In 1758, Clara died in London without ever having passed through Madrid. This Indian rhinoceros had been a leading attraction across the royal courts of Europe. She was immortalised in an engraving by Count de Buffon, and would become the subject of various twenty-first-century historical studies. In 1773, the Nawab of Indonesia sent an elephant to Charles III of Spain. This beast bathed in the fountain of Cybele in Madrid over the course of four years, but did not travel to other European courts. Nor did the fossil remains of the Megatherium, an extinct American sloth sent from Buenos Aires in 1788 by Viceroy Pedro de Cevallos, subsequently leave Madrid. To view the skeletons of both, European naturalists were obliged to visit the Royal Cabinet of Natural History in Madrid. Was this a crucial difference governing the study of nature in the Spanish Empire and other European empires? Helen Cowie's book analyses the conditions underpinning the study of the natural sciences in the Spanish Empire, and the changes brought about by the Napoleonic Wars and the independence of the Spanish American states.
The historiography covering science in the Spanish American world has highlighted the impetus provided by the world of science to the Enlightenment and independence movements. Others have studied the scientific achievements of the epoch and the contributions to these by Spaniards and Spanish Americans. By contrast, Cowie's book examines the way in which political, cultural and social conditions influenced scientific practices. Through her analysis of a great number of published sources on both sides of the Atlantic along with manuscripts from the Archive of the Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, the author shows how the natural sciences experienced a significant surge within the Spanish Empire in the second half of the eighteenth century. In addition to the economic societies, the Enlightenment press and the scientific expeditions, two leading Madrid institutions contributed to this scientific flourishing. The Botanical Garden was established in Aranjuez in 1775 before being transferred to Madrid in 1774, and 1776 saw the setting up of the Royal Cabinet of Natural History based on the personal collection of its first director, the Guayaquil-born Pedro Franco Dávila. These two bodies saw the gathering of objects, plants and fossils from Spanish possessions, both in Europe and overseas. In accordance with royal directives, civil servants and scientific expeditions sent back all their most eye-catching, most useful and most characteristic findings. The royal collections in the capital were open to the general public as long as it behaved ‘decently’ according to the mores of the time. Foreign travellers in the early nineteenth century commented on the extent to which the gathering together of so many curiosities from all over Spanish America and the Philippines was unique to the Royal Cabinet of Madrid, by virtue of the territorial extent of the Spanish Empire and the ‘diligence’ of its officials. Furthermore, the Royal Cabinet was considered a hub of scientific research.
In America, too, scientific institutions, such as the Royal College of Mines in Mexico, were concentrated in the viceregency capitals. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Alexander von Humboldt considered the scientific bodies of Mexico City to be the most important in the whole American continent. Additionally, private naturalists and amateur clergymen contributed their own collections. On the fringes of empire, access to libraries and the purchase of scientific instruments were more difficult. Nevertheless, creole naturalists everywhere were openly critical of European tenets, from the prejudices of count de Buffon and Cornelius de Pauw to the new taxonomy of Linnaeus. The Mexican José Antonio Alzate preferred Nahuatl botanical names that indicated the use to which plants could be put. Cowie mentions that Alzate considered the attribution of Greek names brought forth from Danish glaciers (sic) to describe the reality of New Spain to be an error. American scientists were generally keen to use home-grown elements and concepts. Cowie also underlines the fact that until the late eighteenth century, American scientific efforts were aimed at enhancing the prospects of the empire.
The Napoleonic invasion brought about a rupture in this scientific dialogue and partly destroyed the research centres in Madrid. In America, the wars of independence and a shortage of funds undermined the foundations of nature research, but in the long run the newly independent states oversaw the establishment of new collections and national museums, and the peripheral regions experienced enhanced links with the northern European scientific world.
In broad terms, Cowie's study portrays naturalists who saw themselves as not far removed from missionaries and religious martyrs. Scientists were obliged to face an array of dangers and deny themselves creature comforts in order to devote themselves fully to the study of nature. Those who died in the course of research had monuments erected in their honour or plants named after them. In no case did these naturalists acknowledge in scientific terms any help received from natives. The familiar knowledge of the indigenous peoples of the natural world of America was regarded as simplistic and lacking in scientific methodology. Further to this, figures such as Alexander von Humboldt did not really regard American creole scientists as their peers.
In her thought-provoking analysis, and despite the fact that her bibliography is largely composed of recent studies in English, Cowie shows that at the end of the eighteenth century the conquest of nature in the Spanish Empire was similar to that undertaken in other European empires, but that communications between Spanish American naturalists as well as their connection to the outside world were more difficult and the number of publications was smaller. Consequently, foreign naturalists of the period undervalued the extent of the pursuit of science in the Spanish Empire. Following independence this unfavourable judgement was reinforced as it served to emphasise the ‘deeds’ of northern European scientists in Latin America; Helen Cowie's clear and concise book shows these to have been adventure yarns for the most part.
