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The Voc and Swedish Natural History. the Transmission of Scientific Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century

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The Voc and Swedish Natural History. the Transmission of Scientific Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century THE VOC AND SWEDISH NATURAL HISTORY. THE TRANSMISSION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Christina Skott In the later part of the eighteenth century Sweden held a place as one of the foremost nations in the European world of science. This was mainly due to the fame of Carl Linnaeus (1707–78, in 1762 enno- bled von Linné), whose ground breaking new system for classifying the natural world created a uniform system of scientific nomenclature that would be adopted by scientists all over Europe by the end of the century. Linnaeus had first proposed his new method of classifying plants in the slim volume Systema Naturae, published in 1735, while he was working and studying in Holland. There, he could for the first time himself examine the flora of the Indies: living plants brought in and cultivated in Dutch gardens and greenhouses as well as exotic her- baria collected by employees of the VOC. After returning to his native Sweden in 1737 Linnaeus would not leave his native country again. But, throughout his lifetime, Systema Naturae would appear in numerous augmented editions, each one describing new East Indian plants and animals. The Linnean project of mapping the natural world was driven by a strong patriotic ethos, and Linneaus would rely heavily on Swed- ish scientists and amateur collectors employed by the Swedish East India Company; but the links to the Dutch were never severed, and he maintained extensive contacts with leading Dutch scientists through- out his life. Linnaeus’ Dutch connections meant that his own students would become associated with the VOC. In this process, Swedish con- tacts to Dutch colonial society were created and maintained. By drawing on examples, this essay first wants to show how Swedish involvement with the VOC fed and informed Swedish natural history. Links between Sweden and Holland had a long history, and first hand knowledge of the East had been transmitted by Swedish employees of the VOC already in the seventeenth century. During Linnaeus’s time, the acquisition of scientific knowledge was steered by the idea of botany as a tool in the promotion of political and economic prosper- ity for Sweden. Linnaeus’s goal was to carve out a niche for Swedish 362 christina skott science in Europe, but also to devise a patriotic cameralist strategy in which the natural sciences would be closely intertwined with political economy. Botanic research could, Linnaeus thought, promote import substitution and self-reliance for Sweden.1 By the power of large national and European networks of informants Linnaeus was able to publish a stream of scientific treatises and academic dissertations, so that by the 1750s he was established as one of Europe’s leading scientists.2 The prestige of Linnaeus meant that Swedish naturalists trained in the Linnean system became sought after by European colo- nial powers, as botanical experts employed in a colonial race, which was played out on the scientific arena. The second aim of this paper is therefore to point to the exchanges of scientific knowledge made possible by Sweden’s position as a politically neutral but scientifically prestigious nation. In these scientific networks the Swedes came to acquire a unique role as intermediaries between the Dutch and the British, at a time when botany became an increasingly important tool of colonial expansion. The seventeenth century The close scientific contacts between Sweden and Holland had roots in the intimate economic and cultural links, which had developed between the two countries during the seventeenth century. Dutch merchants had settled in Sweden in great numbers, and Dutch influ- ence would be crucial in areas outside trade and commerce, such as shipbuilding and the arts. From mid-century onwards many Swedes had taken employment with the VOC, and it has been estimated that as much as 4–8 percent of the crews on board the Dutch East India ships were of Swedish origin in the second half of the seventeenth century. Although this calculation has been criticized for being based on limited material, it is acknowledged that the number of Swedes travelling to the East on Dutch ships numbered in their thousands.3 1 This has most strongly been argued by Lisbet Koerner, in Koerner L., Linnaeus. Nature and nation (Cambridge, Mass. – London: 1999) and eadem, “Purposes of Lin- nean travel: a preliminary research report”, in Miller D.P. – Reill P.H. (eds.), Visions of Empire. Voyages, botany and representations of nature (Cambridge: 1996) 117–152. 2 See Linnés nätverk, exhibition catalogue, Kungliga Biblioteket (Stockholm: 2007). 3 Steenstrup C., “Scandinavians in Asian waters in the 17th century. On the Sources for the History of the Participation of Scandinavians in early Dutch ventures into Asia”, Acta Orientalia 43 (1982) 69–83..
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