurs de l’Isle de France par M.M. de Cossigny et Céré relativement à l’entreprise d’une plantation de bois-noir…’ 62 ANOM – DFC IV/Mémoires/10/6, pièce 39 :’ Mémoire d’observations sur les fortifications à faire à l’Isle de de France – 9 Juin 1752’. About the Antilles, see Lacour, Histoire de la Guadeloupe, pp.240- 242. Cactus was a double-edged sword impeding defence but also local activities. 63 ANOM – DFC IV/ Mémoires/11, pièce 136 :’Etat des arbres fruitiers et autres… du Sr Lejuge, conseiller à l’Isle de France’. 64 ANOM – DFC IV/Mémoires/12/IV/6, pièce 260 ; DFC IV/Mémoires/13/IV/6, pièce 291. 65 The realisation entailed risks of fierce retaliation as happened against the English EIC in the seventeenth century, see Chaudhury, Trade and civilisation in the Indian Ocean. An economic history from the rise of Islam to 1750, pp. 88-89. 142
CHAPTER FIVE effort to retrieve the plants was essential.66 This hazardous but moneymaking operation triggered conspiracy, enmity and controversy among agents in the periphery. The transfer of the spices succeeded after several expeditions in two phases in the 1750s and 1770s, a feat in itself well detailed in the literature.67 Above all, the story is well known with regard to the botanical identifications practised on site in the Ile de France. In the 1750s, the apothecary botanist, Jean-Baptiste Fusée-Aublet, contested the few nutmeg specimens brought by Poivre, who failed in his mission. In the 1770s, the royal botanist Commerson, who was in the island at that time, certified the identity of the (by now) many specimens successfully imported; the Academy of Science in Paris ultimately confirmed this identification. By analysing contentious events, Spary demonstrates the power struggles and patronage rivalries resulting in the controversial reputation of Poivre, ‘philanthropist … economist’ and ‘squanderer of public resources.’ Furthermore, she interprets the scientific procedure of successive assessments as fitting the ‘black box’ system labelled by Latour: making a statement finally indisputable and acknowledged.68 As a complement, my study brings out certain financial, political and natural aspects at stake that were discussed within French ministerial and scientific offices, and which attest to the importance of spices lying at the core of international competition. The choice of the spices was part of France’s international strategy. During the first operation in the 1750s, the Secret Committee and the Controller General of the Finances supervising the Compagnie des Indes treated the operation as a state affair, via encoded correspondence.69 A requisite was not to jeopardise diplomatic alliances with the Dutch Republic; it was essential to preserve access to their ports of call.70 Large sums were necessary to pay intermediaries, local princes and indigenous traders able to sail to the Moluccan Archipelago without raising suspicion. In 1748, in response to
66 ANOM COL C/2/22, fol 311-315 : ‘ projet de girofle et de muscade envoyé à Msg par les Directeurs de la Comp. Juillet 1729 ’ ; fol 316- 320 : ‘ Copie de la délibération de la Compagnie des Indes…pour pouvoir tirer des plants de canellier de l’Isle de Ceylon…’. 67 Ly-Tio-Fane, Mauritius and the spice trade. The odyssey of Pierre Poivre ; Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, pp. 189- 192. 68 Spary, Emma C., 'Of Nutmegs and Botanists', in Londa and Swan Schiebinger, Claudia (ed.), (2005b), Colonial Botany. Science, Commerce &Politics in the Early Modern World (Philadelphia: PENN - University of Pennsylvania Press), p.196 ; Latour, La science en action. Introduction à la sociologie des sciences, pp. 26, 59-64. 69 For example the governor of the Ile de France sought official approbation regarding another import by a private trader in 1753. ANOM COL F/2C/10: letter by Mr de Lozier Bouvet to Mr de Silhouette, ‘Triplicata - Isle de France - 30 avril 1753’. 70 Ly-Tio-Fane, Mauritius and the spice trade. The odyssey of Pierre Poivre, p.13. 143
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Poivre’s first proposal, the Compagnie des Indes committed to paying a high price representative of the importance of the two spices: thirty thousand livres for three or four seedlings of each true species, the same amount at the first harvest, and further rewards according to market development.71 After the Seven Years’ War, the opportunity of spice production in the Mascarenes was again studied in Physiocratic circles based on Poivre’s experience.72 His opinion was to keep production in the Ile de France and to negotiate the biggest market in Asia with the Dutch, on the example of the few small islands supplying the whole world: Amboyna (today’s Ambon Island) for clove and the Banda Islands for nutmeg.73 He asserted that only these two spices could compensate the considerable expenses incurred for the reinforcement of the Mascarenes after the war.74 In 1770, Poivre announced the success of the operation to the Controller General, and affirmed that the plants had been taken from uninhabited islands, out of Dutch control, so ‘the acquisition was more than free’.75 The strategic value of the spices together with the strategic function of the Ile de France justified Poivre’s plan despite doubt from other administrators about the benefits of this expensive mission: more than one million and half livres in total had been spent for their acquisition.76
3.2 The limitation of natural resources The defensive function of the Ile de France amplified the exploitation of natural resources for both civil and military needs. The administration supervised the distribution of food crops on plantations to ensure self-sufficiency. Besides, the massive consumption of wood caused a rapid depletion of forests. Frauds, personal interests of governors in building enterprises and plantations as well as the employment of the Company’s slaves brought la plume into conflict with l’ épée and alarmed the Company.77
71 ANOM COL C/4/5: Letter by the Compagnie des Indes to Poivre, ‘Paris 30 September 1748’. To compare, a governor general was paid thirty thousand livres, a first physician officer three thousand livres, an apothecary two thousand livres in the Ile de France in 1766. 72 Ly-Tio-Fane, 'Pierre Poivre et l'expansion française dans l'Indo-Pacifique'. 73 Martin-Allanic, Bougainville navigateur et les découvertes de son temps, pp. 303-305. 74 ANOM COL C/4/18: letter by Poivre to the Minister of the Navy Duc de Praslin, ‘Port-Louis Isle de France – 30 9bre 1767’. 75 ANOM – DFC IV/Mémoires/12/IV/6, pièce 177: letter by Poivre to the Controller General, Port-Louis Isle de France - 20 juillet 1770. 76 ANOM COL F/2C/10 : ‘Copie de lettre écrite par M. Maillard Dumesle Intendant des Isles de France et de Bourbon à M. Poivre son prédécesseur… 1er Juillet 1775’. 77 ANOM COL C/4/7 (1): ‘Réponses de M. David… au mémoire présenté ...au mois d’Aout 1752, ayant pour titre “Réflexions sur l’Isle de France”’. In particular, the Company criticised Governor David for his 144
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The development of the Ile de France as a port of call required adjusting the exploitation of the lands to provisioning needs. An undated document entitled Table of annual consumption of grain…, probably written in the 1740s before conflicts in India, illustrates the complexity of the issue in the newly established island. Local consumption was calculated, starting with food for the Company’s seamen during their sojourn twice a year backward and forward, along with food needed for the local population.78 The surface necessary for staple crops was then worked out according to the averages of grain harvests, the number of habitations in exploitation, and local consumption. In the calculations, grains were apportioned according to social divisions: wheat for ‘white’ employees, rice and maize for ‘black’ employees and slaves, thereby making production complex. The area possible to allocate to speculative crops such as cotton — and related profits— was thereafter defined. Thus, in addition to distance, space constraints impacted on the management of nature by the Compagnie des Indes in the Ile de France: self-sufficiency came before profit. To supply timber for the shipyard, fortifications and buildings, lumber companies, but also the Company’s slaves under the orders of the civil and military staff, exploited the most accessible forests on the coast and around the two ports. Deforestation alarmed a main actor in wood management, the royal engineer Charpentier de Cossigny, while he was supervising the fortifications in the Mascarenes during 1753. Constant disputes occurred between the engineer and governors, who denounced to the Company reciprocal abuses about the exploitation and use of timber, the choice of fortification options, and the sharing of Company’s slaves for civil and military tasks. Cossigny rendered an account, entitled Statement on operations by Sir de Cossigny in the Ile de France and on his commandment, in which he emphasised his work on efficiency.79 Although probably partly responsible himself, he underlined the loss of natural coastal defences, which had led him to undertake technical improvements to minimise wood consumption demonstrated in his report; for instance, masonry works and the use of shingles and laths on roofs instead of planks (which became from then on the standard roofing technique). Moreover, Cossigny warned of the limited timber
personal wood and lime enterprises and his plantations where he tested cotton and indigo, which diverted him from his duties. 78 ANOM – DFC IV/Mémoires/14/IV/6, pièce 375 : ‘Tableau de la consommation annuelle qui se fait en grains divers à l’Isle de France’. 79 ANOM – DFC IV/Mémoires/10/6, pièce 76 : ‘Exposé des opérations du Sieur de Cossigny à l’Isle de France et de la conduite qu’il y a tenue’, pp. 35, 55. 145
CHAPTER FIVE resources available since the island was necessary to supply India, which also spurred him to send to Pondicherry a method to spare posts of ‘iron wood’ (bois de fer, an endemic rot-resistant species) in palisades. At the Cape, he added, the difference was that the Dutch could fetch wood in neighbouring bays.80 Thus in the case of the Ile de France, it is in the military context that the speed of deforestation rendered damage to the environment readily visible, and that concern for nature’s limitations arose, threatening defence and self-sufficiency. The narrowness of space, together with the provisioning role, are two points which Grove puts forwards to argue that forest regulations first occurred overseas around strategic ports such as the Ile de France, St Helena and the Cape. He states that the Dutch pioneered conservative behaviour at the Cape from the beginning with decrees and regulations, but that deforestation had nevertheless continued.81 Undoubtedly, the legislation at the Cape resulted from vigilant management; however, I argue that selective regulation to make the most of local resources was normal practice in these contexts. To give an example, noticed by Grove as an early regulation about an endemic species, Van Riebeeck ordered in 1658 that the only local species suitable for planks, ‘yellow-wood’, was becoming rarer, and was therefore to be reserved for this exclusive use: what made the species worthy of restricted authorisation— but not conservation— was its utility more than its rarity. Further to what I argued in the first chapter, I would add that the naval purpose of the Cape settlement drove administration of the forests in the same way as it did for the Company’s gardens. Indeed, due to the value of coconut palm trees as naval material, Van Riebeeck was ordered to try cultivation ‘a hundred times’ in the early years, while in the more appropriate climate of Malabar, Van Reede ran a plantation (with areca palms) in what was called the Company’s garden.82 Moreover, one may again see the far-sighted wisdom of seamen in Van Riebeeck’s licences to cut timber in the right way in despoiled forests, licences which were only granted to carpenters and sawyers to save wood for ‘posterity’.83
3.3 The improvement of vital supplies
80 Ibid. pp. 53-54. 81 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, pp. 70-71, 140. 82 Karsten Mia C, The Old Company's Garden at the Cape and its superintendents , p. 59 ; Heniger, Hendrik Adriaan Van Reede Tot Drakenstein 1636-1691 and Hortus Malabaricus, p. 37. 83 Pooley, Simon (2009), 'Jan van Riebeeck as Pioneering Explorer and Conservator of Natural Resources at the Cape of Good Hope (1652-62)', Environment & History,15, p. 20. 146
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All ministerial and scientific authorities became involved in the strategic provisioning goal of the Mascarenes, supervised by the Secret Committee: the Ministry of the Finances in charge of the Compagnie des Indes, the Ministry of the Navy and the Royal Garden of Paris. The government had recourse to expert knowledge by sponsoring a botanist apothecary working on site. The establishment of a botanical garden in Mascarenes illustrates France’s centralised political system, the Colonial Machine as McClellan and Regourd put it.84 The increase of expenses and shortages provoked by trade ships and naval squadrons necessitated new management measures aiming for self-sufficiency. The first measure was the creation of a laboratory to enhance the supply of medicines: in 1752 the Company employed a botanist apothecary, Jean-Baptiste Fusée-Aublet, recommended by the professors of Botany and Chemistry, Bernard de Jussieu and Guillaume Rouelle.85 In addition, in 1754 to increase the herds, the Company advised its administrators to work on the cultivation of grass since the lack of pastures during the dry season had become a serious concern.86 In 1757, the government urged Governor Magon to encourage grain production by guaranteeing the purchase of all harvests, independent of need.87 The minister of the Navy himself (that year François de Moras) insisted in a letter on the prime importance of medicines and livestock, that attention needed to be paid to the administration of the hospital and to the establishment of savannahs, a precedent it was hoped colonists would follow. Moras recommended that Aublet prepare remedies locally and, most of all, work on developing knowledge of ingredients to be obtained from the island and India - tasks and research on which the minister would judge his competency. Grain provisioning, wheat for ship’s crews in particular, was an issue difficult to forecast and organise. The administrations of the two islands continuously struggled to meet grain demand, always plagued by dearth or overproduction. Added to hurricanes, drought and pests, grain conservation in the Company’s storehouses was a concern. Executives reported that due to hot climate and weevils, the stocks hardly lasted for more than one year, resulting in significant waste and jeopardizing provisioning.
84 McClellan and Regourd, The Colonial Machine: French Science and Overseas Expansion in the Old Regime. 85 ANOM COL C/4/86: ‘Extrait du registre des délibérations du Conseil Supérieur de l’Isle de France, le 6 septembre 1758’. 86 ANOM COL F/3/210, fol 177: Letter by the Compagnie des Indes to the Council, ‘du 1er mars 1754’. 87 BNF fr. 8983-84 : ‘Comité secret- Registre pour la correspondance de l’Inde, contenant les ordres particuliers du Ministre et ceux émanés du Comité (1756-1757), fol 61, 75-77. 147
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Thereafter, in 1753, the Company sent twelve exemplars of the book by the Academician Henri Duhamel de Monceau, regarding wheat storage (Traité de la Conservation des grains et en particulier du Froment, published the same year) as well as two copies of an Italian essay, to test the efficacy of instructions in the two islands.88 The Company also repeatedly ordered the cultivation of manioc for local consumption, still neglected by the colonists despite early trials and ordinances under La Bourdonnais’ government.89 Governor Magon rendered an account of the organisation of the colony in 1760.90 A few export crops were tested: indigo, sugar, cotton. In dry districts where maize and cotton succeeded, Magon suggested that, during peaceful times, this cash crop, although it required a labour force, would replace the staple crop that was less in demand. In response to the ministerial directives, the governor had entrusted Aublet with four missions: pharmaceutical tasks in the laboratory and the hospital; oversight of the three Company gardens; the supervision of livestock; and the formation of grassland for pasture. Magon detailed the purpose of the Company’s gardens, typically producing food provisions for the vessels, the hospital and the local administration: one of small size at the port; the garden at the Company’s habitation ‘Pamplemousses’ planted with vegetables and fruit trees; and the biggest of two hundred arpents in a new property of the Company named ‘Réduit’ which provided medicinal plants and vegetables and where all types of plants were gathered, meant to be the nursery for potential crops. In addition, Aublet was supervising a new property for the Company’s herd in a barren district, in which he planted, after many tests, a grass called fatack in Madagascar and now distributed to colonists. Magon stressed that the cultivation of the Company’s gardens rather than purchases from colonists was a money-saving measure for daily consumption, much increased by the hospital and vessels. This was seemingly due to internal conflicts. Cossigny criticised the employment of Company’s slaves by Aublet, the reduction of workforce slowing down the fortification works.91 As well, Aublet who was first established at ‘Pamplemousses’, had to leave when the irrigation of the garden
88 ANOM COL C/4/7: The Directors of the Company to the Superior Council of the Ile de France, ‘6 Février 1753’ ; Duhamel de Monceau, Henri-Louis, (1753) Traité de la Conservation des grains et en particulier du Froment (Paris: Guerin). 89 Rouillard and Gueho, Les plantes et leur histoire à l’Ile Maurice, p. 465. 90 ANOM – DFC IV/Mémoires/11/IV/6, pièce 124 : ‘Isle de France- May 1760- Mr Magon’. 91 ANOM – DFC IV/Mémoires/11/IV/6, pièce 106. 148
CHAPTER FIVE decreased the supply of water for the neighbouring foundry.92 The defensive development of this new colony made all tasks essential and increased demands on human and natural resources.
3.4 The strategic place: the garden of the Company In 1753 Fusée Aublet established a laboratory and a botanical garden at ‘Réduit’.93 This inland property, naturally protected as it was situated between steep gorges, was a military retreat for troops and the population, as the military term ‘reduit’ means—the Company however disapproved of Governor David’s expenditure and the inappropriate mansion (supposedly a refuge) built in 1748.94 Aublet directly reported on his work to the Compagnie des Indes and the King’s Commissioner, Jacques Michau de Montaran, who headed the Secret Committee in association with the Royal Garden of Paris, which supervised the collection and the preparations. From the time of his arrival until his departure in 1762, Aublet complained about fraud in the consumption of medicaments at the hospital and criticism from local agents.95 The garden was used as a nursery and experimental station for the multiplication of useful plants, illustrating the scope of Aublet’s work for medical and agricultural purposes. The Royal Garden received a catalogue entitled A few samples of plants existing in the garden of Réduit dated in 1754, soon after his arrival.96 It detailed the plants brought by him and gathered locally. The list included tropical and temperate vegetables, cereals, fruit and wood trees, and medicinal plants; Aublet noted that rose (to make syrup), tamarind and cassia were to be multiplied. The new plant resource was couch grass of meadows brought from Provence; with it were transported several weeds used in medicine, which he included in the collection, for example dandelion— allies of colonisation as detailed earlier.97 Aublet also conducted experiments on hay. The
92 BCMNHN ms 452, pièce 5/11: ‘Mémoire - no1 Discours préliminaire’. 93 Quenette, Le Réduit 1748-1978. 94 ANOM COL C/4/7 (1): ‘Réponses de M. David… au mémoire présenté ...au mois d’Aout 1752, ayant pour titre “Réflexions sur l’Isle de France”’. Governor David built the ‘Réduit’ to be a governor’s residence and country house during peace. He pleaded that he had intended to replace the ruined house at Pamplemousses and to establish a garden to secure ‘precious plants’—probably the Moluccan spices which Poivre was meant to introduce among others. 95 ANOM COL C/4/9 - Correspondance Aublet- Montaran. ‘Copie de la lettre écrite à la Compagnie le 10 Xbre 1754…à Monsieur de Montaran; ‘Extrait d’une lettre de M. Aublet à la Compagnie du 10 Xbre 1754’. 96 BCMNHN ms 452, pièce 3/11: ‘Quelques échantillons des plantes existantes actuellement au Jardin du Réduit, année 1754, Isle de France’. 97 Aublet noted Dens leonis (dandelion), ‘Hieratium’ (hieracium, hawkweed) for instance. 149
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Governor General of India Charles Godeheu sent to Pondicherry, visited the ‘Réduit’ in 1754 during his stopover, and noted lucerne and clover sowed in beds, praising Aublet’s skills.98 Also, Aublet worked on the multiplication of trees. An excerpt of a report sent to the Compagnie des Indes in 1758 detailed his tests.99 He firstly cited oak, well acclimatised and propagated by seedlings. He listed peach and orange trees, which he multiplied by grafting, hedges of lemon trees and other fruit trees in the garden, guaranteeing marmalade and jam for the hospital. Teak, American elm and Virginia cedar were part of the collection. As well, Aublet grafted five plants of the rare Ceylon cinnamon species, which Godeheu had sent to him. A map of the whole property in 1760 displayed many cultivation plots, several planted with trees, and two gardens with ornamental patterns.100 The botanist later boasted about his work centred on provisioning in the Ile de France in his book Histoire des plantes de la Guyane Française, published in 1775.101 Criticism prompted him to emphasise how dutiful he had been:
firstly a laboratory in order to supply [the Company’s] factories with medicines; secondly, a garden gathering plants possibly useful to the colony, as food crops for men and animals, and to ships as refreshments [necessary in such a long voyage between France and Asia]. I was in charge, as all people able to see, of providing advice to the Company on what was advantageous or contrary to its interests.102
Aublet’s activities, and the advice he was asked for, highlight the delegation of action and experience de visu, as solutions to the problem of distance in this period. It is for the same motives of money-saving and drug preservation that the Dutch VOC fitted out peripheral laboratories in the East Indies in the late seventeenth century, but the initiatives came from local doctors and executives, according to Heniger.103 Cook, too, states that the need for cheaper medicines was the motive for the closer study
98 BNF fr 383 : ‘Journal de bord de Godeheu de France à Goa 1754’, fol 34-36. 99 BCMNHN ms 452, pièce 3/11 : ‘Extrait du mém. du S. Aublet à Mrs les syndics et directeurs de la Comp. des Indes, 26 février 1758’. 100 BNF – Estampes, cartes et Plans – Ge Sh 18eme - portefeuille 220 – Division 5, pièce 3: ‘Ile de France. Plan du Réduit d’envoy du Sieur Aublet remis en 1760’. 101 Fusée Aublet, Jean Baptiste, (1775) Histoire des plantes de la Guyane Française...avec une notice sur les plantes de l'Isle de France (Paris: Pierre Didot). 102 Ibid. Preface, pp. IV-V. 103 Heniger, Hendrik Adriaan Van Reede Tot Drakenstein 1636-1691 and Hortus Malabaricus , pp. 29, 37, 38. Around 1670, the physician Andries Cleyer, responsible for the medical shop in Batavia, was the first to request fresher native drugs from other Indian factories. 150
CHAPTER FIVE of local flora and for plant exchanges between peripheral gardens, preceding the establishment of a network supplying exotics and curiosities increasingly in vogue in the Netherlands; he does not discuss drug preservation problems requiring production on site, an important point to note.104 Controversies also occurred with respect to expenses incurred to the detriment of fortifications and management politics, mainly between Ceylon and Malabar.105 However, apart from the Company’s gardens at the Cape, it is not clear if a botanical garden was funded by the VOC in addition to the laboratories, executives having their own garden. In official correspondence, the local government in Batavia mentioned in 1679 that the laboratory was supplying remedies as well as ‘the forests and the gardens in Batavia itself’.106 One can add that the Cape, a botanical hub, provided the Indian factories with fresher seeds of European vegetables and herbs, and was in exchange sent specimens of Asian medicines.107 Regular imports were necessary in peripheral territories given natural degeneration, as in the case of the Ile de Bourbon. Thus, problems of distance are revealed as the prime cause of the delocalisation of scientific expertise to the periphery. In the French Kingdom, the project submitted in 1727 by the Compagnie des Indes for the nomination of a botanist responsible for a ‘garden of plants’ for medicine and trials took place in a war context. The difference in the 1750s is the orientation of botanical activity to a strategic goal exemplified by the study of grass species for livestock. The ‘Réduit’ was a mixed botanical, experimental and provision garden (more details in another section).
3.5 Forest regulations To support French power in India, the Compagnie des Indes centred the organisation of the échelle des Indes on military criteria. It enacted special regulations on concessions to limit clearing and the reckless exploitation of timber, an earlier effort at forest preservation than noted by previous scholars. The natural resources offered by this remote and limited insular environment were intimately associated with the wars of the middle eighteenth century.
104 Cook, Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age, Chapter eight. 105 Heniger, Hendrik Adriaan Van Reede Tot Drakenstein 1636-1691 and Hortus Malabaricus , pp. 21, 37-38, 43-46, 51-52, 61. 106 Ibid. pp. 37, 53. The physician Cleyer owned a garden containing rare plants (tea, camphor). 107 Karsten Mia C, The Old Company's Garden at the Cape and its superintendents , pp. 27, 73 ; Heniger, Hendrik Adriaan Van Reede Tot Drakenstein 1636-1691 and Hortus Malabaricus, p. 70. 151
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The Company adjusted the development of the Mascarenes to the defensive role recommended by surveys in the 1750s. It was vigilant to preserve the natural defences of the Ile de France, still a new settlement with virgin lands. A colonial regulation was applied in the French colonies in addition to the 1669 Ordonnance des Eaux et Forêts, the cinquante pas géométriques or Pas du Roy, first established in the French Antilles. It protected unalienable strips of land along the coasts forming a natural defence for the islands: a wood reserve, and a free path for troops.108 The Company enacted a regulation in 1754 to adapt the colonial legislation: strict application of the pas géométriques on the coasts, limitation of the size of concessions as well as clearing and exploitation of lands within six years with pasture, grain and export products.109 When authorising an iron mine that year, the Company ordered strict restrictions on the allocation of an extra portion of forest called réserves for the furnace at the same time.110 Nevertheless, the headquarters in Paris received reports about misuse and waste to the detriment of the Company.111 In 1760, the disaster caused by the cyclone on d’Aché’s fleet amplified wood exploitation. Following a new contract in 1761 for charcoal and fire wood (for the foundry and the powder mill), the Directors worried about the application of the Ordonnance, meant to preserve big trees and regeneration; the Superior Council replied that it would not apply as long as the war lasted, emphasising the constant pressure it was receiving from the Navy.112 As a result of serious lack of timber for repair suffered by d’Aché’s squadron, an order from the King was issued in 1762 to the Superior Council, forbidding any wood exploitation or markets other than for the Company.113 The point is that the King’s order associated wood preservation with the extension of food crops on former and future concessions, meaning that the development continued. The Council submitted a less
108 ANOM COL F/3/208 : ‘Règlements concernant les concessions faites et à faire aux Iles de France et de Bourbon’, 1e article. 109 ANOM COL C/4/8: ‘Règlement concernant les concessions …aux Iles de France et de Bourbon… ; fait à Paris le 9 avril 1754’. 110 ANOM COL F/3/210, fol 179-181: Letter by the Compagnie des Indes to the Council, ‘du 9 avril 1754’. 111 ANOM COL C/4/10: ‘Représentation du Procureur Général du Roy sur les plaintes…contre les entrepreneurs des bois…’ In 1758, a court’s judgment in the island stated infringements of the royal and colonial ordinances by entrepreneurs, colonists during clearing, and by private individuals. 112 ANOM COL C/4/13: The Syndic and Directors of the Compagnie des Indes to the Superior Council of the Ile de France, ‘à Paris le 9 janvier 1760’. 113 ANOM COL C/4/14: ‘De par le Roy – Deffenses d’exploitation de bois de touttes espèces - Le Conseil Supérieur, 29 Juillet 1762’ ; ‘Règlement provisoire – Le Conseil Supérieur, 29 juillet 1762’ ; Letter by Governor Desforges Boucher to the Directors of the Company, ‘A l’Ile de France 20 7bre 1762’. 152
CHAPTER FIVE strict regulation which required permission from the administration prior to any felling, a quarter of concessions to be reserved for woodland, and the multiplication of the best timber trees such as bois puant, tacamaca on plantation borders. Drawing from similar examples of the period, Grove argues that the first laws were enacted in the Mascarenes for forest conservation, different from the metropolitan regulations meant to control wood exploitation. He acknowledges that the forest legislation was related to the defence of the island as well as to efforts to limit the loss regarding wood trade. However, he does not consider that the management was also limited by demand for other resources essential to supply in ship stops, a main reason why deforestation continued, weakening his argument about the conservative goal of the laws. This can explain why in St Helena the EIC privileged cattle and goats, the main refreshment items, instead of forests despite warnings about deforestation from the executives.114 In addition, the war context in India was a prominent factor. Deforestation in the Mascarenes continued in order to support the Indian campaigns: in 1763, the Company order for fortification works in the Coromandel Coast included a shipment of bois puant and iron tools from the forges.115 Thus, the characteristic management in the Mascarenes, aiming for self- sufficiency, is exemplified by the mixed botanical and experimental garden and the forest legislations. The King’s intervention in 1762 was solicited to ensure wood stocks—as expected for a conquering nation—but also food stocks, which required more plantations. Nature was serving the whole East Indian scheme of France.
4 The Physiocratic management of the période royale in the Mascarenes After the Seven Years’ War, the government called upon the economic theory of Physiocracy of the French Enlightenment to help improve the dire situation of shortages experienced by d’Aché’s expedition in addition to damage to nature and corruption.116 By a rational control respectful of natural laws, Physicracy was supposed to reduce
114 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, pp. 122, 182-183. 115 Bibliothèque de Rouen, Ms Mt 866-14 : ‘Extrait de la lettre de la Compagnie écrite au Conseil Supérieur de l’Isle de France le 18 Janvier 1763’. 116 ANOM COL C/4/86 : ‘ Idées générales des monopoles…abus…sous le gouvernement de Mr Boucher Desforges - 1759’. The Company received reports about frauds in warehouses and doubtful enrichment of employees. 153
CHAPTER FIVE uncertainty.117 The state entrusted Poivre in 1767 with accomplishing the development of population and production in harmony with nature. In addition, it combined a second spice mission, Bougainville’s circumnavigation and a botanical expedition to the East Indies, in order to maximise the natural resources of the Mascarenes.
4.1 Poivre: the politico-philosophical approach to nature In the course of his missions in the Indian Ocean and Asia for the Compagnie des Indes in the 1750s, Poivre developed the conviction that the state of agriculture reflected the legal system of a country. He became an active contributor to Physiocratic thought, giving prominence to agriculture and grain production in the economic policy of a nation. Enlightened ideologies in Europe aspired to better forms of societal order and economic systems, often based on the example of foreign and primitive people or sophisticated civilisations. Savants privileged the utilitarian study of nature. Spary demonstrated how Buffon fostered the eminence of botany as a key instrument of both economic and moral restoration of the nation.118 Linnaeus, keen to study the economy of nature, held China in great esteem; he was inspired by its agricultural system regarded as being in balance with nature, according to Koerner.119 Poivre also admired China. After visiting several countries in the 1750s, he wrote an essay on agriculture and society in Africa and Asia, which was read at the Academy of Science of Lyon in 1763. His philosophical dissertation impressed the French Physiocrats, and particularly the leader of the movement, François Quesnay.120 Poivre’s essay was published in 1768 under the title Voyage d’un philosophe.121 He observed that agriculture flourished when it was based on freedom and land property instead of slavery and despotism. Most of all, he praised China, where agriculture, the first of arts, was honoured and supported by simple laws, those taught by nature itself and kept since their origin by this wise nation. He admired the complete exploitation of lands without rest or fallow fields, enabling the
117 Vardi, Liana, 'Physiocracy's Scientific Fallacies', Paper presented to the Gimon Conference on French Political Economy (Stanford, 2004), p. 26. 118 Spary, Utopia’s Garden : French National History from Old Regime to Revolution, Chapter three. 119 Koerner, Linnaeus : nature and nation, pp. 100, 116. 120 Maverick, 'Pierre Poivre: Eighteenth Century Explorer of Southeast Asia', pp. 172-173. 121 Poivre, Pierre (2006), 'Voyages d'un philosophe ou observations sur les moeurs et les arts des peuples de l'Afrique, de l'Asie et de l'Amérique - 1768', Pierre Poivre. Mémoires d'un Botaniste et Explorateur (La Découvrance edn. ; La Rochelle), pp. 44, 77. 154
CHAPTER FIVE country to be self-sufficient.122 The Mascarenes confirmed his opinion. Poivre described the twin islands in relating the development of agriculture to the way of life and emphasised the difference between these two: the Ile de Bourbon, more isolated, was inhabited by farmers, had a well-developed agriculture and a simple lifestyle preserved from external influences, whereas the Ile de France centred on trade activity was poorly exploited and subject to dearth.123 The Mascarenes became a striking example for the French Enlightenment, illustrating how society evolved differently depending on whether it was based on agriculture or on commerce, as in Poivre’s essay. The contrast nourished the idealisation of Bourbon, transposed in utopian images in French literature.124 Not acknowledged by scholars, the case of the Mascarenes also pervaded discussion in the government. In 1762 Comte Charles d’Estaing, a naval officer who served Lally’s army in India and the Compagnie des Indes, denounced the greedy ‘Indian’ state of mind in the Ile de France, l’esprit de cupidité indien, in reference to the atmosphere of roguery in the port.125 Indeed, India was well known for its general state of corruption in European trade affairs.126 These opinions concurred with the official statement at the retrocession of the Mascarenes to the Crown in 1764, when the government revised the direction of commerce with the Compagnie des Indes, which was keen to keep the Asian trade.127 While the Directors admitted that the flawed administration had first focussed on India, they noted the difference between the islands, which impacted on defensive strength: the Ile de France was a languishing colony with fewer colonists who were less settled than in Bourbon, a productive colony well populated by colonist farmers more prone to fight for their habitations. The academician astronomer, Abbé Pingré, after a mission to observe the transit of Venus in 1761 in Rodrigues Island,
122 Ibid. pp. 100-106. 123 Ibid. pp. 55-59. 124 Kapor, 'Shifting Edenic Codes: On Two Exotic Visions of the Golden Age in the Late Eighteenth Century' ; Racault, Mémoires du Grand Océan: des relations de voyages aux littératures francophones de l'océan indien , pp. 135-139. Jacques-Henri Bernardin de St Pierre depicted the two islands in his books, Voyage à l’Ile de France, à l’Ile Bourbon, et au Cap de Bonne Espérance (1773), Paul et Virginie (1788). 125 ANOM COL C/4/14: report by Comte d’Estaing, ‘à Paris, 11 mars 1762’. About Comte d’Estaing, see Toussaint, Auguste, Regnard, Noel, and d'Unienville, J (eds.) (1977), Dictionnaire de biographie mauricienne. Dictionary of Mauritian biography (Port-Louis Mauritius: Société de l'histoire de l'Ile Maurice), p.75. 126 Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française, p. 158. 127 ANOM– DFC IV/Mémoires/14/IV/6, pièce 368 : ‘Mémoire sur les Isles de France et de Bourbon’. 155
CHAPTER FIVE echoed these distinctions in his travel account Voyage à Rodrigue [sic].128 He pointed out the parallel defect in local society and in agriculture: most colonists coming to the Ile de France to make their fortune and leave once rich, exploited the plantations according to personal interests in spite of the Company’s orders, leading to constant grain shortages; in Bourbon, fruitful, without luxury, the colonists had settled and lived according to the simple mores of the Ancients. The myth of the Golden Age reappeared.
4.2 The Physiocratic management of the période royale At the retrocession of the islands to the King, the government revised the colonial system in line with Enlightenment theories. On the strength of his experience and his Physiocratic ideas, Poivre was entrusted with the overall improvement of the civil management, including its human and natural components. Physiocracy suited the state’s priorities to ensure the vital production of grain as well as other resources and to develop a more stable farming society. The plan was to reinforce defence with military forces in the Mascarenes, again increasing provisioning needs. In 1768, the King suspended the exclusive monopoly of the Compagnie des Indes as it was unable to provision the islands due to financial difficulties, and authorised private traders in the commerce d’Inde en Inde.129 This was in accordance with Physiocratic thought in favour of free trade. Nonetheless, this also meant that provisioning dependent on free trade was harder to organise in the Mascarenes, as Ly- Tio-Fane has underlined.130 Poivre contributed greatly to the management specific to the Mascarenes. Most historians have emphasised his role as colonial administrator. Grove, for instance, attributed to his Physiocratic principles the enhancement of grain production in balance with spices, which he viewed as reflecting Poivre’s reluctance to develop the Ile de France as a source of profit; as well, the establishment of a more ethical economy
128 Pingré, Alexandre-Gui, 'Voyage à Rodrigue. Le transit de Vénus de 1761. La mission astronomique de l'abbé Pingré dans l'Océan Indien', in Janicon M-P Hoarau S, Racault J-M -( 2004) (ed.), Bibliothèque Universitaire & Francophone (Cahors: Sedes, 1763), pp. 226, 257. Pingré had been in Rodrigues Island at the same time as Cornick’s troops. Pingré’s comparison was inaccurate since many colonists in Bourbon miserably lived on extremely small habitations, see Haudrère, La Compagnie Française des Indes au XVIIIème siècle (1719-1795), p. 925. 129 ANOM COL A//18: ‘Ordonnance qui permet à tous les habitants…de faire le commerce d’Inde en Inde (no 13), 29 novembre 1766’, fol. 55. 130 Ly-Tio-Fane, Madeleine (1968), 'Problèmes d'approvisionnement de l'Ile de France au temps de l'Intendant Poivre', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences of Mauritius, III/I, p. 102. 156
CHAPTER FIVE despite the retention of slavery (condemned by the Physiocrats).131 In fact, Poivre only continued the trend of increasing government control over natural and human resources. Instead of the short term profit priority characteristic of colonial management influenced by mercantilism, in theory Physiocracy enabled agriculture to improve together with society.
4.2.1 The King’s instructions The instructions of the King were given in 1766 to the new royal administrators of the Ile de France, the governor Daniel Dumas and Poivre, named Commissioner of the Navy. These instructions defined the three objectives of the Mascarenes: to serve the commerce of the metropolis, to provide provisioning for Asian trade and to promote France’s military power.132 By and large, the official orders now aimed to make the best of human and natural resources in the light of Physiocratic ideas. Firstly, the government saw the overall poor state of the Ile de France, notably with respect to population, as ‘forever corrupted’ by slavery authorised by the Company. Agriculture was to be restored. The government gave priority to subsistence with the production of grains and manioc, and the cultivation of spices including cinnamon and pepper, instead of sugar, indigo and cotton, less interesting to the Asian market or to the Kingdom, which was well supplied by the Antilles. The administrators were asked to weigh the pros and the cons of the mines and forges, useful to the Navy but placing high demands on concessions, woods, and the workforce, thus impinging on grain cultivation. In particular, Poivre was urged to ensure wood stocks for the Navy; hence, he was ordered to reinforce the forest regulations. He had to assess the whole civil administration, the state requesting a survey of notable colonists on economic, personal and social criteria, to employ their skills usefully. On his arrival in the Ile de France, Poivre addressed the habitants; that is, the owners of habitations, thoroughly basing his arguments on Physiocratic concepts to
131 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, pp. 208-210. 132 ANOM COL A//18 : ‘Mémoire du Roy pour servir d’instructions aux Sieurs Dumas… et Poivre…28 Novembre 1766’. The governor commanded the military administration, and the superintendent the civil administration of the Navy and the finances. 157
CHAPTER FIVE transcribe the King’s orders.133 To motivate their permanent settlement, he stressed that the King had rendered the trade and the lands free. Poivre deplored the corrupted mores, to him the worst results of slavery and its violations of natural law, as the first cause of decline in this island, where one could simultaneously see luxury but also lack of bread. He exhorted the re-establishment of religion, humanitarian behaviour towards the slave population, as well as the simple mores naturally attached to farming tasks. In an opportune way, he made the habitants’ prosperity the core of the Kingdom’s supremacy in Asian trade. He related their wealth to virtue and to their own responsibility to be beneficiary of the King’s beneficence and nature’s blessings.
…would any Frenchman here be a farmer and a soldier: let’s plough this excellent soil; let’s yield from its fruitful womb the riches offered to our work…You are the pillars of this establishment; it is based on feeding agriculture…Your works are …the noblest and most honourable of man’s occupations…You practise…the function of partners of providence, of benefactors of humanity, moreover, of support for the fatherland and protectors of its Asian establishments.134
4.2.2 Poivre’s administration Poivre demonstrated a rational approach to nature by seeking the most effective way to combine the increase of supplies in the échelle des Indes.135 The cultivation of spices and the plantation of useful trees were part of the Physiocratic input of the royal period. In addition, Poivre initiated an inventory of flora in the zone by the botanist Commerson. The second spice operation in the 1770s, promoted by Poivre, was closely related to the defensive role attributed to the Ile de France, a point not always outlined by scholars. As noted before, spice production was to compensate for the costly reinforcement of the rear post. Yet, successive governors casted doubt on Poivre’s plan and harvest forecasts, as the first nutmeg plantlets and seeds introduced in 1770 died or merely vegetated. In organising an additional expedition in 1772, Poivre, who was by this time in charge of agriculture, affirmed that the Moluccan spices were the only
133 ANOM COL C/4/18 : ‘Discours prononcé par M. Poivre aux habitans de l’Isle de France, à son arrivée dans cette isle’ ; the discourse is copied in Pierre Poivre. Mémoires d'un Botaniste et Explorateur, (La Découvrance edn. ; La Rochelle), pp.119-138. 134 Ibid. p.128, 131. 135 Management of supplies in Bourbon during the royal period has been detailed in: Wanquet, Claude (1973),'Bourbon dans les débuts de l'époque royale', Colloque Commerson, pp.14-75. 158
CHAPTER FIVE speculative products able to sustain finances and also compatible with provisioning. He pointed out that very few lands and a limited slave workforce were sufficient to serve the most profitable market, thus allowing the rest of the island to concentrate on producing food crops.136 This key advantage in a small island, compared to cotton or sugar crops for example, was also underlined in reports sent in 1787 to the Academy of Science by Nicolas Céré, the commandant of the Pamplemousses district, who took over the propagation program in 1775 on Poivre’s recommendation.137 Thus, in addition to the defensive function, limited space was another constraint leading the French state to validate the choice of the Moluccan spices in order to optimise the balanced management of natural resources in the Mascarenes. On Poivre’s impulse, the government took advantage of Bougainville’s scientific expedition to increase knowledge of the natural resources available in the zone. During preparation for the circumnavigation in Paris, Poivre had suggested to Commerson a sojourn in the Ile de France to undertake an inventory of flora.138 When the expedition stopped in the island in November 1768, a missive from the ministry of the Navy had been received, requiring Commerson to stay on to study natural history. In 1770, Poivre mediated anew with the government to extend the inventory to Madagascar and the Ile de Bourbon, arguing in a funding request that knowledge of Madagascar’s riches was ‘of utmost utility’ for the Mascarenes.139 Indeed, to complement the procurement of food and wood in the échelle des Indes, in addition to Rodrigues supplying turtles, the government was studying proposals for new settlements in the environing islands, Madagascar and the newly occupied Seychelles.140 In particular, Poivre applied a Physiocratic policy to improve the supply of timber as well as the general state of nature in the island. Grove, who detailed Poivre’s management during the royal period, argued that the forest regulations included the very first environmental protective measures. Indeed, drought, soil impoverishment and erosion alarmed the authorities. Nevertheless, Poivre’s duty in official directives was to
136 Ly-Tio-Fane, 'Pierre Poivre et l'expansion française dans l'Indo-Pacifique', p.461. 137 Académie des sciences – Procès-verbaux : 5 septembre 1787, ‘MM. Fougeroux, Desfontaines, Tessier sur les mémoires de M. Céré, Directeur du Jardin du Roy à l’Isle de France’, fol 365. 138 IF- ms 2441 : Correspondances botaniques – Commerson: fol 17: Letter by Commerson to Le Monnier, ‘1er mai 1772’. Commerson requested Le Monnier’s patronage after Poivre left the Ile de France in 1772. 139 ANOM COL E//89 – Personnel ancien: Commerson, fol 6: undated draft. 140 Several agents presented to the ministry of the Navy proposals for new establishments, for instance a project for Madagascar in 1767 by the military officer Comte de Modave (or Maudave), in Pluchon, Histoire de la colonisation française, pp. 281-286. Regarding the Seychelles, see the report by Brayer du Barré to the ministry of the Navy in AN O/1/597: ‘Mémoire, - à l’Isle de France le 15 9bre 1772’. 159
CHAPTER FIVE secure wood for the Navy. In 1768, when Poivre rendered an account of wood contracts, the state revised the application of the 1762 regulation imposing official permission before clearing: in addition, it requested a prior visit by a naval officer, a builder and a carpenter, to reserve the best trees.141 In like manner in France, special statutes of the Ordonnance Royale gave priority to the Navy.142 A new forest regulation was enacted in 1769, which Grove characterises as innovative.143 Actually, it reinforced previous ordinances establishing wood reserves and replantation with the most valued species such as tacamaca; the innovation consisted in Poivre’s action to approach the availability of wood as part of an effort to improve the overall environment. The regulation promoted stone houses to spare timber, the planting of trees in front of houses, along the rivers to limit drought, and on bare lands to prevent erosion, and it encouraged the choice of other useful species to propagate, such as fruit trees and bamboos. In Bourbon as well, the inhabitants were required to plant mango and tamarind trees providing shade along the roads.144 Thus, the state relied heavily on the Mascarenes ‘as colonies of commerce, colonies of provisioning and colonies of forces,’ to quote Poivre.145 This implied that the same priority was given to all locally and strategically important resources, an intricate issue in these small islands where space was a limiting factor. The Physiocratic management consisted in the optimisation of natural resources.
5 Botany in international competition
In the context of international competition, the scientific elites of Europe extended research in directions that aimed to improve the national wealth. Scholars have acknowledged the development of agronomy and of classification methods in botany under this impetus, which expanded existing studies of the world’s resources. Savants took new interest in substitution and acclimatisation procedures, encouraging the inventory of natural resources both locally and globally. The case of the Mascarenes evidences the close involvement of the scientific community in the project of increasing
141 ANOM COL C/4/22: Report by Poivre on wood contracts in 1767 and 1768. 142 Bamford, Paul Walden (1955), 'French Forest Legislation and Administration, 1660-1789', Agricultural History,29/no 3, p.100. 143 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, p. 220. 144 Delaleu, Jean Baptiste (1826), Code des Isles de France et de Bourbon (2d edn.; Port-Louis - Ile Maurice: Mallac et Cie ) - Code de l’Ile Bourbon, de la police, no 176: ‘Ordonnance’, p. 73. 145 ANOM COL C/4/18: Letter by Poivre to the Duc de Praslin, ‘Port Louis Isle de France, 15 8bre 1767’. 160
CHAPTER FIVE reliability and accuracy of natural resource prospecting worldwide. Moreover, it reveals the increasing strategic and defensive value assigned to nature by the French nation. The expert work of the botanist, Commerson, attests to a new partnership with nature, treated as an ally for the optimisation of local resources in the islands.
5.1 Mastery of the world’s diversity: the example of spices In France, the government sought assistance from the Enlightenment elite for different aspects of transfer and production of spices; among them was Bougainville’s expedition presented earlier. Knowledge of plant habitat was essential for prospecting and acclimatisation, on which the government relied to mobilise huge funds necessary for such expeditions.
5.1.1 Commercial strategy: acclimatisation and substitution The introduction of nutmeg and clove was based on the premise that the Mascarenes were suitable for spice cultivation—on the postulate that similar climates produced similar plants. Poivre emphasised that point, adding that spicy species had acclimatised without losing their aroma, in a final report on his first (unsuccessful) mission in the 1750s.146 However, acclimatisation was a concern since different latitudes could entail degeneration. In 1758, Malesherbes stressed this point when investigating with Poivre possible developments in East India trade. Poivre suggested the ‘Three Brothers’ Island’ (in the Seychelles) at the same latitude confirming, however, that the Mascarenes had the same climate and soil as Madagascar, which yielded species with aromatic saps.147 After the Seven Years’ War, when the first plants were successfully introduced in 1770, given their importance, the ministry ordered the propagation of spices in other French colonies, firstly in Cayenne (Guiana) at the same latitude — contrary to Poivre’s opinion.148 After a second import in 1772 and multiplication, plants were carried to the Seychelles, Bourbon and Cayenne to increase the chances of production.149
146 BCMNHN ms 575: ‘Relation abrégée des voyages faits par le Sr [ ] pour le service de la Compagnie des Indes depuis 1748 jusqu’à 1757 ‘, fol 8. 147 BCMNHN ms 1765: ‘Relations des Indes Orientales’, Fol 227 : ‘Extrait de quelques conversation avec M. Poivre’, pp. 476-477. 148 Ly-Tio-Fane, Mauritius and the spice trade. The odyssey of Pierre Poivre, pp. 12-16, 137. 149 ANOM – DFC IV/Mémoires/12/IV/6, pièce 198: Letter by Poivre to the Controller General, ‘31 8bre 1771’ ; AS – Dossier Poivre : Minutes by the Governor General Chevalier Desroches and the Superintendent Poivre, 23 Juillet 1772. Poivre first transferred a few seedlings to a new plantation in the Seychelles prepared for acclimatisation. The year before Poivre had sent an agent to the Seychelles to prepare a plantation. 161
CHAPTER FIVE
In trade, the alternative strategy to acclimatisation was substitution. To balance his misfortune before his return to France in 1756, Poivre stopped in Madagascar to prospect for ravensara and rhaà species;150 these were described by Flacourt as ‘clove tree’ and ‘nutmeg tree’.151 He declared to the Company that the ‘clove tree’ was a different genus with a similar aroma to clove, and the other one was a wild nutmeg tree, as confirmed by ‘Messrs de Jussieu’ from samples. To convince the Company to persevere, he added that this discovery in a nearby island might bring hope for success in their colonies. Indeed, the Company forwarded samples to the Royal Garden of Paris to evaluate Poivre’s achievements.152 These included different types of fruits such as nutmeg, clove and ravensara at different maturity stages, according to a final statement by Poivre.153 Poivre also provided a report transmitted to the Royal Garden, entitled Descriptions of a few plants in Madagascar by Poivre, in which he detailed his observations of ‘raven-tsara’.154 While in the country, he examined this spicy tree and attempted to prepare the fruit in a way that was the closest to commercial clove: he applied the Moluccan technique to obtain clove berries at the embryonic stage with the best flavour. The result was a much superior aroma, equivalent to the finest ‘épiceries’, offering hope of a new commodity for the French market. A new piece of evidence for the involvement of Antoine de Jussieu in the 1750s is the assessment of a clove substitute. A draft titled Report for the new species of clove which could replace the one that we buy from the Dutch, is certainly the assessment of Poivre’s samples.155 What makes Jussieu’s draft singular is the lack of information about the names of the species and of the French island, due to the high confidentiality of the spice mission. Firstly, Jussieu discussed the British who dodged the Dutch monopoly by trading an aromatic fruit under the name ‘Jamaica pepper.’ Similarly, the new species, resembling clove in its ‘figure, odour and taste’, had considerable trade
150 BCMNHN ms 575: ‘Relation abrégée des voyages faits par le Sr [ ] pour le service de la Compagnie des Indes …’, fol 74. 151 Flacourt, Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar - 1661, pp. 207-208. Flacourt identified Rhaà as ‘dragon tree’ with a fruit similar to nutmeg in colour and odour. 152 BNF naf 9377 : ‘Rapport de la mission du Sieur Le Poivre à la Cochinchine…et sa demande à la Compagnie de la solde de son compte’, fol 59. Samples of commercial nutmeg fruits were sent in 1752 to Buffon and Jussieu by the Controller General. 153 AN AJ/15/511 – Archives du Musém d’Histoire Naturelle – Voyages et missions: ‘Nottes sur le contenu du pacquet marqué A servans d’eclaircissemens à quelques articles de la mission du Sr Lepoivre pour le service de la Compagnie des Indes’, fol 456. 154 BCMNHN ms 1269 : ‘Description de quelques plantes de Madagascar par Poivre’, fol 20. 155 BCMNHN ms 1140 : ‘Mémoire pour la nouvelle espèce de clou de gerofle qui peut suppléer à celle que nous achetons des Hollandais.’ 162
CHAPTER FIVE potential. Jussieu underscored the importance of the harvesting time for its commercial value since, like clove, it was flavourless when ripe. He also suggested, based on the example of this clove substitute, ‘in our [unspecified] island’ that true clove would acclimatise if planted there. Thus analogy and comparison were the methods used to identify potential substitutes, as with Bourbon’s drugs, and also to guide the acclimatisation of true species. Commercial success could depend on the preparation and the choice of the trade name, as with ‘Jamaica pepper’. Therefore, the history, not only the plant characteristics, was important to record for further botanical identification (as we shall see further, below).
5.1.2 Bougainville’s circumnavigation The importance allocated to the Moluccan spices in the French strategy led the state to multiply occasions for the acquisition of true species or similar spicy ones. The search for spices was part of Bougainville’s voyage in parallel to the second mission prepared by Poivre from the Ile de France in 1768. Bougainville’s expedition was partly an outcome of botanical assessments by the Royal Garden. In the royal instructions, the expedition’s search for spices between the two tropics is expressly ordered and regarded as equally important as the search for precious metals:
It is in these climates that rich metals and spices are found. Mister de Bougainville will examine the soils, the trees and the main products; he will bring back samples and drawings of all that he will judge deserving attention.156
The scientific community, including Buffon, was closely involved in planning this botanical inventory. Again, Buffon’s opinion in his major publication Histoire Naturelle helps our understanding of the imagined link between climates and species embedded in France’s compilation of the world’s inventory. There Buffon explained that vegetables, being fixed in the earth, were more subject to climate than animals: it was ‘from excessive climates that one could get drugs, perfumes, poisons and all plants with excessive qualities’, contrary to a temperate climate providing temperate products.157
156 Taillemite, Bougainville et ses compagnons autour du monde 1766-1769, p. 22. 157 Buffon, Georges-Louis (de) (1837), Oeuvres complètes de Buffon - Mammifères, ed. Geoffroy Saint- Hilaire Etienne (Tome 3; Paris: Pillot), p. 131. 163
CHAPTER FIVE
The naturalist physician, Philibert Commerson, was entrusted with the study of natural history during Bougainville’s circumnavigation. Working on classification systems, he was acquainted with Louis-Guillaume Le Monnier or Lemonnier (heading the chair of botany since 1758 after Antoine de Jussieu’s death) and Bernard de Jussieu.158 On the request of the minister, Commerson submitted a project before the expedition entitled Summary of observations of natural history by Mister de Commerson.159 Praising his skills, he emphasised the use of a method:
It is only to the ‘methodist botanist’ that the secret is reserved to identify by the analogies or affinities of plants those which can be substituted to one another... An experienced glimpse is enough to state in an unknown country: here this is an edible fruit…here a deadly poison to avoid.160
Therefore, a classification method was necessary for the study of unknown floras based on the principle of analogy as championed by the Jussieu brothers. To give an example, according to an inventory of plants in the Mascarenes in 1772 sent to Le Monnier, Commerson used different authors and different naming procedures, creating a provisional synthesis on site: botanical names (from Tournefort, Rumphius and mainly Linnaeus) for known species, new descriptive phrasal names, binomials or simple names for new plants.161 Commerson unfortunately died in the Ile de France in 1773.
In the British nation, lacking plantation colonies in the East Indies, the Society of Arts issued a Gold Medal in 1759 for a method ‘to preserve the seeds of spice trees’ from the East Indies.162 This medal bespeaks the obstacles distance and seafaring presented to colonial management: the difficulty was greater to ship plant seeds, and more so living plants, on long distances from the East than the West Indies. Nevertheless, in the Philosophical Transactions in 1758, an essay discussed if the cinnamon traded by the British EIC were a species different from the Dutch cinnamon in Ceylon. Taylor White of the Royal Society in his article, A Discourse of the
158 Lalande, Jérome (de), 'Eloge de M. Commerson par M de Lalande de l'Académie Royale des Sciences', (1775), Journal de physique, de chimie, d'histoire naturelle et des arts (5; Paris Fuchs), p. 95. 159 Taillemite, Bougainville et ses compagnons autour du monde 1766-1769, Vol 2, Annexes : ‘Sommaire d’observations d’histoire naturelle par le s. de Commerson’, pp. 514-522. 160 Ibid. p. 519. 161 BCMNHN ms 277, Dossier IV: ‘Nottes sur la nature et la propriété de quelques végétaux de L’Isle de France…en fevr et mars 1772’. 162 Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World, p. 64. 164
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Cinnamon, Cassia or Canella, suggested that the species in Ceylon grew elsewhere, since ‘the same plants are generally found in the same latitude and soil’.163 He highlighted that the differences could come from the environment or cultivation, and advised that the EIC tried experiments in Sumatra to equal the Ceylon cinnamon. As well, the name could affect the commercial value. He noted that both were originally called cassia; the Dutch added the name cinnamon from the Ancients, which proved to be more profitable, while the British chose canella to their disadvantage. In Sweden, deprived of colonies in the Torrid Zone, substitution and acclimatisation became major research topics for Linnaeus. A scientific institution, the Uppsala Science Society, commissioned his first travel in Lapland in 1732 to prospect for natural resources of economic value, and Linnaeus thereafter theorised on ‘the new science…to use Naturalia, Economics’.164 Historians such as Lisbet Koerner have stressed the economic aims of Linnaeus’ science, but to what extent his science had to fit the international market rules has not been examined. In nomenclature, as Linnaeus put it, the generic name was ‘the coin’ of the ‘market of botany’ with a constant and acknowledged value among botanists.165 Yet, the usual name remained ‘the coin’ on the market of consumer goods. To give an example, in 1740 he presented a native antiscorbutic plant Linnaea borealis as a substitute for tea under the appellation ‘Lapp tea’ to popularise its use, leading to confusion.166 Famously, the botanist also tried acclimatisation of tropical plants in his motherland in order to produce exotic goods. Climate, a major factor of plant distribution according to Linnaeus too, greatly restricted his work in Sweden. In the 1740s he elaborated on the progressive taming of Indian species, such as spices to the Nordic climate over time, before abandoning these attempts. Koerner states that Linnaeus never explained this acclimatisation concept nor empirically tested it outside his garden, although he projected an acclimatisation garden in South Sweden.167 Seemingly, he did not envisage degeneration or assess the economic value after cultivation, when growing rhubarb for instance, as done by Antoine de Jussieu for Bourbon’s drugs from the garden of the Compagnie des Indes. I
163 White, Taylor and Combes, Thomas (1757), 'A Discourse on the Cinnamon, Cassia, or Canella. By Taylor White, Esquire, F. R. S', Philosophical Transactions,50, p. 870. 164 Koerner, Linnaeus : nature and nation, p. 101. 165 Müller-Wille, Staffan (2003a), 'Nature as a Marketplace: The Political Economy of Linnaean Botany', History of Political Economy,35, p. 158. 166 Koerner, Linnaeus : nature and nation, pp. 138-139. 167 Ibid. pp. 120-123, 127. In Linnaeus’ view, the world’s biogeography was framed within five wide climatic zones. After latitude and tropical plants, he envisaged altitude and the acclimatisation of Alpine plants. 165
CHAPTER FIVE suggest that, less intimately involved in international trade, Linnaeus often failed owing to a lack of practical criteria in his reasoning and a lack of infrastructure for his experiments. In sum, efforts to establish novel sources of spices illustrate the strategic value of prospecting practised worldwide, integrated into schemes of international competition. The mastery of the world’s resources drove recourse to science about identification, and also about acclimatisation and cultivation. Indeed, the goal was the commercial product. Further, we must also remember that the name of a plant could be a strategic tool to add trade value, which botanists had to take into account when studying plants in the course of European expansion.
5.2 The strategic study of the world’s resources
The expert study of natural resources by the botanists, Aublet and Commerson, combined what we might now distinguish as basic botany and economic botany, practising inventories, experiments and surveys in situ. The specific study of pasture, medicinal plants and wood species characterises the defensive value of nature in the management of the échelle des Indes. Botany was an instrument of the French East Indian strategy.
5.2.1 Fodder The development of pastureland, a new focus in the management of the Compagnie des Indes, was organised in collaboration with the Royal Garden of Paris. Aublet worked on this agricultural project under the supervision of Bernard de Jussieu, drawing on wider botanical knowledge and resources of the French botanical network. Aublet implemented comparative testing, on both a small and large scale, of the botanical collection gathered in the garden ‘Réduit’. Many drafts, catalogues, essays and polemical reports provide details on his work in the island from 1753 to 1762. Among these, he wrote a long report as a defence when back in France, including a section entitled Meadows, pasture for herds.168 Aublet explained that before his departure he gathered seeds of pasture species likely to grow in hot climates (like Provence’s couch grass noted earlier). He introduced lucerne, which he first tested, knowing that it was acclimatised in Senegal. This information could have come from Michel Adanson, then
168 BCMNHN ms 452, pièce 5/11: ‘Mémoire - no 4, Prairies, pâturages à troupeaux ’. 166
CHAPTER FIVE the Company’s agent and Jussieu’s correspondent in post in Senegal. Aublet underlined that Jussieu had advised close observation of the grasses growing locally. He thus tested at ‘Réduit’ the invasive annual grass confusingly called esquine or squine, and the big grass named fatack in Madagascar, from a few tuffs found in a colonist’s plantation.169 In a large-scale trial, on an infertile stretch of the Company’s dry land he multiplied this fatack, an evergreen species, which proved to be better than others to produce fodder, and was also able to choke esquine off, producing a persistent pasture for the Company’s herd within three years. In Sweden, Linnaeus supervised another type of research, consisting in a correlative study on fodder plants and farm animals, the results listed in a table.170 In this case, though, the scientific methodology was different: instead of a broad sample of different grass species to test, Linnaeus relied on instinct by listing those preferably eaten by animals in natural meadows, though without agronomic tests. This tactic reflects his belief in the economy of nature framing his science economics; that is to say, how to co-operate with and benefit from nature’s self-regulated bounty.171 According to Linnaeus’ belief in natural theology or ‘physicotheology’, God had created the economy of nature for reciprocal and proportioned uses among natural things and dependent upon Nemesis divina (divine retaliation being understood as balance or compensation, according to Lepenies).172
5.2.2 Medicinal plants Self-production of medicinal drugs was the paramount motive for the delocalisation of scientific activity in the échelle des Indes. Botanical works were undertaken to ensure quality, quantity and also diversity in the supply of medicinal plants. As mentioned before, Aublet established a botanical garden at ‘Réduit’ with local plants and many imported species, and there he undertook the propagation of botanical material, in particular citrus species.173 In a catalogue dated 1759, he added
169 Aublet identified esquine : Gramen arguens according to Rouillard and Gueho, Les plantes et leur histoire à l’Ile Maurice, p. 618 ; he identified fatack in BCMNHN ms 452, pièce 3/11: ‘Plantes cultivées au Réduit en 1759’, number 19. 170 Koerner, Linnaeus : nature and nation, pp. 48-49. 171 Ibid. pp. 82-83. 172 Lepenies, Wolf (1982), 'Linnaeus's Nemesis divina and the Concept of Divine Retaliation', Isis,73/1, pp. 15, 17, 19, 21. 173 BCMNHN ms 452, pièce 3/11: ‘précis de plantes’, undated draft (after 1760). Aublet described the gathering of a worldwide collection from ‘Europe, St Jago, America, Brazil, Senegal, the Cape, Madagascar, the Indies and China’, in relation to the shipping routes. 167
CHAPTER FIVE observations on local uses, habitat and properties but, more particularly, he also provided a statement on acclimatisation, mainly about medicinal plants. He noted those which were multiplied (mint), invasive, indestructible (dill), as well as those now growing in plenty and therefore no longer necessary to be sent; he also projected testing the cultivation of several Brassica species (cabbage) to yield seeds in the island. The aim was therefore to produce all plant strains and supply medicines on site for pharmaceutical self-sufficiency, in line with official orders. The local supply of drugs, a major concern worsened by huge consumption and shortages during the Seven Years’ War, was addressed after the peace. The study of the flora of the Ile de France, which Poivre proposed to Commerson during the preparation for Bougainville’s expedition in 1766, was in fact financed for medical purposes. The Inspector of Medicine of the Navy and of the Colonies Pierre Poissonnier, who introduced Commerson to the Duc de Praslin, reminded the minister in 1770:
Monseigneur gave permission to Sir Commerson…to stop for a while in the Ile de France to identify all medicinal plants produced in the island, to facilitate their use in the hospitals, and hence to replace most of those which one was compelled to import from France, and which always suffered more or less enormous damage at sea. This task essential to the good and to the economy of the service being perfectly accomplished, Poissonnier suggests the minister to call back Sir Commerson...174
Commerson identified several medicinal species growing wild and participated in pharmaceutical tests in the Ile de France. To perform his inventory he sought assistance from the most experienced inhabitants who provided him with numbered plant samples. These included the correspondent of the Academy Lanux in Bourbon, and Joseph Charpentier de Cossigny (or Cossigny Palma) in the Ile de France, who also corresponded with Le Monnier.175 In his letters to Cossigny, Commerson insisted on obtaining flowers and fruits or seeds to work out the genus and species of the samples and kept his correspondent informed about his identifications; for instance, an unknown species of ‘melilot’ (sweet clover), which he judged better than the medicinal species and recommended as preferable for use: ‘the fragrance of its flowers, even its fruits and
174 ANOM COL E//89- Personnel ancien: Commerson, fol 8: Letter by Poissonnier to the Minister of the Navy. See Martin-Allanic, Bougainville navigateur et les découvertes de son temps, pp. 460-461. 175 Lacroix, Notice Historique sur les Membres et Correspondants de l'Académie des sciences ayant travaillé dans les colonies françaises des Mascareignes et de Madagascar au XVIIIe siècle et au début du XIXe, p. 77. The Academy of Science nominated Cossigny as Le Monnier’s correspondent in 1774. 168
CHAPTER FIVE seeds promise so.’176 More particularly, Commerson examined three plants sent by Cossigny as components of a local remedy, the same plants being received from another correspondent — testimony for Commerson of its effectiveness. In addition, the botanist intended to undertake experiments on the remedy with the hospital pharmacist, saying: ‘in order to witness and to be able to testify de visu’.177 He likewise asked for gums and resins, being more practical to make experiments on site.178 In 1772, Commerson emphasised his achievement for the supply of medicinal plants on site when asking for a post in the island to the new minister of the Navy Pierre de Boyne: as Commerson pointed out, he succeeded in identifying genuine medicinal drugs now naturalised and therefore easily available in the Mascarenes:
…I had the pleasure…to let the colonists in Bourbon know that…they had at their feet galangal, acorus, squine, gomma elemi, pareira brava etc, drugs which are sent from Europe, always at least outdated, after having been originally exported from India, China and Brazil.179
Again, through Commerson’s work, one can apprehend the paramount concern for reliability of cures in medicine, requiring expert appraisal and production in situ.
In Sweden, medicinal plants were likewise at the centre of the botanical inventories practised by Linnaeus throughout his life. A state agency entrusted the savant with the inventory of medicinal plants in the Baltic region in 1741.180 Money was also the motive, to enable taxes on local productions instead of duty free imported drugs. However, Koerner notes that for Linnaeus, the science of ‘economics’ did not include any idea of efficiency in managing nature. In that sense, Linnaeus lacked a theory of economic wealth. He differed from adepts of Physiocracy in France, who conceived that economic value originated from nature through agricultural revenues, and also linked their theory to tax and commerce reforms.181 Furthermore, compared to Commerson’s work in the
176 IF ms 2441 - Correspondances botaniques – Commerson: Commerson to Cossigny (undated, 1770?), fol. 12. 177 Ibid. : ‘19 avril 1770’, fol 33. The three plants were ‘alleluia’, ‘sainfoin ou Hedisarum’, and an unknown moss. 178 Ibid. :‘26 7bre 1770’, fol 43. 179 Ibid. : Commerson to the minister of the Navy, ‘du Port-Louis, Isle de France, 17 8bre 1772’, fol 15. 180 Koerner, Linnaeus : nature and nation, pp. 101,104. 181 Riskin, 'The "Spirit of System" and the Fortunes of Physiocracy', pp. 45-47, 50. 169
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Mascarenes, Linnaeus seemingly never dealt with the concern of scarcity and the defense risks it entailed, an acute problem in isolated territories, such as the Mascarenes that stimulated self-production of the widest and most complete range of medicinal plants. In the British nation, the same effort at systematisation appeared in learned societies founded around the mid-century and involving agricultural improvements. In 1760 the Society of Arts suggested the creation of gardens for experiments on imported plants.182 Nevertheless, a ‘new kind of patriotism’, as Drayton emphasised, was in vogue after the Seven Years’ War, and led to the creation in 1765 of the first ‘scientific garden’ in St Vincent by a governor, Robert Melville, and the War Office; thereafter governors ran agronomic tests in this garden.183 Drayton underlines that the British drew on the French scientific example in this regard. However, he does not elaborate on the motivations or on a strategic aspect. In fact the prime aim of the garden was medical. Governor Melville feared epidemics in the zone and might have supported the garden as a member of the Society of Arts.184 According to Howard, Melville created a botanical garden with the surgeon George Young becoming the superintendent on a military terrain, to provide medicaments for the troops and also useful plants to dispatch in other colonies, but without official funding at the start.185 As Gascoigne underlines, St Vincent was a military post controlled by the War Office, which would later benefit from Banks’ influence to develop the colonial botanical garden.186 Thus, my research demonstrates that self-sufficiency in medicines fostered the delocalisation of scientific activity overseas, a strategic move in a context of rivalry which in the future helped generate networks of colonial botanical gardens.
182 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, pp. 268-269. 183 Drayton, Nature's Government. Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World, pp. 64- 65. 184 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, p. 269. 185 Howard, Richard A (Fall 1997), 'The St Vincent Botanic Garden—The Early Years', Arnoldia,57/4, pp. 12, 15. Young received plant strains of the East Indies from the War Office and the EIC. 186 Gascoigne, Science in the Service of Empire. Joseph Banks, the British State and the Uses of Science in the Age of Revolution, p.131. 170
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5.2.3 Wood As seen in the previous chapter, similar scientific studies on timber were practised in France and in the Mascarenes. The Academy of Science assigned to Buffon the improvement of forests ordered by the minister Maurepas. Buffon studied the physical properties of wood on his own estate, and his findings were published by the Academy from 1740.187 The royal engineer Cossigny Senior also continued experiments on tropical timbers while in the Mascarenes. Differently from previous reports and scientific experiments, Poivre entrusted Commerson with an extensive survey on trees, a collective work undertaken with skilled inhabitants, according to official orders. The particularity of Poivre’s management of wood is that it was conducted from a Physiocratic perspective. In 1770 he assigned to Commerson an overall survey on all types of trees in the Mascarenes, not only in order to work out the best features regarding properties and uses, but also to research plant life and the environment. Several series of questions in the scientific archives were seemingly drawn up by Poivre and the engineer, Cossigny Palma. They were transmitted to Commerson and a few inhabitants, working in collaboration with the engineer.188 Commerson actively exchanged correspondence with him, expressing the need, in 1770, to draw on Cossigny’s experience as an ‘essential’ complement, so as to fulfil ‘his obligation to report on wood quality’.189 More specifically, one questionnaire was filled in by Commerson himself with information compiled in the Ile de Bourbon, which Cossigny complemented in a letter by adding commentary about other plant resources and usages.190 This questionnaire broadened the investigation about common trees such as mango and tamarind trees, innovatively, about environmental characteristics. Other questions were about growth speed, shade coverage, permanent and seasonal foliage as well as suitability for plantation to become road lanes. A question concerned which species was resistant to xylophage insects named cariats, another one asking if ants were their enemies,
187 McClellan and Regourd, The Colonial Machine: French Science and Overseas Expansion in the Old Regime, p. 358 ; Roger, Jacques, (1989) Buffon. Un philosophe au Jardin du Roi (Paris: Fayard), p. 43. 188 BCMNHN ms 277, Dossier VI: ‘Observations sur la qualité des bois des Isles de France et de Bourbon communiqués par Mr de Cossigny et le nommé Bichet ancien charpentier’. The same questionnaire answered by Cossigny was also sent to the colonist Panon, yet remained unanswered: 'Questions à M. Panon’, fol. 7-11. 189 IF ms 2441: Letter by Commerson to Cossigny, ‘22 7bre1770’, fol 41. 190 Académie des Sciences : Dossier Cossigny. In the letter attached to the questionnaire, Cossigny mentioned the recovery of his correspondent and his forthcoming departure on the ship l’Ambulante, related to Commerson and his trip to Madagascar. 171
CHAPTER FIVE reflecting the idea of a self-regulated equilibrium in nature advocated by the Physiocrats. Furthermore, Commerson received another questionnaire specifically addressed to a former carpenter named Bichet.191 The list embraced a wide range of wood properties as well as practical and daily uses, from cabinet making and mill building, to woodwork tools. The peculiar point is that the first questions referred to naval and military issues, the inquiry aiming at determining the best species:
1st Which are …the most proper for a shipyard? 2nd …for cannon carriage? 3rd … the lightest? 4th … for charcoal? 5th Are there woods which have the property not to splinter under a bullet? ... 14th …the best for cannon powder?192
In all answers, Bichet referred to endemic timbers; for instance, regarding the shipyard: takamaca [sic] for mast and yard, bois puant for hull planking, puant or natte for capstan. Poivre’s survey, delegated to Commerson, was related to the concept of the economy of nature promoted by the Enlightenment. Commerson himself expressed this theory when, studying the natural history of Madagascar, he intended ‘to address the administration or the economy of nature in this part of the world’ and described several plants in the forests as water resources against the natives’ thirst ‘in this hot climate’.193 Moreover, the breadth of the inquiries shows how the work of the botanist went beyond botany to encompass issues tightly connected to the defensive aim of the Mascarenes. In particular, in the carpenter’s questionnaire, the economy of nature was studied to serve the French military force.
In Sweden, the Admiralty entrusted Linnaeus with the study of wood for shipyards. One research topic was to prevent the deterioration by a xylophage worm, cited by Hoquet.194 Linnaeus researched natural solutions offered to him such as a tar coating. Hoquet discussed Linnaeus’ methodology in comparison with Buffon’s: he
191 BCMNHN ms 277, Dossier VI: ‘Questions à Bichet’. 192 Ibid. : fol.12. 193 BCMNHN ms 887: ‘Voyage de Madagascar en 1770 contenant les nottes et les observations d’histoire naturelle faittes dans le sud de cette isle…’ Commerson noted plants filled with water or a drinkable sap, giving examples such as ravenal emblematic of Madagascar’s flora. 194 Hoquet, Thierry (2007), Buffon / Linné Eternels rivaux de la biologie? (Quai des sciences; Paris: Dunod), pp. 169-173. 172
CHAPTER FIVE argued that when Buffon made experiments to improve natural features such as wood hardness, Linnaeus took a different approach by cooperating with nature. One must also consider the relation to religion. From the mid-century, several of the savants and philosophers of the French Enlightenment tended to separate nature from God: Buffon conceived of nature operating according to God’s laws but independently of Him, laws which he attempted to use without theorising on final causes.195 An example in Les époques de la nature published in 1778 could illustrate this: in the seventh epoch ‘when man’s power assisted nature’s one’, Buffon highlighted that grafting was a discovery from which man created ‘secondary species’ whose properties were only retained through this technique.196 By contrast, Linnaeus’ natural theology nourished his scientific thought, bestowing a religious design on science to understand God’s scheme in nature as a duty towards humankind. It might be stated that in his acclimatisation tests of exotics, he was not forcing nature but, in his view, reproducing the natural spread of plants over millennia from the unique place of the Creation. Yet, military criteria such as wood resistance to bullets shots could be an issue of conscience, so would Linnaeus have supported as much an effort of war as the economy of his nation? In fact, Koerner underlines the ambivalent opinion of the savant who believed that his work on the economy of nature was meant to reveal God’s greatness, but who also believed that wars were part of nature’s equilibrium against overpopulation, another application of the concept of Nemesis divina.197 Thus, botany was practised according to both qualitative and quantitative criteria to respond to the concern of self-sufficiency developing with international competition. Nevertheless, a difference is that in Sweden Linnaeus never had to consider his theory of economics from any defensive viewpoint, necessitating the maximisation of self-production in order to prevent scarcity and ensure complete autonomy.
5.3 The colonial royal garden
195 Roger, Les sciences de la vie dans la pensée française du XVIIIeme siècle, pp. 468, 582, 584, 751. 196 Buffon, Georges-Louis (de) (1836), Oeuvres complètes de Buffon avec les suppléments, augmentées de la classification de G. Cuvier…(Tome 2; Paris: P. Dumesnil), p. 181. 197 Koerner, Linnaeus : nature and nation, pp. 84, 88, 93 ; Lepenies, 'Linnaeus's Nemesis divina and the Concept of Divine Retaliation', pp. 16-17, 19. 173
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Poivre contributed to the Asiatic flora enriching natural resources in the Mascarenes.198 To perform the acclimatisation procedure of the spices, he created a botanical garden which would become a colonial annexe of the Royal Garden of Paris in the Indian Ocean. In addition to the second operation in the Moluccas and Bougainville’s expedition for the acquisition of spices, Poivre participated in 1766 in the preparation of a mission to China organised expressly to collect plants for the Mascarenes.199 This mission, sponsored by the ministry of the Navy, was assigned to the naturalist of the King, Abbé René Galloys. Poivre drew up a long list of useful plants (and animals), beginning with different species of tea and citrus, tea plants still being a curiosity in Europe, rice and so on, as well as decorative plants for the royal gardens of Trianon in Versailles. On his arrival in the Ile de France, Poivre bought the Company’s garden in Pamplemousses district in order to shelter the Asian plants expected from Galloys and, more importantly, the spices. He argued that this was the only way to succeed in cultivation, according to his experience on his land and at his expense (taking revenge on his failure and dispute with Aublet in the 1750s).200 Poivre continued the botanical collection with species found locally, Chinese plants sent by Galloys, and by organising other introductions via ships coming from Africa, India and China. The royal garden of ‘Pamplemousses’ bought by the King after Poivre’s departure in 1772, differed from the garden of ‘Réduit’. It was chiefly an acclimatisation garden for useful plants achieving the spice mission and the naturalisation of nutmeg and clove. Acclimatisation, however, could jeopardise the project’s ultimate goal. Ly-Tio-Fane studied the collaborative work carried out by Céré, appointed director of the royal garden and by colonists in Bourbon.201 They were exchanging observations transmitted to the government and scientific institutions in France. As happened for Mocha coffee in Bourbon described in a previous chapter, agronomic experiments were implemented on site due to climate constraints, and were
198 During his first mission to Cochinchina in the 1750s, Poivre introduced into the Mascarenes many plants from the Cape of Good Hope and South Asia, see BCMNHN ms 575: ‘Relation abrégée des voyages faits par le Sr [ ] pour le service de la Compagnie des Indes depuis 1748 jusqu’à 1757’. 199 ANOM COL C/4/18 : ‘Instructions pour Mr l’Abbé Galloys…relativement au voyage qu’il va faire…’ ; ‘le Réduit - Isle de France le 30 9bre 1767’. 200 ANOM COL C/4/22: Letter by Poivre to Duc de Praslin, ‘Isle de France le 20 février 1768’. On Poivre’s request, the government again authorised the royal administrators to own plantations. Poivre demonstrated an unfair opinion towards Aublet’s collection, removing plants from ‘Réduit’ to complement his garden at Pamplemousses. 201 Ly-Tio-Fane, Mauritius and the spice trade**. The triumph of Jean Nicolas Céré and his Bourbon collaborators. 174
CHAPTER FIVE delegated to reliable intermediaries in different locations to increase the chances of acclimatisation. Céré made observations on living plants growing for the first time outside the Moluccas: he discovered that nutmeg was a dioecious species, meaning it consisted of distinctive male and female plants, a discovery announced to the Academy of Science and to the ministry of the Navy in 1777.202 Very few plantlets were female ones, making propagation even more difficult. This characteristic might have been hidden by the Dutch VOC, which had permitted the publication late in 1741 of Herbarium Amboinense by Georg Rumphius, after censorship of sensitive content regarding the spice trade.203 The herbarium did have strategic value, and was used by Commerson in his worldwide inventory. The war context was the reason for the creation of a botanical garden in the Mascarenes, but it has not been taken into account in literature. Historians emphasise botanical enrichment and its role as an experimental station. McClellan and Regourd stress the roles played by Poivre and Céré in the growth of the royal garden as the Asian hub with plants received from all parts of the world, the Mascarenes becoming centres for economic botany.204 Grove relates the origin to two traditions, either the acclimatisation garden of the Cape or the academically oriented Royal Garden, and concludes that there was a chronological coincidence between the development of the colonies for trade, with the development of botany and the rise of ordering theories.205 Actually, my research clarifies the strategic motives leading the government to sponsor a botanical garden in a colony of the East Indies under the supervision of the Royal Garden of Paris. It demonstrates that the activities of the colonial botanical garden were then directly related to the replenishment function of the Mascarenes, even regarding spice production, and were considered essential to optimise the availability of all supplies. Therefore, the government sponsored the collection of the world’s natural resources in the colonial botanical garden, necessary to achieve self-production crucial in the échelle des Indes. Botany evolved from the study of medicinal plants to the study
202 Ly-Tio-Fane, Mauritius and the spice trade. The odyssey of Pierre Poivre, Document 20: ‘Etat de la situation des arbres à épiceries fines…demandé à M. Céré…conformément aux ordres du ministre – au Jardin du Roi, Isle de France, le 4 Novembre 1783’, pp. 100-112. 203 Huigen, Siegfried, De Jong, J. L., and Kolfin, E. (2010) The Dutch Trading Companies As Knowledge Networks (Leiden - Boston: Brill), p. 151. 204 McClellan and Regourd, The Colonial Machine: French Science and Overseas Expansion in the Old Regime, pp. 328-333. 205 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860, pp. 176, 178. 175
CHAPTER FIVE of useful plants, which included plant growth, acclimatisation, multiplication and production; that is, agronomy practised in situ and supervised by the scientific institutions.
5.4 Universal botany, classification and nomenclature Given that botany and plant collections broadened and went beyond medical spheres, savants worked on classification theories and nomenclature techniques in order to ease identification of plant species and ease the use of related knowledge. In the eighteenth century, classification was based on analogy.206 Different choices of characteristics for comparison led to a variety of methods of classification, Linnaeus’s sexual system progressively becoming favoured. Foucault underlined that savants privileged visible features, that is sight, to avoid the uncertainty of other senses such as taste, so as to transcribe through neutral words a transparent order among natural items.207 However, the odour and taste, although subjective, defined the properties of species, and were thereby key criteria taken into account in medicine and trade. In the assessment of a spicy species by Jussieu, ravensara was close enough to cloves to be a substitute for trade, although without the same floral features in Linnaean classification. Buffon, who favoured utilitarian parameters, criticised Linnaeus and his arbitrary sexual system for plant classification, diminishing other characteristics and the plant description.208 Nevertheless, Linnaeus was also eager to gather ‘everything’ about natural items from foreign cultures, as seen before.209 Therefore, in reference to Foucault’s emphasis on classification, savants worked on a simpler and neutral system of ‘words’ to represent the ‘things’, but they retained interest in the entire body of knowledge, the ‘history,’ as essential to identify and know how to use the ‘thing’: the vernacular name, the description, the tradition, the cultivation and preparation techniques. Botany remained part of natural history, or the history of nature, and this science did not undergo so great a narrowing in the period as Foucault represents. Along with classification methods, savants revised nomenclature. Koerner states that it is when studying natural fodder in 1749, as discussed earlier, that Linnaeus used true alphabetical binomials together with numbers. She explains it as a fast and practical
206 Larson, 'Linnæus and the Natural Method', pp. 305, 317. 207 Foucault, Les mots et les choses, pp. 143-144, 146. 208 Hoquet, Buffon / Linné Eternels rivaux de la biologie?, p. 73. 209 Skott, ''Ask about everything!' Clas Fredrik Hornstedt in Java, 1783-4'. 176
CHAPTER FIVE technique used on site by his students, which Linnaeus gradually developed into a ‘useful technology’.210 In my opinion, the binomial system, still in use nowadays, achieved the desired simplification process in plant names in the course of the century and thereby helped address the core problem of reliability of knowledge. Linnaeus interacted with a lay public outside the medical sphere in his economically oriented work. I suggest by achieving a codification of knowledge, a simple system with a single distinctive name characterising each species, he provided great service to that wider public. Linnaeus culminated the longstanding efforts of botanists to make the identification of plants easier and more reliable with simpler nomenclature. He might have been inspired by Bernard de Jussieu, who advised working on distinction, instead of comparison, of features between species (to his correspondent Artur, detailed earlier). In correspondence, Linnaeus expressed his respect for Jussieu’s expertise.211 In 1738 he praised the pre-eminence of the Jussieu brothers making his travel to Paris ‘inevitable’, and in 1740 acknowledged Bernard de Jussieu as his mentor to whom he owed ‘more than anybody else’. In the meantime, Jussieu, who was working on a natural method close to the order of nature (but never wanted to publish an imperfect method), recommended Linnaeus’ artificial method to his scholars from 1740. Above all, the methodology which Commerson practised during his voyage evidences reliability as the chief concern in botanical practice, underlying the search for an order in nature. A note among his papers illustrates the definition of knowledge or connaissance according to Latour, ‘the cycle of accumulation and of capitalisation’ in centres of calculation.212 The savant explained his project to distribute copies of his herbaria or ‘repertories’ in European academies to ease the work of botanists.213 With that aim, he multiplied the samples of the same plant collected under the same number. For each species, he attempted to define a fixed and determined name, a single name easier to memorise either at the genus or the species level. Thanks to these invariant names and numbers for each plant as unique references, his copies would facilitate further botanical studies and modifications. They could form the basis for a general work, which would be a ‘key’, a means to communicate without fear of
210 Koerner, Linnaeus : nature and nation, p. 55. 211 Carl v Linné The Linnaean Correspondence, Carl Linnaeus to Bernard de Jussieu: 28 March 1738, letter LO244; 10 May 1740, letter LO379 ; Letter by Bernard de Jussieu to Carl Linnaeus: 20 July 1740, LO389; 30 January 1749, L1007. Jussieu tested from 1759 the natural method in the botanical garden of Trianon in Versailles. 212 Latour, La science en action. Introduction à la sociologie des sciences, p. 527. 213 BCMNHN ms 277, pièce I/ 3: ‘P.Sc.’, undated draft. 177
CHAPTER FIVE misunderstanding or quiproquo. Thereby Commerson’s reasoning provides an explanation for ‘the necessity…to establish natural history as a language’ asserted by Foucault.214 As I have argued in a previous chapter, the circulation of knowledge was an incentive for the search for a system of order in natural history, fostering the search for an order in nature. Thus, along with European expansion, the management of the world’s diversity promoted the study of a reliable referencing system of information. The universalisation of botany required the standardisation of classification and nomenclature to access the knowledge, or the history, of plant species gathered from multiple sources around the world.
Conclusion
Events in the Mascarenes are representative of the way problems of distance and the maritime context, always of prime importance commercially, became newly entangled in political and military schemes of European expansion in the mid-eighteenth century. As much as the Dutch establishment at the Cape of Good Hope is recognized as a milestone in colonial history, these islands, in particular the Ile de France, reveal important factors that drove France’s strategy in the East Indies as well as on a world scale. The great challenge was the coordination of provisioning from a distance for naval and military campaigns, making self-sufficiency in the periphery a requisite. The choice to develop these small islands as the rear base in the Indian Ocean made local natural resources vital for survival, defence and efficiency in order to sustain the war effort, and reveal the way time, space and money constrained colonial management in the period. The scientific circumnavigation for the botanical inventory of the world, in search especially for wood and spices, as well as the colonial acclimatisation garden, becoming a relay for East Indian plants for the Royal Garden in Paris, were to some extent an outcome of France’s struggle to safeguard the Mascarenes as the boulevard des Indes. Botany became an element of war strategy.
214 Foucault, Les mots et les choses, p. 152. 178
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More than ever before, conflict increased pressure on the environment in these isolated islands by amplifying the self-sufficiency issue. The particularity was that it went beyond local needs to include military logistics in India. From the mid-century, control over nature focused on the supply of food, livestock, medicines and wood provisions. The need to plan ahead for their availability in the Ile de France imposed greater attention to local production. At the same time the military development of the islands made the advantages and the limits of the environment tangible. To combine self-sufficiency and efficiency, the French government implemented a more selective administration. It assigned a priority order in the exploitation of natural resources with land and forest regulations, instructions favouring food crops and pastureland before cash crops, and cash crop spices before cotton or indigo. Besides, it professionalised the improvement of local production by the appointment of a botanist responsible for the acclimatisation and cultivation of useful plants. Yet, military expeditions and natural disasters complicated the management of supplies which distance worsened, resulting in the unpredictability and inadequacy of provisioning. By maximising self-production, the defensive policy of the échelle des Indes entailed antagonistic effects: greater awareness of natural assets to manage sustainably, but also greater reliance and demands upon these assets. In taking back the administration of the Mascarenes at the retrocession to the King, the government emphasised the defence function of self-sufficiency. Agriculture came to be the key for France’s strategy in the East Indies. Poivre instigated particular actions, which the government financed, for they served France’s defensive scheme: the spice mission and the botanical inventory of the zone ending Bougainville’s expedition. The Physiocratic administration fitted the need to perform a balanced exploitation ensuring the supply of all resources for provisioning, defence and profit and, most importantly, grain production. The optimisation of management in this limited environment was based on the concept of the economy of nature and working out any advantages this offered, underpinning the extensive survey on tree species ordered to Commerson. Thus, the reinforcement of land and forest regulations aimed at the adequacy of nature’s production, in addition to nature’s protection - two objectives combined, for instance, in the organisation of replantation with useful trees. Reliability in provisioning was crucial.
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This period of intense competition in the Indian Ocean had repercussions on the science of botany in France. Self-sufficiency overseas was the motive for institutional innovations planned in Paris and related to the Mascarenes. In comparison, in Britain and Sweden savants working on self-sufficiency, but being less involved in affairs of state, did not benefit from such official organisations. It is in a context of war in the 1750s that the French government established a mixed botanical and experimental garden with a laboratory run by a botanist apothecary and supervised by the Secret Committee and the Royal Garden of Paris. This consisted in the systematisation of agronomy in a colony, already anticipated for coffee production in Bourbon. Besides, the government organised the inventory of the world’s resources by relying on scientific knowledge in the preparation and realisation of circumnavigation. Two factors specific to the management of the Mascarenes, little space and much remoteness, entailed greater reliance on scientific knowledge and the Enlightenment to optimise autonomy, for which Physiocracy was the ultimate strategy of la jalousie éclairée. With intensified international competition and circulation of plant resources, the utilitarian purpose of botany broadened to include the whole study of plant life: identification, acclimatisation, multiplication and cultivation. Agronomy became a part of botany, helping separate it from medicine. Distance, which affected the supply of medicinal drugs in terms of quality and cost, is confirmed as the main factor in the decentralisation of botanical expertise in the missions of the botanists, Aublet and Commerson, as in Dutch settlements earlier on. Basic and economic botany were applied to the qualitative and quantitative increase of natural resources. Commerson’s mission demonstrates that plant identification or basic botany was the botanist’s expertise, but the history of plants remained important, including the ‘physics’ (physiology), habitat, and usages elements of economic botany — all strongly dependent on local knowledge. Spices in particular provide insight into the conception of nature’s diversity, determining the management of the world’s resources in the eighteenth century. The Enlightenment theory of climate and the principle of analogy, respectively determining the distribution and the property of plants, guided prospecting — that is to say, where to find what — in the search of useful plants or substitutes around the world. The science of botany developed in parallel in the metropolis and in the periphery, once again challenging the notion of ‘colonial botany’.
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CHAPTER FIVE
The Mascarenes attests to the politicisation of nature in the eighteenth century. The management scheme included the strengthening of protective rules of the forested shores, the natural defences of the islands against enemy invasions. It also included the enhancement of the local arsenal with the introduction of foreign species, such as prickly Opuntia and teak for charcoal, the selection by naval staff of wood trees such as tacamaca before clearing, and the inventory of wood species with military characteristics such as resistance to bullet shots. As well, the selection of a perennial grass secured feed for the multiplication of livestock necessary for the Navy and the hospital. Even the choice of the Moluccan spices evolved from a commercial strategy in the 1750s to be an important part of the defensive strategy in the 1770s, jeopardising diplomatic relations with the Dutch. The perception of nature evolved with the reinforcement of control in international competition. Following vision of nature’s abundance and the paradisiacal image of early times underpinning the botanical enrichment of fertile islands, the idea of nature’s force oriented colonial management to defensive criteria. Nature was seen as an ally. Nevertheless, coming along with the increase of consumption and the challenging exploitation of natural resources in a restricted space in the Ile de France, concern regarding nature’s limitations arose. Furthermore, the speed of deforestation in strategic locations on the coasts around the ports and the reckless exploitation of concessions in the course for profit brought to light nature’s weakening, parallel to damages on society, threatening the defence of the Ile de France. The French state, guided by the Enlightenment, implemented the economic system of Physiocracy to restore the alliance with nature. By a more rational management respectful of natural laws, Poivre’s Physiocratic administration aimed to secure the availability of all resources locally and at the same time develop a harmonious society in close relationship with nature. In comparison, the neighbouring and more isolated Ile de Bourbon, based on a well- established agriculture with a moral society in harmony with nature, was regarded as a reliable colony. Again, control over nature in the remote Mascarenes triggered the revival of the myth of happiness and harmony of the Golden Age amongst the European intelligentsia.
In sum, distance and the maritime context, particularly constraining in Asian trade, drove science’s involvement in European expansion. The French government
181
CHAPTER FIVE enhanced control over nature by structuring the acquisition of plant knowledge on board and abroad, from identification to substitution and production in new environmental conditions. The entire French apparatus and the Enlightenment community cooperated to strengthen the defensive role of the Mascarenes, forming a closer coalition with nature regarded as an ‘ally’ of the nation.
182
CONCLUSION
6
Conclusion
With the creation of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, France’s ambition was to establish a flourishing company, akin to a plant acclimatising in any part of the world, as in the motto: Florebo quocumque ferar. In addition to signalling the growth of commerce, this motto symbolised governance over nature, an aim the French Kingdom intended to achieve in its colonies. It portends the global scope which the colonial enterprise would pass on to botany as it expanded the exchange of plants between continents.
During European expansion, the globalisation phenomenon intensified communication, in the sense of ‘to put in common’, or ‘to share’. As a result, reliability came to the foreground, with consequences for the normalisation of interchanges regarding plant resources and knowledge. My research demonstrates that globalisation, by widening the circulation of men, animals, plants and trade commodities across the oceans, amplified problems of distance stemming from maritime conditions, climate differences, as well as the great diversity of cultures and floras in foreign countries. Added to these causes were human and financial factors (not fully treated in my thesis). In that respect, the more remote, diverse and sophisticated East Indies were different from the West Indies. European traders, savants and governments, dealing with the challenges of remoteness and newness of exotic environments, shared a common concern about the uncertainty of their knowledge and control of natural resources. An effect of European expansion is that international trade exchanges favoured a world
183
CONCLUSION investigation of plant resources, as much historical literature has stressed, as well as a greater interest in the study of plant life and agriculture in Europe. National self- sufficiency was an incentive to increase control of nature, both on a global and a local scale. In fact, behind the issue of self-sufficiency also lay the problem of distance, and beyond, that of reliability. Reliability, for example, in the regular sourcing of plant commodities from afar, is revealed as a powerful motive for the development of botany in parallel to international trade. The globalisation of communication required control of the circulation of plant resources as much in the metropolis as in the periphery. My research shows that the need for reliable access to plant resources in the distant East Indies led to the creation of peripheral botanical gardens. Prospecting, cultivation, acclimatisation and multiplication procedures were undertaken on a local scale both in Europe and overseas, and aimed to secure the availability of plant supplies on site. Many of these tasks occurred earlier than generally believed, particularly in the Company’s gardens overseas where plants brought from all continents were deliberately tested as to their adaptability to different environments, for example at the Cape of Good Hope from the 1650s. Significantly, in accordance with Cook and Heniger, my research confirms the importance of medicinal drugs that were at the origin of botanical innovations, such as expert inventories, peripheral gardens and laboratories to overcome alterations during long voyages, but also systematic agronomic experiments as happened for wild drug species in the Ile de Bourbon in the 1710s.1 To increase reliability, normalisation of the circulation of plant resources fostered a new focus in botany on plant properties that were interesting for science, trade and political power. Medicinal properties, seed and grain conservation, commercial potential and defensive utility of plants and trees were tested and assessed in co-operation between the metropolis and the periphery. What would now be called economic botany, such as agronomic testing and the identification of new substitutes for exotic commodities, was increasingly the task of botanists, for example Jussieu and Linnaeus. With a closer study of plant species, the concept of the economy of nature and a balanced exploitation of plant resources gained favour in the Enlightened community, especially among those who criticised the excesses of European expansion. Like the work of scholars such as Spary and Koerner, my study
1 Cook, Harold J (2007), Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven and London: Yale University Press) ; Heniger, Johannes (1986), Hendrik Adriaan Van Reede Tot Drakenstein 1636-1691 and Hortus Malabaricus (Rotterdam: CRC Press ) 184
CONCLUSION testifies to this change in European thought, exemplified by the Physiocratic management of the Mascarenes.2 The globalisation of communication also meant the sharing of information through networks extending throughout and beyond Europe. My work illustrates how, for greater reliability, the normalisation of the circulation of information entailed the universalisation of plant knowledge. Reliability in communication was of particular importance in botany as a science related to medical diagnosis and plant treatments; as well, as a science based on the principle of analogy, grounded in the lore of plants, Ancient knowledge, and built up by the accumulation of observation; and as a science dependent on environmental constraints. Thus, the quest for reliability explains why European savants relied on foreign medicinal traditions and the experience of local correspondents to acquire knowledge, as emphasised by Schiebinger for instance, and also to complement their own observations of exotic plants in different growth conditions— which could alter plant features. Botany, the science of the ‘connaissance’ or ‘cognition’ of plants, was a distributed science.3 Optimisation of the circulation of information between lay and professional circles in Europe, and still more in foreign networks, required the standardisation of media, the codification of data and the specialisation of action — plant samples, classification methods and nomenclature, reference books and guidelines, botanical expeditions. In these ways, botany was enhanced inside but also outside European scientific centres, with information assessed de visu and in situ, circulated and compiled. My study has emphasised that communication across heterogeneous networks had led to an accumulation of information, and necessitated maintaining heterogeneous references to ease exchanges. In the process of normalisation and homogenisation driven by the effort to increase reliability, the name took precedence, with a simpler binomial system, established by Linnaeus, and all botanical and local names recorded to identify and learn about the history of plants in Europe or abroad. Ordering and generalising information strengthened the idea of a global natural order, and spurred on the search for a natural method, neutral and universal. Comparison complemented analogical reasoning, as emphasised by Stroup; in addition, my study demonstrates that
2 Spary, Emma C. (2000), Utopia’s Garden : French National History from Old Regime to Revolution (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press) ; Koerner, Lisbet (1999), Linnaeus : nature and nation (Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press) 3 Schiebinger, Londa and Swan, Claudia (2005), Colonial Botany. Science, Commerce &Politics in the Early Modern World (Philadelphia: PENN - University of Pennsylvania Press). 185
CONCLUSION distinction, championed by Bernard de Jussieu, became important to identify an increasing number of plant species.4 Thus, in addition to the concept of the order of nature, the science of ordering nature arose first in botany. To explain the epistemological prominence of botany rather than anatomy (both related to medicine) in the eighteenth century, Foucault argued that it was because of the ease and ‘transparency’ of observation of plant features.5 In fact, I argue, it was because reliability of knowledge was so important in botany — as it was in European expansion — with the globalisation of communication and access to the world’s biodiversity.
The Mascarene Islands are a typical case in the takeover of nature by Europe and the reorganisation of plant resources in a globalising international trade. The development of these remote islands illustrates the main parameters of colonial expansion, such as long voyage duration, the hazards of the sea, variations in climate, diversity of exotic nature, and space. By their primal wildness, by their isolated location on the East Indian route, and by the topographic difference between the two islands entailing a different economic and societal development, they provided the scene for new attitudes towards nature. As emphasised in this study, nature also imposed constraints on human governance that one has to consider in order to understand the interactions and mutual benefits of botany and European expansion. In the same manner as in Pliny’s story, emblematic plants and names in the Mascarenes are representative of efforts to strengthen European presence — power — in foreign environments with the enlargement of intercontinental exchanges. These symbols reflect the European frame of mind on encountering the ‘exotic’. Through them, one can perceive the underlying factors of European expansion particularly significant in the East Indies, and beyond, the cardinal issue: human dependence on local nature for survival. In the Indian Ocean, the isolated forested Mascarene Islands struck European navigators by their untouched state of nature, their healthy air and the continuous mild seasons: a paradisiacal atmosphere allowing prompt recovery. The wild French Ile Mascareigne was compared to Eden, and renamed Ile de Bourbon in allegiance to the French dynasty, a name which was the utmost tribute to nature’s goodness.
4 Stroup, Alice (1990), A company of scientists: Botany, Patronage, and community at the 17th century Parisian Royal Academy of sciences. (Berkeley: University California Press). 5 Foucault, Michel (1966), Les mots et les choses (Paris: Gallimard), p.149. 186
CONCLUSION
The most cosmopolitan of plants, citrus species, have been vital allies of European expansion since Antiquity: their golden fruits conveyed wealth and abundance in remote overseas places. Sheltered as precious exotics in cold climates, they were admired for thriving in warm climates. My research complements previous studies on the idealisation of landscapes overseas in travel literature, for instance in the works by Racault and Grove.6 The propagation of the citrus fruits and other plant resources during European expansion illuminates why the wild Mascarenes, transformed into fruitful healthy islands, were reproducing Edenic myths, symbolising plenitude and harmony of the Golden Age. Moreover, East Indian drug plants illustrated the allure of remote exotic floras. My research demonstrates that medicinal plants triggered linkages between science and political power. This applies especially to prized East Indian commodities, which the Compagnie des Indes attempted to cultivate: rhubarb from China, benjoin, tacamaca, cubeb, and coffee from Bourbon, were found worthy of places in the Royal Garden of Paris. They symbolise the King’s beneficent favouring of science and commerce for the good of his nation, with the involvement of the whole French colonial system, including its scientific, naval and colonial networks. Most of all coffee from Mocha, offered the King by the Dutch Republic and then by the Kingdom of Yemen, held a high diplomatic value. It embodies the King’s supremacy over nature as manifest by his possession of rare exotics and related foreign knowledge, together with his influence across the oceans to the remote and storied lands of the East Indies—such as ‘Happy Arabia’, replicated in the Mascarenes with coffee plantations. The most emblematic of exotic plants, the nutmeg and clove spices, represent the strategic value conferred on nature in the East Indies due to the globalisation of trade exchanges. As my study emphasises, these were a careful tactical choice by the Dutch VOC combining several parameters of European expansion, distance by sea, biodiversity and space. Native to the Moluccan Islands, nutmeg and clove were exclusively cultivated in a few small, protected islands, to guaranty monopoly and high prices to finance the Dutch trade leadership. In the eighteenth century, France planned to apply the Dutch tactic in the small Ile de France by organising a transfer of the two
6 Racault, Jean-Michel (2007), Mémoires du Grand Océan: des relations de voyages aux littératures francophones de l'océan indien (Presses de l'université Paris-Sorbonne) ; Grove, Richard (1995), Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860 (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press). 187
CONCLUSION spice species. In addition, I show that other plant resources deserve attention when studying botany in European expansion. Particular species such as the long-lasting naval teak, the prickly barrier Opuntia, the secure underground manioc and perennial grass fatack, all were transplanted and acclimatised in the Mascarenes to complement local plant resources, showing how nature came to be regarded as a defensive ally of France’s military forces at sea and on land. Appropriately, the names of the two colonial botanical gardens established in the Ile de France serving as a relay-station for plants as for men in France’s colonial scheme, recall the strategic roles of plant resources in the globalisation of communication. ‘Réduit’ is a military name for the island’s mixed botanical garden for experimentations and provisioning, created in war time for health, food and financial imperatives. ‘Pamplemousses’, named for an Asian citrus species, was a naval provision garden, then an acclimatisation garden for the Moluccan spices and Asian plants, and later the East Indian nursery in the global botanical network led by the Royal Garden of Paris. The Mascarenes exemplify the two models of control over nature which developed in the eighteenth century, as described by Spary: ‘Réduit’ and ‘Pamplemousses’ with their world collection of plant resources symbolise both the localisation and the globalisation of nature in European expansion.7 France’s botanical initiatives in the mid-eighteenth century illustrate nature’s pre-eminence in European expansion, and how it drove the globalisation of communication. Actions such as the systematisation of information media aimed to overcome the constraints which nature imposed on colonial management to secure the production of plant supplies for military, civil and commercial activities in the Mascarenes. The creation of the experimental botanical gardens, the spice operations, the first scientific exploration of the world, and the influence of Physiocracy all reflect France’s dedication to achieve a politico-moral alliance, a co-governance in harmony with nature to guaranty survival and wealth. I demonstrate that the state applied Physiocratic principles to achieve a balanced exploitation rather than a conservation of natural resources, slightly correcting Grove’s location of pre-environmentalist legislations in colonies overseas.8 The different natural assets between the two colonies
7 Spary, Emma C. (2003), '"Peaches which the patriarchs lacked": Natural History, Natural Resources, and the Natural Economy in France', History of Political Economy, 35, Annual Supplement. 8 Grove, Green imperialism : colonial expansion, tropical island Edens, and the origins of environmentalism, 1600-1860. 188
CONCLUSION in the Mascarenes made the theory of Physiocracy seen as a reality. Indeed, Bourbon, isolated from commercial influences by its inhospitable shores, was a more developed plantation colony, based on agriculture and hosting a society perceived as more virtuous and in harmony with nature. Thus, instead of commerce provoking parallel degradation of nature and society, an economic system based on agriculture, maintaining a closer connection to nature and simple morals in society, was designed to cultivate the plant resources essential to sustain France’s expansionism.
Hence, with the globalisation of communication, European expansion and botany mutually enhanced one another. The double facet of a local and global management of nature developed together with the universalisation of botany in the eighteenth century, all serving to enhance reliability in the circulation of plant and knowledge resources. The remote and rich East Indies simultaneously reinforced and altered the European relationship to nature. Control of plant resources and knowledge at a distance resulted in the institutionalisation of a botanical network between Europe and the East-Indian periphery, including botanical gardens overseas for local inventories and production. But European expansion involved a paradoxical attitude towards nature, which fuelled debate in the period. The globalisation phenomenon entailed the husbandry of the world’s natural resources for man’s sake, but it also entailed a disruption of harmony between man and nature. France’s colonization of the Mascarenes as the échelle des Indes was a striking symbol of this clash. Over a century, nature evolved from an idealised bountiful — but passive — image of Paradise to an idealised image of a powerful ally demanding respect. The involvement of scientific and intellectual elites, botanists and correspondents working in partnership for the optimisation of plant production, encapsulate the Enlightened alliance with nature to restore a Golden Age in the once Edenic Mascarenes.
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Appendix 1
Botanical index :
Sources: -Conservatoire Botanique National de Mascarin (Reunion Island):http://flore.cbnm.org -Association Tela Botanica – Montpellier (France): http://www.tela.botanica.org -Rouillard, Guy and Gueho, Joseph (1999), Les plantes et leur histoire à l’Ile Maurice (Mauritius: MSM).
Agati: Agathis robusta (Araucariaceae): Australia
Aloe (Asphodelaceae) Aloe succotrina Lam.; Middle East Aloe macra Haw.; Reunion Island
Benjoin: Terminalia bentzoe (L.) (Combretaceae); Mascarenes
Benzoin: Styrax benzoin (Styracaceae); Indonesia
Bois de fleurs jaunes : Hypericum lanceolatum Lam; Mascarenes
Bois d’Inde: Pimenta racemosa J.W. Moore (Myrtaceae) ; Caribbean
Bois noir: Albizia lebbeck (L.) Benth. (Mimozoideae); Tropical Asia
Bois puant: Foetidia mauritiana Lam. (Lecythidaceae); Mascarenes
Brazil wood: Caesalpinia echinata (Fabaceae); South America
Campeche wood, logwood: Haematoxylum campechianum L. (Fabaceae); Central America
Cassia: Cassia fistula (Fabaceae); Tropical Asia
Cassis, mimosa bush: Acacia farnesiana (L.) Willd. (Fabaceae); South Asia
Cinnamon (Lauraceae) -Cinnamomum verum; Ceylon -Wild cinnamon: Laurus malabathrum; India
190
Coffee (Rubiaceae) -Coffea arabica L.; Ethiopia -Wild coffee: Coffea mauritiana Lam.; Mascarenes
Esquine: Themeda quadrivalvis (L.) (Gramineae); Inde
Fatack: Panicum maximum Jacq. (Gramineae); Africa, Madagascar
Indigo (Fabaceae) -Indigofera tinctoria, L.; Tropical Africa and Asia -Wild indigo: Indigofera diversifolia DC ; Madagascar, Mascarenes
Jamaica pepper, pimento, allspice: Pimenta dioica L. (Myrtaceae); Caribbean
Manioc: Manihot esculenta Crantz. (Euphorbiaceae); South America
Natte (Sapotaceae); Mascarenes -‘Grand natte’, ‘ébène rouge’: Mimusops maxima (Poir.) Vaughan -‘Petit natte’: Labourdonnaisia calophylloides Bojer
Pepper (Piperaceae) - Black pepper: Piper nigrum L.; India - Cubeb or tailed pepper: Piper cubeba L.; Indonesia - Wild pepper: Piper borbonense (Miq.) C. DC.; Mascarenes
Porcher: (unidentified)
Pummelo, pamplemousse: Citrus maxima Merr. (Rutaceae); Southeast Asia
Sappanwood: Caesalpinia sappan L. (Fabaceae); South Asia
Squinante, schoenante, jonc odorant: Cymbopogon schoenanthus L. (Poaceae), syn. Andropogon schoenanthus L.; Middle East
Smilax (Smilacaceae) -China root: Smilax china L. China -Squine1: Smilax anceps Willd. (Smilacaceae); Africa, Madagascar, Mascarenes
Tacamaca: Calophyllum inophyllum L. (Clusiaceae); from Africa to Pacific
Tamarind: Tamarindus indica L. (Fabaceae); Africa or India
1 The name squine comes from the transformation of the French word Chine, in Bouillet, (1861) Dictionnaire Universel des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts (Paris: Hachette).
191
Archival sources - Manuscripts
(In footnotes, references are listed according to consultation formatting)
Archives Nationales (AN)
1-Ancien régime
Département de la Marine (MAR)
Série B : Service Général B2 : Ordres et dépêches B2 304 ; B2 305 (plant transfers) B3 : Lettres reçues B3 318 ; B3 326 ; B3 334 (Couzier) B4 : Campagnes B4 4 ; B4 99 ; B4 114 ; B4 118 ; B4 150 (Delahaye, St Georges, la Pérouse)
Série D : Matériel D3 : Approvisionnements et subsistances (bois, vivres) D3 10 ; D3 45
Série G : Documents divers (Histoire naturelle, Médecine navale) G 101 ; G 179 ; G 222 ; G 238
Département de la Maison du Roi
Série O : Maison du Roi sous l’Ancien Régime O1 107 ; O1 587 (Galloys, Brayer du Barré) ; O1 1790 (Jardin du Roi)
2-Fonds postérieurs à 1789
Série AJ : Fonds divers AJ 15 : Muséum d’histoire Naturelle Jardin du Roi (Jussieu, Buffon, Poivre, Céré) AJ 15 502 (Edits et règlements) ; AJ 15 509 (Enseignement) ; AJ 15 511 (Voyages et missions)
192
Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer (ANOM)
1-Fonds ministériels – Premier empire colonial (ANOM COL)
Série A : Actes du pouvoir souverain - Secrétariat de la Marine A 18 (Edits et ordonnances) A 18 48 (administration) ; A 18 55 (commerce).
Série C : Correspondance à l’arrivée Sous-Série C2 : Compagnie des Indes Administration en France C2 15 ; C2 18 ; C2 22 ; C2 28 ; C2 31 ; C2 33 ; C2 37 ; C2 75 (Couzier, La Bourdonnais, d’Albert, Lanux, David, Lenoir) Sous-série C3 : Ile de Bourbon From C3 1 (1614-1700) to C3 6 (1732) ; from C3 11 (1755-1766) to C3 14 (1771) Sous-série C4: Ile de France C4 1 (1714-1732) ; from C4 4 (1740 1745) to C4 17 (1767) ; C4 20 (1768) ; C4 22 (1768) ; C4 24 (1769) ; C4 86 (1730-1759) ; C4 87 (1760-1761)
Série E: Personnel colonial ancien E 10 (Aublet) ; E 89 (Commerson) ; E 98 (Couzier) ; E 341 (Prat) ; E 337 (Poivre) ; E 275 (Le Juge)
Série F : Documents divers Sous-série F2C : Colonies en général F2C 2 (Jussieu) ; F2C 10 (spices) Sous-série F3 : Collection Moreau de Saint-Méry F3 92 ; F3 93 ; F3 161 ; F3 162 ; F3 206 ; F3 207 ; F3 208 ; F3 210
2-Dépôt des Fortifications des Colonies (ANOM DFC)
Ile de France - DFC IV Mémoires - Cartons From no 10 (1721-1755) to no 13 (1774-1789)
Réunion (Bourbon) - DFC V Mémoires -Cartons no 1 (1712-1761)
193
Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF)
1-Fonds français
Ancien fonds (fr) fr 383 : Journal de Godeheu fr 8983, fr. 8984 : Comité Secret - Correspondance de l’Inde fr 9342 : Ile de Madagascar et de Bourbon
Nouvelles acquisitions françaises (naf) naf 9225 : Comité Secret (arrêt du Conseil d’Etat) naf 9346 : Ile de Bourbon (Boucher) naf 9377 : expédition de Poivre
2-Cartes et Plans
Portefeuille 220 : Ile de France - Mauritius Division 1 – pièce 2 (Pamplemousses) Division 5 – pièces 2, 3 (Réduit)
Service Historique de la Défense (SHD) – Vincennes
1-Ministère de la Guerre, archives historiques (GR A) GR 1 A 2565 : Ile de Bourbon (Hardancourt) GR1 A 2592 : Ile de Bourbon (Boucher)
2-Archives de L’Académie Royale de Marine de Brest ms 68 (fol 51-129) : Rochon ms 110 bis : journaux de mer
Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN)
1-Bibliothèque Centrale (BCMNHN) - Manuscrits
-Commerson : ms 277 (Madagascar, Ile de France, Bourbon); ms 302 ; ms 337 (dessins botaniques) ; ms 886 (Bourbon) ; ms 887 (Madagascar) ; ms 1013 (Bourbon) ; ms 1343 (Ile de France, Bourbon) -Couzier ms 2132 (correspondance)
194
-Feuillée ms 38 (Canaries) -Fusée-Aublet : ms 452 (Ile de France) ; ms 453 (Ile de France) ; ms 454 (Guyane) -Jussieu (Antoine de) ms 193 (teintures Inde) ; ms 1140 (Bourbon, Indes Orientales) ; ms 3501 or Jus 2 (correspondants) ; ms 3502 or Jus 3 (Amérique, Indes Orientales, notes) ; MNHN 103 980 (discours) -Le Juge ms 293 (Ile de France) -Le Monnier ms 357 (Cossigny, de Reine, Céré) -Malesherbes Ms 1765 (Indes Orientales, Couzier, Poivre, Hermans) -Poivre ms 575 (Asie) ; ms 1269 (Madagascar) -Tournefort ms 437 (tamarin)
2-Bibliothèque du Laboratoire de Phanérogamie
Correspondance de Bernard de Jussieu Couzier ; Fusée Aublet ; Macé ; Macquaire ; Noel ; l’Empereur ; Prat.
Institut de France (IF)
Correspondance botanique (Joseph Decaisne) ms 2436 (Fusée Aublet) ; ms 2441 (Commerson) ; ms 2448 (Jussieu)
Académie des Sciences (AS)
- Correspondants Commerson ; Cossigny ; Cossigny-Palma ; Lanux (de) ; Poivre
- Archives personnelles Réaumur 69J Dossier : 68/6 (teintures) ; 69 /11 (bois)
-Procès-verbaux Novembre 1713 (Jussieu) ; Juin 1777 (Legentil) ; Septembre 1787 (Céré)
195
Bibliothèque de Rouen
Collection Montbret (Mt) Montbret 866 : Administration des Iles de France et Bourbon ms Mt 866-2; ms Mt 866-5; ms Mt 866-14
Archives Départementales de la Réunion (ADR)
Inventaire de la Compagnie des Indes (Co) -Correspondance Co 43 (épiceries) ; Co 64 (épiceries, bois) ; Co 65 (Jardin du Roi) ; Co 140 (coton) ; Co 595 (café Arabie) ; Co 601-602 (café Bourbon) ; Co 634 (plants Chine) -Hôpitaux Co 1468 ; Co 1470 (vivres) -Marine From Co 1510 to Co 1517 (rafraichissements)
196
Bibliography
Primary sources
Online databases (date : last access)
Académie des sciences (1702-1797) Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences…tirée des registres de cette académie [online text], (Paris: Imprimerie Royale)
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