ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

From Sacred Cactus to Scientific Commodity: Peyote Circulation in the Nineteenth Century

• In Event: Roots and Remedies: Global Histories of the Pharmaceuticalization of Herbal Knowledge I

English Abstract

This paper examines the circulation of peyote from the nineteenth century into the early twentieth century, tracing how this sacred cactus moved from Indigenous ritual contexts in northern Mexico into global networks of science, collecting, and commerce. While drug historians have noted that peyote—unlike coca or tobacco—did not become a mass commodity during the so-called “psychoactive revolution,” this study argues that it nevertheless circulated through new, mid-scale channels linked to empire, extraction, and experimentation. Initially distributed as an ornamental specimen among collectors and botanical gardens, peyote later became a focus of taxonomic classification, chemical analysis, and pharmacological research. Drawing on archival materials and scientific publications from Mexico, Europe, and the United States, the paper situates these processes within broader imperial and postcolonial dynamics that shaped the appropriation of natural resources and Indigenous knowledge. Rather than recounting a linear story of Western “discovery,” the analysis foregrounds the material and political conditions that enabled peyote’s transformation into an object of modern science and underscores Mexico’s central role as both a site of extraction and a source of expertise.

Author

• Nidia Olvera Hernández, Radboud University, Netherlands