Spices Spanish Empire

The Science of Spices: Empiricism and Economic Botany in the Early Spanish Empire Author(s): Paula De Vos Source:
Journal of World History, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Dec., 2006), pp. 399-427 Published by: University of Hawai'i Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20079398 . Accessed: 04/12/2013 16:15
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The Science of Spices:

Empiricism and Economic
in the Early Spanish Empire*

PAULA San Diego DE VOS State University
Botany
crown is a little-known that the Spanish fact among historians most out of spices for of its the cultivation and encouraged It sought and in the Philippines. We are imperial history, both in the Americas well aware that the search for direct access to the Eastern spice trade was a major motivation once for support for Columbus's voyages--but it became clear that Columbus had found no such route, our attention veers away from spices. Yet for colonial and administrators Spanish to be a product of considerable inter entrepreneurs, spices continued est and investment the three centuries of Spanish rule in throughout the Americas. The purpose of this essay is to trace the various mani cen and early seventeenth festations of that interest in the sixteenth turies and to discuss what it reveals about Spanish imperial aspirations and the strategies used to accomplish them. so is it that Spanish efforts to cultivate spices have received Why
California-Huntington the Early Modern
thank of the University the participants of Southern Studies Institute's conference "Plants and Insects in Early Modern and the UC-World World," 2005, 28-30 History Workshop, April comments. "Between In addi the Local and the Global," 7-8 May 2005, for their valuable and Antonio Barrera helped me to polish an ear tion, Carla Rahn Phillips, Marcy Norton, lier draft of this essay; Ravi Rajan and David Christian supplied valuable insights and bib time and effort into providing me with and Alix Cooper put much suggestions; liographic Iwould like to thank the Ameri very useful and thought-provoking commentary. Finally, can Council of Learned Societies, and the National the Social Science Research Council, for providing funding support for the research and writing
I would
like
to
for the Humanities Endowment of this essay.
Journal ofWorld History, Vol. 17, No. 4 ? 2006 by University of Hawai'i Press
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It could be argued that the lack of little attention from historians? is due to the fact that a significant attention spice trade never resulted. to be dominated The Eastern spice trade continued by Portuguese mer was in the sixteenth chants and overtaken century by the Dutch East in the seventeenth. in Indonesia Most India Company spices collected routes of and China still made their way to Europe westward the along across to Macao the "monsoon from the Indian Ocean fleets," Goa, to their European and round the Cape of Good Hope destinations. And the Manila trade route between Manila and although galleon some its did with of Mexico Amer cinnamon, Acapulco Spain's supply to receive most of their Eastern ican colonies continued spices from Indian and the the Ocean Atlantic rather than the more Spain?via direct route across the Pacific. Yet what appear to be the doomed efforts of the crown to overtake the spice trade actually reveal much about the crown's imperial aims and help to clarify the rationale behind policies that have often been at best. Accounts of the rise of English and Dutch deemed inefficient in the early modern period often dismiss the Span global commerce in secrecy and xenophobia, ish imperial system as one steeped based on protectionist that choked entrepreneurial spirit and hin principles dered economic fail to recog What these assumptions development. is that many of the protectionist nize, however, policies of the Span ish crown were not only perfectly rational given the goals and needs innovative of imperial policy, but actually fostered practices usually seen as distinctly "modern." To illustrate this point, this essay focuses on one particular area of the imperial economy?the support for spice how this support con cultivation and trade?in order to demonstrate in the economic initiated stituted a policy of state-sponsored botany centuries. for sixteenth and three century pursued is essentially the practice of studying the botan botany ical properties of plants that may be of use to human society and cul to the modern, them for profit. According formalized defini tivating it is "the study of plants, fungi, tion put forth by economic botanists, or adversely that directly or indirectly, positively algae and bacteria Economic The and the maintenance of the environment. affect man, his livestock, or purely effects may be domestic, commercial, environmental, their use may belong to the past, the present, or the future."1 aesthetic;
1 E. Wickers, Economie and Practices Kluwer Gerald (Dordrecht: Botany: Principles a subfield of economic Academic 2001), Publishers, pp. 2-4. Ethnobotany, botany, has as of late. It involves into plants of research been a subject of considerable controversy of plants has been used by multina use, where indigenous knowledge chiefly medicinal
De Vos: The Science The
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term "economic in the mid-nineteenth botany" originated to "economic" the with utilitarian century, aspects of the referring a as is It its of still subdivision today plant. practiced botany, though are roots In and multidisciplinary applications readily acknowledged. was an the early modern useful endeavor for period, botany especially nations. the global empires of European The type of imperial eco nomic botany?or "colonial botany" as it has been recently termed? to that they practiced served economic and political ends in addition to historians the scientific. According Londa Schiebinger and Claudia and profited from colo Swan, "early modern botany both facilitated . . . nialism and long-distance and the of botany trade, development are closely associ and Europe's commercial and territorial expansion what The of economic practice developments."2 botany produced have termed "green gold" for early modern historians European to mineral to alternative wealth where there was none empires?an be found.3 Thus, the goals of botany coincided well with the goals of empire: ated
new medicines to develop tional pharmaceutical and biotech in the Western corporations medical tradition. The patents then make the cost of the medi given these corporations to its native populations. cine prohibitive Recent debates have taken place over the ethics or whether of such practices, around the issue of who "owns" the plant genome, revolving to a global patrimony it belongs to all. In this way, the issues and ought to thus be available here have continuing in the present day. See Jack relevance and reverberations developed Jr., ed., Seeds and Sovereignty: The Use and Control Kloppenburg of Plant Genetic Resources Plants and Empire: Press, 1988) and Londa Schiebinger, (Durham, N.C.: Duke University in the Atlantic World Colonial Mass.: Harvard University Press, Bioprospecting (Cambridge, pp. 15-17. Londa Schiebinger and Claudia and Swan, eds., Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, Politics in the Early Modern World of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), p. University (Philadelphia: in many ways coincides this project with and aims to further the work of 3. Although to call the practices I have continued and Swan, Schiebinger analyzed here "economic rather than "colonial botany," since the botanical investi (in an imperial context) botany" that took place have as a common aims. Indeed, theme utilitarian and commercial gations 2004), 2 Plants and Empire, p. 6, argues that early modern several dif Schiebinger, botany enveloped ferent traditions that are today considered separate subfields of botany, including "applied and medicinal horticulture and agriculture, and what today we (economic botany botany), call theoretical nomenclature and taxonomy." botany, especially 3 term is used by Londa Schiebinger in "Prospecting This for Drugs: European Natu ralists in the West and Swan, Colonial Botany, p. 119, and in Plants Indies," in Schiebinger and Empire, Schiebinger cas suddenly in "How Derivative in Was Humboldt?" p. 7, and by Jorge Ca?izares-Esguerra and Swan, Colonial of the Ameri Botany, p. 163, who says, "The new wealth out that both authors used this term with turned 'green.'" It should be pointed in the seventeenth centuries and eighteenth from a regard to a shift they see happening to a realization search for mineral wealth that vegetable wealth could be even more prof itable?and sustainable. this essay finds that such a realization was present from However, the start of the Spanish the sixteenth in the century, as evidenced empire and throughout transplantation efforts described here.
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new and useful plants; to study their to find, identify, and categorize to deter constituent and nutritional behavior, needs; parts, climate, mine the feasibility of their transplantation; and to devise methods by to advertise which and market their uses for commercial profit. The in the study of botany was then used by entre information generated through private or organized imperial initiative?to preneurs?either these useful plants organize large-scale agricultural projects to cultivate in the most efficient and economical method possible. The final step was to establish widespread?and in of course very lucrative?trade The of botanical these products. gardens throughout proliferation colonies during the early modern period greatly Europe and European testament to and provides the aims of economic botanists facilitated of botany as a policy of empire.4 the growing significance in the inves This paper will trace the practices of economic botany in the six of spices in the Spanish empire tigation and cultivation with the first and seventeenth teenth centuries, beginning reports early on to and progressing of spices found in the New World by Columbus to transplant in Eastern and cultivate both the later attempts spices to in In I aim the first Americas and episte Spain. doing so, highlight mological of the transplantations that occurred and significance in the Spanish of economic empire significance botany general of the Scientific Revolution. world history and the historiography in and their uses and importance then turn to spices themselves serve to world, which early modern explain why first Columbus seas in search of them. set out into uncharted then Magellan the for I the and
i ,600 botanical were approximately Europe and Euro gardens worldwide?in "Intro and Swan, the end of the eighteenth pean colonies?by century. See Schiebinger is in Colonial This Plants and Empire, pp. 57-58. duction," Botany, p. 13, and Schiebinger, not to say that botanical invention of the eighteenth century. gardens were a European Botanical gardens have a long history, dating back at least to the time of the Zoroastrians, to Europe through the Islamic empires. See Andrew Wat and the concept was transmitted in the Early Islamic World Innovation son, Agricultural University (Cambridge: Cambridge In Christian and 117-119. traditions the idea of recre Press, 1983), especially pp. 88-90 to the establishment of botanical of Eden lent further stimulation gardens. ating a Garden most as part of the European However, imperial enterprise, they seem to have proliferated See John Prest, The Garden the eighteenth century. of Eden: The during spectacularly Yale University Conn.: Botanic Garden and the Re-Creation Press, of Paradise (New Haven, Green Expansion, Imperialism: Colonial Tropical Island Edens and 1981); Richard H. Grove, 1600-1860 the Origins Press, University (Cambridge: Cambridge of Environmentalism, Government: and Richard Nature's Science, Imperial Britain, Drayton, 1995), pp. 175-179; Conn.: Yale University World and the "Improvement" Press, 2000), who (New Haven, of the to the utilitarian, in addition and cultural, roles of botan point out the religious, aesthetic, ical gardens.
4 There
De Vos: The Science And
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in the East, including cinna they did find spices, especially mace. Once it became clear, and mon, cloves, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, later domination of the Spice that Dutch) however, (and Portuguese entre Islands trade would not budge under Spanish pressure, Spanish crown to and the looked for other methods them and preneurs procure came up with new two possibilities: varieties could look for of they in the lands they controlled?the and the temperate Philippines to varieties known of the Americas?or could regions they transplant new locations, care to record the botanical of the properties taking for collection and the and transport, spice flora, the best methods in which climate and soil conditions both they grew best. Although were tried, it is the latter on which this essay focuses, as the methods seems to have been the one most utilized in solution transplantation the early years of colonization. Thus I go on to present several cases of spices first from the Spice Islands proposed and actual spice transplantation, to Mexico and China and the Caribbean, and then from the Caribbean to Spain. These reveal an aspect of Spanish transplantations imperial ism in the sixteenth century that is receiving from increasing attention historians: that the Spanish tied imperialist project was one inherently development to the production, testing, and circulation science. of Western of knowledge crucial for the
Economic The
Botany
in World
History
of natural history and particularly of botany as global significance come recent Historians has under of science enterprises investigation. have referred to the natural history collecting and botanical expedi tions that were part and parcel of the early modern imperial programs as "big science" and "big business," a product of global trade and the earliest long-distance (some have even said "multinational") corpora its global connections, tions.5 Despite until very recently however, in economic has been treated the literature as an botany Anglophone account British endeavor. The typical Anglophone almost exclusively
Steven
Harris,
Knowledge," Configurations of a Revolution? Medicine Renaissance and Revolution: Modern Press, 1993), Europe, pp. 45-61,
and the Geography of "Long-Distance Corporations, Big Sciences, "The Cutting 6, no. 2 (1998): 270. See also Harold Cook Edge and Natural Near of the North the Shores Sea" in History in Early and Natural Humanists, Scholars, Craftsmen, Philosophers ed. J. V. Field and Frank A. J. L. James (Cambridge: Cambridge University and Schiebinger, Plants and Empire, p. 5.
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it mainly with the practices of of economic botany's history associates in the nineteenth the British empire and early twentieth centuries.6 accounts These focus on English naturalists who collected "exotic" from far-off lands, and sent seeds and seedlings to Kew Gardens and studied, then shipped off to a part of they were cultivated the empire where Thus they could be best grown in large quantities. Kew acted as a kind of botanical and agricultural pro laboratory a "benign kind of agricultural to one geographer, moting, according plants where imperialism."7 In many ways, this picture is not inaccurate: in the cultivation of tea plants, quinine, and rubber trees, and in the introduction of new strains of sugar cane in the Caribbean, British colonies took center in the Anglophone stage in the nineteenth century. Yet the impression literature that this is a modern, ignores largely British phenomenon recent vol in other empires.8 Swan and Schiebinger's earlier practices ume Colonial Botany sets out explicitly to correct this imbal (2005)
is discussed in the current debates over the control of historical background is presented economic the germplasm, for example, with regard to British botany's history efforts only. See Lucille Brockway, "Plant Science and Colonial The Botanical Expansion: in Kloppenburg, Chess Game," Seeds and Sovereignty, and Wickers, Economic pp. 49-66, of histories of British Botany, p. 13. Examples comprise imperial economic botany?which a distinguished of groundbreaking collection works of sophisticated analysis?include Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal Botanic Garden (New Brockway, P. McKracken, York: Academic Nature's Government; Donald Gar Press, 1979); Drayton, dens of Empire: Botanical Institutions of the Victorian British Empire (London: Leicester Uni Kew: The History (London: versity Press, 1997); Ray Desmond, of the Royal Botanic Gardens Press with Botanic Harvill the Royal Gardens, Kew, Headrick, 1995); Daniel "Botany, and Tropical Development," 1-20; and Sat Journal ofWorld History 7 (1996): Chemistry, in Colonial "Natural History Contest: Profit or Pursuit? British Botanical pal Sangwan, in India 17 78-1820," in Science and Empires: Historical Studies About Enterprise Scientific et al. (Dordrecht: ed. Patrick Petitjean and European Expansion, Kluwer Aca Development Historians of the Royal Botanical Gardens Publishers, (Jardin 1992), pp. 281-298. in France have begun to add to the historiography, Emma Spary, des Plantes) particularly Utopia's Garden: French Natural History from Old Regime to Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 7 in the Service of Empire: The Barbados Cane-Breeding Pro J.H. Galloway, "Botany of the Caribbean Annals gram and the Revival Sugar Industry, 1880S-1930S" of the Associ ation of American 86, no. 4 (December Geographers 1996): 683-706. 8 are in Spain and Latin America It must be noted that Spanish-language historians aware of Spain's activities in natural history and botany, especially and contributions for the See for example scientific Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmi eighteenth-century expeditions. sanidad y pol?tica cient?fica en la Espa?a ilustrada (Barce ento, La ilusi?n quebrada: Bot?nica, lona: Serbal; Madrid: CSIC, 1988). But Iwould argue that the literature they have produced also fails to take into account the full extent and significance of Spain's imperial scientific for the sixteenth discussion of and bib endeavors, century. For a more detailed particularly see Paula De Vos, "Research, Development, and Empire: State liography for this argument, Support of Science (June 2006): 55-79, in the Later particularly Review 15, no. 1 Empire," Colonial Latin American Spanish the section titled "Historiography of Science and Empire." demic
6 When
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of Spices
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anee by recognizing of actors, methods, the multiplicity purposes, and in involved the of colonial botanical pursuit perspectives study. Theirs out is an inherently "sets that the great variety comparative approach in different in colonial governance parts of the world, as well as the and scientific establishments around diversity of commercial planted to Roy is consciously the globe."9 In this way, the volume responding MacLeod's call for a more inclusive treatment of imperial systems with one that problematizes of science, the dichotomy regard to history in the dis "center" and colonial between metropolitan "periphery" as well as in the production semination of knowledge of and trade in
natural resources.10
within comparative developments global these works still have the imperial systems, however, metropolitan European powers as their focus and speak primarily to and about Euro narratives of scientific development. Andrew Watson's pean historical in Innovation the Islamic World however, Agricultural Early (1983), clearly demonstrates was not matization that botanical accli exchange through deliberate a product of the modern Christian and Christian in tracing the diffusion of a variety of staple crops, izing world. Rather, and fibrous concludes that plant diffu fruits, plants (cotton), Watson sion had occurred for millennia and intensified particularly during the centuries extensive of The infrastructure Islamic expansion.11 and early common and exchange the systems of communication present within
For all
their
focus
on
at their greatest extent stretched Islamic empires, which from north ern India to central Spain, made them "unusually receptive to all that was new" in terms of the efficient diffusion of known plants and the of new varieties.12 These cultivars diffused through a vari development and rulers who col ety of agents, including both peasant cultivators in royal botanical lected exotic specimens gardens.13 Although Watson it is very plausible does not make the argument that the explicitly, methods of acclimatization under the employed Spanish caliphates
and Swan, Colonial Botany, pp. 4, 8. Schiebinger 10 in "Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial "Introduction," Roy MacLeod, ed. Roy MacLeod, and Colonial 15 (2000): 6. This volume Enterprise," special issue, Osiris to redress this imbalance in the literature, several Botany as well have attempted including essays on Spanish imperial science. 11 Innovation. Watson, Agricultural 12 In fact, Watson and 91-92. Ibid., pp. 2, 82-83, suggests reasons why specifically slowed considerably lower popula upon reaching medieval citing plant diffusion Europe, tion densities, the inability of the land tenure system to support new experimental crops, an unfavorable and an unskilled climate, peasantry. European 13 Ibid., pp. 87-98.
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left a legacy of botanical expertise and acclimatization of both useful
ish efforts described here may well learned of the advantages whereby Christian Europe, through Spain, and techniques of agricultural and botanical innovation from its Islamic predecessors.14
geared toward the transplantation and ornamental plants. The Span be the result of this legacy, a legacy
Economic and the
Botany, Scientific
the
Columbian Revolution
Exchange,
Thus economic that may owe botany was a global, imperial endeavor its origins at least in part to the practices of the Islamic world. Yet ramifications Spanish efforts in economic botany have epistemological to a the for series modern involved of empir specific early period, they ical practices that were arguably "scientific," in when understood and, our understanding that way, can serve to enhance of two further his themes in world history: the Columbian and toriographical exchange the Scientific Revolution. Alfred Crosby's of the Colum conceptions bian exchange and ecological allowed for the pro imperialism, which liferation of "neo-Europes" much of the temperate world, throughout to world history in helping to have been of immense importance understand the global environmental factors that have shaped much of the modern world.15 Yet his work largely focuses on the impersonal forces of nature and the inadvertent, unintentional of the consequence to to of materials from weeds rodents.16 spread biological pathogens The story presented here aims to augment this work for Latin Amer ica by showing the conscious introductions of new plants, the organi institutional that initiated and supported them, and zational, complex the epistemological ramifications of the empirical and experimental? are that is, the scientific?methods all of which that they entailed, represented in the practice of economic botany. In this way, the study
14This is an issue that deserves further research, not only with regard to the European inheritance and pharmacolog but of medical practice, through Spain of Islamic botanical as well. ical knowledge 15 See Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of Conn.: Greenwood 1492 (Westport, Press, 1973), Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Press, 1986), and Germs, Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Studies in Ecological History Seeds, and Animals: (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1994). 16 The same can be said of a more recent work on world environmental history by John E Richards, (Berkeley: The Unending Frontier: An Environmental of California Press, 2003). University History of the Early Modem World
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in the Spanish the of economic empire can serve to emphasize botany in the specific manipulation of nature and the role of human agency in the ecological science and environmental role of botanical changes about.17 that that manipulation brought The story of economic botany presented here also serves to refocus our understanding a subject of the origins of the Scientific Revolution, in the last few decades.18 Recent that has undergone much debate Barrera have con works by Jorge Ca?izares-Esguerra and Antonio to those debates by bringing of the modern Western development tributed attention scientific to Spain's role in the tradition.19 The story
17The same theme is true for the of a global marketplace for goods in the development historians modern and, more recently, cultural and world historians early period. Economic to the establishment attention have paid much of global commerce, the devel particularly for cash crops?coffee, tea, chocolate, tobacco, cotton, opment of and demand spices, dye stuffs?and the means of production and labor relations which from them. See resulted Kenneth theWorld and Steven Topik, The World that Trade Created: and Society, Culture, Present (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, Economy, 1400-the 1999); Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar inModem (New York: Viking, History 1985); and Cross-Cultural Trade inWorld History Philip Curtin, (Cambridge: University Cambridge 2nd Press, 1984) and The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays inAtlantic History, in the ed. (Cambridge: the science involved Press, University 1998). Again, Cambridge even though has received less attention, the development of the plantation development Pomeranz complex
on botanical and the "world that trade created" depended of an investigations nature and experimental that are described here. To the extent that historians empirical or technological concerns in the establishment have addressed scientific of world trade, and cosmology rather than natural history, navigation, they tend to highlight cartography, or agronomy. science The between and commerce, the impor botany, interrelationship tance of natural history in early modern and the changing meaning of "economic" science, in the early modern and are promising period have been the subject of recent elaboration areas for further research. See for example Lisbet Koerner, Linneaus: Nature and Nation Press, 1999), Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modem Europe (New York: Rout and theWorld (Lon of Goods ledge, 2002); John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds., Consumption in the don: Routledge, Schabas and Neil de Marchi, eds., Oeconomies 1993); and Margaret Press, 2003). (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Age of Newton 18 The concept, the definition, and indeed the very existence of a European Scientific over serious questioning Revolution have the last several decades. For an undergone see Steven overview of these debates, "Introduction: ]. Harris, Thinking Locally, Acting In this essay, Harris calls for a new type 6, no. 2 (1998): 131-139. Globally," Configurations one that attempts to resolve of history for the Scientfic Revolution, (or at least address) to history tensions between and "externalist" the "internalist" of science and approaches between the local and the global. 19 to How theHistory of theNew World: Histories, Write Jorge Ca?izares-Esguerra, Epis Atlantic World (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford temologies, and Identities in the Eighteenth-Century Isis 96 (2005): 64-70, and Anto Press, 2001) and "Iberian Colonial Science," University nio Barrera, Nature: The Spanish American Experiencing Empire and the Early Scientific Revolution butions of Texas Press, (Austin: University to the Scientific Revolution?indeed, contri 2006). The subject of Spain's many its leading role in some instances?and the
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of economic here builds on their work in that the botany presented efforts that accompanied economic knowledge-gathering botany con stituted one aspect of what Barrera has termed the "information-gath ering and knowledge-producing practices relating to the natural world to Bar of the Indies" that the Spanish crown carried out.20 According com included sending out questionnaires, rera, these practices, which the writing of natural history scientific tomes, hosting missioning a "protocol and testing the products for found, provided expeditions, of empirical information" within the empire. Ca?i to nature has the also utilitarian of Spanish zares-Esguerra pointed to botanical in contributions the sixteenth and century knowledge in the development their importance of European natural history.21 This type of empirical information and util codification, gathering, to the development itarianism was important of European science in two ways. First, as Harold Cook has pointed out, natural history was science of the early modern the empirical period, a time of "the first ... a worldwide in of which natural science rooted period globalization, in descriptive natural history also developed for the first time."22 Sec was in place allowed economic the of that ond, system Spanish botany to collect, administrators and useful botanical disseminate process, a in to Bruno and that made it, according way specimens knowledge a "center of calculation."23 Latour's definition, In this way, the Span its state-directed ish empire, with effort in the collection of empirical and of encouragement knowledge practice, experimental anticipated the methodological and epistemological of the Scientific groundwork a model It also provided Revolution. for imperial information gather was on a state support, sci based that close between ing relationship entific knowledge and practice, economic aims. policy, and commercial the articulation
came up in several lack of recognition of this among Anglophone historians of science at a recent meeting of the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical panel discussions in Charleston, Studies South Carolina, 11-13 March 2005 and is the subject of Jorge in the Renaissance: "Iberian Science Ca?izares-Esguerra, Ignored How Much Longer," Per 12, no. 1 (2004): 86-124. spectives on Science 20 Antonio Practices: Commodities and Reports from Barrera, "Empire and Empirical Review the New World," Colonial Latin American and "Local 15, no. 1 (June 2006): 39-54, in Spanish America" and Commodities Commerce, Herbs, Global Medicines: Knowledge, in Smith and Marvels, and Findlen, Merchants pp. 163-181. 21 in the Renaissance," "Iberian Science pp. 98-103. Ca?izares-Esguerra, 22 in the East Indies," in "Global Economies and Local Knowledge Harold Cook, and Swan, Colonial Schiebinger Botany, p. 101. 23 to Follow Scientists and Engineers Bruno Latour, Science inAction: How through Soci Mass.: Harvard ety (Cambridge, Press, pp. 222, University 1987), chap. 6, especially 232-233.
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commercial pursuits with scientific research, the crown was a of form colonial promoting policy that would be followed by other or not) for the next four cen nations (whether consciously European turies and that served to enhance its commercial potential?in theory if not in practice?for the next three. to New The Spanish crown's empirical and experimental approach nature also ties into broader discussions World about the development in world history. Historian of science David Christian has recently transoceanic communication that the of lines of establishment argued in the Atlantic and Pacific brought together the "New" and established in a way that made Europe a clearinghouse "Old" Worlds of informa reli traditional only served to decenter texts for knowledge of the world, but that in a way that had allowed for the collection and testing of knowledge not been possible before.24 The empirical fostered by eco approaches nomic botany and the global transplantation of plants at this time, I would argue, represent the type of information collection and testing that Christian refers to and thus provide a concrete, localized example of the global forces at work in the early modern period. tion?information ance on ancient that not and Biblical
Spices
in the
Spanish
Empire
an of spices, therefore, constituted Imperial efforts in the cultivation early program of economic botany that has important historiographical and epistemological ramifications. Let us now turn to the spices them to be a significant aim of Spanish colonization selves, which continued
24 David in the Mirror in The Changing of 'Big History/" Christian,"Science Image of the Sciences, ed. Ida H. Stamhuis, Teun Koetsier, Cornelis de Pater, and Albert Van Helden Kluwer Academic is another dimension (Dordrecht: 2002), pp. 141-169. There Publishers, of Christian's that I do not address here: that from a world history argument perspective, is not qualitatively the Scientific Revolution different from earlier knowledge systems. it is quantitatively in that the global nature of knowledge Rather, different, testing allowed it was, not because of any "canny choices" made by Europeans. the system to become what on European see Anthony of the impact of the New World Grafton, thought, Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard The Old World and the New Press, University 1992); John H. Elliott, Press, 1970); Karen Ordahl Kupperman, ed., 1492-1650 University (Cambridge: Cambridge in European Consciousness, America for the Institute of 1493-1750 (Chapel Hill: Published For histories New and Culture, Williamsburg, of North Car Va., by the University History Early American olina Press, 1995); and Anthony with the New World: From Pagden, European Encounters to Romanticism Renaissance Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993) and The Fall (New Haven, Indian and the Origins of Comparative of Natural Man: The American Ethnology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
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the sixteenth century and beyond. The lucrative nature of throughout the trade, and the recognition that sea routes often posed less danger than the traditional overland transport of the Silk Roads, would have we are all aware of the benefits of spices been motivation and enough, in improving the culinary arts. Yet the significance of spice cultivation more In these obvious benefits. goes beyond fact, spices served another in a number of they were key ingredients modern Cinna European early pharmacopoeia.25 were sta and for medicinal mon, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, example, in of and central the of modern importance preparation ples early cures. Seventeenthand eighteenth-century Spanish pharmacy books important medicines purpose in the termed the "aromatics," medical aloe, sandalwood, nutmeg, preparations made from ginger, cinnamon, that cured a wide variety of common ailments. clove, and cardamom water fortified the heart, stomach, cinnamon For example, and head and cured epilepsy and palsy.26 Nutmeg oil calmed the stomach, include diarrhea eliminate "acrid humors," which caused colds, and helped and vomiting.27 And cardamom oil soothed intestinal pain and reduced flatulence.28 advan Thus, control over the spice trade brought great commercial These tages in the areas of both food and medicine. spices came from relieved entire sections on what were as well:
from India, China, many different and, of regions in the East?mainly Islands of Indonesia. course, the Spice then, were associated Spices, with the East, the ultimate voyages. Yet spices were goal of Columbus's If the accounts of colonial also found in the Americas. explorers and are to be believed, vari there were naturally entrepreneurs occurring eties of cinnamon, Yuca and pepper found in the Caribbean, nutmeg, and Ecuador. Columbus himself t?n, and parts of present-day Colombia to the presence In a letter to crown of spices in Hispaniola. attested to officials upon his return to Spain after the first voyage, he claimed have come across abundant and "marvelous" trees, fruits, and other plants, especially spices, claiming that "there are many spices and great
25
This
enteenth2001).
topic is treated more and Eighteenth-Century
in Sev "The Art of Pharmacy fully in my dissertation, Mexico" of California, (PhD diss., University Berkeley,
26 en la quai se trata de la elec Felix Palacios, Palestra Pharmace?tica Chy mico-Gal?nica ci?n de los Simples, sus Preparaciones Facsimile of 1706 ed. (Madrid: y Gal?nicas. Chymicas IV, pp. 344-345. Juan Garcia Insan?on, 1706), Parte IV, Cap?tulo 27 Ibid., pp. 250-251. 28 Ibid., pp. 266-267.
De Vos: The Science mines
of Spices
411
and Isabela would lend him of gold" on the island.29 If Ferdinand that they would have "spice . . . further assistance, Columbus promised as much as their highnesses shall command," rhubarb, cin including and aloe, which he believed he had identified.30 Clearly, namon, spices were on Columbus's and understandably still very much so, mind, because he believed that he was near to the Spice Islands of the East Indies. It was
soon obvious to the crown, navigators, and explorers alike to Columbus) in fact on the that these islands were (though to the Old World. hitherto unknown outskirts of two continents They a formidable barrier to the sought-after Islands and Spice presented the silks, porcelain, and perfumes of India and China, but that does not mean its intentions that the crown abandoned of tapping into the accounts cli and by the temperate trade. Encouraged by Columbus's mate of the Caribbean regions, the crown supported efforts to estab lish spice cultivation also went on there and in New Spain. Explorers never to explore Pacific islands in search of spices and eventually claimed the Philippine Islands, where, again, spices were objects of consider able interest.
Eastern
Spices
and
American
Varieties
in the Spanish Indeed, the story of economic empire begins botany where Columbus left off: with Magellan's around the world voyage which had the express purpose of casting out across the (1519-1522), in search of the famed Spice Pacific Islands, which had come under in to Magellan maritime instructions control 1513. Portuguese Royal a or native that he "make of trade" with lead peace treaty stipulated ers in the Spice Islands and that he negotiate the best terms possible in exchange for Spanish for spices. A well-known goods published a member account of the circumnavigation of by Antonio Pigafetta, on the cost and amount the expedition, includes detailed information of spices that were garnered from native leaders in the Moluccas. Yet the interest in spices was not only commercial, as Pigafetta duly noted
in New "Letter to Santangel," Iberian World: A Documen Columbus, Christopher to the Early ijth Century, and Settlement of Latin America vol. 2, tary History of theDiscovery The Caribbean, ed. J. H. Parry and Robert G. Keith (New York: Garland Inc., Publishing, 1984), p. 60. 30 Ibid., p. 62.
29
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as well. The trees and shrubs that pro characteristics cloves were subjects cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and especially of scrutiny. For each, Pigafetta described the contour and dimensions in which of leaves, trunk, and branches, the climate they grew, and in which fruits were the time of year and manner their all-important its bark). harvested (or in the case of cinnamon, to Pigafetta For example, "the best cinnamon that can according be found" on the islands grew in a tall tree with leaves similar to the "as thick as fingers" whose laurel and branches bark was collected their botanical duced tree resembled twice a year.31 The nutmeg that of the walnut, whose a bright red rind of mace fruit yielded that surrounded the nutmeg roots could be of a small shrub whose inside of it.32Ginger consisted eaten "green" or dried.33 Cloves were probably the most sought after as were on to known the five Spice and expensive grow only spice, they Islands of Ternate, and Bacchian. A testa Tidore, Mutir, Machian, ment to their importance was the fact that Pigafetta went ashore on to study how they grew, noting the islands specifically the trees' height and thickness?"tall and as big around as a man"?as well as the shape cloves them leaves, color of the bark, and fructification?the selves.34 Pigafetta also recorded the climactic of the cloves, conditions twice a year, in June and December, which were gathered during the most in weather. The cloves very specific locales in grew temperate the mountains of the Spice Islands, where each day a cloud apparently descended and surrounded and cooler them, and due to the moisture that this would have effected, "the cloves become temperatures per were as "if any of not met fect." These conditions elsewhere, specific .. And no in another place, they will not live.. these trees are planted cloves are grown in the world except on the five mountains of these to detail would serve the Spaniards when five islands."35 Such attention to cultivate the cloves on their own. later on they wished to Spain on a much reduced crew returned Magellan's Although with of loaded down valuable cloves?and another ship large quantities it was so overloaded with had foundered because spices?Spanish sue efforts to infiltrate the Spice Islands trade were never ultimately of their
trans. Paula Spurlin Paige The Voyage of Magellan, See Antonio Pigafetta, (Engle Blair and James Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969), p. 104. See also Emma Helen vol. 1, De Moluccis Insulis Alexander Robertson, eds., The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, A. H. Clark company, pp. 330-335. (Cleveland: 1903-1909), 32 p. 122. Pigafetta, Voyage of Magellan, 33 Ibid., p. 129 34 Ibid., p. 112. 35 Ibid., p. 121. wood
31
De Vos: The Science
of Spices
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in control cessful.36 The Portuguese remained of the spice-bearing monsoon fleets that crisscrossed the Indian Ocean.37 Portuguese dom well into the seventeenth inance, in fact, continued (when it century was taken over by the Dutch) not the fact that despite Spain only took over part of the island of Ternate a garrison there in and established the nominal ruler of Portugal due to the dynas 1606, but also became tic succession of Philip II to the Portuguese throne in 1580. The rea son for continued over hold the trade stemmed from a Portuguese at crowns time union the of the of the that treaty signed Spanish mer chants and seamen were forced to respect. The Treaty of Zaragoza once and for all that the dividing established line (1529), furthermore, between Spanish and Portuguese interests in the Pacific put the Spice Islands squarely in Portuguese territory. in their desire to take over the Spice Foiled Islands, then, the were two left with both of which involved the prac choices, Spaniards tice of economic botany: they could search for varieties of spice flora in other locations, or they could acquire seeds and seedlings and trans In fact, they did both. Subsequent plant them elsewhere. Spanish to the East Indies led to the successful establishment of a expeditions some in was the debate deemed within (which after colony Philippines where settlers eagerly looked for and Spain's area of demarcation), often found local varieties of pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg.38 Cinna mon was said to be so common, for example, that it was burned for
Ian Cameron, and the First Circumnavigation (New York: Sat Magellan of theWorld Press, 1973), p. 201. The urday Review ship that foundered was later captured by the Por in the Moluccas. tuguese 37 For an overview of the spice trade and European trade rivalry over the Indian Ocean "The Growth and Composition in the Iberian of Trade routes, see Carla Rahn Phillips, in The Rise of Merchant Trade in the Early Empires, 1450-1750," Empires: Long-Distance Modern World, ed. James D. Tracy 1350-1750, Press, (Cambridge: Cambridge University 1990), pp. 34-101. 38 For information in the Spanish see colonial specific to spice cultivation Philippines, Paula De Vos, "The Spice Trade and the Colonization of the Philippines," Mains'l Haul: A and Journal of Pacific Maritime History 41, no. 4/42, no. 1 (Fall 2005/Winter 2006): 33-42, Maria Lourdes D?az-Trechuelo, "Eighteenth-Century Philippine Economy: Agriculture," See Nicholas Cushner, Philippine Studies 14 (1966): 65-126. Spain in the Philippines (Que zon City: Ateneo de Manila over University, 1971) for a good general English-language view of colonial of the Philippines. For further reading on Spanish of history exploration the Pacific and Spanish imperial aims, see O. H. K. Spate, The Spanish Lake (Minneapolis: Presence, John M. Headley, "Spain's Asian America Historical Review Hispanic 75, no. 4 For of the Manila (1995): 623-646. trade, see William galleon Lytle The Romantic History Schurz, The Manila Galleon: of the Spanish Galleons Trading between more Manila and Acapuko (New York: Dutton, 1939), and, recently, Katharine Bjork, "The Link that Kept the Philippines Journal ofWorld History 9 (1998): 25-50. Spanish," University 1565-1590: Structures Press, 1979), and Aspirations," the development of Minnesota and
36
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to the islands that in his 1559 expedition and Legaspi noted trees islanders did not cultivate wild the abounded, pepper although them, but native chiefs kept them in their houses as objects of curios friar assured the crown that certain ity.39 In 1639, a local Franciscan of nutmeg and clove as parts of the islands would produce harvests as those of the Moluccas. in turn ordered the The crown to "introduce and establish the cultivation of nutmeg and in each area [of the islands] where the disposition of the soil it."40 permits but in the Spices were sought after not only in the Philippines, as well. As discussed to have Americas Columbus claimed earlier, in the cinnamon varieties of and rhubarb found naturally occurring a Spanish physician who collected and Nicol?s Monardes, Caribbean. abundant governor clove ... into with various coming spices and other medicines experimented of several new vari evidence Seville from the Indies fleets, provided in his Medicinal History eties in the Americas of Things Brought from Indies.*1 One was the "Long Pepper" (Pimienta luenga) found Our West and around Panama) along the coast of Tierra Firme (present-day coast the Caribbean of de Indias which, Colombia), (on Cartagena was more flavorful, healthful, to Monardes, and spicy than according the Eastern black pepper due to its greater "aromaticity" (aromatici found in a American dad).*2 Another variety was that of cinnamon, some of the varieties with near Quito. Monardes deemed province to have the same flavor, odor, "aromaticity," which he was presented to Europe from and fragrance as the cinnamon astringency, brought
39 Blair and Robertson, of Ruy L?pez de Villalo Philippine Islands, vol. 2, The Expedition to Miguel of Valencia, and Salvador bos, 1541-46, p. 227, copy of a letter sent from Sevilla to Philip II, 26 June 1568. p. 241, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi 40 Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla 330, L. 4, f. 280. (hereafter AGI/S) Filipinas, 41Monardes authors has been the subject of extensive among Spanish-language writing inAnglophone and bib literature. For biographical and is receiving increasing recognition see Francisco Guerra, Nicol?s on Monardes, Bautista Monardes: Su information liographical vida y su obra (1493-1588) biograf?a de Nicolas Monardes La verdadera D.F., 1961); Francisco Rodr?guez Marin, (Seville: Padilla Libros, 1988); Javier Lasso de la Vega y Cor tezo, Biograf?a y estudio cr?tico de las obras del m?dico Nicol?s Monardes (Seville: Padilla Libros, in Historia medicinal de las y Calvo-Rubio, "Pr?logo," 1988); and Juan Jim?nez-Castellanos cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias occidentales Monardes que sirven de medicina, by Nicol?s see Marcia Susan Norton, histories, (Seville: Padilla Libros, 1988). For recent Anglophone (M?xico, "New World
in the Spanish and Chocolate A History of Tobacco of Goods: Empire, of California, Bleichmar, 2000) and Daniela (PhD diss., University Berkeley, 1492-1700" Encounters with New World Transatlantic and Fields: Sixteenth-Century "Books, Bodies, the in Schiebinger which discusses and Swan, Colonial Botany, pp. 83-99, Materia Medica," medicines information about American and interpreted ways in which Monardes gathered that came into Seville. 42 86r-v. Historia Medicinal, Monardes,
De Vos: The Science
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had a thicker bark that India by the Portuguese.43 Others, however, taste nor aroma?"the of the cinnamon had neither opposite brought some to argue that it was not cinnamon at from East India"?leading a with which Monardes all, point disagreed.44 aside, clearly, not all spice varieties were created equally, Disputes set about try and entrepreneurs and Spanish bureaucrats, naturalists, new not to varieties if that would rival the spices cultivate surpass ing new vari with the However, experimentation imported by Portuguese. as to their qualities eties and arguments vis-?-vis established strains, are subjects more and classification and debates over their naming the scope of for the eighteenth century and thus beyond appropriate and seventeenth solu this paper.45 In the sixteenth centuries, Spanish tions to the problem of how to procure spices tended to focus on meth and it is to these transplantations that we will ods of transplantation,
now turn.
Transplantation From the Spice
of Islands
Spices: to Mexico
of spice pro The transplantation of spices appears to be the method curement most favored in the early years of the Spanish empire. The cases described below include both proposals for and actual transplan tations of spices from the East Indies to the West Indies, and from there on to Spain. The archival is in some record for the transplantations to but enough of the story is apparent deduce what parts fragmentary, took place, and there are enough cases to show a pattern and a plan. the transplantations took place through a combination of Overall, on state in efforts the part of the coordination with colonial leaders and of the Spanish crown and the local entrepreneurs. The state consisted Council of the Indies, the highest governing body with respect to the concert in in worked created with the Casa de la Indies, 1524. They or customs in in 1503 to deal established Seville house, Contrataci?n,
Ibid., 98r-v. 44 Ibid., 98v. 45 For an of the kind of rivalry example varieties and the search for the "true" spice
43
of spice that took place over the identification in the French colonial system, see E. C. Spary, "Of Nutmegs The in and Botanists: Colonial Cultivation of Botanical Identity," in the Spanish and Swan, Colonial Botany, pp. 187-203. For examples Schiebinger empire, see Daniela in Eighteenth-Century Natural "Visual Culture Botanical Bleichmar, History: in the Spanish Atlantic" and Expeditions Illustrations (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2005).
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of trade and navigation the regulation with between Spain and the we see here that itwas also involved in natural his Americas?though in turn relied on colo Casa officials tory and botanical investigation. nial administrators?the the governor of the viceroy of New Spain, in the and the audiencia (high court) of Santo Domingo Philippines, cases below?for the provision of expert opinion and information. The crown and council issued orders for transplantations and typically dictated would terms under which the economic cultivation and export then oversaw take place; the Casa de la Contrataci?n the col lection of information the methods and success of the concerning In the colonies, local entrepreneurs cultivated the transplantation. to and would have and recorded the data spices pertinent conveyed or the local administrative governor, audiencia). body (viceroy, This network
of administrative, and knowledge-gather economic, an illustrates point of larger historical ing responsibilities important serves in to challenge it certain that and historiographical significance about the of scientific Tradi dissemination assumptions knowledge. treatment in science tional historical of the development of Western contexts out science has assumed that "diffused" Western from imperial a metropolitan, center and that any science that took place European Yet in the cases of settings as derivative by definition.46 that the council and the described the below, "expert" transplantation casa turned to for advice and direction was the viceroy of Mexico, who was asked on one occasion to send an instruction booklet with along it is clear that no one involved seedlings he sent to Spain. Furthermore, in this network was a trained naturalist, and though they consulted with doctors and apothecaries for botanical their work was knowledge, as well.47 to provide empirical data and careful, meticulous observation an than from obvious rather Thus, disseminating European metropo in these lis to an obvious colonial the knowledge created periphery, in colonial a product of circulation?of a "moving metropolis" rather than a strictly defined center, through which knowledge moved multi and thus served creative purposes on both sides of the directionally cases was
46 The is George "diffusionist" classic work that originated the so-called approach "The Spread of Western Science Science," Basalla, 156 (1967): 616-622. 47 There is growing awareness scien of science that much European among historians tific development of the early modern period came not from learned experts, but rather from and other entrepreneurs. Smith and Findlen, artists, artisans, merchants, See, for example, of which Antonio Merchants Barrera's "Local Herbs, Global Medicines," and Marvels, pp. is particularly and Pamela H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and relevant, 163-181, in the Scientific Revolution of Chicago Press, 2004). Experience (Chicago: University
De Vos: The Science
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417
is Atlantic and of the Pacific.48 In this way, the unit under observation one transoceanic less a strictly political than also defined entity by it is part another way in which travel, and as such serves to highlight of a larger, global narrative.49
Francisco The
de Mendoza's evidence
Asiento
of long-distance of spices in the transplantation in sometime the took the and involved 1550s empire Spanish place to New of seeds from East the Indies transport spice Spain (present-day Mexico and the U.S. It is not clear how the seeds came to southwest). arrive inMexico, but we can assume that it involved some illegal activ seems It that India and came ity. they were smuggled out of Portuguese course to Mexico at since time of this the navigational Spain, by way across was not to eastward the Pacific yet known Spanish navigators. earliest in the possession of Antonio de Mendoza, they appeared first of New the had indicated an interest in viceroy Spain.50 Mendoza from the East as early as 1542, when he ordered cultivating products an to that the Philippines under the direction of Villalobos expedition In Mexico, collect
you can
and send him

secure."51
"specimens
of all the products
of the
land that
The Villalobos ended in disaster, and it was therefore an expedition source of the stolen seeds. At any rate, by 1558 the viceroy had unlikely obtained them and was able to keep such precious com successfully as he was most in his family's possession, modities likely very instru in securing for his son Francisco monopoly mental rights to cultivate the seeds in 1558. Like his father, Francisco Mendoza also exhibited
48 The literature on issues of center and periphery to imperial and colonial see Roy MacLeod, "On science, on the Architecture Reflections of Imperial Science," Cultural ed. Nathan and Marc Comparison, Reingold Institution Smithsonian Press, of knowledge tional movement
is wide ranging. For issues specific the 'Moving Metropolis': Visiting in Scientific Colonialism: A Cross
D.C.: Rothenberg (Washington, I would also like to point out that the multidirec 1987). the Spanish and expertise empire that I describe throughout below demonstrates that for the empire, there was not simply one "center of calculation"? one centered on the customs house in Seville?but the obvious rather multiple centers, the viceroy was looked upon to gather expert advice on City, where including Mexico transplantations. 49 This idea fits in with Jerry Bentley's call for using sea and ocean basins as units for as an alternative to national the study of world history that modern historians parameters tend to adhere to. See Jerry H. Bentley, "Sea and Ocean Basins as Frameworks of Histori cal Analysis," Review 89, no. 2 (1999): 215-224. Geographical 50 me with I thank Antonio Ba?era for providing this information. 51 Blair and Robertson, Philippine Islands, 2:58.
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as it was interest in indigenous of a long-standing products, a codex containing commissioned the Badianus manuscript, on Aztec medicines, as a gift for Charles V.52 In the agree information ment between Francisco Mendoza and the crown about the spice trans he who is clearly evident the economic side of economic plantation, botany an empire-wide and indicates of that practices policy monopolistic would ensure the regular collection of royal taxes through two main practices. The first was the practice of assigning asientos, the exclusive to of and trade in a particular right to the production commodity, a method For the crown, asientos provided of regu turn customs to in the Indies that allowed officials lating revenues ensure crown its track of colonial and that the received keep involved the share, or "rights" (derechos), of taxes. The other method on the sale of certain of estancos, or royal monopolies establishment select individuals. trade with of spices brought the transplantation and cultivation from the Spice Islands to New Spain was put under the charge of Francisco who in 1558 was granted an asiento to plant seeds of black de Mendoza, and "China peppers, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, saffron, sandal wood, a to treat The fevers.53 conditions of medicine used root," purgative exclusive the asiento were rather specific: they granted Mendoza rights to plant the various seeds inNew Spain "and other parts of the Indies." to the terms, no one else could cultivate these spices, nor According were contract with the estanco?such could spice they privileges In addition, Mendoza would be given "all reserved only for Mendoza.54 for his enterprise and would receive half the prof the land necessary" its (the crown receiving the other half).55 The Council of the Indies was initially quite opposed to the asiento, not because they opposed felt that the practice of the asiento itself, but because council members if they the spices would not do well inNew Spain's climate and because for their cul did indeed flourish, the practice of giving unlimited-lands tivation would interfere with indigenous land rights and the grazing of livestock. They also felt that limiting the rights to contract with the no less?was an "intolerable" estanco to Mendoza perpetuity only?in
practice.56
goods. Thus
52
See
Bleichmar,
"Books,
Bodies,
and
Fields,"
in Schiebinger
and
Swan,
Colonial
Botany, p. 87. 53 606 L. 2, f. i2ir. AGI/S 54 Indiferente, AGI/S 738, N. 55 Ibid., f. IV. 56 Ibid., fs. ir-v.
47, f. ir.
De Vos: The Science
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the record at this point is fragmentary, despite the Coun Although it is clear that the asiento was ultimately cil's strong reservations, some of the at least limited success with Mendoza granted. enjoyed as to the I death. evidence do have until his What untimely products comes from the work of Nicol?s enterprise's development mainly son of writes that "Don Francisco de Mendoza, Monardes. Monardes the Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, grew in New Spain clove, pepper, ginger, and other spices brought from East India, [but] the enterprise was lost due to his death."57 Only two spices seem to have flourished: in it well because root.58 Indeed, those ginger, "grew parts," and China root was the source of a conversation China between Mendoza and at some point when Mendoza in Seville had returned from Monardes the Americas. Mendoza showed Monardes several roots, asking to identify that Monardes them. Monardes responded they were of China because root, but he was confused clearly examples they looked so fresh?not their usual condition after the long trip from China. When Mendoza that in fact they had recently come responded from New Spain, where had been cultivated they along with "a large was of Monardes shocked [other] spices," quantity ("yo me espante1), root "was to be found only in because he believed that China to him about the "contract" (con China."59 Mendoza then explained tractaci?n) he had with the crown that had allowed him "to bring to of spices," which he had already started plant Spain large quantities It is not clear exactly when and this conversation ing cultivating.60 took place, as Monardes carried out experiments with American med icines for decades prior to publishing his work, and publication took over occurs account in several that this years. However, given place the first part of three that were ultimately conversation the published, took place sometime between 1558 and 1565, when he first probably his material. began publishing Monardes had been in contact at some point with Men Although in the dark about the Council of the Indies apparently remained doza, what was taking place. Indeed, a full forty years after his 1558 agree
57 Historia medicinal, Monardes, 99V. 58 to Monardes, it was a root "with some root" may be ginseng. According "China a little reddish too, and brown on the is white on the inside, sometimes knots on it, which in curing fevers because at provok it was "marvelous" It was especially outside." effective ing sweats. See ibid., i6v-i7r. 59 Ibid., p. i6v. 60 occurs The phrase of spices" (mucha cantidad de Especer?a) twice "large quantity it twice in order to emphasize within the passage, and I have quoted efforts that Mendoza's fruit. did at one point yield substantial
420
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ment
prac of sci showing the possibility entific activity and knowledge within the very strict com production set up by the terms of the asiento. In mercial and economic boundaries of the Indies admitted that "it is unknown whether 1597, the Council the cultivation of pepper, cloves, cinnamon, [Mendoza] ever executed In the interest of their great potential Chinese ginger, or sandalwood." become clear, and "utility for the state," the council information, presum requested as to in from the of Mendoza's efforts this Mexico, viceroy ably regard and Plantings" and sent along a treatise titled "Seedlings ("Sementeras to help with any current projects.61 Most the y Plantios") importantly, if the spice cultivation desired to know had been successful, if so, why, and if not, why not. They requested "very particularly" ... on "the disposition in of the earth, information and condition were what where which and and how these seeds cul lands, climate, result from them."62 This type of informa tivated, and the uses which into which delved the tion, specific habitat and ecology of spice flora, an of the methods of economic represents early example botany. council and
the crown, the as Spain for information lands. It is in this request tices of the Spanish crown
with
sent a request to the viceroy council to the progress of spice cultivation that the empirical, information-seeking
of New in those
The Transplantation In the early
of Cloves
cloves became another century, target for were one most of Cloves the valuable of the transplantation. a men were as Not spices. only they highly prized spice, but, tioned above, they grew in only a tiny area, the northern islands of the Moluccas. There was a healthy trade in cloves throughout Southeast as five thousand to seven thousand bahar and East Asia, with as much around the turn of the sixteenth annually century.63 Portu produced area into time infiltration the this made them the dom around guese inant merchants for carrying the spice to Europe. Cloves, then, entered colonial Eastern Europe mainly through the port of Lisbon. Castilian acceptance of Por
seventeenth
606, L. 2, fs. 121-122. Indiferente, Ibid., f. 122. 63 in Cloves, circa 1500: Quantities and Trade Routes? Roderich Ptak, "Asian Trade in The Portuguese and the Pacific, ed. Francis A Synopsis and Other of Portuguese Sources," A. Dutra and Joao Camilo for Portuguese dos Santos (Santa Barbara: Center Studies, Uni at Santa Barbara, used in the East versity of California 1995), p. 151. A bahar is a weight to Ptak, Indies that can vary considerably, 223 and 625 pounds. According usually between 1.2 million of approximately bahar was the equivalent 5,000-7,000 kg, or 2.64 million 62 AGI/S pounds.
61
De Vos: The Science
of Spices
421
even after the Union in 1580, however, of Crowns tug?ese commerce were not disgruntled, and indeed that Spanish merchants did not mean was on it.64 Such the duties dissatisfaction of high placed complained a to in motivation New cloves for the grow 1607 proposal probably from the suggestion of the governor of Spain. The proposal originated to the king and the Council of the who recommended the Philippines, a in New could be Indies that growing cloves very profitable Spain were successful. Building on this that cultivation enterprise, provided in the that cloves be Ternate collected suggestion, stipulated proposal to and transported control) (which was by this time under Spanish turn in via New Manila where would be the they Spain galleons, in regions with the appropriate and soil conditions.65 climactic planted to determine the feasibility of such an But first, it was necessary for that fell on the shoulders of the and the responsibility experiment, to The proposal, addressed viceroy of New Spain, Luis de Velasco. are was to with people who stated that he first "communicate Velasco, and who could tell him "what the both learned and disinterested" would best serve to cultivate and care for the cloves, and the methods to best way collect them from the Kingdom of Terrenate [sic], and by what means [to New Spain] with the least risk they could be brought and cost, and how to best and most usefully serve the Royal Treasury to implement the crown wished and my subjects and vassals."66 Thus, a program of transplanting to the cloves from their original habitat are fairly another area halfway around the globe, and their intentions were successful, cloves would be cul clear that if the transplantation tivated on a large scale for export from New Spain. Yet in order to do the need for gathering so, the crown recognized specific information from experts as to the conditions both for transporting and for grow ing the cloves. Here again, then, is another example of an empire that in this case in the functioned information, by gathering empirical realm. botanical to transplant and culti It is not clear whether this early initiative vate cloves was ever deemed from a response by the feasible. Apart viceroy that "to me, it seems right to follow the opinion of the experts in such matters," the documentary trail ends here.67 One can assume, that it did not meet with much success, because cloves never however, became part of New Spain's exports and because efforts to grow cloves
64 19, R. 5, N. 82, fs. 1-2. AGI/S Filipinas, 65 AGI /S Filipinas, 329, L. 1, f. 13 ir. 66 Ibid., fs. 131-132. 67 Mexico, 27, N. 52, 4V. AGI/S
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in other locations met with frustration. What is important here, how as much as the way in of the transplantation ever, is not the outcome which this proposal the transoceanic networks of knowl represents was edge in place, and the fact that, once again, the viceroy of Mexico looked to as the conduit for scientific exchange and expertise.
Ginger's Mendoza's death?as
World
Odyssey
of spices was hindered transplantation by his untimely well as, perhaps, the inhospitable of New climate Spain. there was one success story in it, and that lies in the culti However, vation of ginger. Mendoza's original asiento included the aim of culti like cinnamon, "Chinese nutmeg, pepper, and vating ginger," which, was a in the world. modern Nicol?s cloves, highly prized spice early it as a plant whose Monardes described leaves resembled that of the lily but whose main value lay in its root which, "when sliced and tossed in a salad adds flavor and aroma" and when dried or preserved had a in number of medicinal had root, fact, qualities.68 Ginger "great aro matic virtue" that was good for soothing stomachaches, aiding diges tion, and restoring the appetite. to the mainland the outcome of the ginger transplantation While of New Spain remains unclear, it was clearly successful on the island to of Hispaniola, and by the end of the sixteenth century, according the archival main the island's constituted documentation, ginger did very well. Cultivators of the spice declared that export. Ginger it in "the land [here] is good for cultivating and grows great ginger, and Council members that the abundance abundance,"69 recognized to the people of ginger "[had] been of much substance and utility" there.70 Indeed, by 1599, the audiencia of Santo Domingo declared that was of the the crucial for the island, ginger "principal crop" "develop of its economy.71 ment, stability, and continuation" The fact that ginger production constituted number Hispaniola's one crop in the late sixteenth is in histo that the century significant of the Caribbean the production of region usually highlights riography the slave trade sugar and the impact of its relations of production?on
68 Historia medicinal, Monardes, pp. 69 Santo Domingo, 868, L. AGI/S 70 606, L 2, f. AGI/S Indiferente, 71 Santo Domingo, 868, L. AGI/S
99-100. 3, f. 5t. 55r. 4, f. 29r.
De Vos: The Science
of Spices
423
of ginger Caribbean and slave labor?on society. Yet the production was in the in sixteenth-century and early 1580s prodigious, Hispaniola in large quantities it was being produced and received higher prices in pounds of ginger reached Europe than sugar did.72 By 1587, two million a profitable ducats.13 Such Seville worth 250,000 enterprise annually, In 1606, for exam drew labor and capital away from sugar plantations. slaves in Hispaniola, ginger, 6,742 worked producing ple, of 9,648 served in the sugar mills.74 By 1624, ginger while only eight hundred had spread to the island of Puerto Rico, which became production islands as another major producer of the spice, and to other Caribbean well.75 in the end it seems that ginger was almost too successful Alto the islands began to produce too much ginger for Spanish con gether, of the spice meant that "there was no one to sumption. Oversupply so to grow and it it those who had and that rotted, buy paid most to it In the the least."76 the crown response transport problem, profited to monitor Colonial and control ginger's production. Spaniards sought in Hispaniola had always had to apply to the audiencia of Santo Yet, Domingo for royal licenses in order to produce and sell many different of the goods, including ginger, hides, and sugar.77 In 1599 the Council its and ordered that the Indies stepped up regulatory responsibilities and Puerto of ginger be limited to the islands of Hispaniola production two islands, the Council Rico only. These declared, produced more than enough ginger to supply the needs of Spain. The council finished that the audiencia of Santo Domingo by requesting keep council mem in the production of ginger by sending bers abreast of developments "most particularly" them a report detailing "the benefits and inconve on ginger cultivation, niences associated with the limitation and of . . . and the to to the quantity that ought be brought quantities Spain that are now planted and harvested there as well as the quantities on the pro other islands and if it would be better to enforce grown
72
Frank Moya
Pons,
Historia
colonial
de Santo Domingo
(Santo
Domingo:
UCMM,
1974), p. 89. 73 These Nieto Olarte,
come from Schiebinger, Plants and Empire, p. 4, who cites Mauricio for the Empire: The "Remedies Botanical Eighteenth-Century Spanish to the New World" of Science and Technology, (PhD diss., History Expeditions Imperial London, Pons, Historia colonial, p. 89, states that by 1607, Hispan College, 1993). Moya more iola was producing than 170,000 pounds of ginger worth 103 million approximately maravedis. 74 Pons, Historia colonial, p. 89. Moya 75 Santo Domingo, AGI/S 869, L. 7, fs. 25^r-v. 76 Santo Dominto, 868, L. 4, f. 34r. AGI/S 77 Santo Domingo, AGI/S 870, L. 8, f. i46r. statistics
424
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
DECEMBER
20o6
duct ion of sugar [on these islands]."78 In this way, although the crown to was inhibit the of the council still very ginger, sought production in collecting via the detailed how interested about reports, knowledge, to best manage its production. to be so the problems did not end there. Ginger continued owners in mill had that their mills abandoned favor of sugar profitable Given the the of of growing ginger, crown spice. problems oversupply in 1607 banned the sugar planters officials from growing ginger. to the Council of the Indies, eight sugar mills on the island According were no longer in service, and the island had produced of Hispaniola Yet of twenty-five only three thousand arrobas ( 1 arroba is the equivalent thousand of it that year, when sugar seventy-five pounds?so pounds) was capable of producing at least twelve thousand. The council's solu tion was to order the mill owners "to devote themselves solely to the production of sugar" and forbid them from planting any ginger.79
Ginger
Transplantation
in Spain
The cultivation of ginger also stimulated research and experimentation in the areas of botany and agriculture. In the early 1570s, a series of of the Indies requesting detailed orders issued from the Council infor mation of ginger in Hispaniola its and ordering about the cultivation to Spain for experimental cultivation. These orders coin transport cided with the Relaciones Geogr?ficas of 15 70-15 71 recently codified Casa the of the de la Contrataci?n of Seville. by royal cosmographer sent to colonial The Relaciones consisted of a series of questionnaires in the Americas officials information about the geography, requesting economic natural and prospects of each region.80 history, ethnography, one exam most of the constituted important and representative They as to of Antonio Barrera has referred the what information-gath ples of knowl of the Spanish empire in the production ering mechanisms in the sixteenth I would argue that the century.81 edge about nature from the Council about ginger's cultivation requests for information the Indies were also part of the culture of this information-gathering of
78 Santo Domingo, 868, L. 4, fs.34r-v. AGI/S 79 Santo Domingo, AGI/S 869, L. 6, fs. 55T-V. 80 See Howard F. Cline, "The Relaciones Geogr?ficas of the Spanish Indies, 1577-1648" to the Ethno-historical in Guide R Cline, vol. 12, Handbook Sources, ed. Howard 183-242, of of Texas Press, Middle American Indians, general ed. Robert Wauchope (Austin: University an overview excellent of the Relaciones. for 1964-1976), 81 Nature" and "Empire and Empirical Practices." Barrera, "Experiencing
De Vos: The Science mission

lation."
of Spices of the processing network of a "center
425 of calcu
and part
of ginger's properties, the Council of the in 1573 requesting of Santo Domingo so and care to this important enterprise to develop that it will continue and grow" and to send to the Casa de a quantity la Contrataci?n of "fine examples" of ginger. Along with as to the uses of set of instructions the ginger, they desired a detailed ginger, and "in what season and type of earth to plant it and how it is so that in these lands [reinos] we may be able to cultivate cultivated to of ginger from Hispaniola request for the transplantation also the scientific culture of II. under Spain highlights Spain Philip Recent historians have begun to recognize that important scientific were court in the II. of developments taking place Philip Although it."82 This Philip closed strate as a devout characterized and pious Catholic who new to outside ideas and demon travel, Spain's findings to the promotion that the king himself was dedicated and dis in his kingdoms semination of knowledge and in fact sponsored the a royal chemistry of an academy of mathematics, establishment labo II is often borders
In its quest for knowledge to the Audiencia Indies wrote them to "pay much attention
of new plants in royal botanical ratory, and the cultivation gardens.83 Thus that occurred with economic spice transplantations botany were a component of Philip IPs sponsorship of the natural sciences, as in another crown request to the viceroy of New Spain in 1572 evident that he organize a shipment in of a quantity of ginger to be planted see "to if it would bear fruit [grow], as up to this time, its Seville, is not wholly understood."84 method of cultivation This "experiment" (espirencia) was orchestrated by the crown in order to see if ginger could be grown and sold in Spain on a large scale, or if it should be culti vated only in the Indies. To initiate the experiment, the viceroy was to send instructions as to how to best cultivate the ginger, and customs house officials were to send notice "with the very next fleet to New Spain" of the plants' progress, the methods of cultivation used, and the
82 Santo Dominto, orders also requested similar 868, L. 3, f. i6v. Subsequent AGI/S information of cotton the cultivation and rice and the management of live concerning stock on the island. 83 See David C. Goodman, Power and Penury: Government, and Science in Technology, Press, 1988), Enrique Martinez Ruiz, Philip IPs Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University dir. Felipe II, la Ciencia y la T?cnica (Madrid: Actas Editorial, Jos? Mar?a 1999), especially en la Espa?a de Felipe "Actividad cient?fica Pinero, y sociedad II," 17-36 and F J. en el Escorial De Sevilla, dir. La Ciencia Escuria y Fern?ndez (Madrid: Ediciones Campos lenses, 1992). 84 Indiferente, AGI/S 1956, L. 1, f. 67r. L?pez
426
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
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it bore richer fruit in Spain than in Mexico, quality of the ginger?if season it grew best.85 The officials dutifully wrote back and in what in and around Seville. that, indeed, the ginger had done quite well were in that of the done several local gardens, including Plantings in various and locations within three Alcazar (royal palace), leagues of of the plant, the report they sent several specimens the city. With including seeds, and "canes of a little more than four fingers' in height,
and some roots."86
to capitalize did not end there, however. Hoping The experiment on this apparent success, the crown took it one step further. InNovem to oversee ber 1573, customs house officials were once again directed of twelve boxes of "green ginger" that had recently the cultivation as to how to best care instructions arrived from New Spain along with the ginger for them. This officials were to distribute time, however, areas to the officials those whose soil deemed capa Spain throughout it. Along with the ginger, the Casa officials would also ble of growing book that had come from New Spain send a copy of the instruction to make sure that local growers "take much care and pay close to this matter and send reports of their progress," which were also admonished would then be sent on to the crown.87 Officials as soon as possible, while sure that the planting to make the began once were to it council had taken and inform the still viable, seedlings stop place. The records that I have been able to uncover unfortunately and had attention doubt the requested reports lie somewhere among the uncat section of the of the documents indiferente (miscellaneous) alogued it the intrepid historian. Nevertheless, Archive of the Indies, awaiting did not lead to big is probably safe to assume that these experiments a major in because business, export product ginger never became are in aims of I efforts and and of themselves that the Yet argue Spain. here. No to the history of economic significance science in the Spanish empire. botany and to the history of
Conclusion Thus from Columbus spices continued to Mendoza to the Dominican to Magellan source of to be an important commodity?a the sixteenth century and into the seven
planters,
"green gold"?throughout
85 86 87
Ibid., Ibid.,
fs. 67PV. f. 21 or.
Ibid., f. 33or.
De Vos: The Science teenth.
of Spices
427
the and entrepreneurs, In conjunction with these explorers Casa de la the Council of the Contrata the crown, Indies, Spanish in the Ameri administration levels of the colonial ci?n, and various cas directed of several different the transplantation spices, but partic and then from the ularly ginger, from the East Indies to the Americas, to Spain. Despite the successes of ginger in the Caribbean, Americas was not the most however, aspect of the transplantations significant detailed but rather in the collection of commercial outcome, that accompanied them, for the data reports and information of empirical about the geography, information soil consisted climate, of and botanical useful and conditions, properties potentially plants, as such were part of a project of economic that has wide botany in the actual
ranging?indeed global?epistemological significance. Not only does it bring a very particular kind of human agency and intent to the serves to it but also direct our thinking about Columbian exchange, to the encounter the the origins of the Scientific Revolution between in In this way, economic New the and Old Worlds. botany Spanish science and commerce, the interconnection between empire highlights in the and between and global local knowledge imperial aspirations world. modern early

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The Science of Spices: Empiricism and Economic Botany in the Early Spanish Empire Author(s): Paula De Vos Source:

The Science of Spices:

in the Early Spanish Empire*

California-Huntington the Early Modern

for the Humanities Endowment of this essay.

De Vos: The Science The

De Vos: The Science And

De Vos: The Science

left a legacy of botanical expertise and acclimatization of both useful

Economic and the

De Vos: The Science

De Vos: The Science In wedding

topic is treated more and Eighteenth-Century

De Vos: The Science mines

De Vos: The Science

De Vos: The Science

Transplantation From the Spice

De Vos: The Science

and send him

of all the products

De Vos: The Science

The Transplantation In the early

De Vos: The Science

Ginger's Mendoza's death?as

99-100. 3, f. 5t. 55r. 4, f. 29r.

De Vos: The Science

1974), p. 89. 73 These Nieto Olarte,

De Vos: The Science mission

of Spices of the processing network of a "center

fs. 67PV. f. 21 or.

De Vos: The Science teenth.

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