Category: Trade

Introduction of Horses in New Spain

Fray Diego Durán, 1570’s.

Early nineteenth-century facsimile.

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

Durán, Diego. “De como el Marquis del Valle Don Hernando Cortes. . . salio a conquistar las demas Provincias . . .” [Cortés and Soldiers Confront the Indians]. In La Historia antigua de la Nueva España. 19th Century. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Facsimile. November 2018. Library of Congress.

 

Horses have become an iconic characteristic of the Plain Indians of North America. There is an assumption that these people were always mobile through their access to horses. In reality, these long-sedentary societies were disturbed by Spain’s introduction of horses. This mobile beast gives the Plains Indians their iconic tradition of being nomadic. The introduction of horses caused different native nations to come into conflict, not only with each other but with the labor force on Spain’s territories. In reaction to the intersection of various races, the colonial government created a system to label backgrounds. The racial hierarchy that the Spanish developed was an attempt to reassert their dominance after their inability to maintain their monopoly on horses that they initially enjoyed over the Indians.

A painting from Fray Diego’s manuscript depicts the symbolism of the horses that the Spanish brought into colonial territories. This manuscript was made in the 1570’s and was not published until the 19th century. In Fray Diego Duran’s manuscript, he recorded his observations of the Indian’s society. In one of his sections, he includes a colored depiction of the confrontation between the Mexica and the powerful Spanish forces of Hernando Cortés (1485–1547) during his campaign of 1519–1521. Understanding that Fray Diego Duran was a Spanish Dominican priest, it follows that he would depict the Spanish as the superior people in the confrontation. The “history of the Indians” manuscript was likely tailored for the nobles and learned men in Spain who were not able to experience first-hand the New World. The history could also be for the patrons that financially backed the trip. In the piece, horses are leading the Spanish in the fight against the Indians. For the Spanish, this symbolizes that they are justified in invading the Indian’s land. In. Spain, horses were notable elements of heroic traditions. They represented the honor and valor of the rider and thus a sign of nobility. This sign of nobility translated into New Spain, and thus the natives that began riding horses gained status. With the Spanish losing their sign of nobility, they had to turn to a racial hierarchy to reassert their dominance. The introduction of horses was the impetus for the Spanish to create the infamous racial hierarchy. Furthermore through horses we see that once technological advancements are distributed among different people, the divide among them are minimized.

 

 

Sources:

Earle, Rebecca. The Body of the Conquistador. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Mann, Charles. 1493. New York: Vintage Books, 2011.

Fray Diego Durán, La Historia antigua de la Nueva España, 19th Century facsimile, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, November, 2018, Library of Congress.

The Dutch and Their Fishy Business

 

Johannes Vermeer, Delft, Netherlands, 1660-1661.

Oil on Canvas.

Dutch Royal Cabinet of Paintings at the Mauritshuis.

Vermeer, Johannes. View of Delft. 1660-1661. Oil on Canvas. Mauritshuis, The Hague. In Vermeer’s Hat. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008, Plate 1 Insert.

 

The Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, was a period where the Dutch were at the forefront of trade, science, military, and art. What was the impetus for this renowned prosperity? The answer can be found in Johannes Vemeer’s View of Delft. This piece was made around the height of the Golden Age, 1660, and simply depicts a view of Delft, Netherlands. In the painting, the herring busses are humbly portrayed as an integral part of this town. As integral as the herring busses are in this piece, so are they in the impetus of the Dutch Golden Age.

Due to a global cooling, the herring industry geographically moved into the control of the Dutch. The Dutch began to exploit this newfound economy through their advancements of the herring busses. In turn, caused the prosperity of the Golden Age. One of the notable features of the Dutch Golden Age, is the VOC. Formed in 1602, the Dutch East Indian Company is herald as the most powerful trading corporation in the seventeenth-century world. As the first modern stock exchange, its influence is present in modern finances. The profitable herring industry provided the financial backing that allowed the Dutch to venture into creating the VOC.

The initiatives to create efficient herring busses compelled the Dutch’s methodical and technological advancements. One of which was to create an onboard curing system on the herring busses allowing them to stay out on the water for longer period of time. In order to compensate for the longer time at sea, a larger boat and crew was necessary. The Dutch shipbuilders had to create larger boats to compensate for necessary space of the curing system and the larger crews needed to maintain this system. The combination of larger boats, larger crews, and technological advancements are the beginning of the military glory of the Dutch Golden Age.

The successful herring industry did not go unnoticed. Envious eyes of the Dutch’s enemies attempted to hamper the Dutch’s profits by attacking the herring busses. In response, Dutch towns agreed to send out convoys to protect their common interest. These convoys had to protect the busses without causing any damage to them. This created a necessity for naval strategies among the convoys. Here, the herring busses are uniting and organizing the Dutch towns in a system to protect itself.  The famous navel strategies of the Dutch Golden Age can find their roots in the navel expedition to protect the herring busses.

Sources:

Brook, Timothy. 2009. Vermeer’s Hat. New York: Bloomsbury Press.

 

The things we did for Nutmeg

Nutmeg Grinder, Unknown Artist, British
1690
Silver metalwork and cowrie shell
The Metropolitan Museum of Art; 68.141.278

Spices were at the heart of World commerce in the 17th century. It could be argued that the Dutch republic built itself a golden age on the spice trade. At the height of their power, the Dutch had a monopoly on the world’s supply of nutmeg and mace as well as control over the vast majority of the the world’s access to cloves.

Part of the reason why the Dutch could maintain their nutmeg monopoly was because the nutmeg tree only grew on the Banda islands in Indonesia. Although efforts to cultivate the trees elsewhere generally proved futile, to protect their monopoly the Dutch would dip their nutmeg exports in lime. To further defend their monopoly, the Dutch maintained a heavy military presence on all of the Bandan isles. These stringent measures were enacted by the governor of the Dutch East Indies of the time, a man named Jan Pietersz Coen.

The seriousness with which Coen took the security around the Bandan isles was largely due to the fact that the Dutch were able to make a 7500% profit on each shipment of nutmegs. This was at least partly due to Coen’s especial ruthlessness. He coerced the headmen of tribes on each island to sign contracts that established the Dutch East Indies Company as the sole beneficiary of their Nutmeg harvests, ratcheting down the prices for their labor to be so low as to provoke widespread uprisings on the islands against his terms. Coen saw the uprisings as breach of contract and so declared war, eventually enslaving the native inhabitants of the islands to ensure steady production of nutmeg.

Although the Dutch had established their claim to the Banda Islands with an excessively blatant display of imperialism, in the eyes of the British, the westernmost Island in the archipelago, Pulo Run, was sovereign British territory. The Brits had reached the Bandas first in 1603 and had sent several subsequent, unsuccessful colonization attempts that had largely been thwarted by the Dutch.

Tensions over Pulo Run contributed to the outbreak of both Anglo-Dutch wars. Terms that required the return of Pulo Run to British ownership were expressly stated in the treaty of Whitehall of 1662 which marked the end of the first Anglo-Dutch war. Although the British attempted a return to claim the island, by the time they managed to launch an expedition, the second Anglo-Dutch war had begun and the Dutch once again prevented English occupation of the island. They had managed to keep their monopoly.

The treaty of Breda doesn’t expressly state the names of any territories. Britain and the United Netherlands (as Holland was then known) instead agreed that all territories that had been captured over the course of the war were to be be kept of by the captor. This was effectively a game of monopoly where the Dutch exchanged their colony of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island in the American Northeast for the British territory on Suriname and the British claim to the Island of Pulo Run.

Such was the draw of the monopoly that Nutmeg offered. For the Dutch, Even though the entirety of their Nutmeg crop came from the the two main islands of Banda and Naira, they couldn’t allow the Brits the possibility of breaking their monopoly with the island of Pulo Run.

 

Sources:

Davenport, F.G., and C.O. Paullin. “Treaty of Friendship between Great Britain and the United Netherlands Concluded at Whitehall September 4/14 1662.” In European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies, 73–85. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication. Lawbook Exchange, 2004. https://books.google.com/books?id=mDPF4ILESaUC.

———. “Treaty of Peace and Alliance between the United Netherlands and Great Britain, Concluded at Breda, July 21/31, 1667.” In European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies, 73–85. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication. Lawbook Exchange, 2004. https://books.google.com/books?id=mDPF4ILESaUC.

Donkin, R.A. Between East and West: The Moluccas and the Traffic in Spices Up to the Arrival of Europeans. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society. American Philosophical Society, 2003. https://books.google.com/books?id=-AdJrE5RDvYC.

Keay, J. The Spice Route: A History. John Murray, 2006. https://books.google.com/books?id=D3m3MgEACAAJ.

Michael Krondl. “The Company Man.” In The Taste of Conquest; The Rise and Fall of Three Great Cities of Spice. New York: Ballantine Books, 2008.

Milton, G. Nathaniel’s Nutmeg, Or, The True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. https://books.google.com/books?id=4fyKAwAAQBAJ.

Penny Le Couteur, Jay Burreson. “Peppers, Nutmeg, and Cloves.” In Napoleon’s Buttons; How 17 Molecules Changed History, 19–35. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2003.

Swart, Koenraad Walter. The Miracle of the Dutch Republic as Seen in the Seventeenth Century: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered at Univ. Coll. London, 6 Nov. 1967. Lewis, 1969.

The Ming Robe that (sort of) Made it to Canada

Daoist Robe, Unknown Artist, China, 17th Century
Silk and Metallic thread
The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Gift of Florance Waterbury, 1943 ; 43.144

One of the underlying reasons for European expansion into the Americas was the pursuit of a westward passage to Asia. China, particularly, held a place of wonder in the minds of Europeans who began to imitate its signature goods in what became termed “Chinoiserie.” Although for Europeans, the East was a trading partner providing goods such as spices, tea, and ceramic china, some of the goods that flowed out from the east were harder to come by and therefore less a commodity to be traded than an artifact or a curio that, inevitably, inspired European imitation.

One such item that inspired Chinoiserie were the silk robes worn by courtiers in the Ming dynasty court. In their original context they were a symbol that communicated a social status. The Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci, had to repeatedly petition his superior, Father Valignano, head of the Jesuit mission in Asia, for the ability to wear such robes so as to gain access to the imperial Chinese court.  The robe he wore was likely similar to the one pictured. Ricci picked the robes of a Daoist to communicate his role as a priest, albeit of an entirely different faith.

Although the French sericulture industry was created by Chinese silk work that had made it to Europe prior to the late 16th century, it was the Jesuit missions of 1582 that began shipping Ming Court robes to Europe that reinforced the French practice of imitating Chinese cloth. British travel writer, John Evelyn, came across Ming robes shipped by Jesuits as they stopped over in London on their way to Paris. In his diary from 1641-1697, he described robes having “splendor and vividness we have nothing in Europe that approaches it.” 

The french imitation cloth came to be known as ‘Damas de la Chine’ and was frequently worn among French nobles to demonstrate wealth and status. An important moment frequently used by historians to demonstrate the importance of China on the Global stage in the early to mid 17th century is that of Jean Nicollet. He was supposed to have met with the native tribes of Wisconsin  wielding pistols and wearing a Chinese robe. Historians recount this story to suggest that Nicollet likely thought he was to have set foot in China and was dressed to appear in Ming court.

This story likely arose due to a series of mistranslations. What Nicollet probably wore was not a ‘robe’ but a cape of ‘Damas de la Chine.’ This fit his ambassadorial role as the first French ambassador to make contact with this tribe. Nicollet was dressed in the formal attire of a French gentleman of his time.

Ming robes still serve to demonstrate the currency that China had in European minds. Nicollet wore a cape made out of a French imitation of a Chinese cloth as he was in a pursuit of a westward passage to China achievable by ship. In a sense he doubly demonstrated the importance of China to Europeans. Chinese exports like the Ming robes inspired European industry in chinoiserie as well as fueling the European desire to push westward through the new world.

Sources:

Brook, T. The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. ACLS Humanities E-Book. University of California Press, 1999. https://books.google.com/books?id=YuMcHWWbXqMC.

Brook, Timothy. “Vermeer’s Hat.” In Vermeer’s Hat, 49–51. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008.

Evelyn, John. “Diary of John Evelyn.” In The Diary of John Evelyn, 1:372–74. Washington and London: Walter Dunne, n.d.

Fontana, Michela. Matteo Ricci : A Jesuit in the Ming Court. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011. https://login.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=361535&site=eds-live.

Jacobson, D. Chinoiserie. Phaidon Press, 1999. https://books.google.com/books?id=Km7FQgAACAAJ.

Jung, P.J. The Misunderstood Mission of Jean Nicolet: Uncovering the Story of the 1634 Journey. Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018. https://books.google.com/books?id=ntpyDwAAQBAJ.

Patrick Jung, and Nancy Oestreich Lurie. “The Chinese Robe and Other Myths.” Voyageur :Historical Review of Brown County and

Jews, Coffeehouses, and the Enlightenment

Joseph Highmore, London, c.a. 1725 or after 1750
Oil on panel
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Coffeehouses are intimately intertwined with the spirit of the Enlightenment. Coffeehouses like the one depicted here by Joseph Highmore were places of intellectual debate and helped facilitate the transmission of new ideas and modes of thought. The central figure in this painting is clearly in the midst of an impassioned debate. He and his peers wear dignified clothing while the boy on the right seems to be serving them coffee.

 

Although the Enlightenment was a time of revolutionary thinking and new ideas concerning the inherent dignity of all human beings, not all groups of people in Enlightenment-era Europe enjoyed immediate or lasting benefits as a result of these new modes of thought. European Jews constitute an example of one such group, and their plight can be analyzed through the lens of the quintessential Enlightenment institution: the coffeehouse.

 

Yes, even in these dens of high-minded discourse long-standing biases against Jews prevented them from enjoying the full effect of Enlightenment thinking. There are numerous reports of Jews being barred from entering Christian coffeehouses. This also extended to the coffee trade with the denial of Jewish access to trade markets. Jews were promised increased economic freedoms in this era, but these freedoms oft went unactualized.

 

This period is understood to be a time of increased religious freedoms, but it is fair to ask the question: were the lead figures of the Enlightenment genuine in their support for tolerance? Voltaire might be the most prominent figure of them all, but one need not look far to see that he was no fan of the Jewish people. He frequently spoke of his disdain for the Jews, yet he was a staunch supporter of religious freedoms. Voltaire was far from the only Enlightenment figure to hold these seemingly contrary views. Thus, this constitutes the central paradox of the Enlightenment. Yes, the thinkers of the Age of Reason have greatly influenced political institutions and our modern conception of morality, but many of them held views about minority groups, particularly the Jews, that today we find repulsive.

 

Coffeehouses provided a certain few with the ability to discuss lofty ideas, but it is important to consider who is left out when viewing an Enlightenment-era painting such as this one. At the far left of the painting, one coffeehouse patron is grabbing the neck of a visibly distressed woman while the others pay no mind and continue on with their discussion. Here Highmore unwittingly encapsulated the failures of the Enlightenment. In this era, rich white men discussed and wrote about important and worthwhile topics, but marginalized groups did not stand to benefit nearly as much as those rich white men. In many cases, as is the case with this painting, the men were the very ones who were subordinating these groups.

 

Sources:

 

“Figures in a Tavern or Coffee House – Joseph Highmore – Google Arts & Culture.” Google Cultural Institute. Accessed December 10, 2018. https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/figures-in-a-tavern-or-coffee-house/JQG0Ko6r2Seg6w.

 

Lausten, Martin Schwarz. “TOLERANCE AND ENLIGHTENMENT IN DENMARK: The Theologian Christian Bastholm (1740-1819) and His Attitude Toward Judaism.” Nordisk Judaistik 19, no. 1–2 (1998): 123–39.

 

Levy, Richard S., and Albert S. Lindemann. Antisemitism : A History. New York, NY: OUP Oxford, 2010. https://login.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=694173&site=eds-live.

 

Liberles, Robert. Jews Welcome Coffee : Tradition and Innovation in Early Modern Germany. The Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry. Waltham, Mass: Brandeis, 2012. https://login.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=447952&site=eds-live.

 

Voltaire, and Simon Harvey. Treatise on Tolerance. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2000., 2000.

A Bitter-Sweet Cure

[n.d.]. Citron x sour orange, Citrus medica L. x Citrus aurantium L.: whole and half-fruits. https://library.artstor.org/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822003813548.
Chalk and Watercolor of a Citrus Fruit

Depicted is a watercolor painting of a citrus fruit, most likely a citron or sour orange, painted in the 17th century by the Italian artist, Cassiano Dal Pozzo. The image itself is nothing special, consisting of watercolors over black chalk and depicting a simple, anatomical diagram of a citrus fruit. Great detail is shown, with seed, pulp texture, coloration pattern, and irregularities all being paid careful attention. What is extraordinary about the drawing is not the image itself, but the socioeconomic and historical importance of its subject.

Citrus fruit was a crucial but often forgotten element of the transatlantic travel which made possible the discovery of the New World and the spread of colonialism. The events which occurred on account of citrus were an enormous step in the direction of modernity, eventually catalyzing major movements for social and political change such as the Enlightenment period and the rise of several great empires. The reason for citrus’ importance in oceanic travel is that it provided the most accessible and, at the time, most medically advanced cure for Scurvy, the disease which ravaged sea-faring crews in the 15th to 18th centuries, accounting for massive percentages of deaths at sea.

Scurvy itself was a disease which arose from a lack of vitamin C in the diet, a discovery which Europeans did not make until much later when the research of James Lind confirmed what was already known: that oranges and lemons prevent and remedy scurvy. Even without the scientific reasoning for the method, the effects of citrus became widely known by the end of the 15th century among European explorers. Records from the voyages of Portuguese explorer, Vasco de Gama, indicate not only an awareness of the disease, but a chaotic and ongoing struggle to cure it. This consisted of some ridiculous attempts such as the drinking of one’s own urine and bloodletting. Other famous explorers such as Christopher Columbus also directly reference scurvy in their reports, some reporting death rates greater than 80%.

When it was discovered that the cure for such a disparaging illness was so availably at hand, the implementation of citrus in the diets of sailors was immediate. Governments ensured the distribution of rations of oranges and lemons across naval crews in an effort to prevent the tragic and financially catastrophic loss of nearly entire crews. Before the death rate dropped and stabilized, governments of nations involved in the race for transatlantic exploration had become desperate enough to forcibly employ the residents of mental hospitals as naval crews. The discovery of the fruit was a relief to all. It is important, however, to note that citrus fruit back then was not what it is today. Citrons and lemons were the main source of citrus, both of which were bitter and unpleasant to consume. Sweet oranges were not introduced until later when citrus fruits became genetically modified to taste better. Thus the citrus which sailors were made to eat was little better than a spoonful of medicine would be today.

Bibliography

[n.d.]. Citron x sour orange, Citrus medica L. x Citrus aurantium L.: whole and half-fruits. https://library.artstor.org/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822003813548.

Mayberry, Jason A. “Scurvy and Vitamin C.” Food and Drug Law, (2004): whole article.

Tiesler, Vera. “Scurvy‐related Morbidity and Death among Christopher Columbus’ Crew at La Isabela, the First     European Town in the New World (1494–1498): An Assessment of the Skeletal and Historical Information.” (2014): whole article. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LQkh6gRc3kL-PQhXGIu4skhDuBNS6VKQiS9X8iv1N0M/edit.

Earle, Rebecca. The Body of The Conquistador., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pg 54.

Lind, James. “A Treatise of the Scurvy, in Three Parts.” 1753. Accessed October 8, 2018. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/eds/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=02d66b2-8b8c-4746-8130-8c77e1c6da1f@sessionmgr4009&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU=#AN=ford.1080465&db=cat00989a.

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Johannes Vermeer, the Netherlands, 1665.
Oil on canvas.
Mauritshuis, inv. no. 670

One of the most captivating paintings of the Dutch Golden Age, Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earringis a troniefeaturing a beautiful young woman wearing foreign dress, a blue and yellow turban, and an impossibly large pearl earring. As a tronie, the painting depicts an imaginary figure. She appears to be either turning away from or facing the viewer, at once foreign and intimate. Her luminescent pearl earring lends the painting an otherworldly quality and signals the broader Dutch obsession with pearls in the 17th century.

Vermeer was a technical master of light and reflections. His other paintings depict figures in enclosed spaces with singular sources of light. He included multiple layers of oil paint to produce a luminous sfumatoeffect, a hazy contour. Girl with a Pearl Earringembodies Vermeer’s artistic prowess. The massive pearl earring catches the light and refracts it across the woman’s beautiful face. Her slightly parted lips contain a sheen in the upper left corner, demonstrating how the pearl illuminates her sensuous face. The interplay of light and darkness creates an intimate atmosphere between the viewer and the painting’s enigmatic figure.

A famed painter of the Dutch Golden Age, Vermeer produced art at the peak of the Dutch maritime empire. The Dutch ended war with Spain in the 1648 Treaty of Münster, enabling the Dutch to operate freely in Eastern markets. Throughout the 17thcentury, the Dutch expanded trade through the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and gained a monopoly on the pearl trade in the East. Pearls became popular status symbols in the Netherlands, embodying the exotic beauty of the East. Just as the tulipmaniacraze saw Dutch elites paying exorbitant prices for tulips, the Dutch Golden Age saw elite similarly pining for pearls. Pearls contained a foreign mystique and were thus desirable objects. Vermeer often painted pearls in conjunction with women, drawing a parallel between the pearls’ milky beauty with the ideal woman’s moral purity.

Girl with a Pearl Earringis notable not only for its superb painting technique, but also for its reflection of European self-image. The woman’s turban, dress, and pearl earring are all symbols of foreignness to the European viewer, yet the woman’s beautiful European face is familiar. The figure in Girl with a Pearl Earringembodies Europe— specifically the Dutch— on the precipice of a new, globalist age. Conflating European standards of beauty with Eastern “exoticism,” the Europeans came to embrace foreign influences. Girl with a Pearl Earring’s tension between Eastern and Western beauty is what captivates viewers.

Sources:

Atlas of World History. Edited by Patrick K. O’Brien. New York: Oxford UP, 2002.

Brook, Timothy. Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2008.

Gifford, E. Melanie. “Painting Light: Recent Observations on Vermeer’s Technique.” In Vermeer Studies, edited by Ivan Gaskell and Michiel Jonker, 185- 199. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1998.

Price, J.L. Dutch Culture in the Golden Age. Reaction Books, 2011.

Sluiter, Engel. “Dutch Maritime Power and the Colonial Status Quo, 1585- 1641.” Pacific Historical Review11, no. 1 (1942). Accessed November 29, 2018. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/PacHR/11/1/Dutch_Maritime_power_and_the_Colonial_Status_Quo_1585_to_1641*.html.

Vermeer, Johannes. Girl with a Pearl Earring. 1665. Oil on canvas. Mauritshuis, the Hague. November, 13, 2018. https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/discover/mauritshuis/masterpieces-from-the-mauritshuis/girl-with-a-pearl-earring-670/detailgegevens/.

Invisible Invaders, Invincible Insects

Plate 9 from Historia Insectorum Generalis
Jan Swammerdam, Netherlands, 1669
Print, Book
Biodiversity Heritage Library; Cornell University Library
Swammerdam, Jan. Tertivs Ordo Nympha. 1669. Cornell University Library. In Historia Insectorum Generalis. Apud Jordanum Luchtmans, 1685. Plate 9. Accessed December 4, 2018. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/132649#page/210/mode/1up

This plate, depicting the life cycle of ants, is the work of scientist and medical doctor Jan Swammerdam. Swammerdam trained as a medical doctor at the University of Leiden in 1661, and most of his published works reference medical science and especially the question of how breathing functions. This plate is from one of his rare forays into naturalist science publication, although it seems to have been his passion. His father pressured him into concentrating on medical science, hoping that Jan would earn a practical living, but his many friends encouraged him to follow his true interests and one of them even published his Biblia naturae after his death in 1680. The only works he published during his lifetime were a single monograph of a mayfly (which he proceeded to write a hymn to God about) and this text, the Historia Insectorum Generalis.

Swammerdam’s interest in ants was atypical of the era, and for the most part they went unnoticed. While Swammerdam was stationed in the Netherlands, his illustration of the ant life cycle illuminates the reason these tiny, easily-killed individual organisms can and have become massive problems throughout history and in the contemporary world. Ants, typically,  have a reproductive cycle in which there are one or more “queens” who hold the sole ability to lay eggs. These eggs are all fertilized during a single mating flight during a specific mating period usually indicated by environmental conditions such as humidity, food availability, and—in some areas—whether the nest has been flooded recently. Ant-keepers often encourage increases in their colony size by introducing more food, which stimulates colony growth along with possible mating nymph production. After this mating flight, the queen lands, finds a suitable area to form a nest, and loses her wings. From this single queen, every ant in the colony will be laid and hatched.

This ability to essentially create a colony of several thousand (or more) ants is what makes ants such a potent environmental agent, especially during a time such as the age of the Columbian Exchange when new stimuli were introduced to new countries. While people like Swammerdam showed rare interest in insects and ants in particular, most individuals during the early modern period failed to notice insects at all. One particularly stunning example of ants going unnoticed, despite massive indications of their role in a disaster, took place in Hispaniola in 1518. The Spanish colonists in Hispaniola brought plantain trees from Africa to populate the plantations on the island and probably to help diversify the crops they could sell aside from sugar. Hiding away on these trees, however, was a plague that only became dangerous when introduced to the ecological system of Hispaniola: mealybugs.

When these mealybugs were introduced to Hispaniola, they were also introduced to an army of new friends: fire ants, or Solenopsis geminata. S. geminata is well-known to “herd” or “farm” mealybugs, even “milking” them for the sweet, calorie-rich waste product they excrete called “honeydew”. This new, massive availability of food led to an explosion of ant population, so much so that colonists had to put the legs of their beds in bowls of water to prevent ants stinging them in their sleep as their floors were carpeted with thousands of ants. The plantations withered, but the colonists did not attribute this to the proper invaders; rather, they blamed the ants. The colonists had no care for the mechanisms of ants or how they really functioned. That was unique to people like Jan Swammerdam, with passions that led us to our current understanding of science and specifically modern entomology.

 

Klapmuts with Flowering Plants and Auspicious Objects

 

 

Anonymous, China, c. 1680-1720.
porcelain, glaze, cobalt.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. AK-RBK-15808-B

The klapmuts soup bowl was named after the broad-rimmed felt hats Dutch peasants traditionally wore during the Dutch Golden Age (c. 1600-1700). Artisans in the Chinese Ming and Qing dynasties produced klapmuts for Dutch markets. While the Chinese consumed their broth-like soup directly from the bowl, the Dutch were forbidden to lift their bowls during meals. The klapmuts’ shallow body and broad rim allowed European eaters to use a spoon. The Chinese imbued their carefully-crafted porcelain exports with Chinese symbolism, leading the Dutch to consider klapmuts objects of good fortune. Klapmuts were prized in the Netherlands as signs of cosmopolitan wealth.

Chinese artisans aspiring after shengong— divine worksmanship— produced klapmuts bowls. These delicate blue-and-white porcelain bowls had an ivory glaze and bore no trace of the potter’s hand. When blue-and-white pottery gained popularity in Europe, Chinese kilns became centers of unprecedented production. Chinese artisanship remained more than mere production; it was a way to honor the dynasty through artistic prowess. It was a significant source of dynastic pride to produce high-quality pottery on a large scale.

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) acquired klapmuts bowls through trade with China, marketing them in the Netherlands as “exotic” and “auspicious.” Chinese-produced klapmuts pervaded Dutch culture as status symbols, becoming staple pieces in still life paintings and aristocratic homes. The popularity of klapmuts bowls spurred Dutch reproductions of Chinese pottery. However, Delft-style klapmuts were not of the same caliber as Chinses klapmuts.

This particular bowl bears the “auspicious” image of a vase containing peacock feathers. Peacocks were the symbol of the Ming Dynasty, representing elegance and divine beauty. Peacock feathers served as status markers, as Chinese military and government officials wore peacock plumes in their hats. Members of the Chinese elite owned vases with small gaps to showcase the feathers’ fine quills.  The “auspicious” image of peacock feathers was thus conflated with Chinese imperial power.

Furthermore, the image of a vase containing peacock feathers allowed artisans to demonstrate their superb technique. Klapmuts were fine pottery, and painting a vase with peacock feathers was an ambitious undertaking. The vase with peacock feathers enabled artisans to express their technical skills and honor their dynasty.

The klapmuts bowl is a remarkable emblem of an emerging global mindset in the early modern period. The Chinese tailored their products for a global market, accommodating Dutch cultural needs through the bowl’s design. Simultaneously, the Chinese asserted their imperial might by including “auspicious” images of peacock feathers. The production and artisanship behind the klapmuts bowls demonstrate a marked awareness of Dutch-Chinese interdependence on the global stage.

Sources:

Bowl (klapmuts) with flowering plants and auspicious objects. 1680-1720. Porcelain. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. October 12, 2018. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search/objects?q=klapmuts&p=5&ps=12&st=Objects&ii=5#/AK-RBK-15808-B,53.

Brook, Timothy. Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2008.

Chow, Fong. “Symbolism in Chinese Porcelain: The Rockefeller Bequest.” Metmuseum.org. https://www.metmuseum.org/pubs/bulletins/1/pdf/3258464.pdf.bannered.pdf(accessed October 12, 2009).

Hay, Jonathan. Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2010.

Welch, Patricia Bjaaland. Chinese Art: A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing, 2008.

 

 

Cloves and African Involvement in the Early Modern Spice Trade

Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama to India, 1497−1499

African involvement in the Spice Trade was minimal before Vasco da Gama’s journey around the Cape of Good Hope. At this time, trade between Europe and Asia was flourishing, and European countries were becoming more and more dependent on Asian production as demand for spices increased. However, some spices of particular value to Europe, such as cloves, were simultaneously being developed in Africa and had yet to be exported into the larger spice trade. Vasco da Gama’s exploration throughout the Swahili coast brought to the Portuguese a new sense of appreciation for African potential in the spice trade. Through this, Portugal’s ultimately gained control of African spice exports, bringing countries like Zanzibar an opportunity to develop their manufacture of cloves on a larger scale. This resulted in Zanzibar’s role as a leading clove exporter by the nineteenth century.

The Spice Trade was a pillar of early modern globalism, broadening European economies to an intercontinental scale and connecting European and Asian cultures through food. A range of spices poured into Europe from China, Indonesia, and India that introduced flavor into the European diet and novelty into their medicine. Nutmeg, pepper, ginger, cloves, and more were “believed to cure disorders of the stomach, the intestines, the head, and the chest, and were also used to aid digestion.” Spices were also used in various ways through cooking, helping to preserve meat, mask undesirable odors, and add flavor to food. These multifaceted spices were of great value to populations throughout the European continent, and travelers went to great lengths to bring them to the market. Prior to Vasco da Gama’s voyage in the Indian Ocean, the Spice Route centered around a number of different cities throughout Asia. However, in 1498, when Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and arrived in Calicut, he prompted a new age of Euro-Asian trade for Portugal, as well as introducing a larger role for African countries in the spice trade.

Da Gama introduced new trade partners for Portugal in various African countries along the Swahili coast, including Zanzibar. This expedition established the Cape Route through the Indian Ocean, a new lifeline to African and Indian spices in which Portugal “promptly exercised the right to its exclusive use.” Vasco da Gama’s 1498 voyage reveals much about the spice trade, and the Portuguese eye for economic potential in Africa. While stopping in modern-day Kenya, da Gama encountered merchants from India in search of their own spices. This city was full with “quantities of cloves, cumin, ginger, nutmeg, and pepper,” suggesting that the spice trade was well underway in Africa by the time da Gama arrived, despite its focus in Europe and Asia. Ultimately, Portuguese involvement in Africa brought African spice development to considerable prominence in the Spice Trade throughout the early modern era.

Sources:

Da Gama, Vasco. “Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco Da Gama to India, 1497−1499.” World Digital Library, www.wdl.org/en/item/10068/.

A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco Da Gama, 1497–1499, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010, pp. 48. Cambridge Library Collection – Hakluyt First Series.

Prakash, Om. “Spices and Spice Trade.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, Oxford University Press, 2005.