Natural history and the pursuit of empire in eighteenth-century Spain

The Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain, contains a series of documents that attest to the widespread investigation and collection of natural history specimens by colonial officials in Spanish America in the eighteenth century. These natural history collections, overlooked by most historians of the period, are of crucial importance to understanding the relationship between science, imperial politics, and economic goals in Enlightenment Spain. Although they grew out of a centuries-long tradition of bureaucratic information-gathering within the Spanish Empire, these collections also demonstrated innovation in the way they were administered and in the types of specimens sought. In this way, the collections highlight the connection between natural history and political economy made by a number of key reformers of the period and thus serve to represent the reforming spirit of the Spanish Crown in the eighteenth century.