Moore, Deirdre (Author)
Park, Katharine (Advisor)
Kuriyama, Shigehisa (Advisor)
This dissertation explores how a complex relationship between humans, plants and animals led to the production of one of the Iberian Empire’s most valued commodities in the colonial period: cochineal dye. My research involves the history of cochineal dye insects in Europe, Asia and Central America. Based on archival research conducted in English, Spanish and Latin this thesis examines attempts and methods of growing and treating cochineal dye insects from Oaxaca, Mexico to Madras, India. I use global comparisons between native peoples in these areas to study colonial commodities with a particular focus on knowledge systems. Indigenous peoples developed an intricate set of practices, highly dependent on local geography, to ensure the survival of the domesticated cochineal insect (Dactylopius coccus). I consider a complex set of technologies/craft practices employed by indigenous people to grow cochineal in the different micro-climates of the Oaxacan landscape in southern Mexico. Unlike their natural philosophical contemporaries in early modern Europe, native cochineal growers appear to have understood the insect’s generation in detail. This project explains how a domesticated insect with symbolic and religious content was turned into the second most lucrative commodity and industry in colonial Mexico after precious metals. It also examines how knowledge regarding the raising of cochineal insects stayed in hands of native cochineal growers for centuries and did not translate well into other systems. By combining methods in anthropology, history of science, technology studies and environmental history with close text and image analysis, my work re-situates the cochineal in the various worlds views of different historical, global actors from Mexico to India.
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Article
William Eamon;
(2018)
Corn, Cochineal, and Quina: The “Zilsel Thesis” in a Colonial Iberian Setting
(/isis/citation/CBB085994099/)
Book
Greenfield, Amy Butler;
(2005)
A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire
(/isis/citation/CBB000741406/)
Book
Anja Timmermann;
(2014)
Indigo. Die Analyse eine ökonomischen Wissensbestandes im 18. Jahrhundert
(/isis/citation/CBB633173780/)
Chapter
Sinha, Arvind;
(2010)
Implantation of Commercial Crops: Cochineal Culture and the Regional Ecology in the Eighteenth Century Coromandel
(/isis/citation/CBB001500555/)
Book
Alex Hidalgo;
(2019)
Trail of Footprints: A History of Indigenous Maps from Viceregal Mexico
(/isis/citation/CBB535233039/)
Article
Beverly Soloway;
(2016)
“mus co shee”: Indigenous Plant Foods and Horticultural Imperialism in the Canadian Sub-Arctic
(/isis/citation/CBB852354053/)
Thesis
Cagle, Hubert Glenn, III;
(2011)
Dead Reckonings: Disease and the Natural Sciences in Portuguese Asia and the Atlantic, 1450--1650
(/isis/citation/CBB001567296/)
Book
Asha Shukla Choubey;
(2022)
Crafts and Craftsmen in Pre-Colonial Eastern India: Technology and Culture
(/isis/citation/CBB317005179/)
Book
Charles R. Cobb;
(2019)
The Archaeology of Southeastern Native American Landscapes of the Colonial Era
(/isis/citation/CBB092618232/)
Article
Chambouleyron, Rafael;
Barbosa, Benedito Costa;
Bombardi, Fernanda Aires;
Sousa, Claudia Rocha de;
(2011)
“Formidável contágio”: epidemias, trabalho e recrutamento na Amazônia colonial (1660--1750)
(/isis/citation/CBB001420545/)
Article
Kumar, Prakash;
(2007)
Plantation Science: Improving Natural Indigo in Colonial India, 1860--1913
(/isis/citation/CBB000830204/)
Thesis
Gallo, Marcus Terran;
(2012)
Imaginary Lines, Real Power: Surveyors and Land Speculation in the Mid-Atlantic Borderlands, 1681--1800
(/isis/citation/CBB001567382/)
Chapter
Julie Laplante;
(2016)
Indian Ocean Worlds: Tracing South African “Indigenous Medicine”
(/isis/citation/CBB241392029/)
Article
Valle, Ivonne del;
(2013)
From José de Acosta to the Enlightenment: Barbarians, Climate Change, and (Colonial) Technology as the End of History
(/isis/citation/CBB001201895/)
Book
Matthew James Crawford;
Joseph M. Gabriel;
(2019)
Drugs on the Page: Pharmacopoeias and Healing Knowledge in the Early Modern Atlantic World
(/isis/citation/CBB528992656/)
Book
Ben Marsh;
(2020)
Unravelled Dreams: Silk and the Atlantic World, 1500–1840
(/isis/citation/CBB820343719/)
Book
Parthasarathi, Prasannan;
(2011)
Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600--1850
(/isis/citation/CBB001201926/)
Book
MacLeod, Roy;
(2000)
Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise
(/isis/citation/CBB000110572/)
Book
Sluyter, Andrew;
(2012)
Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World, 1500--1900
(/isis/citation/CBB001421797/)
Book
Harrison, Mark;
(2010)
Medicine in an Age of Commerce and Empire: Britain and Its Tropical Colonies, 1660--1830
(/isis/citation/CBB001033373/)
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