Science and Empire: How Natural Philosophy and Mercantilism Drove Colonial Development

SCIENCE, MERCANTILISM, EMPIRE:
CONQUERING NATURE AND COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT ON BARBADOS,
1627-1700
A thesis submitted to the Department of History,
Miami University, in partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for Honors in History
By
Michael Putz
May 2014
Oxford, Ohio

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ABSTRACT
The goal of this thesis is to argue that natural philosophy, man’s understanding of
his relationship with nature, and mercantilism, ideas concerning the extraction of natural
resources, worked in tandem to create and consolidate the emerging English empire in the
Caribbean during the seventeenth century. Environmental-mercantile philosophy is what
I will call when natural philosophy and mercantilism are viewed in unison to explain the
establishment of empire. When Europeans arrived in the New World, they were forced to
come to terms with a strange, foreign environment and, as a result, were forced to rethink
natural philosophy in order to convince themselves they could survive in a hot, humid,
tropical environment. It is on the small tropical island of Barbados that this thesis will
illustrate and argue that environmental-mercantile philosophy in a lens through which
historians can understand the creation of slave/plantation societies and the foundation of
empire.
Though many works concerning colonial development on Barbados acknowledge
that nature and mercantilism played a role in Barbados’s development, many, however,
tend to place a larger emphasis on the plantation owners, social structures, or only delve
into how these plantations shaped the modern world and capitalism. This work will
purpose that natural philosophy and mercantilism working in tandem in a new lens
through which one can understand how slave/plantation societies emerged in the
Caribbean and thus the creation of empire. A number of primary sources will be used in
order to support and prove this proposal including Richard Ligons A True and Exact
History of the Island of Barbados (1673), Griffith Hughes The Natural History of
Barbados, and John Evelyns A Philosophical Discourse of Earth just to name a few. In
sum, this work will examine and suggest the importance of nature in the development of
Barbados as an English colony during the seventeenth century.

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Science, Mercantilism, Empire:
Conquering Nature and Colonial Development on Barbados, 1627-1700
By
Michael Putz
Approved by:
Advisor
Dr. José Amador
Reader
Dr. Andrew Cayton
M
Dr. Erik Jensen, History Honors Director

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would first like to thank my advisor, Dr. José Amador, for all that he has for me
this past year and a half. Without him this work would have never been completed.
Thank you to Dr. Andrew Cayton for being my secondary reader. I’d also like to thank
Dr. Renée Baernstein and Dr. Tatiana Seijas for teaching the history honors courses.
Thank you to Dr. Erik Jensen as well for directing the History Honors Program and for
inviting me to take part in it. Finally, I would like to thank everyone who supported me
throughout this long process. It has been a very long, and at times very difficult, ride but I
can say I am grateful for the experience.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract… ii
Approval page… iii
Acknowledgements… iv
Table of Contents… v
Illustrations… vi
Introduction… 1
Chapter 1: Europeans Contemplating New World Nature… 12
Chapter 2: Nature and Colonial Development on Barbados: A Case Study… 35
Conclusion… 61
Bibliography… 66

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ILLUSTRATIONS
Richard Ligon’s Map of Barbados… 15

INTRODUCTION
The chemical and mechanical transformations by which substances are bent to
human use and become unrecognizable to those who know them in nature have
marked our relationship to nature for as long as we have been human. Indeed,
some would say that is those very transformations that define our humanity.1
– Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power
Scholars that examine the environmental history of the Caribbean have typically
focused on three main categories: colonialism, capitalism, and conservation.2 Of these
categories, the one that has received the most attention is colonialism since the conquest,
colonization, and transformation of the Americas began a process of environmental
degradation that dramatically changed the New World, especially in the Caribbean
region. In the last few decades, however, historians have expanded earlier accounts of
colonialism, capitalism, and conservation to illustrate how Europeans had used scientific
understanding not only to comprehend nature but also to define their own identity in
relation to the New World. From the moment Europeans first landed in the New World,
they attempted to comprehend and understand this new landscape in relation to
themselves. Who are these strange people living here? How long is life sustained in the
tropics? What will happen to me if I stay here? Will I still be European in these new
environments? These could have been just some of the questions racing through the
minds of the first explorers and colonists entering the New World. The Caribbean, in
particular proved to be a trick region for Europeans to comprehend. It was unlike
anything in Europe. The weather was hot and humid with unimaginable storms that could
1 Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York, Viking Penguin
Inc., 1985), xxiii
2 Mark Carey, “Latin American Environmental History: Current Trends, Interdisciplinary Insights,and
Future Trends” Environmental History (2009): 221, accessed 11/19/2014

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easily destroy entire towns in a day. Europeans died there in startling numbers due to
diseases such as malaria and yellow fever, both of which they had no defense against and
no idea how to prevent them.3 Europeans also feared that the environment could change
their fundamental constitution (for example, what makes an Englishman English), a
process known as creolization. Despite the fear of the unknown, deadly diseases, Indians
(who also appeared extremely susceptible to New World (Old World) diseases despite
residing there from the European perspective), and volatile weather conditions such as
hurricanes and tropical storms (in respect to what Europeans had previously known),
Europeans continued to colonize throughout the New World due to the economic
incentives presented. Throughout the Caribbean and the Americas, they would wage war
and establish empires. As Europeans colonized, conquered, and fought for the creation of
empire, particularly during the seventeenth century, they were forced to understand how
the natural environment, an environment still unknown and strange to them, could be
used to their economic advantage. At the same time, Europeans were forced to rework
scientific understanding in order to determine how the New World effected their physical
and mental ability to establish and develop colonies throughout the New World.
The Spanish and Portuguese were the first to explore and establish their empires
in the New World. By the beginning of the seventeenth century the English had followed
suit and begun colonization and imperial efforts with the establishment of Jamestown in
1607. Twenty years later, the English would establish a colony on the small Caribbean
island of Barbados. Barbados is only 432 kilometers squared (Rhode Island is 3,140
kilometers squared), and is the eastern most island of the Lesser Antilles in the
3 J. R. McNeil, Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean,1620-1914 (New York,
Cambridge University Press, 2010), 37

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Caribbean. It was there that the English established their first slave/plantation society in
the Americas. They first experimented with sugar cane as a plantation crop and began
importing African slave labor for the production of sugar as a valuable, profitable
commodity throughout Caribbean colonies.4 This thesis examines how English colonists
comprehended nature in relation to themselves and in relation to an Empire that was
determined to reap the benefits of the plantation economy. It is through ideas concerning
mans relation to the natural world around him and ideas revolving around the extraction
of natural resources for economic working in tandem that modern historians can
understand the creation and consolidation of empire in the seventeenth century through a
new lens.
A great deal of scholarship has been done on the development of Barbados as a
colony and the Caribbean as a whole throughout the years, however, this thesis will focus
on texts that illustrate the importance of the natural environment, economic incentives,
human-nature relations, and colonialism in the development of European colonies
throughout the Caribbean. When historians look at the history of Barbados as a colony,
often times the most important aspect they examine is the role of sugar in developing the
colony economically and socially. Sugar, during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, was the most important commodity produced on Barbados and is often times
blamed for the mass relocation of Africans, as slaves, to the New World. In the 1970s,
historian Richard Dunn’s Sugar and Slaves examined why sugar, slavery, and large
plantations became defining the elements of Barbadian, the Leeward Islands, and
Jamaican society during the seventeenth century. Dunn argued that the “shadowy and
4 Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York, Viking Penguin
Inc., 1985), 43

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half-forgotten men”, or the large plantation owners on Barbados and other so called
Sugar Islands, who came to the Caribbean instead of the North American mainland were
the primary force behind transforming Barbados into a sugar producing, plantation
colony.5 These men, he demonstrated, were looked down upon by mainland colonists and
Englishmen back home, but would ultimately become the elite planter class on Barbados
and other Sugar Islands, called this because of their primary export. Ultimately, Dunn
examines how the planters reacted to life in the Caribbean, the use of African slave labor,
the large-scale sugar production, and how they created an extremely hierarchal social
system (small, white ruling class with many African laborers) that lasted for nearly three
centuries.6 Though Dunn mentions the environment and how the English “tried their best
to transfer English modes of diet, dress, and housing” to Barbados, this is done, in
Dunn’s opinion to define themselves as the ruling class and as English in the face of an
extremely foreign environment.7 The hot, humid, tropical environment of Barbados made
this transfer extremely difficult and uncomfortable for the English. Dunn informs this
thesis by illustrating that the English wished to maintain and protect their Englishness,
the characteristics that seventeenth century Englishmen believe define themselves as
English, as the developed Barbados into a slave-plantation society. However, this work
will differ from Dunn’s by investigating the reasons why the English, in particular, feared
nature would reduce their capabilities to establish colonies and expand their empire in the
Caribbean and how economic incentives inspired by sugar persuaded the English to look
5 Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713
(Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1972), xv
(Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1972), xvi
(Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1972), 263

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past the dangers of Caribbean life rather than how the environment made English life
difficult.
In the 1980s, Gary Puckrein published Little England (1984) to examine the effect
of sugar and the slavery-plantation system on social aspects on Barbadian society and
political behavior of Barbados’s ruling elite.8 Particularly, he wants to examine how the
plantation system came into existence due to political events and economic incentives in
Barbados. Focusing almost exclusively on the social and political history of Barbados,
Puckrein investigates relations between master and slave on individual plantations and
the threat of slave revolts to conclude that Anglo-Barbadians came to rely on England as
a source of political stability in order to resolve problems that arose directly from the
island’s slave-plantation system.9 Though Puckrein is mainly concerned with the between
the English and African slaves, he also analyzes why the large plantation owners turned
towards African slaves as the primary source of labor rather than a free white population,
ultimately concluding that it was a “conscious decision (informed by classical medicine
and economics)” made by planters to use slave labor.10 Furthermore, Puckrein analyzes
how environmental disasters, such as droughts and hurricanes, influenced the ruling elite
to rely on slave labor rather than free workers because free workers could no longer
economically support themselves after environmental disasters and elected to leave the
island all together.11 Puckrein understanding of the emergence of African slave labor
8 Gary Puckrein, Little England:Plantation Society and Anglo-Barbadian Politics,1627-1700 (New York,
New York University Press, 1984), xvi
New York University Press, 1984), xvi
10 Gary Puckrein, Little England:Plantation Society and Anglo-Barbadian Politics,1627-1700 (New
York, New York University Press, 1984), 194
11 Gary Puckrein, Little England:Plantation Society and Anglo-Barbadian Politics,1627-1700 (New
York, New York University Press, 1984), 184

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informs this work because it delves into the economic incentives that influenced English
planters to continually expand sugar production. He also illustrates how the English
thought of African slavery in economic terms. Drawing on important contributions of
Puckrein’s work, this thesis can better illustrate the economic incentives that inspired the
English to reside on Barbados despite English anxieties concerning their bodies in
relation to the Barbadian natural environment.
There is another important way in which scholars have examined the role of
nature in shaping plantation societies and European economies. In the pathbreaking book
Sweetness and Power, historian and anthropologist Sidney Mintz examines the role of
sugar in developing world capitalism.12 Mintz examines transformation in the production
and consumption of sugar since the seveneteenth century to examine its relation to the
growth of capitalism as a worldwide economic system. Specifically, Mintz claims that
sugar resulted in the “transformation of…[English] society, a total remaking of its
economic and social basis.”13 Sugar plantations, Mintz argues, were amongst the first
signs of industrialization due to the “industrial processing” the cane underwent on the
plantation. For Mintz, plantations were “a synthesis of field and factory.”14 Though Mintz
has a strong interest in the production and importance of sugar as a commodity to society,
he does not examine the role of the planters and slaves who produced sugar. As a result,
the actual colonization process and attitudes of those who resided throughout the
Caribbean remain understudied. Mintz understands nature as the means through which
12 Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York, Viking
Penguin Inc., 1985), xxix
Penguin Inc., 1985), 214
Penguin Inc., 1985), 46-47

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sugar cane is cultivated and the defining characteristic in the human-nature relationship is
man’s transformation and manufacturing of nature into useful products for man’s use.15
This thesis will utilize Mintz’s examination in the importance of sugar, however, it will
investigate how English colonists comprehended nature as they colonized Barbados,
produced sugar, imported African slaves, and ultimately grew rich.
Though all of these works include some aspect of the environment in their
analysis, none are focused on human-nature interactions and nature’s role in the
development of colonies in the Caribbean. In the last decade or so however, there has
been more scholarship regarding the role of the environment in developing colonies such
as Barbados. For Instance, Matthew Mulcahy’s Hurricanes and Society in the British
Greater Caribbean, 1624-1783 argues that tropical storms, especially hurricanes, played
an essential role in the development of colonies throughout the Caribbean. For instance,
when explaining how some colonists became political elite, Mulcahy claims that making
sugar was an extremely expensive process because of the amount of labor, land, and
capital that a plantation owner needed to make it profitable. If a hurricane, for example,
ever hit an island and destroyed the necessary infrastructure to produce sugar, then only
the rich could survive such a catastrophe to plant again. These storms also came to define
life for those who lived in the Caribbean and the costal mainland because of the constant
threat they posed, every year “each summer brought a renewed threat from hurricanes.”16
Hurricanes, to Mulcahy, represent encounter and accommodation; as Europeans
encountered these devastating storms, they were forced to accept hurricanes as a part of
Penguin Inc., 1985), xxiii
16 MatthewMulcahy, Hurricanes and Society in the British Greater Caribbean,1624-1783 (Baltimore,
John Hopkins University Press, 2006), 194

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Caribbean life and even “tested colonists’ notions of improvement and their faith that
they could transform the American ‘wilderness.’”17 Hurricanes, needless to say,
devastated Barbados and thus came to help define how English colonists comprehended
nature on Barbados. By understanding how the English understood hurricanes, one can
better contemplate English ideas concerning the relationship between man and nature.
In his book From Rainforest to Cane Field in Cuba (2008), Reinaldo Funes
Monzote examines the exploitation of Cuba’s natural resources in order to expand the
production of sugar under Spanish colonial rule. Funes recalls the relationship between
Cuba’s forests, colonists, and arrival of the sugar industry from 1492 to the onset of the
industrial era and ending at the twentieth century. After the Haitian Revolution since the
nineteenth century are what make Cuba’s case particularly interesting and unique to
Funes.18 Funes also examines how attempts were made to conserve the rainforests by the
Spanish colonial government, but sugar’s economic incentives and demand lead to the
destruction of the rainforest. Through industrialization and the profitability of sugar,
sugar became the “most potent factor in the savannization of Cuban territory” both
directly and indirectly.19 The rainforests, to Funes, are an important natural resource to
Cuba and one that cannot be overlooked or disregarded and cut down.20 Though Funes
and this thesis focus on different islands, cultures, and time periods Funes still informs
this work by providing framework through which man, nature, and empire interact and
18 Reinaldo Funes Monzote, From Rainforest to Cane Field in Cuba:An Environmental History since
1492 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 2

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influence each other.
Creatures of Empire (2006) by Virginia DeJohn Anderson is a book that
examines the importance of livestock in settling and expansion of the American colonies.
In this book, Anderson reveals that livestock played a crucial role in the relationship
between Indians and colonists due to differing ideas concerning property ownership,
farming, and how man should interact with the natural world.21 Furthermore, livestock
not only shaped the land through grazing and the clearing of land but also in “the hearts
and minds and behavior of the peoples who dealt with them” which was essentially
everyone according to Anderson.22 Both Indians and colonists sought to shape the
environment to suit their particular needs, with the inclusion of livestock, who cannot be
completely controlled by their owner, nature was under the influence of three separate
groups. These three actors thus inform modern understanding of the colonization process
and expansion of empire in colonial America. However, since Anderson focuses on the
mainland colonies there is no cash crop that the English are seeking to cultivate
zealously. Also, environmental degradation is less of an issue on the mainland than on
small Caribbean islands and there were no Indians residing on Barbados for the English
settlers to compete and interact with. This thesis, however, is influenced by Anderson
because wherever the English settled, they inevitably brought livestock with them
especially to locations were they cultivated crops. By understanding that livestock
contributed to the “improvement” of land, one can then examine how English colonists
21 Virginia DeJohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America
(New York, Oxford University Press,2004), 6
22 Virginia DeJohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America
(New York, Oxford University Press,2004), 5

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understood the natural environment and how they could change it to suit their needs
throughout the New World.
Finally, another important work that points that colonists throughout the New
World were forced to examine and understand nature in relation to themselves is Susan
Scott Parrish’s American Curiosity. In this book, Parrish argues that the New World was
a great curiosity amongst those who settled there and Old World intellectuals. As such,
the New World provided a forum through which individuals contested each other’s
knowledge and, thus, was essential to “modern European ways of knowing.”23 Also, the
constant topic of conversation concerning nature and its curiosities in the New World and
Old World were not exclusive to any one demographic group; Africans, Indians, colonists
(men and women), and intellectuals in Europe were all involved in understanding nature.
These different groups, she concludes, were assumed to have differing expertise on
different aspects of nature throughout the natural environment. Indians were assumed to
know the ways of animals, Africans allegedly possessed knowledge of plants and
poisons, and it the expected duty of the colonial white man to collect and catalogue all
aspects of nature.24 Parrish is ultimately concerned with European understandings of
nature, though several demographics were involved in shaping this understanding.
Science and comprehending nature became avenues through which colonists could
expand colonization, define themselves against European metropolitan centers (London
in particular), and defined “modern European ways of knowing.”25 Though Parrish
23 Susan Scott Parrish, American Curiosity: Cultures of Natural History in the Colonial British Atlantic
World (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 7
World (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 314-315

11
examines how knowledge concerning nature and its depiction were made and
contradictions they made concerning this knowledge, Parrish informs this thesis by
presenting how Europeans came to understand nature. By using Parrish’s work, this
thesis can better examine how English colonists determined their relationship to the
natural world.
Focusing on the English, this thesis will begin with two primary ways in which
Europeans comprehended and thought of the environment: natural philosophy, natures
relationship and effects on the body; and mercantilism, the economic method through
which Europeans sought to use transform nature into economic commodities and tame it.
After examining how Europeans comprehended the environment, this thesis will illustrate
how these ideas concerning nature influenced the development of Barbados as a colony.
This will include reasons for why colonists decided to solely cultivate sugar cane, from
which sugar is made, and import African slaves as a primary source of labor for their
emerging plantations as well as how colonists adapted to their new environment in some
respects while denying the “realities of tropical life” in others.26 Man and nature were
intertwined in the Barbados, both affecting each other resulting in a reshaping of nature
to man’s needs and the adaptation of man to his new environment. In the end, this thesis
will argue that natural philosophy, man’s understanding of his relationship with nature,
and mercantilism, ideas concerning the extraction of natural resources, worked in tandem
to create and consolidate empire during the seventeenth century. What I will refer to as
environmental-mercantile philosophy is when the natural philosophy and mercantilism
are viewed in unison to explain the creations of empire.

CHAPTER 1: EUROPEANS CONTEMPLATING NEW WORLD NATURE
From the moment Europeans began colonization in the New World, Europeans
found themselves in a land starkly different from the landscape they once knew. In fact,
European explorers never anticipated finding two new continents to the west of Europe,
rather they expected to land in Asia. The New World was a complete novelty, unknown
flora and fauna intrigued European colonists, naturalists, and explorers. Discoveries of
new, strange animals, such as the opossum (marsupials were like nothing the European
explorers had ever seen before leading them to describe the animal as chimera-like),
beavers, and deer, and a variety plants of which “there are fuch infinite varieties” one
could loose themselves in the woods trying to identify them all.1 Interactions with local
Indians added to the foreignness and sense of wonder that Europeans were forced to
understand and make sense of.
By the time the English began to settle North America in the late 1500s, they were
already conditioned to believe in the wonder of monsters and cannibals that populated the
New World and the strangeness of the New World itself.2 For instance, fifty years after
Columbus first landed, pictures depicting “dog-headed man, a headless man with his face
in his chest, Siamese twins, and a one-legged man with a giant foot” were all depicted in
volume discussing the New World written by Sebastian Münster, a Franciscan monk born
in 1498.3 In the early 1600s, these beliefs were depicted in the Dutch artist Crispijn van
1 Richard Ligon, A true & exact history of the island of Barbadoes (London, Frank Cass & Co., 1970), 66
World (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 25-27
3 Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient
Times to the end of the Eigthteenth Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press,
1967), 363-364

13
de Passe’s work America.4 In it Passe presents Indians as half naked and holding severed
heads while in the background the audience can see heads on spikes. Also surrounding
the two central Indians/savages, are a number of strange animals, such as a winged snake
and a demonic looking dog, that further support the belief that monsters lurk about in the
New World. Images such as this served to entice interest in the New World amongst
Europeans. However, it also represents European concerns over what these strange lands
could produce amongst its inhabitants and what they will find if they venture there. Even
by the mid 1600s monsters still lurked in the English minds as illustrated by Richard
Ligons map of Barbados, which included several sea monsters just off the coast of the
island.5 These unusual iconography representations sent a message that the New World
was completely composed of “virgin lands unchanged since the creation” though it also
contained clear and present dangers such as cannibals, monsters, and the unknown.6
Eventually sightings of monsters in the New World ceased to be shocking news, but “did
not…cease to be compelling.”7 Despite imagined real and imagined dangers, the New
World still held opportunity for those who braved the sea monsters and cannibals.
4 Passe, Crispijn van de. America, early seventeenth century,Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
5 Richard Ligon, A true & exact history of the island of Barbadoes (London, Frank Cass & Co., 1970)
6 Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient
Times to the end of the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles,University of California Press,
1967), 358

14
Map 3. Richard Ligon. “A topographical description and admeasurement of the island of Barbados in the
West Indies.” 1657. Retrieved from http://www.lloydlibrary.org/exhibits/sugar/lloydsugar.html
As the English established settlements, they were forced to examine and
understand their relationship to the New World. This included possible effects the
tropical, foreign environment could have on their bodies. Any perceived negative effects
on their body could reduce their ability to survive in the tropics. This would in turn effect
their ability to extract natural resources from nature. These concerns were central for
empire building. Though colonial relations with indigenous populations were important
in understanding colonization and balances of power, this chapter will not focus on
interactions with the Indian population. European understanding of the affects of the
environment on their bodies will be however. The colonists came to understand the
environment in two primary ways. One way was through natural philosophy, or humoral
theory, which seeks to explain how an environment effects an individuals health and
culture. The second is through mercantilism, the dominant economic theory from the

15
sixteenth to the nineteenth century. When natural philosophy and mercantilism are
understood and examined in tandem, they can inform modern scholars how the English
reacted to nature and the creation of empire. Mercantilism and the prospect of wealth in
supposedly untouched lands persuaded the English, and Europeans in general, to cross
the Atlantic in the search of fortunes for themselves. In regards to nations, untapped
wealth in a world of finite wealth and resources countries, such as England and France, to
establish oversea empires. Also, as the English continued to settle and expand throughout
North America and the Caribbean natural philosophy still illustrated informed European
fears concerning the New World, but it was reformulated and challenged to alleviate
those anxieties by scholars and those inhabiting ever growing colonies in order to further
promote the expansion of empire. Natural philosophy and mercantilism, or
environmental-mercantile philosophy as I call it, worked in tandem to develop Barbados
into a slave/plantation society. In order to understand how they worked in unison, first
natural philosophy and mercantilism must be understood individually.
Natural Philosophy
As the English entered the New World, especially the Caribbean islands, they
found everything to be unfamiliar and different compared to their island. Monsters and
cannibals seem to still lurked farther west to them. The only thing that was truly known
about the Caribbean in particular was that “Europeans died there with considerably
greater frequency than they did in Europe.”8 This, modern scholars now know, was due
to deadly diseases such as malaria and yellow fever (which though originating in Africa it
was most likely accidently brought to the Americas through the importation of African
8 Philip D. Curtin, “The Promise and the Terror of a Tropical Environment” in The Image of Africa: British
Ideas and Action,1780-1850,Volume 1 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), 58

16
slaves) resulting in epidemics that were “raign’d fo extreamly, as the living could hardly
bury the dead.”9 These epidemics were so fatal that “some accounts suggest 85 percent or
more” people succumbed to the diseases.10 Scholars in the seventeenth century, however,
had no notion that these and other diseases were caused by mosquitos and germs, instead
they drew upon natural philosophy. Also, many writers attribute sickness in the
Caribbean to bad vapors in the air. Asthmatic theories concerning sickness revolved
around the idea that foul air, brought about by bogs and lack of wind, caused Europeans
to get sick.11
Natural philosophy finds its roots in classical thinkers and philosophers such as
Hippocrates, Galen, Herodotus, and Aristotle. Essentially, natural philosophy explained
disease by through the relationship between different humors found within a body.
Classical thinkers based these humors upon the universes four elements: water/wet,
fire/hot, earth/cold, air/dry. These combined into four basic environments, which were
“melanchonic (cold and dry), choleric (hot and dry), phlegmatic (cold and moist), and the
sanguine (hot and moist). Sanguine was considered the most desirable temperament
because it most closely reflected life-producing conditions whereas melanchonic was the
least desirable because of its resemblance to death. Early modern scholars believed that
the human body mirrored sanguine conditions thus resulting in life and as one aged and
died the body would become cold and dry resembling melanchonic conditions.12
Scientific understanding informed by natural philosophy further suggested that the body
11 Griffith Hughes, The Natural History of Barbados: In Ten Books (London, printed for the author, 1750),
3
12 Joyce E. Chaplin, Subject Matter: Technology,the Body, and Science on the Anglo-American Frontier,
1500-1676 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2001), 121

17
was extremely vulnerable to outside influences. The environment, in particular, played a
key role in determining humoral balance within an individual. Though the humorals
could be brought back into equilibrium through what are called unnaturals (food, sleep,
immediate environment, exercise, excretion, and blood) the environment was still
believed to be the primary determinant in humoral balance because the environment
determines the foods one eats as well as the quality of water. Furthermore, natural
philosophy was used to explain national character. To the ancients, it was assumed that
“peoples of very cold or very hot climates were uncivil, dull of wit, and deformed of
body” meaning that a temperate climate was the ideal environment for civilization.13 This
aspect of natural philosophy was never truly challenged though it was often argued what
was a temperate climate. The English, for instance, argued that they lived within a
temperate zone as well but their colder surroundings gave them a natural resistance and
fortitude that those living in warmer, southern climates lacked.14 This belief was strong
throughout the seventeenth century, leading John Josselyn to remark in 1672 that there’s
a “certain agreement of nature that is between the place and the thing bred in that
place.”15
Because the English were from a northern, colder temperate, they were primarily
concerned over the effects that their tropical possessions would have on the their bodies
rather than the mainland colonies (excluding southern ones such as Georgia and the
Carolinas). The English were concered about the effects of tropical environments on their
15 Quoted in Susan Scott Parrish, American Curiosity: Cultures of Natural History in the Colonial British
Atlantic World (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 77

18
bodies because the Caribbean and England were not in the same latitude. It was generally
assumed by the English that climate remained constant in any latitude around the world.16
Thus colonists residing in New England were living in the same latitude as England and
experienced similar climates. They did not believe they could cope with the Caribbean
the way the Spanish had previously done because “Inhabitants of hot Countries are of a
more volatile and lively Difspofition, and more irafcible in general, than the Inhabitants
of the Northern Part of the World.”17 In other words, they believed that their humoral
balance, as determined by their residence in northern climates, would be thrown off
balance by entering a southern climate zone. English scholars assumed, the Spanish could
thrive in hotter, southern climates since Spain possessed a hot climate. Furthermore,
Spain shared a similar latitude with the Caribbean and southern parts of the North
American mainland such as Florida further supporting claims that the Spanish could
thrive in the Caribbean. The Spanish could survive because they were already
predisposed to the Caribbean climate. To the English, the Spanish possessed a fortitude
and resilience to the humidity and heat that the English believed they lacked due to their
residence in a colder, northern climate.
In order to promote colonization to the Caribbean, writers and scholars had to
develop a method in which to combat the glaring negative effects of the climate such as a
humoral imbalance and subsequent susceptibility diseases particular o the tropics.
Europeans were so concerned over the medical effects of the environment/nature on their
bodies that to promote colonization, writers would continue to attempt to dispel these
16 Karen Ordahl Kupperman “The Puzzle of the American Climate in the Early Colonial Period.” The
American Historical Review 87, no.5 (1982): 1262. doi: unknown
9

19
concerns well into the eighteenth century. Griffith Hughes in 1750, for example,
challenged aspects of natural philosophy, such as that the environment causes humoral
imbalances resulting in illness, and attempted to describe their islands as healthy due to
“Regularity of the Trade-Winds” which cool down any European settlers residing there,
allowing them to thrive.18 Some, such as Edward Long of Jamaica, gave their own
personal recommendations as to being healthy such as only drinking alcohol moderately,
wear light clothing, and to eat more vegetables than meat.19 Still others placed emphasis
on the immediate environment. For example, Richard Ligon, upon his arrival to Barbados
in 1647, noted that Bridgetown should be relocated on the hill overlooking the bay rather
than next to the shoreline because “[the immediate environment] cannot but breed ill
blood” due the harmful vapors released from the bog.20 Still others, such as Thomas
Tyron, an English merchant, wrote in the 1600s that the various diseases are caused by a
combination of the six unnaturals but “the Intemperance of the Stock or Parents” were a
prime determinate in fighting disease and the most “dangerous and deepeft rooted of all
others.”21 To gain a resistance to diseases, however, meant that the parents had to go
through seasoning which refers to the “adaptation [of] American air, sustenance, and
diseases.”22 To become seasoned, however, does not necessarily mean one’s parents had
to survive and adapt, it just means that an individual colonist must survive and adapt
resulting in a changed person with a different constitution better suited to the New
3
19 Philip D. Curtin, “The Promise and the Terror of a Tropical Environment” in The Image of Africa:
British Ideas and Action, 1780-1850,Volume 1 (University of Wisconsin Press,1964), 79
21 Thomas Tryon, Tryons Letters Domestick and Foreign (London: Printed for Geo. Conyers, at the Ring;
and Eliz Harris, at the Harrow, 1700), 105
22 Joyce E. Chaplin “Natural Philosophy and an Early Racial Idiom in North America: Comparing English
and Indian Bodies.” The William and Mary Quarterly 54, no.1 (1997): 241. doi: unknown

20
World.23 Seasoning often was associated with high mortality rates due to diseases
especially in the Caribbean colonies. Some colonists came to believe that through proper
behavior and morals the impact of nature on an individual’s constitution could be
mitigated.24 In the end however, it was humors that were “poorly balanced, making
[Europeans] vulnerable” and authorities meant to bring humors back into balance through
their recommendations.25 Specific recommendations varied from writer to writer but all
“agreed in stressing the importance of perspiration, exercise, temperature change, and
diet.”26
There was more to natural philosophy than just a healthfulness and medical aspect
in relation to nature. Natural philosophy, and the climate of different locations, had
implications for the “national complexions” of a people just as individuals could have
characteristic constitutions influenced by the environment.27 The beginnings of this belief
can be traced back to Aristotle and other ancient philosophers who stressed the
Mediterranean climate of Greece was the ideal condition for man and civilization to
develop. Herodotus, in particular, uses the environment to explain the constituents and
characteristics of different groups throughout the ancient world. It was this reasoning that
led Ligon to claim that the Indians on Barbados were naturally “much craftier, and
fubtiler…and in their nature fafler” than the enslaved Africans because the environment

21
of the Caribbean and Americas influenced Indian culture to take on these
characteristics.28 Natural philosophy suggests that, due to the effects of residing in a
foreign environment, a humoral imbalance can change the constitution of individuals
resulting in a changed person. This implies a fundamental change in the culture of that
individual, or more specifically the values, constitutions, and characteristics, which
previously defined that person. To English settlers, this process resulting in a change in
culture was known as creolization.
As colonization continued, English scholars were concerned about the changes
these new, unfamiliar environments might have on their bodies in a medical and cultural
sense. Selectively drawing upon classical natural philosophy, early modern scholars
thought that the environment determined the physical and mental characteristics of a
people. As a result, scholars “suspected that climates very different from their own were
unlikely to prove hospitable.”29 Some English scholars hypnotized that the environment
would change colonists from good Englishmen into Indians. The most important
indicator for this transformation was change in skin color though other changes such as
“a redefined stomach [eating of indigenous foods], clothing, comportment, tradable
commodities, and a healthy temperature” were also symptoms.30 Many literate colonials
negatively viewed this cultural metamorphosis because, influenced by natural
philosophy, they believed that creolization would transform them into something “less
29 Joyce E. Chaplin, “Natural Philosophy and an Early Racial Idiom in North America: Comparing English
and Indian Bodies” The William and Mary Quarterly (1997): 236, Accessed October10, 2014

22
than English.”31 In the Caribbean, this meant that they would lose the their “great abilities
and parts…[that are required for] fuch great works as they undertake.”32 Maintaining and
protecting these abilities were essential for the successful management of a plantation
“that feeds daily two hundred mouths and keeps [the slaves] in fuch order, as there are no
mutinies amongft them; and yet [the slaves are] of feveral nations.”33 This fear of losing
their Englishness was partly due to the fact the colonists were far away from the
metropolitan center of the English empire (London). However, natural philosophy greatly
influenced this notion as well because it was believed the English body could change in
relation to the environment.
In order to better understand what the environment of the New World might do to
colonists, the English took an interest in understanding how the Indians came to be the
way they were. Drawing from natural philosophy, Europeans came to believe they were
superior to their Indian counterparts. The perceived superiority caused Europeans to fear
that the environment could possibly revert to the same cultural and technology level as
Indians. Europeans believed that the New World represented earlier stages of progress in
human history. They also came to believe that Indians weren’t indigenous and actually
migrated to the New World long ago most likely from a land bridge connecting the Old
and New Worlds.34 The Jesuit missionary Joseph de Acosta, who arrived in the New
World in 1570, developed this idea by contemplating how similar animals, such as foxes

23
and wolves, could be found in the Old and New Worlds.35 Europeans could thus
concluded that they were superior to Indians because Indians had migrated to the New
World yet, despite the notion of seasoning, “were still unable to thrive in the Americas
[and] did not survive when transplanted to other places” as the European colonists were
currently doing.36 Whereas Indians seemed to be a roaming people, the English and other
Europeans were settling, clearing forests, planting crops, trading, and overall improving
both the earth and themselves allowing them to better thrive in the New World.37 The fact
that the English were able to transform the environment for their benefit suggested
English superiority over Indians. Furthermore, the Indians seemed to be frozen in time,
whereas Europeans believed that they had made massive strides forward in technology
and human progress. In the European mind, “every Fruit is better or wofre, according to
the temperance, equality or inequality of the original Forms of that Thing or
Creature…for the Fruit of each thing is the compleat Son or Image of all the Principles,
Qualities, and Powers of the Father” invoking a belief that Europeans, English in this
particular case, were inherently better than Indians because they have always been better
due to their ancestors.38 In order to explain why Indians seemed to lag behind European
development, Europeans thought “the lag in tropical social development came from the
35 Lee Eldrigde Huddleston, Origins of the America Indians: European Concepts,1492-1729 (Austin,
University of Texas Press, 1967), 50
37 Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from
Ancient Times to the end of the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles,University of California
Press, 1967), 495

24
environment.”39 Laziness was also seen as a result from tropical life and as an indirect
cause of the misinterpreted social development lag.40 The English feared the tropical
environment of the Caribbean could have the same effect on them. In the worst-case
scenario, they feared that prolonged residence in the Caribbean would degenerate them
into the Indians developmental level. Either way, they would lose their Englishness,
culture, and identity due to the environmental effects of natural philosophy.41
Even if the English did not physically become Indian-like, the environment, they
feared, still degraded their Englishness. Many authors warn of laziness that overtakes
English colonists after living in the Caribbean. This was thought to be “the curse of a fat
soil” rather than humoral imbalance though.42 The rise of plantations throughout the
Caribbean produced cash crops, particularly sugar cane, and utilized African slave labor
in the production process. The success of sugar cane made large plantation owners
extremely wealthy. Since these plantations almost exclusively used African slaves,
plantation owners never had to actually work the land. Along with not having to work,
the hot climates in the south were seen as the number one threat to labor, industry, and
progress.43 Some writers sought to warn colonists that the naturally “voluptuous
man…nor the sleepie man” are fit for the Barbadian environment.44 They claim that to be
British Ideas and Action, 1780-1850,Volume 1 (University of Wisconsin Press,1964), 63-65
44 Richard Ligon, A true & exact history of the island of Barbadoes (London, Frank Cass & Co., 1970),
108

25
successful on Barbados one had to work hard and the environment is “utterly
inconfisftent to the humours and dispofitions of thefe men.”45 The English came to
believe the fertility of Caribbean soil was of a greater quality than the soil in England.
The “maruaylous swiftness” with which plants grew suggested to Europeans that laziness
was a result of the environment.46 They, thus, theorized that the Indians were so far
behind because the richness of the soil. The soil provided plenty of crops so the Indians
never had to develop more efficient agricultural techniques and “caused his savagery” in
the European mind.47 The problem of foreign environments and fertile soil continued to
trouble the English into the 18th century because they were concerned “how to
incorporate warmer latitudes into their mercantile and political realm without debauching
the character of their citizenry.”48
Mercantilism
Along with natural philosophy, mercantilism played a crucial role in how
Europeans contemplated the environment. From the beginning of European colonization
of the New World “nature was inextricably linked to interest in its commercial
exploitation.”49 Mercantilism was the method through which Europeans exploited nature
commercially. Mercantilism, though first coined by Adam Smith in his influential work
The Wealth of Nations (1776), is an economic theory that dominated European economic
45 Richard Ligon, A true & exact history of the island of Barbadoes (London, Frank Cass & Co., 1970),
108
46 Henry Colt, The Voyage of Sir Henry Colt to the Islands of Barbados and St. Christopher:May-August
1631,edit. J Edward Hudson (Barbados: Cole’s Printery LTD., 1635), 14
49 Daniela Bleichmar, “Books, Bodies, and Fields: Sixteenth-Century Transatlantic Encounters with New
World Materia Medica” in Colonial Botany:Science,Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World,
edited by Londa Schiebinger and Claudia Swan (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 83

26
policy from the sixteenth to nineteenth century. The central goal of this political
philosophy was articulated in the 1600s by Thomas Mun, an English writer on
economics, who observed that the principal rule nations need to follow in order “increase
our wealth and treasure…[is] to sell more to strangers yearly than wee consume of theirs
in value.”50 Previously the English and other northern Europeans had “argued that only
countries with adverse weather or terrain produced the hardiness of temper to achieve the
liberty and hence moral probity that comes with economic self sufficiency.”51 This meant
that the English were fully prepared to establish an empire and for economic success due
to the natural environment of the British Isles. Mercantilism, however, promotes the
establishment of colonies even in places with drastically different environments from the
mother country. These colonies would then extract raw materials or produce raw goods to
be sent back to the mother nation in or to be processed into a finished good.
The problem, however, was extracting the raw materials from nature because the
English, in particular, came to the conclusion that they were “ill suited to the Caribbean
environment.”52 This required a source of labor that could toil in the humid heat. Both
Indian and indentured European labor were experimented with, some Europeans even
experimented with using Africa as the location for plantations to cut back on
transportation costs.53 In the end, however, the importation of African slave labor was
utilized in order to produce the raw materials needed by the mother country, or England,
since it seemed that Africans “apparently worked better and lived longer in ‘climate’ of
50 Thomas Mun, England’sTreasure by Forraign (London, Printed by J.G. for Thomas Clark, 1664), 11
53 Philip D. Curtin “Epidemiology and the Slave Trade.” Political Science Quarterly 83, no. 2 (1968): 193.
doi: unknown

27
tropical America.”54 Europeans suffered through the transportation costs of importing
African slaves to the Caribbean in order to easily coerce African slaves to work. Keeping
Africans in hereditary bondage was the cheapest source of labor available to Europeans.55
Furthermore, by transplanting Africans into a foreign land with various cultural group
speaking various languages, Europeans could more easily control African slaves than if
the plantations were located in Africa.56
An implication of mercantilism is the success and prosperity of a country “rested
ultimately on the size and ability of its working population.”57 The success of colonies
was determined by population growth essentially. With a larger work force, more raw
materials would be extracted and then processed into finished goods resulting in wealth
creation. Furthermore, the ideal worker under the mercantilism system was that the work
force should be “industrious, obedient, and [content] with low wages.”58 The problem
was that populations were fairly small in the Americas meaning labor was expensive.
Also many English were hesitant about emigrating to New World colonies such as
Barbados because of concerns brought about by natural philosophy such as susceptibility
to disease. In order to find a cheap source of labor that was obedient and worked for next
to nothing, the English looked to the importation of African slaves. Unfortunately, slaves
fit the ideal worker in a mercantilist economy. They can be forced to work, be disciplined
54 Philip D. Curtin “Epidemiology and the Slave Trade.” Political Science Quarterly 83, no. 2 (1968): 194.
doi: unknown
55 Paul E. Lovejoy et al, “Slavery and Race” in Encycolpedia ofRace and Racism, ed. John H. Moore.
(Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA/Thomson Gale, 2008), 65
56 Paul E. Lovejoy et al, “Slavery and Race” in Encycolpedia ofRace and Racism, ed. John H. Moore.
(Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA/Thomson Gale, 2008), 60, 65
57 C. Robert Haywood “ Mercantilism and Colonial Slave Labor, 1700-1763.” The Journal of Southern
History 23, no.4 (1957): 454. doi: unknown
58 C. Robert Haywood “ Mercantilism and Colonial Slave Labor, 1700-1763.” The Journal of Southern
History 23, no.4 (1957): 455. doi: unknown

28
when necessary, and work for no wages other than food, shelter, and clothing. They
argued that Africans were perfectly suited for work in the Caribbean because “Africans
were supposed to thrive on the same parallel as their native land.”59 Also, Europeans had
determined they were already ill suited to labor in hot climates such as the Caribbean
whereas Africans were well suited to any labor in the European mind. Africa’s natural
environment produced a condition where Africans were supposed to be “insensible of
pain and deprivation.”60 African slaves seemed to be the answer from viewpoints of both
mercantilism and natural philosophy. They could be forced to work for nothing and
increase the labor force and they seemed to survive and work better in the tropical
climate than the English could. Once the raw materials were produced and shipped, the
final goods would be produced and then be exported back to the colonies, which provide
a market as well as a source of raw materials. Colonies are also required to import
finished goods from the mother country in order to keep the maximum amount of wealth
within the nation because mercantilism suggests that there is only a finite amount of
wealth available in the world.61
In a sense, mercantilism is built on mechanical philosophy, or the idea that
everything can be broken down into individual components, understood, and controlled.
Mechanical philosophy was first conjured in the writings of scientists and philosophers
such as Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, and Newton in that they all attempt to break down a
61 Steve Picus “Rethinking Mercantilism: Political Economy, the British Empire, and the Atlantic World in
the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” The William and Mary Quarterly 69, no.1 (2012): 4. doi:
unknown

29
subject into basic components.62 Through these individual components anything could be
examined, understood, and controlled. In regards to nature, mechanical philosophy
promoted the idea that “nature was…a machine or artifact.”63 The idea that man could
bend nature to his will was supported by the “changes…that they could make with fire
and clearing in what many considered virgin lands” in the New World.64 Man had already
transformed Europe through the clearing of forests, draining of swamps, and agriculture
so why could he not do so in the New World? Changing and controlling nature was
“expected function of his position in the scale of being and…his unique ability through
his intelligence.”65 These changes were further stressed to improve the land and earth as a
whole, ultimately resulting in the earth being “cultivated like a garden.”66 Mechanical or
reductionist philosophy could be applied to more than nature.
Economic writers such as Mun, perhaps unknowingly, turned this idea of being
able to understand and control something on the economy. Mun, in England’s Treasure
by Forraign Trade, delves into the components that make up trade. Some of these include
the proper characteristics of an ideal merchant such as commodities found in each
country, exchange rates, prices of various goods, and that he should be a scholar.67
Furthermore, Mun suggests that though England was “already exceeding rich by nature
62 Richard H. Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion,Tropical Island Edens, and the Origins of
Environmentalism,1600-1800 (New York, Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1995), 50
Press, 1967), 358
Press, 1967), 462
Press, 1967), 478
67 Thomas Mun, England’sTreasure by Forraign (London, Printed by J.G. for Thomas Clark, 1664), 4-8

30
yet might it be much increased by laying the waste grounds (which are infinite)
into…employments” thus utilizing all available land for the production of raw materials
that could be traded to foreign nations and benefit England.68 Though referring to
England, Mun’s idea applied to the Caribbean as well because the islands were seen as
containing unused land that could be transformed and put to use for the benefit of
England. This idea that utilizing unused land could increase wealth illustrates the reason
why many islands in the Caribbean were devoid of natural trees by the mid 1700s. By
breaking down the economy into individual components and seeking to control those
components, Mun was utilizing mechanical philosophy ideals. By understanding the
economy, governments could influence individuals to behave in certain ways because
“economic matters were too serious to be left to their natural course.”69 Through
controlling nature, the English were able to turn nature into “the servant of man…that
ensured his status as master.”70
The first step in following mercantilist theory is to establish colonies, which
require land. Land, or the environment, is thus the key in this process. By “clearing and
settlement of land” a nation could lay the soundest claim of ownership to a given area.71
As a nation acquires more land, it can establish more colonies or at least expand existing
colonies. Indeed, in the mid 1650s, Oliver Cromwells “clear goal of divesting America’s
wealth to England”, or transferring New World wealth back to England rather than Spain,
68 Thomas Mun, England’sTreasure by Forraign (London, Printed by J.G. for Thomas Clark, 1664), 16-
17
69 William Doyle, The Old European Order, 1660-1800 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992), 64
Environmentalism,1600-1800 (New York, Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1995), 65

31
by conquering Spanish colonies followed this line of logic.72 This would also break
Spanish control of the Caribbean allowing England to gain more territory and thus
wealth. Land was the basic component that brought all of mercantilist theory to fruition
and Cromwell recognized this despite depicting these attacks as a struggle between
Protestantism and Catholicism.
Even on a local level, plantations on so-called sugar islands were expanded in
order to make more money. As sugar became more and more profitable, large-scale
plantation owners throughout the Caribbean expanded to encompass more land. More
land allowed planters to produce more commodities such as sugar, and other New World
cash crops such as tobacco and indigo, had “entered the European repertoire as natural
commodities” due to trade between the New World and Europe.73 This land would then
immediately be cleared, often times to environmental degradation levels especially on
small islands. This was acceptable to settlers, however, because they were concerned
with how to “beft improve [land/nature] to the Ufes of” those utilizing the land.74 Also,
by clearing the land trade winds would clear the air of any bad vapors that resulted in
sickness. By clearing land colonists were simultaneously creating a healthier
environment, as informed by natural philsopohy, and fully extracting natural resources
from nature, as informed by mercantilism. For instance, on Barbados there are no sources
72 Kristen Block, Ordinary Lives in the Early Caribbean:Religion,Colonial Competition,and the Politics
of Profit (Athens,University of Georgia Press, 2012), 110
73 Daniela Bleichmar, “Books, Bodies, and Fields: Sixteenth-Century Transatlantic Encounters with New
World Materia Medica” in Colonial Botany:Science,Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World,
edited by Londa Schiebinger and Claudia Swan (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 83
74 John Evelyn, A Philosophical Discourse of Earth Relating to the Culture and Improvement of it for
Vegetation,and the Propagation of Plants, &c. as it was presented to the Royal Society,April 29, 1675
(London, Printed for John Martyn printer for the Royal Society, 1676), 10

32
that “make no mention of forest after 1665 and by 1666 Barbados imported timber and
firewood.”75
All this land was cleared and acquired by a small number of large plantation
owners and converted to sugar-cane fields because “no one wanted to waste valuable
cane land on provision crops.”76 Converting land in cane fields was looked upon
favorable to the English because they believed that clearing and tilling land improved it
because it gave beauty to the land as well as economic benefits to the planters.77
Furthermore, cut down trees used in the sugar making process, which required that the
cane liquids to be boiled in furnaces. Planters, following mercantilist theory, believed that
in order to gain the maximum amount of finite wealth Barbados offered, they must clear
the land and produce only sugar. This follows the mercantilist philosophy that “land and
the raw material derived from it were the ultimate measure of wealth.”78 Essentially, land
had to be “restored by the Plow, the Spade and the Rake” in order for planters to make a
maximum profit from nature.79 The environmental destruction on Barbados was done all
in the name of profits and health. Expansion of sugar, and by extension the development
of more land, is described by Sidney Mintz as a representation of an “extension of empire
Environmentalism,1600-1800 (New York, Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1995), 64-65
78 Steve Picus “Rethinking Mercantilism: Political Economy, the British Empire, and the Atlantic World in
the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” The William and Mary Quarterly 69, no.1 (2012): 4. doi:
unknown
79 John Evelyn, A Philosophical Discourse of Earth Relating to the Culture and Improvement of it for
Vegetation,and the Propagation of Plants, &c. as it was presented to the Royal Society,April 29, 1675
(London, Printed for John Martyn printer for the Royal Society, 1676), 91-95

33
outward.”80 This suggests, then, that land was the key component in all European empires
throughout North America and that Europeans viewed the land as a wealth producing,
asset that was subservient to them.
Conclusion
Natural philosophy and mercantilism were the two main pillars that informed
European fears and ambitions concerning North America and the Caribbean. The English
had entered the New World conditioned to believe that “mermen, two-headed snakes, and
devouring…giants” and cannibals stalked the unknown landscape and waters.81 In this
context, English settlers had to comprehend their relationship to these new environments
compared to England. How will the climate effect my body? Will my culture transform
into something less than English? How can nature be used for profit and empire building?
These were just some of the questions that colonists and scholars throughout the
seventeenth century thought about. Despite their fear North American and Caribbean
climates would transform them, English colonists settled throughout the New World.
Fears informed by natural philosophy were alleviated to an extent while economic
incentives inspire them to risk any remaining fears. They also recognized that the New
World was a source of wealth, a fact they knew from the Spanish in the sixteenth century
who had profited from gold and silver mines in New Spain and Peru.82 Mercanilism and
natural philosophy worked in unison to inform Europeans about the New World.
Mercantilism taught Europeans the potential economic benefits the New World possessed
80 Sidney Wilfred Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York,
Viking, 1985), 39

34
while natural philosophy informed them of the risks of residing in foreign environments.
Natural philosophy, however, was reworked in order to alleviate any fears. The next
chapter will focus on the development of Barbados as a slave/plantation colony. It will
also more closely examine how environmental-mercantile philosophy resulted in the first
English slave/plantation society and the foundations of the emerging English empire.

CHAPTER 2: NATURE AND COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT ON BARBADOS:
A CASE STUDY
In 1627, Sir William Courteen, a wealthy Anglo-Dutch merchant, organized the
first English settlement of Barbados, a low lying island that is only 116 squared miles.
Courteen was influenced to establish a colony there after one of his ships, captained by
John Powell, landed on Barbados during Powells voyage from Brazil, the first place
where the first sugar plantations were established by the Portugese, to England in 1625.
As he and his party explored the island, he found Barbados to be devoid of man, yet
“there was life on the island.”1 At the time of Powells landing, Barbados was “fo
overgrown with Wood, as there could be found no Champions, or Savannas for men to
dwell in.”2 The tropical forest provided an abundance of tropical fruits such as oranges,
pineapples, watermelons, and figs. Also, wild hogs ran wild on Barbados, having been
introduced and allowed to thrive there by the Portuguese who would stop at Barbados
“should at any time [they] be driven by foul weather, to be caft upon the Ifland.”3 Powell
was so impressed by the fertility of Barbados that when he returned to England, he sought
to “form a company to undertake its settlement” so he and others might take advantage of
the untapped natural resources Barbados possessed.4 Barbados continued to be
considered an extremely fertile island into the eighteenth century despite environmental
degradation caused by sugar plantations. For instance, in 1750 Griffith Hughes wrote in
his Natural History of Barbados that if the island was cultivated with crops to provide for
just the island that “this fmall Ifland alone, without any foreign Affiftance,
New York University Press, 1984), 5

36
would…produce a Sufficiency of fuch Food to maintain more than Number of its prefent
Inhabitants.”5 Even after a hundred years of transforming land to mans will, nature was
still described as abundant on Barbados. It was with the goal of amassing wealth in mind
that in 1627 Powell influenced William Courteen and several others to join him in
colonizing Barbados by emphasizing the “sizable profits [Barbados offered] if it were
properly cultivated.”6 Thus, Barbados was colonized by the English.
From the very beginnings of colonization, Barbados developed along a unique
path. Barbados was the first of the so called Sugar Islands to establish a plantation society
that embraced the use of African slave labor on sugar plantations. The English, through
their understanding of natural philosophy and mercantilism, simultaneously sought to
exploit Barbados economically and develop the island to protect themselves from the
volatile, tropical environment. Even as they developed Barbados to suit their needs, the
English refused to accept some of the realities of tropical living and argued about ways in
which they could protect and maintain their Englishness, which they believed was under
constant threat from living on tropical Barbados.
This chapter will first examine how the English reformulated natural philosophy
in order to entice colonists to settle in the Caribbean. Reformulating natural philosophy
was also meant to illustrate to potential colonists that the English could in fact survive in
the New World and maintain their Englishness despite previous scientific understanding
informed by natural philosophy. Despite reformulating natural philosophy, English
colonists still had reservations concerning nature and their bodies. As a result, they took
22

37
steps to help ensure that their Englishness was protected and maintained. Though the
English attempted to protect their Englishness the best they could, they were still forced
to adapt to Barbados. These adaptations, however, were seen as a way to transform
Barbados into an environment in which the English could survive and fully extract
natural resources from Barbados. The means through which the English extracted
resources and acquired wealth was through plantations. Plantations, according to this
thesis, came to represent the culmination of environmental-mercantile philosophy.
Misconceptions concerning African bodies compared to European bodies lead the
English to utilize African slave labor as a fully productive and utilized labor force that
could, in their minds, survive in the extreme humidity and heat of Barbados.
Furthermore, plantations became one of the basic units that allowed the creation and
consolidation of empire during the seventeenth century. As such, environmental-
mercantile philosophy can be viewed as the means through which empire was established
and consolidated.
1) Natural Philosophy Reformulated
As discussed in the previous chapter, the English had anxieties over the effect of
settling, cultivating, and living in warm, tropical environments. Their understanding of
natural philosophy brought about these concerns. By settling on Barbados, or anywhere
in the Caribbean, the English believed they were more susceptible to disease, weaken
their constitutions, and degrade their English culture into something less than English. In
order to alleviate these fears and concerns, writers and settlers had to rethink their
understanding of nature’s effect on man by selectively applying or transforming the
tenants of natural philosophy. This goal could be achieved through a number of ways

38
from citing English resistance to extremely harsh and different climates, thereby proving
English bodies can survive and thrive in the Caribbean, to giving recommendations on
how to protect one’s constitution in the tropical environment and, finally, illustrating that
the “New World…is fo happy a Climate.”7
In the summer of 1631, Sir Henry Colt, a devote Roman Catholic and
Englishman, left Dorset, England to sail to the Antilles to settle in St. Christopher and
establish his own plantation on the island. Before he reached his final destination, the
ship he found passage with stopped at Barbados during the early years of the colony.
During his transatlantic voyage, Colt kept a detailed personal journal that happened to
contain a letter for his son. In this letter, Colt gave his son “some rules for your diet [and]
health” should his son ever wish to travel to the Caribbean and establish his own
plantation.8 These rules, Colt warns, are important to follow because the journey is
“dangerous bycause of the change of Climates, especially about the Tropick [of
Cancer].”9
Clearly Colt was aware of natural philosophy and the dangers of settling in a
tropical climate. As a result, he felt it necessary to pass on his knowledge of persevering
ones health during all aspects of the transatlantic journey on to his son. He explains that
the portion of the journey around between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are
“temperate enough, with an ayre fresh [and] coole, butt the sunn only hot.”10 To Colt, the
“most dangerous place is the Tropick…[because of] pestilent feavours” and a disease
7 Nathaniel Crouch, The English Empire in America (London: Printed for Nathaniel Crouch, 1685), 2

39
which led sailors to believe the ocean was a green field, desire to leap into it, and
subsequently drown.11 In order to safeguard oneself, Colt advises that “your stomack is
ever to be kept warm…For digestion, [and] to avoyd the flux” in addition to using
“pepper in all your brothes; [and eating] raysens of the sunn.”12 Colt provides additional
advice ranging from what foods to eat and how much, to staying away from crowed
portions of the ship in order to stay away from “sick men…least they dye [and] infect
others”, to proper attire for living in the Caribbean.13 Everything from the air of a place to
the foods one eats could cause an imbalance in an individual’s humors. Once the humors
became unbalanced, according to natural philosophy, that person would be more
susceptible to disease or, even worse, creolization thus leaving them less than in English
in the colonists mind. As a result, Colt’s recommendations revolve around protecting
one’s body from humoral imbalances by noting that the air is fresh and cool to the proper
foods to eat in the Caribbean. All of Colt’s measures are thus aimed at protecting
European bodies from the dangers inspired by natural philosophy and remaining healthy.
Nathaniel Crouch also wrote about the climate of the New World. Crouch, a
bookseller and author, intentionally wrote for a much wider audience. In his English
Empire in North America (1685), Crouch gives an overview of the people, government,
life, climate, and history of all of England’s colonial possessions in the New World. To
begin his work, Crouch describes the tropics as a “happy Climate” where “nature spreads
her fruitful sweetness” and “The Sun no Climate does fo gladly fee / When forc’d from
1631,edit. J Edward Hudson (Barbados: Cole’s Printery LTD., 1635), 43-44

40
hence, to view our parts, he mourns.”14 This is meant to tempt and persuade readers to
journey to the all parts of the New World to take advantage of the abundant wealth nature
provides there.
Still, Crouch needs to alleviate any fears brought about by natural philosophy. To
accomplish this, Crouch takes a different approach from Colt. He lists the “Adventurous
Voyages, and extream dangers fome of our brave Englifh Spirits have furmounted in their
Difcoveries of this New World.”15 These brave English range from Sir Sebastion Cabot,
who explored both the frigid north of Canada and the coast of Florida, to Sir Francis
Drake, an infamous privateer who raided Spanish ships throughout the Caribbean. Sir
Francis Drake, along with other Englishmen who explored the Caribbean, are far more
interesting than those who ventured to the far north however. Crouch describes Drake as
“moft defervedly honoured of all men” and a “brave Seaman” upon his account of
Drake’s exploits.16 Crouch details all of Drakes exploits with a sort of reverence.
Everything from his raids against the Spanish and plundering treasure to being the “firft
Commander of note that incompaffed this Globe of Earth” and being knighted are all
recalled by Crouch.17 Drake in his travels, sailed the throughout the Caribbean, through
the Straits of Magellan, to the Philippines and the Cape of Good Hope before finally
ending his voyage in England. Crouch never notes that claims Drake ever had any fears
concerning natural philosophy. Drake’s exploits and battles against the Spanish in the
Caribbean, in particular, are meant to convey English colonists that they are more than
capable of thriving in the Caribbean despite the foreign climate and threat of Spanish

41
attack. In all these adventures, the English braved both the foreign climates of the New
World as well as “Savage Inhabitants… [that] eat or rather devour raw Flefh and Fifh.”18
By listing the achievements and adventurers of past Englishmen, Crouch suggests that the
English could thus brave and survive in any climate no matter how foreign from England.
In addition to citing past exploits of English explorers, Crouch along with other
writers such as Charles de Rochefort, a French Protestant pastor who’s History of the
Caribby-Islands was translated to English during the mid 1600s, often compared the
Caribbean climate with climates Europeans might be more familiar with. By taking this
approach, potential colonist would have a better idea of what tropical, island climates are
like rather than imagining them as beds of disease, pestilence, monsters, and death as
previously thought by Europeans. For instance, Crouch compares the climate and
temperature of Carolina, another colonial with a warm climate thought dangerous to the
English constitution, to “Antioch, Judea, and the Province of Nanking, the richeft in
China, [and] will produce any thing which thofe Countrys do.”19 When Crouch comes to
discuss the climate of Barbados, he describes the air “like the air of England about the
middle of May” and when it is hot, a consistent “cool breeze which rife with the Sun”
keeps the colonists cool even on the hottest days.20 Rochefort also contends that the “Air
of all these Iflands is temperate, and healthy enough, efpecially to fuch as have lived in
any time in them.”21 Rochefort also claimed that “the heats are not greater in these parts
21 Charles de Rochefort, The History of the Carriby-Iflands (London: Printed by J.M. for Thomas Dring
and John Starky, 1666), 3

42
than they are in France during the Months of July and Auguft.”22 Furthermore, the
rampant diseases that took the lives of so many settlers in the Caribbean was not native to
the Caribbean, but was brought there from African slaves and since “that corruption of
the Air…there is no talk of any fuch Difeafes.”23
2) Protecting Englishness
Though natural philosophy was being reformulated during the seventeenth
century, English colonists were still wary of Barbados’s tropical climate and its effect on
their bodies. As a result of this suspicion, the English took measurements to protect their
Englishness, the characteristics, constitution, and principals that make them English. The
idea that nature could transform them into something less than English frightened them
because they believed there were no “better Workmen than we, for certainty there are no
better Artificers or Improvers of curious Arts in the World than the English.”24 The
English scorned and refused to imitate “the Spaniards, the Indians, or the Negroes, who
were all experienced at living in hot countries” and clung to their Northern European
styles and ways.25 It was, in the English mind, the cooler environment of England that
made the English into a tougher people those residing in warmer climates allowing them
to establish colonies and survive in the New World.26 Consuming indigenous foods and
abandoning English ways of life was seen as both a physically and psychologically

43
change, causing drastic changes in individuals and turning them into something other
than English (this process was known as creolization).27 Even remaining in Barbados’s
hot, humid climate for too long could result in this transformation. Being English, thus,
was something to take pride in and protect to the English. So, in order to maintain their
Englishness, they attempted to transfer English “modes of diet, dress, and housing to the
tropics.”28 This fear of bodily change, and the resulting fear of creolization, was the
reason why the English on Barbados maintained their English style of living despite
defying obvious tropical realities of tropical life.
One way they did this was through their refusal to “accept tropical realities” such
as the fact Barbados is a hot, humid place.29 Many of the colonists, especially the
wealthier ones, overdressed for the heat in order to distinguish themselves as being
English. Overdressing was meant to show the social hierarchy that had been previously
been established in England. This social system was transferred and made even more
prominent on an island that was “divided into three forts of men.”30 In order to remain
with the current fashion trend in England and to further distinguish class, Barbados
imported all the “Hats [they] wear; and of Shoes thoufands of Dozens yearly” along with
shirts, pants, socks, leather gloves, and long cloaks just to name a few.31 By dressing in
certain styles, the wealthy plantation owners could easily distinguish themselves from the
small plantation owners and the African slaves. While the wealthy would dress in lavish,
27 Karen Ordahl Kupperan, “Fear of Hot Climates in the Anglo-American Experience.” The William and
Mary Quarterly 41, no. 2 (1984): 214. doi: unknown
31 Edward Littleton, The Groans of the Plantations (London,Printed by M. Clark, 1698), 24

44
hot clothing, the poor and slaves were “expected to dress poorly.”32 Clothing was thus a
means to transfer English traditions to Barbados in an attempt to reinforce social
hierarchies as well as maintain the English culture in the face of a tropical environment.
Another way the English attempted to defy nature was through the construction of
their homes. Colonists had arrived to Barbados, and throughout the New World,
believing they could transform the environment into an orderly, productive landscape.
This included the construction of homes. Twenty-five years after Ligon had left
Barbados, the island had “Received the most Improvement it was Capable of” according
to an anonymous source in 1676.33 The author claimed that Ligon was at Barbados at a
time when people sweated more about “bare neceffitities of life” rather than the heat.34
Furthermore, there were no “Houfes which could boaft a Granduer” during Ligons time.35
The planter had gained enough wealth from sugar at this point to imitate “English designs
and styles” in the construction of their homes and buildings.36 The days when Ligon
found “timber houfes with low roofs, fo low…[he] could hardly stand upright with [his]
hat on” were over according to this anonymous writer.37 The houses the English built,
33 Anonymous, Great newes from the Barbadoes (London, Printed for L. Curtis in Goast-Court upon
Ludgate-Hill, 1676), 4

45
however, were extremely susceptible to the weather due to the tendency to make them
three to four stories tall.38
Hurricanes, in particular, possessed the ability, as they still do, to completely
destroy and level entire towns. Hurricanes leave a lasting impact wherever that strike and
have “characterized [the Caribbean], and they have shaped its socieites and histories…in
many ways.”39 The power and influence of these storms cannot be understanted. For
instance, Griffith Hughes tells us that in 1675 a hurricane hit Barbados which “left either
Houfe nor Tree standing.”40 He further likens the scene on Barbados after the storm
subsided to that of the “Tenth Egyptian Plague of old.”41 Nothing could protect the
English from the fierceness of this storm and several families were entirely buried when
their home collapsed on them.42 Despite the destruction of their homes and towns, the
colonists just a year later rebuilt their grand, large, English homes though it is quite
possible that the pamphlet recalling the grand homes was published without knowledge
of the hurricane. The English refused to imitate Indian or Spnaish style buildings, which
were smaller and lower to the ground than the English style, because they appeared to be
“primitive, and…too small or too ugly” respectively.43 Eventually, however, after
continued destruction at the hands of weather disasters, the Barbadians would be forced
39 Stuart B. Schwartz, “Hurricanes and the Shpaing of Circum-Caribbean Societies.” The Florida
Historical Quarterly 83, no. 4 (2005): 384. doi: unknown
25
26
26

46
to lower their homes in order to survive hurricanes and other tropical storms.44 Even with
the threat of hurricanes and the devastation they wrought, they could not “completely
transform building practices” and many English continued to “continued to model
dwellings on metropolitan designs and “English styles.””45
3) Adapting to the New World
Though the English were taking precautions to ensure they remained English,
they had to adapt to nature to survive in the tropics. Barbados was, and still is, an
environment completely different from England. Its location in the tropics makes it
extremely hot in the summer months and warm in the winter ones. Tropical diseases also
ran rampant. The English came to realize that these condition made life very difficult for
them causing many to shy away from extreme physical labor. This became a problem for
the English especially as sugar plantations, which require a large, productive workforce
to produce sugar, on Barbados became increasingly profitable. This forced the English to
develop new means of production of sugar along with adaptations that ensure their
survival and continual success on Barbados.
A glaring issue that the English were forced to adapt to was the lack of fresh
water on Barbados. Richard Ligon notes that there was “nothing in this Ifland fo much
wanting” as fresh water to cool ones thirst.46 Barbados only had a few small springs and
rivers which were considered “very small and inconfiderable” amongst the colonists.47
According to Ligon, there was only one true river, and that river was more like a lake

Science and Empire: How Natural Philosophy and Mercantilism Drove Colonial Development

Science and Empire: How Natural Philosophy and Mercantilism Drove Colonial Development

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