18th Century Botanical Illustrations
To think of early naturalist America can conjure images of uncivilized land, overgrown but still with a natural beauty radiating. The undomesticated plants are growing wild and the Native populations are co-habitating amongst everything that nature has to offer. Before America became American it was ruled by the rooted, blossoming, barky, leafy bodies that were the source of food, medicine, shelter and overall life to the people who were there before and after the Revolution.
The American landscape was shaped and chartered those who took active roles in capturing its power. Before an industrialized lifestyle overtook the colonies, North America boasted (in a much larger capacity than after industrialization) flora that the Old World had never known. There was a bounty of amazing plants along the coast and specifically in the fertile and varied land called South Carolina. Dr. Alexander Garden of Scotland and Andre’ Micheaux of France were America’s first influential botanists/horticulturalist/holistic healers who discovered and catalogued hundreds of plants native to North America, many of which had healing properties.
In Charleston SC, America’s oldest agriculture society was started in 1785 and was incorporated as the Agrcultural Society of South Carolina in 1795. This society’s purpose was to improve and promote agricultural concerns in the newly minted state of South Carolina. Plantation owners, scientists, doctors and gardening aficionados all joined the high class society and inducted Garden and Michaux as honorary members. Through the society Garden and Michaux received private funds, so they could start private greenhouses and travel the unfamiliar North American terrain. Michaux used one of his sponsorships to publish his catalogue of the oaks of America, Histoire des chênes de l’Amérique, a French language publication distributed in Canada and France that told of an amazing type of oak tree with healing properties that had gone extinct in North America.
Garden and Micheaux also share the commonality of setting up their greenhouses and gardens in Charleston, South Carolina during the late 1700s. Both also left Charleston due to pre-war tensions rising along the east coast colonies. Micheaux later left Charleston for the newly established Kentucky to avoid the Revolutionary War temporarily. Micheaux eventually left America completely after the establishment of the United States of America and went to continue his studies in the French ruled colony of Madagascar where he died. Garden, after lengthy deliberation, left Charleston for London and sided with the Loyalists of the Revolution. Garden died in London 15 years after. Micheaux and Garden have been widely published and praised for their discoveries, but behind the professional facets of their lives were men who at the core were carving their own spaces out in pre-colonial America.
At a time when ambitions ran high with the prospects of a better life in a new land, Micheaux and Garden explored an undeveloped nation and healed some of its most prominent members along the way.
- The Life and Times of Dr. Andre’ Micheaux
- Healing and Horticulture in Charleston : The Abbreviated Works of Dr. Alexander Garden
Featured bibliography for the above articles includes:
Andrews, Susyn, and Edinburgh Garden. Taxonomy of cultivated plants: third international symposium : proceedings of the meeting held in Edinburgh, Scotland, 20-26 July 1998. Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens, 1999. Print.
Birse, Ronald M.. Science at the University of Edinburgh 1583-1993: an illustrated history to mark the centenary of the Faculty of Science and Engineering 1893-1993.. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, 1994. Print.
Cothran, James R.. Gardens of historic Charleston. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1995. Print.
“Dr. Alexander Garden.” – Carolina Antique Maps & Prints. Version 3. Carolina Antique Prints, n.d. Web. 2 May 2014. <http://www.carolinaantiqueprints.com/blogs/artist-biographies/7173940-dr-alexander-garden>.
“Flora boreali-americana, or, the botany of the northern parts of British America.” Details. Biodiversity Heritage Library, n.d. Web. 1 May 2014. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography
Hooker, William Jackson. Flora boreali-americana, or, The botany of the northern parts of British America compiled principally from the plants collected by Dr. Richardson & Mr. Drummond on the late northern expeditions under command of Captain Sir John Franklin R.N. : to which ar. London: H.G. Bohn, 1840. Print.
Michaux, André. Histoire des chênes de l’Amérique; ou, Descriptions et figures de toutes les espèces et variétés de chênes de l’Amérique Septentrionale, considérées sous les rapports de la botanique, de leur culture et de leur usage.. Paris: De l’Impr. de Crapelet, an IX-, 1801. Print.
Oxbury, Harold. The Dictionary of national biography: the concise dictionary.. Oxford [Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1982. Print.
Rembert, David H.. “The Carolina Plants of Andre Michaux.” Castanea 44.2 (1979): n.p.. JSTOR. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Stearns, Raymond Phineas. Science in the British colonies of America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970. Print.
Weir, Robert M. Colonial South Carolina, A History. N.p.: University of South Carolina Press, 1983. Print.