Silk cultivation in the Atlantic world, c.1500-1830: a history of imperial attempts, scientific & technological exchange, and political economy

该项目将揭示殖民帝国在1500 -1830年间在大西洋世界各地的前哨竞争种植丝绸的程度。为了超越彼此，并避免与东方主要丝绸地区（特别是中国）进行贸易的费用，欧洲列强拼命鼓励美洲的丝绸种植-带来尖端的科学和植物学知识，以及有组织的劳动力。在近代早期，丝绸的光芒被一系列其他新大陆产品所掩盖：糖、烟草、大米和奴隶。但是，尽管这些成功的商品吸引了大量的学术研究，但对丝绸失败的研究却没有，尽管它也可以为当代社会（包括旧世界和新世界）提供大量的启示。该项目将证明丝绸将君主和宫廷的欲望与新殖民地的设计者及其定居者联系起来。它将原始工业发动机的科学与缠绕和编织方面的专业专家的“神秘”和艺术联系起来。它见证了景观的转变，成千上万的桑葚和数百万的蚕在新西班牙，新法国，英属美洲和整个羽翼未丰的美国被饲养。最重要的是，在大西洋世界种植丝绸将来自不同国家、宗教、种族和背景的人们联系在一起。未来的研究将是比较性的，调查一系列国家、殖民地、公司、社区和企业家在其领土上种植丝绸的许多尝试。它将涉及丝绸种植理论（乌托邦，殖民意识形态，重商主义和植物学）和丝绸种植实践（环境历史，生产力，原始工业化和劳动历史）。它将概述激发瑞典、加勒比海、爱尔兰、墨西哥、普鲁士、弗吉尼亚和路易斯安那等不同地区尝试种植丝绸的共同点，以及在转移知识和材料时面临的不同问题。为了支持这项研究，我们将使用各种各样的资料来源，包括殖民地记录、贸易委员会会议记录、海关报告、信件、出版的丝绸小册子、商人宣传品和幸存的织物。他们将一起帮助回答这样的问题：谁参与了丝绸种植？丝绸作为一种新世界的产品是否能够取得成功？为什么会失败？早期的现代管理者是如何试图使人和风景弯曲到他们的设计中去的？这项研究将在几个方面对这个广泛的主题所涉及的许多领域产生影响。例如，丝绸生产的历史既支持又反对流行的地理和年代模型。1500-1830年间，一个整合的“大西洋世界”的概念似乎得到了支持，通过他们的著作和就业历史追踪丝绸专家之间的联系。但对本土丝绸的痴迷也源于“太平洋”互动和商品和思想交流的全球模式，从而挑战了“大西洋”方向的完整性。丝绸，通常是一种受到严格保护的商品，站在关于技术、工业主义、帝国和贸易的新思想的最前沿。但如果说，一方面，它是现代化的先驱（在英国产生了新的工厂和机器，在美洲产生了新的计划），另一方面，它是一种古老的、古老的工艺，其工人--其中许多是女性，大多数不是英国人--是秘密的，对压力毫无反应。最后，在考虑人类是如何有效地有意识地重塑其环境时，该项目将在环境历史和政治经济学领域提供很多东西。总的来说，我希望通过对蚕丝种植的理论、实践和现实的仔细研究，可以告诉我们很多关于早期现代世界的本质。

This project will unveil the extent to which colonial empires competed to grow silk in their outposts around the Atlantic world between c.1500-1830. Seeking to outdo one another, and bypass the expense of trading with the great silk regions in the East (specially China), European powers tried desperately to encourage the cultivation of silk in the Americas - bringing to bear cutting-edge scientific and botanical knowledge, as well as organised labour. Silk was outshone by a range of other New World products over the course of the Early Modern era: sugar, tobacco, rice, and slaves. But while these successful commodities have attracted a large amount of scholarship, the study of silk's failure has not, though it can also shed a great deal of light on contemporary societies (both in Old and New Worlds). The project will demonstrate that silk connected the desires of monarchs and courts to the designers of new colonies and their settlers. It connected the science of proto-industrial engines to the 'mystery' and art of specialised experts in winding and weaving. It witnessed the transformation of landscapes as thousands of mulberry trees and millions of silkworms were raised in New Spain, New France, British America, and across the fledgling United States. And more than anything else, the cultivation of silk in the Atlantic world connected people - from different countries, religions, races, and backgrounds.The prospective research will be comparative, investigating the many attempts made by a range of nations, colonies, corporations, communities and entrepreneurs to foster silk in their territories. It will address both the theory of silk cultivation (utopianism, colonial ideology, mercantilism and botany) and the practice of silk cultivation (environmental history, productivity, proto-industrialisation, and labour history). It will outline the commonalities that inspired attempts to cultivate silk in places as diverse as Sweden, the Caribbean, Ireland, Mexico, Prussia, Virginia, and Louisiana, as well as the different problems that were faced in transferring the knowledge and materials. A wide range of sources will be deployed to underpin this research, including colonial records, Board of Trade minutes, customs reports, correspondence, published tracts on silk, mercantilist propaganda, and surviving fabric. Together, they will help answer questions such as: who was involved in silk cultivation? Could silk have succeeded as a New World product, and why did it fail? How did early modern administrators try to bend people and landscapes to their designs?This research will have an impact in several ways on the many fields that the broad subject touches upon. For instance, the history of silk production both supports and defies popular geographical and chronological models. The notion of an integrating 'Atlantic world' between 1500-1830 seems to be upheld by tracing the connections between silk experts through their writings and employment history. But the obsession with home-grown silk also grew out of 'Pacific' interactions and global patterns in the exchange of goods and ideas, thereby challenging the integrity of an 'Atlantic' orientation. Silk, frequently a heavily-protected commodity, stood at the forefront of new ideas about technology, industrialism, empire, and trade. But if it was, on the one hand, a herald of modernisation (generating new factories and machines in Britain, and new schemes in the Americas), it was on the other hand an archaic, ancient craft whose workers - many of them female and most non-British - were secretive and unresponsive to pressure. Finally, in considering how (in)effectively man was able to deliberately reshape his environment, the project will have much to offer in the field of environmental history and political economy. Overall, I hope to show that a careful scrutiny of the theories, practices, and realities of silk cultivation can tell us much about the nature of the early modern world.