peripheral vision: science and creole patriotism in eighteenth-century spanish america

Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 40 (2009) 143–155

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological andBiomedical Sciences

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Peripheral vision: science and creole patriotism in eighteenth-centurySpanish America

Helen CowieDepartment of History, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, Warwickshire, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Received 14 April 2008Received in revised form 2 February 2009

Keywords:Natural historySpanish AmericaCreole patriotismPeripheryCredibility

1369-8486/$ - see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltd. Adoi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2009.06.008

E-mail address: [email protected]

This article examines the study of natural history on the imperial periphery in late colonial Spanish Amer-ica. It considers the problems that afflicted peripheral naturalists—lack of books, instruments, scholarlycompanionship, and skilled technicians. It discusses how these deprivations impacted upon their self-confidence and credibility as men of science and it examines the strategies adopted by peripheral natu-ralists to boost their scientific credibility. The article argues that Spanish American savants, deprived ofthe most up-to-date books and sophisticated instruments, emphasised instead their sustained experienceof local nature and their familiarity with indigenous knowledge. It details how some creole naturalists,such as the Mexican José Antonio Alzate, questioned the applicability of European classificatory systemsto American fauna and flora, and it analyses the complex relationship between natural science and creolepatriotism.

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1. Introduction

In the Personal narrative of his epic South American journey, thePrussian savant Alexander von Humboldt recorded an unexpectedand rather surreal encounter. At the remote settlement of Calabozo,deep in the desolate Venezuelan llanos, Humboldt stumbled, to hisunconcealed surprise, upon ‘an electrical machine’, complete with‘large plates, electrophori, batteries [and] electrometers’. He alsostumbled upon the machine’s proud creator, Señor Carlos del Pozo,‘a man who had never seen any instrument, who has no person toconsult and who was acquainted with the phenomenon of electric-ity only by reading the treatise of [Sigaud] de la Fond and[Benjamin] Franklin’s Memoirs’. Astonished to discover such asophisticated piece of apparatus in such ‘vast solitudes’, Humboldtcould not disguise his unbounded admiration for its creator. Señordel Pozo, the Prussian surmised, must be an ‘enlightened and inge-nious man’ to have constructed this impressive machine entirely onhis own initiative. He must also possess great personal determina-tion and moral fibre in order to have persevered with his challeng-ing project in the face of apparently overwhelming odds. ‘It is easyto judge what difficulties Señor Pozo had to encounter since thefirst works upon electricity had fallen into his hands’, reflected

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Humboldt. It was a testament to the Venezuelan’s persistence ‘thathe had the courage and resolve to procure for himself by his ownindustry all that he had seen described in his books’.

If this chance encounter in the plains was a revelation toHumboldt, then its impact upon del Pozo must have been evenmore profound. Prior to the arrival of Humboldt and his companionAimé Bonpland, the Venezuelan had never exhibited his preciousmachine to anyone with a modicum of scientific training, buthad ‘enjoyed only the astonishment and admiration produced byhis experiments on persons destitute of all information, and whohad never quitted the solitude of the llanos’. Humboldt presumed,on this basis, that del Pozo would welcome ‘the opinions of twotravellers who could compare his apparatus with those con-structed in Europe’. His supposition proved correct, for the Venezu-elan relished the opportunity to inspect the Europeans’ staggeringselection of precision instruments and watched in awe asHumboldt performed physiological experiments on the local frogs,who probably took a rather dimmer view of proceedings. ‘Señor delPozo could not contain his joy on seeing for the first time instru-ments which he had not made, yet which appeared to be copiedfrom his own’, reported the Prussian. The experience of meetinga European savant was seemingly a cathartic one for del Pozo,

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144 H. Cowie / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 40 (2009) 143–155

and a source simultaneously of excitement, inspiration, and muchneeded reassurance.1

Del Pozo’s situation epitomised the unenviable predicament ofthe peripheral savant. Marooned on the margins of the Spanishempire, the Venezuelan suffered from an acute shortage of scien-tific books and equipment. No expert supervised or advised him.He had nobody to applaud his achievements or to assuage hisdoubts, and, until Humboldt’s miraculous appearance on the scene,no educated companion with whom to discuss his work. Undersuch unpromising circumstances, del Pozo was compelled to relyupon his own initiative and ingenuity. An admiring Humboldt por-trayed him reverently as a beacon of enlightenment, radiatinglearning in the ‘vast solitudes’ of the llanos.

This article explores the pursuit of the natural sciences on theimperial periphery. The first section assesses the problems encoun-tered by men of science in late colonial Spanish America. It studiesthe factors that inhibited scientific research and it considers howthese impediments impacted upon the scholarly self-confidenceof American-based savants. The second section explores, con-versely, the scientific assets that creole naturalists did enjoy, andthe arguments they mustered to enhance their credibility. It sug-gests that men of science on the imperial periphery compensatedfor their lack of formal training and the relative poverty of theirequipment by emphasising their experience of, and proximity to,American nature. It also highlights the fractious relationshipbetween colonial/peripheral and imperial/metropolitan science inthe eighteenth-century Spanish world, where universal systemsclashed with local knowledge and where imperial loyalty alter-nated with a burgeoning creole patriotism.2

2. Solitary savants

Naturalists working on the margins of the Spanish empirerecited a litany of woes. They depicted themselves as beleagueredand isolated savants, battling valiantly against apathy, inertia, andoutright hostility. They despaired that their measurements wereinaccurate, their instruments imperfect, and their ideas outdated.They envied their European counterparts, who—they believed—enjoyed a level of fame and resources of which they could onlydream, and they conjured a melancholy picture of embattledsavants, passionate about their research but perpetually thwartedby almost insurmountable obstacles.

Painfully aware of the constraints under which they operated,naturalists on the imperial periphery explicitly contrasted theirunenviable situation with that of more favoured European col-leagues. The creole botanist-astronomer Francisco José de Caldas,writing to Humboldt in 1802, juxtaposed their respective positions.‘What a difference there is in our work!’ exclaimed the NewGranadan. ‘Humboldt, full of enlightenment, wise, in possessionof excellent instruments and accompanied by Bonpland, that isto say, associated with Linnaeus; Caldas ignorant, obscure, withmiserable instruments and alone’.3 The Spanish zoologist Félix deAzara, who languished in Paraguay for twenty years, professed sim-ilar distress in a letter to his elder brother Nicolas. Comparing hisfate with that of his sibling, who was then ambassador to France,Azara sketched a sober picture. ‘You have lived in the great world,

1 Humboldt (1852), Vol. 2, pp. 111–112.2 For a discussion of creole patriotism in colonial Mexico, see Brading (1991).3 Letter from Caldas to Humboldt, 17 November 1802, in Chenu (1992), p. 201.4 Azara (1802), Vol. 1, ‘Dedicación’.5 Letter from Caldas to Santiago Pérez Arroyo, 20 March 1801, in Chenu (1992), p. 84.6 Caldas (1966), p. 87. Ironically, the original citation was lifted by Caldas from the Spani

to this text.7 Letter from Caldas to Santiago Pérez Arroyo, 6 October 1801, in Chenu (1992), p. 132;8 Draft of a letter from Dámaso Antonio Larrañaga to the botanists of Barcelona, to be d

Vol. 3, p. 252; my emphasis.

and, through your elevated employments, talents, works and virtues,you have made yourself respected in Spain and beyond’, reflectedAzara.

But I . . . have spent the best twenty years of my life in the mostremote corner of the earth, forgotten even by my friends, with-out books or rational conversation and travelling continuallythrough immense and horrifying deserts and forests, communi-cating only with the birds and the beasts.4

Whilst these pitiful statements may not, as we shall see, offer anentirely truthful reflection of scientific life in the Spanish colonies,they do summarise the three main problems that afflicted creolenaturalists—namely, inadequate access to books and instruments,lack of qualified instructors, and lack of scholarly companionship.Insufficient acquaintance with modern scientific works made cre-ole savants worry that their methods were outdated, or that theirdiscoveries, which to them appeared novel, had already beensuperseded in Europe. Imperfect instruments eroded their faithin the accuracy of their observations, whilst an absence of educatedpersons with whom to discuss their findings engendered lonelinessand uncertainty, as evidenced by the case of the Venezuelan del Pozo.

The paucity of up-to-date scholarly literature proved especiallydistressing to aspiring creole naturalists. This obstacle was articu-lated with particular poignancy by Caldas, who lamented thedearth of essential scientific texts in his native New Granada andinterpreted their absence as a source of national disgrace. Writingto his friend Santiago Arroyo, Caldas questioned what contempo-rary Europeans would think if they knew of the colony’s biblio-graphical poverty.

If we were to say in Europe that there was a people with nearlythree hundred years of existence, under the domination of a civ-ilised nation . . . that there are schools, a university, doctors whoinundate the towns, and if one were to say that amongst thispeople one cannot find a copy of Linnaeus’ Filosofía botánica,that [the work of the] the Count of Buffon is rare, that one scar-cely sees master works of any genre, would they not believethat we were speaking to them of the Kalmaks or the Tartars,or perhaps even of the Lapps?’5

Caldas, who had elsewhere caricatured the Lapps as an ‘abject peo-ple’, must have shuddered at the prospect.6 The New Granadan was,indeed, so incensed by the inadequacy of his book supply that he re-prised the theme in a later letter and once more chastised the intel-lectual backwardness of his homeland. ‘How certain it is that we aretwo centuries behind Europe!’ exclaimed Caldas. ‘When we are pre-sented with a happy idea in the few old books that find their way intoour hands, it is already two hundred years since it was put into prac-tice amongst the civilised nations’.7

At the opposite end of the continent, in the city of Montevideo,the naturalist Dámaso Antonio Larrañaga suffered similar difficul-ties. A recent convert to the delights of botany, Larrañaga penned arather desperate letter to the botanical society of Barcelona in whichhe summarised the impediments that had thus far obstructed hisstudies. ‘I have not known or communicated with any botanist’, be-wailed Larrañaga. ‘[H]ere there are no herbariums or gardens, and,what is most painful to me, Books are very rare and expensive’.8 Little

sh translation of Buffon’s work, demonstrating the New Granadan’s subsequent access

my emphasis.elivered by a mutual acquaintance, Don Miguel Antonio Vilardebó, in Gallinal (1922),

H. Cowie / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 40 (2009) 143–155 145

better was the situation of the self-taught Spanish zoologist Félix deAzara, dispatched to the Río de la Plata in 1781 to settle a border dis-pute with Portuguese-governed Brazil. Since Azara’s passion for natu-ral history germinated after his arrival in the Americas, heencountered the same problems in accessing books as his creole coun-terparts and experienced similar distress. In fact, Azara was obliged tosubsist upon a single book—Buffon’s Histoire naturelle—for much of histime in the Americas. Not only was this work insufficient, but the copywith which Azara was supplied by the Viceroy, the Marques de Loreto,was José Clavijo y Fajardo’s Spanish translation, rather than the origi-nal French version, and, according at least to Azara’s French critics,contained some defective illustrations. When, for instance, Azara stig-matised the depictions of bats in Buffon’s text as ‘deserving of the mostrigorous censure’, the translator of his Essais sur l’histoire naturelle desquadrupèdes de la province du Paraguay, Mérédic-Louis-Elie Moreau-Saint-Méry, sprang to the defence of his compatriot, insisting that ‘thisreproach applies to the plates of the Spanish edition [of the Histoirenaturelle], rather than to those in the French edition that I havedesignated’.9

Inadequate access to books was not the only difficulty that pla-gued creole naturalists; the acquisition and maintenance of scien-tific instruments presented similar problems. As Mauricio Nietohas commented, ‘the comprehension of the world, in addition tobeing a conceptual problem, is a technical problem’, as a result ofwhich ‘scientific instruments are as necessary in order to be ableto form part of the community of the natural sciences as are biblio-graphical references’.10 Creole naturalists duly struggled to obtainthe precision instruments that they required in South America,where such technology was not readily available. They were obligedeither to import coveted apparatus from Europe—a slow and costlyprocess—or to manufacture it for themselves.

Emblematic of this predicament is Caldas, whose correspon-dence is littered with petitions for instruments and expressionsof gratitude following their arrival. The American opened one letterto his patron José Celestino Mutis by confirming his receipt of ‘twogood barometer tubes’.11 He closed another with an even more exu-berant outpouring of appreciation—‘How can I paint for you my rec-ognition and my happiness that fortunate day on which I receivedthe telescope and the chronometer?’12—and he could hardly containhis delight when Humboldt offered to sell him an astronomicalinstrument. ‘Baron Humboldt proposed to me the sale of his excel-lent quarter circle’, rejoiced Caldas. ‘My heart pulsated upon hearingthis advantageous offer [and] a multitude of thoughts filled my mindin that moment. Will I come to possess this masterpiece of [therenowned instrument-maker] Bird?’13

Sometimes sophisticated instruments proved unattainable, orthe wait intolerable. When this occurred, Caldas manufacturedhis own equipment, as his correspondence again attests. Writingto his close friend Santiago Pérez Arroyo, the creole mentioned thathe had recently ‘constructed a quarter circle of wood of seventeenFrench thumbs in radius’ which ‘he had divided with as much pre-

9 Azara (1801), p. 268. Azara eventually consulted the French version of Buffon in 1798, wwork in a letter and pronounced it to be of use because ‘it contains Daubenton’s [anatomicPedro Cerviño, 31 March 1798, in Mones and Klappenbach (1997), p. 183.

10 Nieto Olarte (2007), p. 99.11 Letter from Caldas to José Celestino Mutis, 5 August 1801, in Chenu (1992), p. 121.12 Letter from Caldas to José Celestino Mutis, 7 November 1802, in ibid., p. 199.13 Letter from Caldas to José Celestino Mutis, 6 May 1802, in Caldas (1979), p. 174.14 Letter from Caldas to Santiago Pérez Arroyo, 21 January 1802, in Chenu (1992), p. 15115 Caldas, Informe al Virey, 18 July 1809, in Caldas (1966), p. 214.16 Brading (1991), p. 502.17 Silva (2002), p. 201.18 Letter from Caldas to Santiago Pérez Arroyo, 21 January 1802, in Chenu (1992), p. 14719 Glick and Quinlan (1975). The romantic image of the embattled Hispanic savant surf

marvelled that Caldas, ‘without teachers, without books and without resources, came, byBritish naturalist Charles Hamilton Smith saluted Azara as ‘a fine example of what a peperseverance’. See Acosta (1849), pp. ix–x; Hamilton Smith (1843), p. 23.

cision as was possible’.14 In a letter to the Viceroy of New Granada,Antonio Amar y Borbón, meanwhile, Caldas summarised his scien-tific career, describing how, as an adolescent, he developed a passionfor astronomy. ‘In the silence and obscurity of Popayán I tried toform for myself a quarter circle, like that described by the excellentJorge Juan in his Observaciones astronómicas’, reminisced Caldas.

This wise Spaniard, a credit to the Nation and to the sciences,was my guide amidst the dense shadows that surrounded me.Thanks to an obstinate persistence, I formed my wooden quad-rant, which I still preserve in Popayán, and with it I began myobservations.15

The creoles were not, of course, absolutely without scientificinstruments, in spite of Caldas’s repeated protestations to the con-trary. They were, however, relatively disadvantaged in instrumen-tal terms, a fact that was forcibly impressed upon them by theirencounters with European travellers such as Humboldt, who,according to David Brading, brandished ‘no less than thirty-six ofthe latest instruments made in Paris, so as to enable him to takeobservations of latitude, longitude, altitude, temperature, air pres-sure and magnetic readings’.16 The New Granadan Jerónimo Torres,recounting his meeting with Humboldt, reported that ‘I have seen hisinstruments, which we knew of here only by the word of mouth orfrom the press’.17 Caldas, meanwhile, listed the Prussian’s fantasticarray of apparatus with quasi-religious reverence. ‘He has offeredme his books’, rejoiced the creole, and ‘his instruments and thefamous chronometer have been at my disposition. In meteorology Ihave seen Luc’s hygrometer . . . the eirometer, the eudiometer; Iknow their use and their results’.18 Such encounters both invigoratedand depressed creole experimenters like Caldas, Torres, and DelPozo, who were offered a tantalising glimpse of instruments thatthey themselves would thereafter be unable to obtain, or at leastonly at great personal expense and difficulty.

The discontents of creole savants in general and Caldas in par-ticular could fill many volumes. At this juncture, however, it maybe helpful to stop to consider three important questions. Firstly,how representative were these concerns? Secondly, how truthfulwere they? And thirdly, to what extent did the problems describedactually impinge on the reception of scientific works produced inthe colonies?

As far as the first and second questions go, there is certainlysome evidence that creole naturalists exaggerated their difficulties.Thomas Glick and David Quinlan have argued, in the case of Azara,that the ‘myth of the isolated Spanish genius corresponds not somuch to the objective reality of the practice of science by its mostoutstanding Spanish exponents, as to the perception of the role ofscience in Spanish society as perceived by participants and observ-ers alike’.19 Renan Silva has observed, likewise, how a broadeningand increasing secularisation in the Atlantic book trade towardsthe end of the eighteenth century improved access to scientificworks for the inhabitants of New Granada, whilst Humboldt, who

hen the Argentine Pedro Cerviño lent it to him. The Spaniard thanked Cerviño for theal] descriptions, which shed a lot of light on those of Buffon’. See letter from Azara to

.

.aces with some frequency in contemporary accounts. The Colombian Joaquín Acostahis own efforts, to be a distinguished botanist, physicist and astronomer’, whilst therson of ordinary education and intelligence may achieve by dint of steadiness and


scrutinised the personal library of José Celestino Mutis, director ofthe Botanical Expedition of New Granada, pronounced it one of themost complete he had seen. ‘After that of [Joseph] Banks in London’,Humboldt informed his brother Wilhelm, ‘I have never seen abotanical library as large as that of Mutis’.20 Caldas, as a protégé ofMutis, would have been able to use some of these resources, andhe certainly exploited his contacts with the Spanish savant and otherobliging patrons to import some of the precision instruments herequired.

These examples suggest that not all of the creole naturalists’most self-deprecating comments should be taken at face value.Sometimes references to problems and impediments may be inter-preted as a pre-emptive strike on the part of Americans, calculatedto disarm European critics. Sometimes such pitiful tales of adver-sity may have been tactical manoeuvres, inserted in letters andtexts to enhance the reader’s surprise and admiration at theirauthor’s subsequent erudition. And sometimes expressions ofself-effacement should be construed as part of a more generalscholarly culture, in which, as Susan Scott Parrish has observed,‘to demur about your scientific knowledge was to show your socialknowledge’.21

Moreover, we cannot assume that conditions were identicalthroughout the Spanish colonies. Some regions undoubtedlyenjoyed better access to the metropolis than others, and scientificliterature and equipment were unsurprisingly more readily obtain-able in major colonial centres than in isolated backwaters. WhilstLarrañaga grumbled about the dearth of books in Montevideo, forexample, the Peruvian Unanue quoted liberally from ThomasJefferson’s Notes on the state of Virginia (1800) in his 1806 treatiseon El clima de Lima, indicating his familiarity with this relatively re-cent work. And whilst Caldas despaired at the tardy arrival of sci-entific literature in Popayán, José Antonio Alzate advertised theParte teórica del curso elemental de botánica to the public in hisperiodical, the Gazeta de México. The Mexican informed readersthat this work, ‘formed on the orders of His Majesty for the benefitof the Disciples and Aficionados of this important Science’, could bepurchased for one peso at the offices of the Gazeta.22 Alzate alsoclaimed that Bomare’s Dictionnaire d’histoire naturelle was to be‘found in almost all the libraries of the lovers of Nature’ in NewSpain, suggesting its relatively wide circulation in the colony.23

Noteworthy as the above qualifications are, there was neverthe-less a kernel of truth in the concerns articulated by creole natural-ists. Whilst their situation was not always as dire as they portrayedit, most American savants were relatively impoverished in theiraccess to books, instruments, and forums for scientific discussion,compared to their counterparts in Madrid, London, or Paris, and,perhaps more importantly, the majority believed themselves tobe at a disadvantage in these areas—perhaps particularly whenthey came into contact with Humboldt, whose wide-ranging brandof science emphasised the importance of ‘using the latest advancesin instrumentation and attending to all possible sources of error’.24

This conviction—valid or not—influenced their self-perception andself-presentation. It induced a sense of inferiority and dependence

20 Silva (2002), p. 245.21 Parrish (2006), p. 117.22 Gazeta de México, 17 June 1788, in Gazetas de México, compendio de noticias de Nueva23 ‘Carta que en defensa de la Botánica y de las imposturas que el Autor de la Gazeta Liter

sus alistados Discípulos’, in Gazetas de México, compendio de noticias de Nueva España quprovincial savants in continental Europe not infrequently experienced a similar sense of isresearch, and they also struggled to access the most up-to-date literature and equipment.botanist Don Juan Antonio Barrera from Vistabella in the province of Valencia, who ‘to a pathe Elementos Botánicos, has made great progress in the science’ (my emphasis). See Cavan

24 For a more detailed discussion of Humboldtian science, see Cannon (1978), pp. 73–1125 Letter from Caldas to Santiago Pérez Arroyo, 21 January 1802, in Chenu (1992), p. 14626 Azara (1838), p. xi.27 Azara (1846), Vol. 1, p. 13.

on the part of some Americans, and led them to characterise theirencounters with European scholars as moments of revelation orepiphany. Typical of this trait was Caldas, who, writing to his friendAntonio Arboleda in 1802, described his meeting with Humboldt as acathartic experience. ‘How much have I learned in eighteen days!’stuttered the creole.

In astronomy I hardly know myself; a dense mist has been dis-sipated before my eyes, and since I already had many worksbegun and almost concluded, I was only lacking the hand of amaster to give them the ultimate perfection.25

Did European readers really judge colonial naturalists harshly onaccount of their limited training, their crude instruments or theirminimal acquaintance with scientific literature? Often, as we sawin the case of del Pozo, they reacted with surprise and delight atfinding men of science in distant, little known countries, and theyabsolved peripheral savants of any minor misconceptions or inac-curacies. There were, however, instances in which Europeans cen-sured certain aspects of the latters’ work, and we find a goodillustration of this in the reception of Azara’s notes on Paraguay’sbirds and quadrupeds, published early in the nineteenth century.

Introducing his English translation of the work, William Perce-val Hunter remarked that

the numerous works of natural history which have since thebeginning of the present century issued from the press havenot been less distinguished for the immense body of new andoriginal facts they have presented than for the animated, bril-liant and often masterly style in which they have been narrated.

The Briton cautioned his readers not to expect such exquisiteprose from Azara. He conceded that

those . . . who in this work look for the chaste and classical styleof Cuvier, the poetic diction of Wilson, the gorgeous colouringand sonorous cadences of Buffon and von Humboldt, the elegantsimplicity of White or the nervous eloquence and brilliantbursts of enthusiasm so delightful in the works of Audubonand Le Vailliant will be disappointed.

He prepared his audience instead for ‘a plain, unvarnished narrativeof facts, professedly given as notes or rough sketches—a style simpleindeed—and not always devoid of vigour, but seldom elegant andgenerally coarse’.26

Azara’s French critics also pounced on his stylistic blunders,though they were less concerned about the lyricism of the Span-iard’s prose and more troubled by his intemperate treatment oftheir countryman Buffon, whose conclusions he frequently dis-puted. Charles Anathuse de Walckenaer, the translator of Viajespor la América Meridional, objected to Azara’s overly stridentdenunciations of Buffon’s mistakes, which he felt ‘gives his stylean abrasiveness and a decisive tone that puts it at a disadvanta-geous contrast to the moderation that scientific investigationsdemand, in which the most well educated and experienced practi-tioner is not immune from falling into error’.27 Moreau de Saint

España que comprehenden los años de 1788 y 1789, Vol. 3, p. 80.aria opone contra el Systema de Linneo, escribe al Director del Jardín Botánico uno dee comprehenden los años de 1788 y 1789, Vol. 3, p. 100. It should also be noted thatolation. They, too, perceived themselves to be removed from the centres of scientificThe Spanish botanist Josef Antonio Cavanilles thus sentimentalised the plight of the

ssion without limits has united the constancy of many years, and with the help only ofilles (1795), p. 84.

1..


Méry, translator of Quadrúpedos, likewise winced at some of theSpaniard’s expressions. The Frenchman admitted that many ofAzara’s criticisms of Buffon had substance. He regretted, neverthe-less, the frequency of these tirades and judged some of theSpaniard’s comments ‘a little severe’ for the genre of naturalhistory.28

What was at issue in both of these cases was scholarly etiquette.Disagreement was clearly an essential element of all forms of sci-entific research, yet contemporary codes of conduct enshrinedthe ability to ‘demur without discourtesy’ as vital to the continua-tion of amicable academic debate, and tacitly precluded any com-ments that impugned the honour or credibility of a participant. Inpractice, this meant that men of science had to finesse their criti-cisms in order to minimise offence. They had to refrain from usingincendiary terms such as ‘error’ or ‘falsity’ and to guard against anyexpressions that questioned not merely the accuracy of an obser-vation, but the integrity and truthfulness of the observer.29

Azara flouted these unwritten rules when he unceremoniouslymauled Buffon and his informants. His blunt rebuttals scandalisedsensitive French reviewers, leading one, Charles Nicolas SigisbertSonnini de Manoncour, to interject with squeals of indignationthroughout his 1809 translation of the Spaniard’s Pájaros. Amidsta heated debate as to whether ynambu birds perched in trees(Sonnini thought they did, Azara was adamant that they did not),the French ornithologist accused Azara of ‘having violated, in re-spect to Buffon, in respect to many respected observers, and in re-spect to myself, all the rules of honesty and decency’.30 Elsewhere,in a discussion of the anno-guazu, Sonnini surmised that any differ-ences between Buffon’s account of the bird and that offered by Azarastemmed from the fact that the former’s description was based onspecimens from French Guiana, whilst the latter’s focused on theParaguayan variant of the species.

This conclusion seems to me more natural, and above all moredecent than the formal contradictions addressed by M. d’Azarato the chevalier Lefèvre-Deshayes, an estimable personage in allregards, who had supplied Buffon with some very interestingand very just remarks on the subject of the anis,

commented Sonnini. The Frenchman reproached Azara for describ-ing Deshayes’s description as ‘full of falsities and lies’—a majorindiscretion in scholarly circles—and he remarked acidly that were‘such a tone of criticism’ to become acceptable, then ‘Natural His-tory would soon resemble an arena of gladiators’, rather than a dec-orous community of scholars.31

Azara was not, of course, the only naturalist to dispense withrhetorical niceties. What is interesting about his case, however, isthe way in which both Walckenaer and Saint-Méry attributed hisrather abrupt put-downs to his long exile on the imperial periph-ery, where opportunities for ‘civilised’ conversation were limited.Walckenaer reasoned, for example, that Azara’s ‘distance [fromEurope/civilisation] and his own obscurity exaggerated the author-ity of Buffon’, leading him to issue a more vigorous rebuttal thanwas necessary.32 Moreau-Saint-Méry hypothesised, similarly, that‘after a sojourn of twenty years in South America, amongst men of

28 Azara (1801), Vol. 1, p. xxii. Interestingly, Moreau de Saint Méry was himself a creoldeveloped a respect for Buffon and a knowledge of scholarly graces. See Schiebinger (200

29 Livingstone (2003), p. 104. For a more extensive discussion of scholarly etiquette, see30 Azara (1809), Vol. 4, pp. 142–143.31 Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 28.32 Azara (1846), Vol. 1, p. 13.33 Azara (1801), Vol. 1, p. xxiii.34 Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 15.35 de Pauw (1770), p. 8.36 Ibid., p. 4.37 Ibid., p. 12.38 Ibid., p. 13.

whom few were his social equals, the tone of a reproach could notbe expected to be rigorously in unison with European urbanity’, sug-gesting that Azara, accustomed to issuing orders to his inferiors, hadforgotten how to address polite corrections to his fellow scholars.33

Significantly, Azara himself, perhaps aware that he had been a littlehard on Buffon, invoked his working environment as an excuse,imploring those who felt that he had ‘forgotten the respect due tosuch an illustrious personage . . . to consider that my zeal for thetruth is the only cause, and that I have written full of sadness andmelancholy, despairing of ever freeing myself from these sad soli-tudes and the society of animals’.34 Comments such as these perpet-uated the image of America as a vast, untamed wilderness, an idealvenue for gathering exotic specimens, but a less than ideal arena inwhich to conduct scholarly debates.

3. The experience of a lifetime

So far we have outlined the problems that creole naturalistsfaced. We have emphasised the disadvantages under which theyoperated and the insecurities that these engendered, suggesting aneed for European acceptance and vindication. Creole naturalists,however, were not entirely submissive. They did not always deferunquestioningly to the authority of their European counterparts,but, on the contrary, rallied to defend their homeland—usuallyconceived in regional rather than continental terms—from the slursof European philosophers such as the French naturalist the Comtede Buffon, and the Prussian philosopher Cornelius de Pauw. Theydisputed allegations that New World nature was smaller, weaker,and less perfect than that of the Old World. They also resentedattempts to incorporate American plants and animals into classifi-catory systems concocted in Europe, celebrating instead theuniqueness of local nature.

Creole objections to European science arose most forcefully inresponse to provocative slights on their homeland. These insultssurfaced initially in the work of Buffon, who concluded in his cel-ebrated Histoire naturelle (1761) that America was colder and wet-ter than the Old World, and its fauna, correspondingly, smaller andweaker. They were perpetuated by de Pauw, who appropriated andsensationalised this theory of New World degeneration.

In his incendiary Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains(1770), de Pauw disparaged American nature as by turns pitifuland monstrous. The Prussian dismissed the ‘lions’ and ‘tigers’ ofthe New World as ‘bastardised, small, pusillanimous and a thou-sand times less dangerous than those of Asia and of Africa’.35 Hesneered that American mammals were ‘a sixth smaller than theircounterparts in the old continent’,36 and he objected to the ‘abnor-mal’ forms of the tapir, the anteater and the sloth, which had differ-ent numbers of toes on their fore and hind legs.37 De Pauw allegedthat European creatures transplanted to America deteriorated in itsunhealthy climate, with the single exception of the pig, ‘which hasthere acquired a surprising corpulence’.38 He also hypothesised thatthe cold, dank conditions made the New World a paradise fornoxious insects and unsavoury reptiles, which flourished in thissqualid environment.

e from the French Antilles. He was, however, educated in Paris, where he evidently4), p. 52.Shapin (1994).


Creoles unsurprisingly reacted angrily to inferences thatAmerica’s climate was insalubrious, issuing spirited rebuttals. Theexiled Jesuit Juan de Velasco denied that America was awash withvenomous insects and reptiles and assured readers of his Historiadel reino de Quito (1789) that ‘there is no country comparable toQuito in cleanliness, and lacking almost totally in all that signifiesdanger, discomfort or annoyance to human life’.39 The SpaniardFélix de Azara, meanwhile, challenged Buffon’s assertion that OldWorld mammals dwarfed their American counterparts.40 ‘If my mon-keys do not equal [in size] those of Africa’, stated Azara, ‘nor my curésthe warthog, then my ferrets exceed the African variety . . . my ottersurpasses that of Europe, my vizcacha the marmot, my armadillosthe pangolin and the bull of Montevideo that of Salamanca’.41

Whilst some creole responses remained at the level of affronteddenials, others blossomed into a more sophisticated critique ofscientific assumptions and methodologies. They questioned notmerely the conclusions to which Buffon and others had come,but also, more radically, the manner in which those conclusionshad been reached. Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra contends, for example,that the creoles ‘launched a formidable attack upon the reliabilityof travellers’ testimony’ and favoured, by contrast, their own sus-tained contact with New World nature.42 Antonio Lafuente alsodiagnoses a more profound basis to creole polemics. Assessing thetensions between metropolitan and peripheral science in late impe-rial New Granada and New Spain, Lafuente identifies a multifacetedtussle for credibility that pitted ‘public against private, the theoreti-cal against the pragmatic, the paradigmatic against the local, aca-demic interest against patriotic interest and study in the cabinetagainst study in the field’.43 These contests signified a clash betweenthe universal and the local in which the creoles summoned personalexperience, indigenous traditions, and regional curiosities to mountan assault upon European knowledge systems.

David Livingstone has argued that different spaces and placesspawn different credibility strategies that determine the validityof the scientific knowledge that is produced in them.44 One of themost piquant rivalries at the turn of the nineteenth century centredon the antagonistic truth claims of the travelling naturalist—whoexplored distant lands in search of exotic specimens—and hissedentary counterpart, who operated within the confines of themetropolitan museum, botanical garden, or natural history cabinet.In her article ‘New spaces in natural history’, Dorinda Outram showshow these distinct breeds of naturalist marshalled different place-specific arguments to enhance their scientific status. The intrepidtravelling savant witnessed nature in the flesh, active, tantalising,alive, and founded his scientific authority on his proximity to thenatural world, and his knowledge of species in their native environ-ment. The museum-based naturalist, by contrast, only saw nature atone remove, faded, static, and lifeless. Unable to claim the same inti-macy with his subjects as the scientific explorer, he focused insteadupon his ability to compare species from different corners of the

39 Velasco (1844), Vol. 1, p. 109.40 Unanue (1914), p. 64.41 Azara (1802), Vol. 1, p. vii–x.42 Cañizares-Esguerra (2005), p. 92.43 Lafuente et al. (1996), p. 202.44 Livingstone contends persuasively that ‘science is not some eternal essence slowly ta

geographical circumstances’. Charles Withers substantiates and advances this propositionEnlightenment manifested itself in different ways in different nations, regions and social speriphery influenced—and were not just influenced by—developments at the European ce

45 Outram (1995).46 Azara (1802), Vol. 1, p. ii.47 Clavijo y Fajardo (1791), Vol. 1, pp. xv–xvi.48 Velasco (1844), Vol. 1, p. iii. The North American Thomas Jefferson marshalled similar

writers who had maligned the fauna of his native Virginia, Jefferson asked ‘who were thesewhether they had taken the trouble to ‘measure or weigh the animals that they speak ospeculated that ‘a true answer to these questions would probably lighten their authority, sp. 56.

globe, to touch and measure elusive or vicious animals and to surveynature’s productions calmly and thoroughly, free from the dangersand distractions that plagued his travelling counterpart.45

The Spaniard Azara exemplified the stance of the travelling nat-uralist. Having scrutinised Paraguay’s birds and mammals in situfor more than twenty years, Azara unsurprisingly trumpeted thebenefits of direct observation. He emphasised that he had writtendescriptions of American species ‘in their presence’, and pro-claimed himself less susceptible to error than ‘those who have seen[them] weakened, bald and dirty in cages and chains’ or

those who have searched for them in Cabinets, where, in spiteof the greatest care, the ravages of time must have greatlyaltered their colours . . . and where no skin or skeleton, not eventhe best prepared, gives a precise idea of their forms andmeasurements.46

Another Spaniard, José Clavijo y Fajardo, made the case for thesedentary naturalist. As deputy director of Madrid’s Real Gabinetede Historia Natural, Clavijo did not have the opportunity to viewhis subjects in their natural habitats, or to study their behaviourwhilst alive. The Spaniard insisted, nevertheless, that there weresome things that a travelling naturalist could not do, and hesavoured the advantages offered by a museum, which ‘presentsthe treasures of nature to us with method and order’. ‘In [a cabinetof natural history] we can observe and touch the most ferociousanimals, we can approach them without fear or difficulty and takethe dimensions of their skeletons’ meditated Clavijo. ‘There ceasesthe natural restlessness and volubility of the birds, and their restpermits us to examine tranquilly their most delicate features’.47

The travelling naturalist, presented with vibrant, disordered nature,did not have the time or the facilities to engage in such studious con-templation; he forfeited overview for immediacy.

Where did creole naturalists fit within this framework? In manyways, their position approximated more closely to that of the trav-elling savant than to his sedentary counterpart. From their vantagepoint on the imperial periphery, American men of science rebukedimmobile theorists such as Buffon and de Pauw for judging Ameri-can phenomena from a distance, and they based their own scientificcredibility upon their prolonged experience of local nature. Whilstcreole naturalists challenged the conclusions of sedentary savants,however, they did not entirely subscribe to the rationale of the sci-entific explorer. On the contrary, several creoles also attacked theauthority of travelling naturalists, whose fleeting visit to their ter-ritories exposed them to error and precluded the kind of intensivestudy that was necessary to understand American nature properly.

The Ecuadorian Jesuit Velasco proffered precisely these argu-ments in the Historia del reino de Quito. Opening the natural historysection of the work, Velasco chastised those European philosopherswho ‘without moving themselves from the Old World, have tracedsuch a sad anatomy of the New’.48 The Ecuadorian pledged ‘to refute

king from history’, but rather ‘a social practice grounded in concrete historical andin his recent study of the geography of the Enlightenment. Here he shows how the

ettings. He illustrates the ways in which the geographical discoveries on the imperialntre. See Livingstone (2003), p. 180; Withers (2007).

arguments against the reliability of travellers’ testimony. Commenting on the foreigntravellers?’ He questioned whether ‘natural history [was] the object of their travels’,

f’, or whether they judged them ‘by sight or perhaps even from report only’, and heo as to render it insufficient for the foundation of an hypothesis’. See Jefferson (1800),


the calumnies, falsities and errors of some modern writers, especiallyforeigners’, and he extended his critique to travelling naturalists, whowitnessed only a small part of America but then extrapolated fromtheir observations to include the entire continent. The French acade-mician Charles Marie de La Condamine, for example, had claimed thatall American birds were mute, and that ‘one scarcely finds one with aharmonious song’. Velasco retorted that La Condamine was speaking‘only of those that he saw and observed in the province of Maynas’when he made this generalisation; if the Frenchman had exploredthe colder regions of the kingdom, then he would have found numer-ous birds with indisputably angelic voices.49

Velasco juxtaposed the ignorance of armchair philosophers withhis own intimate knowledge of Quito’s natural treasures. His text ispeppered with expressions such as ‘I have seen’ and ‘I was eyewit-ness to’, and he emphasised both his proximity to American wildlifeand his sustained and repeated observation of natural phenomena.Prefacing his discussion of South American mammals, for instance,Velasco promised to talk about Quito’s ninety different species ofquadruped ‘according to what I have seen myself, with the experi-ence of so many years’.50 The Jesuit announced that he had seen amanatee ‘with my own eyes’,51 that he had seen a species of bearcalled the ucumari ‘frequently’52 and that he ‘saw [pacos and llamas]daily for many years’.53 He also described how he had examined thecadaver of a man-eating puma in 1741, insisting that Buffon’s claimsabout the cowardice of this animal were wrong, something he wouldhave known if he had ever witnessed one in action. ‘Those who havenot seen it deny that there is a true lion in America’, scoffed Velasco.‘But what does it matter if they are laughed at by all those who haveeither better information or personal experience?’54

Another creole to espouse the virtues of direct observation wasthe New Granadan, Caldas. Opening a treatise on the influence ofclimate on living things, Caldas announced that he would alwaysbe ‘guided by the torch of observation’, even if his results con-tradicted the findings of established thinkers. ‘My knees will bendbefore no philosopher’ declared the creole, for the views ofNewton, Buffon, or Montesquieu, ‘count for little if reason and expe-rience do not confirm them’.55

Caldas, like Velasco, also implicated the travelling naturalist inhis censures. Upon hearing of Humboldt’s forthcoming expeditionto South America, the New Granadan voiced some doubts as to theprospective achievements of his research, concerned that such afleeting visit would only perpetuate existing misconceptions.‘Can we expect anything useful and wise from a man who is goingto traverse the Kingdom [of New Granada] with the greatestspeed?’ questioned Caldas. ‘Is it to be believed that he will makegood astronomical, physical, mineralogical and botanical observa-tions in three or four months?’ And was there not a danger thatHumboldt would ‘fill Europe with preoccupations and false reports,as almost all travellers have done?’56

4. Putting nature in its place

Creole naturalists thus sought intellectual validation in their lo-cal knowledge and experience. They also authenticated their

49 Ibid., p. 106.50 Ibid., p. 82.51 Ibid., p. 97.52 Ibid., p. 85.53 Ibid., p. 82.54 Ibid., p. 84.55 Caldas (1966), p. 80; original emphasis.56 Letter from Caldas to Pérez Arroyo, 20 July 1801, in Chenu (1992), p. 107.57 Clavijero (1958), Vol. 1, p. 83.58 Molina (1788), p. 304.59 Londa Schiebinger interprets the imposition of Linnaean names on non-European plan

naming that accompanied and promoted European global expansion and colonisation’. Se

claims with reference to another resource—the accumulatedexpertise of indigenous people, which their familiarity with nativelanguages permitted them to access. Creole savants frequently ac-cused Europeans of distorting American nature because theymisinterpreted native taxonomies. They prescribed the study ofAmerindian tongues as essential to the acquisition of naturalknowledge.

A key advocate of linguistic proficiency was the Mexican JesuitFrancisco Javier Clavijero. Reviewing the work of Buffon, Clavijerosuspected that the Frenchman had underestimated the numberof quadrupeds in America because he did not understand Indiananimal names. The naturalist consequently conflated species thatshould have been classified separately, relying on the crudedenominations of sixteenth-century conquistadors. ‘The difficultyof discerning the species and the inappropriateness of the nomen-clature occasioned by analogy have made the history of animals[in the New World] difficult and awkward’, philosophisedClavijero.

The first Spanish taxonomists, more practised in the art of warthan in natural history, instead of retaining the names that theMexicans [the Aztecs] gave to the animals native to their coun-try, called tigers, bears, wolves, dogs, squirrels etc. various ani-mals of a very different species, either because of similarity inthe colour of their skin, or from the resemblance in certain fea-tures or conformity in certain movements and habits.57

The Chilean Molina concurred with this view, ascribing negativeperceptions of America’s mammals to errors in nomenclature.‘Nothing has been so pernicious to the natural history of Americaas the abuse that has been made, and that continues to be made,of nomenclature’, fumed Molina, for it was the tendency to bestowOld World names upon New World creatures on the basis of somespurious analogy that led the latter to be seen as ‘inferior’ versionsof beasts to which they were not even remotely related.

A very respectable modern author [Buffon] who believes thedegeneration of the animals of America to be evident, cites asproof of his opinion the American Myrmecophaga [anteater],known vulgarly as the ‘ant-bear’, dismissing it as a degeneratebranch of the bear family,

snorted Molina.

But since all naturalists are agreed that this small quadrupeddiffers from the bear not only in the genus, but also in the order,there is no reason to view it as a bastard variety of a specieswith which it has never had the slightest affinity.58

A familiarity with indigenous languages was thus crucial for theaccurate identification of New World plants and animals. Somepatriotic creoles went further than this, however, suggesting thatAmerindian plant and animal names were actually more usefulthan the Latin binomials devised by Linnaeaus because, unlikethe latter, they often conveyed information about their uses.59

Where Linnaeus’ binomial system divorced American species fromtheir natural environment, focusing purely on those features that

ts as ‘a form of what some botanists have called ‘‘linguistic imperialism”, a politics ofe Schiebinger (2004), pp. 194–225.


related to their classification, Amerindian naming practices tendedto reflect the virtues, location or physical appearance of a plant. Theyindicated at a glance what illnesses a herb could be used to treat,what it looked like, and where it was to be found.

One enthusiastic supporter of Indian plant nomenclature wasthe Mexican Alzate. In a letter printed in the Gazeta de México(24 June 1788), Alzate criticised Linnaean taxonomy—newly intro-duced to Mexico by the botanical expedition of Martín Sessé—as‘fatuous’ and unhelpful, because its Latinate binomials obscuredthe virtues of plants and taxed the human memory. Alzate pro-tested that ‘to want to substitute languages is an extravagance’.60

He commended instead Nahuatl plant names, which encapsulatedthe properties of Mexican species and communicated in an instanttheir medicinal, alimentary, or material uses. ‘If a new Botanical Lan-guage were to be formed in this way it would be of great utility tothe Public’, concluded Alzate, ‘but to borrow Greek words forgedamidst the ices of Denmark is a mistake’.61

Caldas concurred with this view. In the preface to his transla-tion of Humboldt’s Géographie des plantes, the New Granadanextolled the virtues of Quechua naming conventions, which liketheir Nahuatl equivalents, referenced the appearance, location, oruses of native plants, and he reflected that

the Peruvians, always precise and always careful in givingthings names derived from their properties, their virtues, theirfigure, their position etc., named the herbs according to theirvirtues and uses in medicine, in the arts and in society.62

Like Alzate, Caldas compared Quechua naming practices favourablywith Linnaeus’ Latin binomials, which, instead of communicatingthe characteristics of a plant, commemorated the achievements of fa-mous (and not so famous) men. He questioned ‘What idea the wordsdiscorea, plinia, buffonica, boerhavia, sigesvechia can give us of a plant?’and concluded that ‘they tell us nothing, other than that there hasbeen a Dioscorides, a Pliny, a Buffon, a Linneus, a Boerhaave, to whosememory these plants have been consecrated’.63

A similar pattern emerges if we study natural history illustra-tions. Like Linnaean taxonomy, late eighteenth-century naturalhistory illustrations tended to de-contextualise their subjects. Theyprivileged those parts of a plant or animal that were essential foraccurate classification in accordance with the Linnaean system,but omitted details that were superfluous to this purpose—suchas the roots of plants—obliterating any indication of where specieslived and how they behaved.

Naturalists working on the imperial periphery sometimes sub-tly subverted these conventions, developing their own distinctartistic styles. Beth Fowkes Tobin suggests that the intricatebotanical drawings sketched by Mughal artists for the East IndiaCompany in the 1790s borrowed from native traditions, eventhough these artists worked under the supervision of British bota-nists.64 Daniela Bleichmar intimates, similarly, that Spanish botanistJosé Celestino Mutis’s American artists also evolved their own un-ique style, including ‘a stronger penchant for symmetry’ and theuse of ‘denser colours’.65 These and other deviations were, she con-tends, deliberate, and did not result from the Americans’ inferiorskill.

If Mutis’s botanical illustrations deviated perceptibly from theirEuropean counterparts then the natural history images collated by

60 Alzate (1788b), Vol. 3, p. 99.61 Ibid., p. 99.62 ‘Prefación a la geografía de las plantas’, in Caldas (1966), p. 389. See also Clément (1963 Caldas (1966), p. 389.64 Tobin (1999), p. 201.65 Bleichmar (2006), p. 91.66 For a sample of the ethnographic artefacts that Martínez Compañón remitted to Spain67 Trujillo’s watercolours are housed by the Biblioteca del Palacio Real in Madrid and ca68 Bru de Ramón (1784–1786), Vol. 1, p. 3.

Jaime Baltasar Martínez Compañón, Bishop of Trujillo, representedan even more radical departure from established artistic conven-tions. Stationed in Peru from 1767 to 1790, Compañón supple-mented his pastoral obligations with the study of local fauna andflora. The Bishop, like Mutis, enlisted American artists to sketchthe natural products of his diocese. He dispatched the resultingseries of watercolours to Spain, along with a selection of ethno-graphic artefacts.66

Compañón’s natural history illustrations fluctuated in quality.Some were relatively crude in appearance, whilst others evidenceda greater degree of skill and sophistication. What many ofCompañón’s prints shared, however, and what differentiated themfrom the output of contemporary European artists, was the effortthey made to situate Peruvian fauna and flora within naturalisticsettings. They sketched plants and animals in their entirety, ratherthan portraying a single branch against a white background, andthey attempted to capture their interactions with other livingthings.

Illustrative of this approach are Compañón’s zoological prints,which often allude to the dietary habits of their subjects, or docu-ment the function of their most notable body parts. Trujillo’s ant-eater, for instance, excavates an anthill, the startled inhabitantsof which scuttle obligingly up the insectivore’s outstretched ton-gue (Fig. 1), whilst his ‘large tiger’ cavorts nonchalantly up a hill-side (Fig. 2). The Bishop’s chameleon is positioned next to aconveniently coloured sprig of leaves, to showcase the efficacy ofits curious defence mechanism (Fig. 3). His chipichipi retains itsexpressive Amerindian name, and all of his monkeys appear inthe act of eating: the lion monkey clasps half a melon betweenits toes (Fig. 4), the black monkey savours a freshly peeled banana(Fig. 5), and the white monkey is about to sink its teeth into anorange. Trujillo’s watercolours thus reference the sustenance andhunting techniques of Peruvian animals. They indicate how theyrelate to other living things, and how their anatomical featuresequip them to survive in their native environment.67

The distinctive qualities of Compañón’s watercolours emergemost clearly when we compare them to more orthodox zoologicaland botanical drawings, which tended to divorce their subjectsfrom their native environment. Emblematic of this approach werethe zoological illustrations in Juan Bautista Bru’s Colección deláminas que representan los animales y monstruos del Real Gabinetede Historia Natural de Madrid (1786), a selection of illustrations fea-turing animals from the Real Gabinete. Introducing the work, Bruannounced explicitly that he had concentrated ‘most particularlyin this collection on that which relates to the structure of the ani-mals, rather than that which concerns their habits’.68 The Spaniardinserted a small scale in the corner of his paintings, to help viewerscalculate the true dimensions of the beasts depicted, but he sup-pressed any reference to their behaviour or to their relations withother species, portraying them in static, rigid poses. Where Com-pañón’s anteater molests an anthill, for example, Bru’s specimenstands stiffly on a generic piece of turf, one foot raised better to dis-play its powerful digging claws, and its glorious tongue tucked away(Fig. 6). And where the Bishop’s ‘tiger’ frolics merrily up a hillside,Bru’s leopard adopts a rather unnatural posture and fixes the viewerwith a vacant, glassy-eyed stare (Fig. 7). The Spanish artist thus sac-rificed naturalistic poses for anatomical accuracy, extracting his sub-

87), p. 389.

, see Verde Casanova (1980), p. 93.n be seen online (Biblioteca del Palacio Real, 2006).

Fig. 1. Oso hormiguero (from Biblioteca del Palacio Real, 2006, Vol. 6, plate 39; �Real Biblioteca, RB II/348, Patrimonio Nacional). Fig. 2. Tigre grande (from Biblioteca del Palacio Real, 2006, Vol. 6, plate 36; � Real

Biblioteca, RB II/348, Patrimonio Nacional).


jects from their native environment. The more holistic approach ofCompañón’s artists, meanwhile, was in keeping with the broaderbelief, espoused by several creoles, that New World nature neededto be studied in situ, and in relation to other living things.

5. Creole patriots?

To some extent, the study of nature fortified creole patriotism. Itconvinced Americans of the economic and scientific potential oftheir native regions. It fostered a sense of epistemological solidarityin opposition to armchair philosophers and travellers, and it in-spired creole naturalists to undertake research that would honourand glorify their native lands. The New Granadan Francisco AntonioZea, for instance, proclaimed that ‘the animal kingdom alone couldoccupy our future naturalists for many years and be a fertile sourceof riches when we begin to open our eyes to our interests’.69 An arti-cle in the Mercurio Peruano, meanwhile, declared that ‘the NaturalHistory of Peru is fertile in prodigies’, predicting that ‘all the systemsthat have been devised in Europe concerning this material will besubject to a thousand amplifications when they are applied here’.70

Whilst the study of nature thus quickened patriotic sentimentsand engendered tensions between metropolitan and colonial sa-vants, it should not necessarily be interpreted as some kind of cat-alyst for political independence. Once the independence processwas under way, a number of American naturalists did support

69 Mutis (1954), Vol. 1, p. 70.70 Idea general del Perú (1964), p. 6.71 Silva (2002), p. 619.72 Duque Muñoz (2004), p. 170.73 ‘Informe al Virrey’, in Caldas (1966), p. 229.

the patriot cause, and some perished at the hands of royalisttroops—notably Caldas, executed on the orders of General PabloMorillo in 1816. The actions of these individuals in the chaoticyears after 1808 do not, however, reflect their attitudes and expec-tations prior to Napoleon’s invasion of Spain, and an examinationof their pre-1808 writings suggests a more conservative, morenuanced conception of the function and significance of their scien-tific attainments. Renan Silva states, for instance, that ‘there is nota single text by the [New Granadan] ilustrados, of those that areknown, that enables one to confirm, before 1808, [the existenceof] an idea of nation distinct from the Spanish nation’.71 LuciaDuque Muñoz contends, similarly, that creole savants evinced ‘a sen-timent of belonging towards Spain’, a feeling of ‘pride towards theirpeninsular ancestors’ and a desire to defend the metropolis from theslanders of northern European critics.72

Caldas exemplifies this stance. Though occasionally critical ofthe Spanish authorities for their lack of support, and of Mutis forhis failure to accord the creole a more prominent position withinthe Botanical Expedition of New Granada, Caldas generally empha-sised his fidelity to Spain, graciously accepting the encouragementhe received from Spanish officials and applauding the accomplish-ments of Spanish savants. Writing to the Viceroy Antonio JoséAmar y Borbón as late as 1809, the creole reported that he had bap-tised two species of plant in his honour—Amaria puctea and Amariaviolácea.73 Elsewhere, in a study of Bogotá’s geography, Caldas

Fig. 3. Camaleona (from Biblioteca del Palacio Real, 2006, Vol. 6, plate 77; � RealBiblioteca, RB II/348, Patrimonio Nacional).

Fig. 4. Mono Leoncito (from Biblioteca del Palacio Real, 2006, Vol. 6, plate 16; � RealBiblioteca, RB II/348, Patrimonio Nacional).


enunciated some equally laudatory comments about a Spanish sub-ject, in this case the cartographer Salvador Fidalgo. The creolepraised the accuracy of Fidalgo’s hydrographical charts, which ‘haveassured forever the fortune and lives of all those who navigate ourseas’, and he also adduced the achievements of the cartographerand several of his compatriots as evidence of the injustice of NicolasMasson de Morvillier’s notorious portrayal of Spain in the Encyclopé-die article ‘Espagne’. ‘It has been said that the Maritime Atlas ofSpain, produced by the famous Tofiño, is an irreproachable responseto Masson’s infamous question: what has Spain done for humanity?’snorted Caldas.

We could add that the hydrographical charts of Fidalgo willpuncture the pride of this impudent geographer [Masson]who has insulted an enlightened and generous nation, and thatthe country [patria] of Juan, Ulloa, Mazarredo, Tofiño, Mendoza,Doz, Chaix, Galeano, Churruca, Ciscar and a numerous army ofmen famous in the sciences will oppose him as proof withoutquestion of its progress and enlightenment.74

Caldas thus defended Spain’s much maligned scientific record, aswell as stressing the scholarly achievements of his fellow NewGranadans.

If the stance of creole naturalists did not amount to a full-blownrepudiation of Spanish rule, however, then it did betray a growingsense of regional pride and a subtle difference in emphasis. Where

74 ‘Estado de la Geografía del Virreinato de Santafé de Bogotá, con relación a la economí75 Nieto Olarte (2007), p. 151.76 Enrile personally supervised the execution of Lozano and his cohorts Caldas and Salvad

for Spain. See letter from Pascual Enrile, 14 March 1817, Fragata Diana, La Habana, in Mu

Spanish savants viewed America as a source of natural riches forSpain’s use, their creole counterparts concentrated on the advanta-ges they offered to their individual homelands. And where Span-iards solicited specimens for the Real Jardín Botánico and theReal Gabinete, American scholars, whilst providing copious plantsand animals for their Spanish masters, dreamed of establishingsimilar institutions in their native colonies. As Nieto has com-mented in his analysis of the authors of the Semanario del reinode Nueva Granada,

if we consider it problematic to identify the thinking of the cre-ole elites whom we find in the Semanario with the ideals ofnational independence, we may see them as expressions of pri-vate interests, relevant to the social groups to which the authorsbelong, that on occasion differ from, and even enter into conflictwith, the political and commercial projects of the peninsula.75

This conflict in priorities emerges quite clearly if we comparetwo different assessments of Mutis’s botanical establishment inNew Granada. The first assessment, penned by Mutis’s creoleprotégé, the zoologist Jorge Tadeo Lozano, focused on the benefitsthat the botanical expedition would confer upon Mutis’s adoptedpatria and cast the Spanish botanist as an honorary American.The second evaluation, contained within a letter by the SpanishGeneral Pascual Enrile during the pacification campaign of 1816,emphasised the expedition’s contribution to metropolitan science.Enrile portrayed Mutis unambiguously as a Spanish patriot and acredit to the land of his birth.76

a y al comercio’, in ibid., pp. 206–207.

or Rizo, and appropriated the remnants of Mutis’s notes, illustrations, and collectionstis (1954), Vol. 1, p. 116.

Fig. 5. Mono Negro (from Biblioteca del Palacio Real, 2006, Vol. 6, plate 12; � RealBiblioteca, RB II/348, Patrimonio Nacional).

Fig. 6. Osa Palmera (from Bru de Ramón, 1784–1786, Vol. 2, p. 34; � MuseoNacional de Ciencias Naturales).

Fig. 7. Leopardo (from Bru de Ramón, 1784–86, Vol. 2, p. 22; � Museo Nacional deCiencias Naturales).


Lozano’s account of the botanical expedition synthesised fidel-ity to the Crown with a tacit regional pride. The creole character-ised the Real Expedición Botánica de Santa Fé de Bogotá as ‘themost beautiful in the city, and the most suitable for exciting thetender affection of vassals towards the sovereign that protectsand sustains it in order to make them happy’. He proceeded, how-ever, to enumerate the agricultural and scientific benefits that theexpedition would bequeath specifically to New Granada, beforeterminating his summary with a blend of imperial and patrioticoptimism. ‘On the precious life of the Director [Mutis] dependsnot only the completion of his masterful works, a glorious monu-ment that will immortalise their Author, the Nation that producedhim [Spain] and the pious Monarch who has sustained him’, rhap-sodised Lozano,

but also the realisation of the vast and patriotic projects that hehas meditated, including the building in the Real Casa de laExpedición of two facades in whose enclosure one may comfort-ably position the library, the cabinet of natural history and achemical laboratory, leaving between these buildings enoughspace for a botanical garden that may serve as a school for thisfaculty, with everything at the disposition of the public, whomay enjoy it on certain days designated for that purpose.

The creole rejoiced that ‘when this comes to pass, the capital ofSanta Fé de Bogotá can glory in possessing in its centre a completemuseum’. He anticipated that the latter would facilitate ‘brilliantdiscoveries that are directly useful to the human race in generaland in particular to these Provinces, which through its offices will ex-tract the value from the exquisite and numerous productions with

Fig. 9. Chachapas (from Biblioteca del Palacio Real, 2006, Vol. 6, Plate 27; � RealBiblioteca, RB II/348, Patrimonio Nacional).

Fig. 8. Omeca machacuai (from Biblioteca del Palacio Real, 2006, Vol. 6, Plate 60; �Real Biblioteca, RB II/348, Patrimonio Nacional).


which Nature has enriched in the three kingdoms mineral, vegetableand animal’.77

If Lozano thus relished both the regional and imperial benefitsof Mutis’s expedition, Enrile, by contrast, trumpeted only the latter.The Spanish General adjudged Mutis’s contribution to science ‘animmortal work . . . that provides authentic and evident testimonyto the enlightenment of the Spanish Nation’. He grudginglyacknowledged the input of creole savants such as Caldas and thepainter Salvador Rizo, who had done an impressive job of mappingthe viceroyalty and charting its fauna and flora, but he remarkedwith undisguised bitterness that the knowledge acquired by theseindividuals ‘had turned them against the very people to whomthey owed their enlightenment’. Concluding his report, Enrile ex-plained that he had salvaged what he could from Mutis’s batteredestablishment, remitting to the crown ‘all that corresponds to bot-any’ as well as ‘the largest known nugget of platinum and a young,monstrous and rare eagle’, and he expressed the hope that theseremissions would further ‘the progress of the human race’ (notspecifically the inhabitants of New Granada). The Spaniard closedhis letter with a ringing endorsement of his superior General PabloMorillo, who,

chosen to destroy discord in the vast possessions of the king inCosta Firme, has not only achieved this rapidly, and at minimalcost, but has not found sufficient obstacles from the Mexican

77 Ibid., pp. 84–85; my emphasis.78 Ibid., p. 132.79 Alzate (1788a), p. 206.

empire to that of Peru to distract him from presenting suchbeautiful offerings to the temple of Science.78

6. Conclusion

To conclude, therefore, the position of creole savants was inmany ways rather schizophrenic. On the one hand, naturalistsworking on the imperial periphery craved the praise and accep-tance of their European colleagues, and coveted the chance toparticipate in Old World scholarly circles, even in the most trivialmanner. On the other hand, however, peripheral scholars stakedtheir scientific authority on foundations that implicitly challengedthe credibility of travellers and sedentary savants. They resentedmisrepresentations of their homeland. They championed scientificprojects that conferred tangible benefits on their native regions—rather than the Spanish empire as a whole—and they insisted thattheir own ingenuity, coupled with the staggering natural riches ofAmerica, permitted the creation of a form of science that was notmerely imitative, but that boasted some distinctive features of itsown. The Mexican Alzate thus gloated that ‘there are in New Spainproductions that invalidate and overturn all hypotheses and estab-lished botanical systems’.79 Compañón’s American artists, mean-while, depicted several local species that even Linnaeus wouldhave struggled to classify (Figs. 8 and 9). Such attitudes did not


necessarily preclude collaboration with the imperial authorities inthe collection of specimens; nor did they preclude a broader, collec-tive pride in the intellectual achievements of the Hispanic world.They did nevertheless occasion certain tensions between imperialand peripheral scholars that sometimes flared up into a broader epis-temological critique of the European scientific project.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my Ph.D. supervisor Professor AnthonyMcFarlane. and my co-supervisor Dr Rebecca Earle for their helpand guidance throughout my doctoral research. I would also liketo thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for fundingmy doctoral studies, audiences at the Cambridge Cabinet of NaturalHistory and the Newberry Library, Chicago, for their useful com-ments on earlier versions of this paper, and the anonymous re-viewer for offering many thought-provoking observations on thecompleted article.

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