Sumatran Rice and ‘Miracle’ Herbs: Local and International Natural Knowledge in Late-Colonial Guatemala

Sophie Brockmann

doi:10.1080/10609164.2015.1009281

Abstract

This paper concerns the local and global knowledge networks in which residents of colonial Central America participated. In the last few decades of Spanish rule (c. 1796–1821), members of the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País dedicated themselves to bringing ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘improvement’ to the region through natural history and other ‘useful arts’. Articles published in the Economic Society’s newspaper, the Gazeta de Guatemala, show that a socially and geographically wider network of people than might be expected, and a more varied range of sources, were used to obtain scientific knowledge considered useful to the colony. The Economic Society supported the circulation of natural-historical writings within Central America, but also tapped into surprisingly international networks. The transmission and evaluation of information from these different sources reveal a sometimes uneasy coexistence of local, regional and international knowledge networks within the pursuit of ‘enlightened’ scholarship and reform.

Highlights

Central America at the end of the Spanish colonial period was part of an array of networks of communication within which administrators, merchants, priests and scholars created, received, and passed on information
This article will use evidence from the Gazeta de Guatemala to uncover the regional and international knowledge networks which the Central American elite was a part of, and the complex ways in which knowledge received from these global and regional networks was placed within a framework of local ‘Enlightened reform’ and progress
It will further show the interconnectedness of these networks, since Central American elites regarded membership in such ‘global’ networks of communication as an integral part of ‘local’ progress

Summary

Introduction

Central America at the end of the Spanish colonial period was part of an array of networks of communication within which administrators, merchants, priests and scholars created, received, and passed on information.

Results

Conclusion