The Politics of Knowledge in Spain's Royal Monopoly Of
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Empire’s Experts: The Politics of Knowledge in Spain’s Royal Monopoly of Quina (1751-1808) A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History (Science Studies) by Matthew James Crawford Committee in charge: Professor John A. Marino, Co-Chair Professor Naomi Oreskes, Co-Chair Professor Paula De Vos Professor Marcel Henaff Professor Christine Hunefeldt Professor Robert S. Westman 2009 © Matthew James Crawford, 2009 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Matthew James Crawford is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Co-Chair Co-Chair University of California, San Diego 2009 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ….……………………………………………………………………………iii Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………………….iv List of Illustrations and Tables ….……………………………………………………………v Acknowledgements ….……………………………………………………………………….vi Vita …………………………………………………………………………………………….x Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………….xiii Introduction: Empire, Experts, and the Estanco de Quina in the Spanish Atlantic World ….…………………………………………………1 PART I: THE RULE OF THE LOCAL ...…………………………………………………...39 Chapter 1: The “Necessary and Pious” Destiny of Quina: The Culture of Knowledge Production in the Spanish Empire (1751-1768) …………..40 Chapter 2: Imperial Science Inaction: Cooperation and Contention in the Estanco de Quina (c.1773) ...……………………………………………..99 Chapter 3: Not Expertise but “Vain Science:” South American Perspectives on European Experts and Imperial Policies (1776-1779) ……………146 PART II: THE RISE OF THE BOTANISTS .…………………………………………….186 Chapter 4: Empire’s New Experts: The Rise of Botanists in the Spanish Empire (1775-1789)…………………………………………....187 Chapter 5: Commerce and Control: Reform, Ideology, and the Limits of Botany in the Estanco de Quina (c. 1790) ………………………….231 Chapter 6: The Co-Production of Nature and Empire: Botanical Debate and the “Two Paths” for Exploiting Quina (1792-1808) ………………294 Conclusion: Imperial Epistemology: The Politics of Knowledge in the Spanish Atlantic World (c. 1800) …………………………………...346 Appendix A: Officials of the Imperial Bureaucracy (c. 1750-1800)…………………367 Bibliography… ……………………………………………………………………………...369 iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES Map I.1: The Northern Pacific Coast of South America from Bogotá to Lima including Loja southeast of Guayaquil…………………………………………… 2 Table 1.1: Events and documents in the dispute between Manuel de la Guardia and Manuel Daza y Fominaya circa 1767………………………………….. 74 Table 2.1: Shipments of Quina from Spanish America to Cádiz 1769-1771………..125 Table 2.2: Dates of Examinations of Quina Shipments and Bark Samples in Madrid and Loja circa 1773 ………………………………………………….130 Table 3.1: Dates and locations of main events and documents related to Miguel García de Cáceres’ “reasoned proposal” of 1779………………...153 Table 4.1: Examinations of samples of quina from the Royal Pharmacy circa 1779 ……………………………………………………………………...199 Table 4.2: The Rise of a Botanist: Casimiro Gómez Ortega’s Career in the 1770s and 1780s.…………………………………………………………201 Table 4.3: Quina and Expertise in Santa Fe de Bogotá: The Experience of José Celestino Mutis.…………………………………………………………219 Table 5.1: Reports of the Marques de Valdecarzana, Vicente Olmedo, and Tomás Gómez Ruiz de Quevedo……………………………………………275 Table 6.1: Chronology of A Debate: Texts and Events (1792-1808)…………………298 Table 6.2: Key Characteristics for Analysis of Quina from Ruiz and Mutis ………….305 Table 6.3: Francisco Antonio Zea’s “Botanical Synonymy” (1800)…………………...310 Table 6.4: Table from Mutis’ El Arcano de la Quina (1793)…………………………...312 Table 6.5: Ruiz and Pavón’s suggested botanical equivalencies for Mutis’ quinas ……………………………………………………………...320 Table 6.6: Total contributions from Spanish America to the publication of Flora Peruviana et Chilensis sent prior to 1801 ………………………………….335 Table 6.7: Contributions from the Viceroyalty of Peru to the publication of the Flora Peruviana et Chilensis between 1792 and 1793 ...…………………338 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the guidance and support of many people. It gives me great pleasure to express my gratitude to them here. Let me first acknowledge Howard M. Solomon, who advised me in my earliest attempts at historical research as an undergraduate at Tufts University. Howard first suggested that I combine my interests in science and history by studying history of science. He has been and remains an inspiration to me as a teacher and an intellectual. I have been deeply honored and extraordinarily lucky to have had such a talented and supportive dissertation committee. My co-advisers, John Marino and Naomi Oreskes, provided encouragement, insight, and constructive criticism at every step in the development of this project from conception to completion. My debts to them both are innumerable. I also benefitted from working closely with Paula De Vos, Marcel Henaff, Christine Hunefeldt, and Robert S. Westman in various formal and informal settings. Each of these mentors has left an indelible mark on this project and on my development as a scholar. A number of other faculty and colleagues at UCSD and elsewhere have generously shared their time and talents with me over the years. I owe a special thanks to Luce Giard, a valued mentor regarding all aspects of intellectual life, who was one of the first to encourage my interests in studying science and colonialism in Latin America. I would also like to thank Eric Van Young, Elliott Wirshbo, Vicente Rafael, David Ringrose, Pamela Radcliff, Joseph Gabriel and Andrew Lakoff for their contributions to my experiences learning, researching, and writing at UCSD. vi It is a distinct pleasure to be a part of the small but engaging group of scholars in the United States working on the history of science in the Iberian world. Among them, I would especially like to acknowledge Daniela Bleichmar for her support and encouragement as well as for sharing her knowledge of eighteenth-century natural history on many occasions. I am grateful to Antonio Barrera, Miruna Achim, and Alison Sandman for many stimulating conversations on science in the early modern Iberian Atlantic. I must also thank the participants at the “Places of Knowledge” conference at Cornell University in 2008 for their feedback on my research. Thanks to Suman Seth and Trevor Pinch for the invitation to present at the conference. Finally, I would like to thank the various audiences that have listened to and commented on presentations of my research at the annual meetings of the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies and the History of Science Society as well as the Science Studies Colloquium and Graduate Research Symposium at UCSD. Research for this project took me a number of archives, libraries and even botanical gardens in Spain and Ecuador. I have appreciated the assistance provided by the staff members at the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Archivo del Real Palacio de Madrid, the Archivo General de Indias, the Archivo de Simancas, the Archivo del Real Jardín Botánico, and the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Spain as well as at the Jardín Botánico de Loja in Ecuador. Of the many archivists and librarians who facilitated my research, I would especially like to recognize Ignacio Diáz-Delgado Peñas at the Archivo de la Real Academia Nacional de Medicina de España, Director Grecia Vasco de Escudero at the Archivo Histórico Nacional de Ecuador, and Gordon Hogg at the Special Collections Library at the University of Kentucky. vii Funding for research abroad came from several sources. The All-UC Group in Economic History and the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies at UCSD provided support for a preliminary research trip to Seville. A nine-month fellowship from the J. William Fulbright Foundation supported my research in Spain during the 2005-2006 academic year. Funds from the Institute for International and Comparative Area Studies at UCSD and the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies at UCSD enabled me to conduct additional research in Ecuador. The Center for Humanities, the Department of History, and the Science Studies Program at UCSD all provided additional funds for research and writing. I also received training and support from the International Summer School in History of Science in Paris (2002) and Uppsala (2006). The kindness and advice of a number of people greatly enriched my experiences researching abroad. In Quito, Christiana Borchart de Moreno, Segundo Moreno Yánez, and Susan Webster all generously shared their knowledge of Ecuador’s colonial history and archives on many occasions, while Tamar Herzog pointed me in the direction of the wonderfully miscellaneous fondo especial at the Archivo Histórico Nacional de Ecuador. In Spain, I received helpful guidance from Jeremy Baskes, J. Michael Francis, Salvador Bernabeu, Berta Ares, Miguel Puig- Samper and Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmiento, who kindly took me on a tour of the pharmacy museum at the Universidad Complutense. I am grateful as well to James Amelang at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid for his various forms of support during my research trips to Spain. I especially enjoyed participating in his monthly seminario de historia cultural during my Fulbright year in Madrid. Finally, I would like to acknowledge Patricia Zahniser and the staff at the Fulbright office in Madrid for all their help. viii I have been very fortunate to interact with many talented