The University of Chicago All Flesh Is Grass: Agrarian
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ALL FLESH IS GRASS: AGRARIAN IMPROVEMENT AND ECOLOGICAL IMPERIALISM IN BRITAIN’S SETTLER EMPIRE, 1780-1840 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY MAURA CAPPS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS DECEMBER 2016 Copyright 2016 by Maura Capps All rights reserved Dedicated to my parents, Kathy and Kerry Capps, for their fierce and fathomless love, And to the memory of Alison Winter. As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. Psalm 103:15-16 (KJV) For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. 1 Peter 1:24 (KJV) The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. Isaiah 40:6 (KJV) TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................................... ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..........................................................................................................x ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................ xiii INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE Greener Grass: Enlightenment’s New Husbandry and Agrarian Visions Of Empire .....................................................................................................................................17 Introduction ........................................................................................................................17 Growth and Grass: Agrarian Revolution(s) in Britain .......................................................22 New World Prodigality The Othering of American Agriculture .......................................40 Agrarian Patriotism at Home and in the Empire ................................................................54 Sir Joseph Banks and the Marriage of Improvement and Imperialism ..............................74 Conclusion: The Limits of Enclosure ................................................................................79 CHAPTER TWO Fleets of Fodder: The Ecological Orchestration of Agrarian Improvement in New South Wales and the Cape of Good Hope, 1780-1801 .........................83 Introduction ........................................................................................................................83 Divergence and Convergence in New South Wales and the Cape ....................................92 Planting the Fatal Shore ...................................................................................................100 The Second Fleet..............................................................................................................111 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................132 CHAPTER THREE Floundering But Not Foundering: New South Wales’ Agricultural Decades, 1788-1810 ....................................................................................................................134 Introduction ......................................................................................................................134 Periodization of Agricultural Settlement in New South Wales .......................................144 Encountering Australia’s Erratic Landscape ...................................................................162 Harrowing Husbandry: New South Wales’ Public Relations Problem ...........................180 v Land Policy, Experiments, and Markets: Authoritarian Agrarianism before Macquarie 192 Bligh’s Second Mutiny: Reform and Revolt ...................................................................215 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................220 CHAPTER FOUR Spurning the Trekboer Cowboy: Negotiating Grain, Grass, and Granger in the Cape Colony, 1801-1814 .................................................................................................223 Introduction ......................................................................................................................223 The March of Pastoralism in Cape Historiography .........................................................236 Duckitt’s Honeymoon: Planting the Ark in Cape Town and Paarl, 1800-1801 ..............239 The Downfall of Sir George Young and William Duckitt’s Department of Agriculture, 1801-1803 ........................................................................................................................249 The Batavian Interlude .....................................................................................................262 The British Back in the Saddle, 1806-1814 .....................................................................267 Conclusion: A Political Ecology of Failure .....................................................................276 CHAPTER FIVE The Soil or The Station? Colonial Agrarian Transformations and the March of Improvement, 1810-1840 ..........................................................................................280 Introduction ......................................................................................................................280 The Macquarie and Anti-Macquarie Decade: Farming and “The Lazy Object of Rearing Cattle,” 1810-1820 ...........................................................................................................289 One Land’s Trash is Another Land’s Treasure? Emigration Experimentation in New South Wales and the Cape, 1816-1830 ............................................................................298 Official Pastoral Benediction: Reassessing the Agrarian Development in New South Wales and the Cape, 1819-1846 ......................................................................................334 The March of Grass: Grassland Degradation, Improvement, and the Use of Artificial Fodder, 1820s-1840s ........................................................................................................358 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................376 CONCLUSION Fodder Futures ...............................................................................................379 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................390 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Fallow-Reliant Crop Nutrient Cycle. ............................................................................ 31 Figure 2: New Fodder Crop Nutrient Cycle ................................................................................. 31 Figure 3: Primary agricultural settlements on the Cumberland Plain ......................................... 145 Figure 4: Description of the Settlement at Sydney Cove,1788 ................................................... 151 Figure 5: Augustus Alt’s Plan of the First Farms on the Hawkesbury River, 1794 ................... 196 Figure 6: Plan of Settlements in New South Wales, 1796 .......................................................... 197 Figure 7:Grantees and Acreage Held, 1796 ................................................................................ 198 Figure 8: Engraving of James Ruse's Headstone (Source: firstfleetfellowship.org.au) .............. 208 Figure 9: Pastoral sprawl in the Western Cape, 1700-1800........................................................ 229 Figure 10: Official bounds of the Cape of Good Hope, 1809 ..................................................... 229 Figure 11: Eastern Cape Frontier, c. 1835 .................................................................................. 303 Figure 12: Map of the Albany Settlement, 1820 ........................................................................ 316 Figure 13: Arable cultivation at the time of the Bigge Commission, 1820 ................................ 337 Figure 14: New South Wales Limits of Location, 1832 ............................................................. 349 Figure 15: Squatting Districts in New South Wales, 1844 ......................................................... 350 Figure 16: British and Boer settlement, 1830s-1840s ................................................................. 360 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: List of Seeds Sent with the First Fleet to New South Wales ........................................ 105 Table 2: List of Fodder Seeds Sent to the Cape of Good Hope, 1800 ........................................ 127 Table 3: ENSO-influenced Flood and Drought Years, 1788-1815 ............................................ 170 Table 4: Wool Production in New South Wales, 1822-1842...................................................... 347 Table 5: Acreage of Sown Grasses Reported