Hemp and Culture in the Atlantic World, 1600-1900
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CORD OF EMPIRE, EXOTIC INTOXICANT: HEMP AND CULTURE IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD, 1600-1900 by BRADLEY J. BOROUGERDI Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON May 2014 Copyright © by Bradley J. Borougerdi 2014 All Rights Reserved ii For Aiden and Meadow, whose lives are my inspiration. iii Acknowledgements This project could not have been completed without the generous help and excellent guidance of a number of people. Thomas Adam was instrumental in helping me formulate the framework of the topic in its early stages. Dennis Reinhartz has been working with me since I became an academic, and he graciously agreed to continue doings so as Professor Emeritus, for which I am ever so grateful. Christopher Morris stepped in at a time when I thought all was lost and has been more than I could have ever asked for as an advisor. I am also thankful to Imre Demhardt and Alusine Jalloh for agreeing to serve on my committee. I could not have asked for a better team of scholars to work with. James Klotter, Richard Francavilia, Beatriz Acevedo, Claire Gherini, Al Howard, and Cyrus Ala’i were all kind enough to hold conversations with me over email throughout the course of my research and provided excellent direction. Also, Isaac Campos spent time one Sunday to speak with me over the phone and provided outstanding insight. Alfred Crosby and Frances Karttunen shocked me with their generosity when they mailed me a box of microfilm to use for my research. They have both been more of an inspiration to me than they could possibly imagine, and I am so thankful for our conversations and for Dr. Crosby’s influence on my perspective of history. Chris Duvall, Stephen Maizlish, and Adam Rathge have all spent a great deal of time either conversing with me through email about my project or commenting on sections of this manuscript, and their words have been extremely helpful. I also met with Francis Herbert in London, where he took the time to introduce me to real cider and discuss my project. My friend and colleague Greg Kosc has also been instrumental towards the completion of this project by spending countless hours discussing and debating hemp history with me. iv A Global Research Fellowship made possible by the financial support of Mustaque Ahmed allowed me to conduct research at the British Library, where East India Company archivist Richard Morel provided his expertise and taught me how to use and track down important company records. The financial support I received from Dean Beth Wright, the UTA History Department, and the Atlantic History Short-term Research Grant from Harvard University allowed me to conduct research at the Widener Library and rummage through the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection at the Houghton Library, where archivists are still in the process of cataloging the vast collection pertaining to a variety of topics related to sex and drugs. The archivists there were very helpful, and I look forward to working with them again in the future when more of it is ready to be used. I also want to thank Charlie from the Hash, Marihuana, & Hemp Museum in Amsterdam for taking the time to have a couple of highly informative and insightful conversations with me on the museum collections and the general nature of what we agreed to call the Atlantic War on Drugs. All of these people and institutions deserve far more credit than they realize in helping me bring this project to fruition. Finally, I want to thank my son Aiden, daughter Meadow, and wife Brandi for giving me the time I needed to finish this degree. Their support has been crucial at every step of the way. April 18, 2014 v Abstract CORD OF EMPIRE, EXOTIC INTOXICANT: HEMP AND CULTURE IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD, 1600-1900 Bradley J. Borougerdi, PhD The University of Texas at Arlington, 2014 Supervising Professor: Christopher Morris Hemp is a genetically diverse plant that has been used by a variety of different cultures for different purposes over the course of thousands of years. Until the nineteenth century, though, most Europeans understood it to be the source of a durable fiber or a common medicinal seed. People living in exotic places that westerners monolithically referred to as the Orient, however, valued the plant for its intoxicating qualities, and the encounters that took place between these different cultures dramatically transformed the meaning of hemp in the English-speaking Atlantic from an important strategic commodity to a banned intoxicant. The transformation was a long process that can only be fully appreciated by concentrating on the cultural history of hemp and all its intricacies from the 1600s to the 1900s. This dissertation analyzes the multidimensional discourse on the hemp plant in the Atlantic world during this period and argues that British and Anglo-Americans refashioned their understanding of it through the cultural lenses of empire and Orientalism. The transatlantic nature of knowledge exchange in the Atlantic world ensured that perceptions of hemp that the British constructed in India migrated across the ocean to influence Americans, demonstrating how important ideas and objects found far beyond the ocean’s shores could be woven into the cultural fabric of the Atlantic world. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ iv Abstract ......................................................................................................................... vi List of Illustrations .......................................................................................................... ix List of Tables .................................................................................................................. x Chapter 1 Prologue ........................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 2 Introduction: Why Hemp? ............................................................................... 5 Chapter 3 Hemp: Botany and Culture ............................................................................19 Introduction ...............................................................................................................19 The Plant ..................................................................................................................22 Industrial Hemp ........................................................................................................31 Medicinal Hemp ........................................................................................................43 Intoxicating Hemp .....................................................................................................52 Conclusion ................................................................................................................66 Chapter 4 The Ties that Bind: Hemp Fiber and the Atlantic World ..................................69 Introduction ...............................................................................................................69 Networks and Foundations .......................................................................................73 Perceptions and Connections ...................................................................................80 Hemp and Nation ......................................................................................................95 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................111 Chapter 5 Reorienting Empire and Transforming Hemp in the Atlantic World ...............114 Introduction .............................................................................................................114 Encountering Hemp Intoxicants...............................................................................115 Competing Perceptions ...........................................................................................124 Perceptual Transformations and Atlantic Migrations ................................................135 vii Conclusion ..............................................................................................................153 Chapter 6 Hemp, Intoxication, and Orientalism in the Atlantic World ............................156 Introduction .............................................................................................................156 Drugs, Discourse, and Intoxication ..........................................................................158 Indian Hemp and Insanity .......................................................................................166 Hemp Intoxication and Atlantic Orientalism .............................................................178 At Once a Curse and a Blessing .............................................................................190 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................200 Chapter 7 Conclusion: From Rope to Dope – The Hemp Truth-Seeking Project and its Aftermath .............................................................................................202 Chapter 8 Epilogue .....................................................................................................221 Appendix A Culturally Significant Images of Hemp in the Anglo-Atlantic