Plants
- LAST REVIEWED: 26 September 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 September 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0370
- LAST REVIEWED: 26 September 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 September 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0370
Introduction
Plants moved between locales, and connected points across, the Atlantic world from Antiquity to the Early Modern period. While the role of plants as the portmanteau biota of colonial settlements in the Americas underscored their instrumentalization by Europeans, historians now see the interplay of African, Indigenous, and even Asian plants in the Atlantic world. Plant humanities scholarship in history, geography, anthropology, archaeology, and other disciplines provides a sense of diverse human-plant relationships, and this article collects research that focuses on plants as food, medicine, cultural emblems, scientific specimens, and aesthetic objects. These varied kinds of socio-floral engagements are reflected in equally disparate scholarship from researchers investigating North and South America; the Caribbean; West, West Central, southern, and eastern Africa; and western Europe. Numerous studies of Mesoamerican cultures conducted by anthropologists and archaeologists point toward the rich botanical traditions of Maya, Mexica, and other Central American societies in “pre-Hispanic” periods. However, the contact between Europeans and Mesoamericans largely still serves to divide studies on plants, particularly since many sources reflect the hybridization of plant knowledge. A number of monographs and articles are included here; however, more research is necessary on earlier cultures and periods, such as the Olmecs. Likewise, for Atlantic African and African diaspora studies, much of the scholarship remains regionally divided between West Africanists and scholars of West Central and southern Africa. Exceptions to this trend are evident in Caribbean-focused research that emphasizes the relative dynamism of plant-derived medicine as knowledge crisscrossed among Africans, Indigenous Amerindians, and Europeans. An epistemic challenge remains for historians of science and medicine and economic or cultural historians regarding whether to write about plants as culturally embedded actants or as emergent commodities moving along chains of production, supply, and consumption. One example of this involves the history of High John the Conqueror root, both a material plant and a spiritual being who appears in African American literature as a trickster. John’s commodification over time in the United States, as Carolyn Morrow Long has shown, into an accepted pharmaceutical, involves his transformation from a black spirit into a white kingly figure. This further touches on the complex racialization of plants, an issue likewise related to the de-Africanization or de-Indigenization of plants by settler colonialism. Linguistic challenges pose problems for researchers as well, as a number of plant collections remain untranslated and understudied, such as plants collected at slave castles where captives spoke a multitude of languages and dialects. Vagueness and anonymity within primary sources that mention “an Indian” or a “Negro Dr.” further frustrate efforts to identify and build up narratives of Amerindian and Atlantic African intellectual traditions due to the historical construction of the archive itself.
Foundations
Scholars interested in the intersection of Atlantic and environmental history with a focus on plants must necessarily begin by approaching the portmanteau biota concept discussed in Crosby 1972, a landmark text on ecological imperialism and the Columbian exchange. Crosby’s research set the stage for waves of historiography focused on the physical environmental impact of plants, animals, and microbes on the “Neo-Europes.” Two other foundational texts on plants in the Atlantic world come from historians of science, Grove 1996 and Schiebinger 2004, which underscore how knowledge of plants, particularly via botany and medicine, hinged on networks of trade, empire-building, and slavery in the Early Modern period. Sauer 1993 is a valuable roster of East and West African plants mobilized through the diaspora. Watson 1983 further shows the exchange and movement of plants among the medieval Islamic caliphates, South Asia, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Americas.
Crosby, Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange; Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1972.
The Columbian exchange, a framework coined by Crosby, involved the circulation of plants between Europe, Atlantic Africa, and the Americas after 1492. Food plants from the Americas became staples in Europe, including potatoes as well as drugs or medicinal plants like tobacco. West African adoptions of American plants include peanuts, tomatoes, maize, and manioc, and Crosby points out that these biotic adaptations occurred as early as the second half of the sixteenth century.
Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Flora play a major role in Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism as the portmanteau biota with which Europeans created Neo-Europes in the Americas, Australia, and elsewhere. Domesticated plants and weeds like clover added to the Europeanization of the physical landscape in places like Mexico as they replaced indigenous flora communities. European grasses also spread via the transformation of American lands into pasturage for livestock.
Grove, Richard. Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600–1860. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Grove’s book is of interest to forest historians and researchers in early modern environmental thinking due to his nearly exhaustive scholarship on observations of the climatic and ecological consequences of long-term deforestation and desiccation on small islands like St. Helena, St. Vincent, and others from the start of the seventeenth century until the middle of the nineteenth century. Incipient forms of ecological thinking resulting from environmental destruction in these island contexts led naturalists and botanists to adopt conservationist attitudes that served an imperial and environmental purpose.
Sauer, Jonathan D. Historical Geography of Crop Plants: A Select Roster. Boca Raton, FL: CRC,1993.
Sauer’s roster is a valuable reference text with entries on crop plants organized taxonomically. The book combines historical, geographical, and archaeological data, and it sheds light on the role of the African diaspora for transmitting plant species, such as kikuyu grass and Cenchrus clandestinus, a plant species used for pasturing in East Africa and the Americas.
Schiebinger, Londa. Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Plants and Empire remains an influential study particularly for Schiebinger’s introduction and elaboration of the theoretical framework of agnotology, or the study of culturally induced ignorances. Cases involving peacock flower, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, and other plants known to Amerindian and African healers illuminate how knowledge of plants did and did not move throughout the Atlantic world due to a number of factors, chief among them struggles over power between men and women, free and enslaved people, and colonizers and colonized.
Watson, Andrew M. Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World: The Diffusion of Crops and Farming Techniques, 700–1100. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Watson discusses the pivotal role of the Islamic world for mobilizing plant diffusions between India and the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Iberian Peninsula, and East Africa from Late Antiquity until the High Middle Ages. The book raises the thesis that conquests led by the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates diversified and intensified the agricultural productivity of Islamic agriculture, with special reference to sorghum, sugar cane, shaddock, and cotton.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Asia and the Americas and the Iberian Empires
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Bourbon Reforms in the Spanish Atlantic, The
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Brazilian Independence
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cortes of Cádiz
- Cosmopolitanism
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern Amazonia
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European Enslavement of Indigenous People in the Americas
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- Founding Myths of the Americas
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- German Influences in America
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Maritime Literature
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Maryland
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- Nobility and Gentry in the Early Modern Atlantic World
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Phillis Wheatley
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Poetry in the British Atlantic
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Potosi
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science and Technology (in Literature of the Atlantic Worl...
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Atlantic World
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Swedish Atlantic World, The
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The Danish Atlantic World
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- The Spanish Caribbean
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Travel Writing (in the Atlantic World)
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- William Blackstone
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1611)
- William Wilberforce
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets