ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Seeds of Reform: Plant Transfer, Ecological Change, and Environmental Governance in Late Colonial Chile

• In Event: Plant Transfers Beyond Botany: Histories of Human-mediated Long-distance Dispersals to and from Latin America

English Abstract

This paper revisits the ecological transformations triggered by European imperial expansion, a phenomenon Alfred Crosby influentially conceptualized as the Columbian Exchange. While scholars have dedicated considerable attention to long-distance biological and environmental transfers, studies of the Chilean case have overwhelmingly emphasized the early republican period. Recent scholarship has expanded into topics such as health, viral circulation, and deforestation practices, yet comparatively little attention has been given to how historical actors themselves perceived, interpreted, and sought to manage these environmental changes.

In late colonial Chile, contemporaries began to document signs of ecological disruption and even environmental degradation. By the late eighteenth century, within the broader framework of the Bourbon Reforms, colonial officials became increasingly concerned with the deterioration of key landscapes and resources. This paper argues that colonial bureaucrats and military engineers developed a sophisticated diagnostic view of the kingdom’s ecological vulnerabilities—particularly regarding deforestation, recurring droughts, and the implications of these problems for economic growth. In response, they formulated a series of improvement plans centered on plant transfer and acclimatization. These initiatives involved experimentation with highly productive species such as pine, poplar, sugarcane, cotton, and hemp in an effort to reverse ecological decline in the northern provinces. Through these efforts, colonial actors generated what can be termed ecocultural networks, systems that linked seeds, plants, imperial agents, local labor, and specialized knowledge. By examining these networks and their associated projects, this paper illuminates the agents and mechanisms of ecological change and contributes to a broader understanding of environmental imperial strategies in Spanish America during the Age of Revolutions.

Author

• Natalia Gandara, Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso (Chile); John Carter Brown Library (USA).