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The Royal Botanical Expedition to New Spain ( es, Expedición Botánica al Virreinato de Nueva España) was a scientific expedition to survey the flora and fauna of the territories of
New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...
between 1787 and 1803 and to establish a botanical garden. It was sponsored by King
Charles III of Spain it, Carlo Sebastiano di Borbone e Farnese , house = Bourbon-Anjou , father = Philip V of Spain , mother = Elisabeth Farnese , birth_date = 20 January 1716 , birth_place = Royal Alcazar of Madrid, Spain , death_d ...
and headed by physician
Martín Sessé y Lacasta Martín Sessé y Lacasta (December 11, 1751 – October 4, 1808) was a Spanish botanist, who relocated to New Spain (now Mexico) during the 18th century to study and classify the flora of the territory. Background Sessé studied medicine in Z ...
, who led a team of botanists that included
José Mariano Mociño José Mariano Mociño Suárez Lozano (24 September 1757 – 12 June 1820), or simply José Mariano Mociño, was a naturalist from New Spain. After having studied philosophy and medicine, he conducted early research on the botany, geology, and an ...
and is part of the crown's general program of economic revitalization, known as the
Bourbon Reforms The Bourbon Reforms ( es, Reformas Borbónicas) consisted of political and economic changes promulgated by the Spanish Crown under various kings of the House of Bourbon, since 1700, mainly in the 18th century. The beginning of the new Crown's po ...
. The expedition, commonly referred to by botanists as the Sessé and Mociño expedition, identified many species new to science and brought back a large trove of valuable botanical illustrations. The expedition was "an undertaking that was to signal Spain's reassertion of its colonial might and of its relevance to the Enlightenment."


Background

Martín Sessé, a Spanish physician employed by the
Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a c ...
already established in Mexico, conceived of the expedition. He wrote to the Spanish botanist
Casimiro Gómez Ortega Casimiro Gómez de Ortega (4 March 1741, in Toledo, Spain, Añover de Tajo, Spain – 30 August 1818, in Madrid, Spain) was a Spanish physician, and botanist who was the First Professor of the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid, Royal Botanical Garde ...
suggesting a botanical expedition that would serve two purposes: first to classify the natural resources of the Viceroyalty of
New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...
, and second to implement new health-related procedures in the colonial territories. Coincidentally, around the same time, cosmographer Juan Bautista Muñoz found in the library of the Colegio Imperial de Madrid parts of the original manuscripts from an earlier botanical expedition, the Francisco Hernández Expedition of 1570–1577. Gómez Ortega was then charged with updating and publishing those manuscripts, and this combination of circumstances seems to have convinced the king to support a new expedition. On March 20, 1787, he issued a royal decree authorizing the expedition and providing the funds needed.


Preparations

Preparation for the expedition began in 1787 with a series of trips by Sessé to
Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 (Distrito Nacional) , websi ...
,
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
, and
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
, where earlier expeditions had taken place, in order to gather information from the experiences of other scientific teams. He also collaborated on some of the studies being carried out in those places, such as research in Cuba on treatment of a parasitic illness. Once he returned to the Mexican mainland, Sessé was joined by a team of Spanish scientists and botanists chosen by the director of the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. This select group included
Vicente Cervantes Vicente (Vincente) de Cervantes (Ledrada, Salamanca España; 1755 - México; 1829) was a notable Spanish and Mexican physician and botanist. Background Don Vicente Cervantes was a contemporary of Martín Sessé y Lacasta and corresponded with J ...
, a botany professor in New Spain;
José Longinos Martínez José Longinos Martínez (Calahorra, La Rioja, 15 March 1756 - Campeche, 6 November 1802) was a Spanish naturalist whose account of his travels through Baja California Sur, Baja California, and California in 1792 provided an important early accoun ...
from the Museum of Natural History; the pharmacist and botanist
Juan Diego del Castillo Juan Diego del Castillo (1744–1793) was a Spanish pharmacist and botanist who joined Vicente Cervantes in Mexico. Castillo wrote ''Plantas descritas en el viaje de Acapulco''. He died in Mexico. Castillo had been a contemporary of Martín ...
; and botanists José Maldonado and José Mariano Mociño. Among the painters and illustrators who joined the expedition were two young Mexican artists, Juan de Dios Vicente de la Cerda and
Atanasio Echeverría Atanasio is a masculine given name which may refer to: *Atanasiu di Iaci (Atanasio in Italian), 13th century Italian Benedictine monk and historiographer *Atanasio Aguirre, President of Uruguay from 1864 to 1865 *Atanasio Bello Montero (1800–187 ...
, who later had the genus ''
Echeveria ''Echeveria'' is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Crassulaceae, native to semi-desert areas of Central America, Mexico and northwestern South America. Description Plants may be evergreen or deciduous. Flowers on short stalks (cyme ...
'' named after him; about the third artist, Pedro Oliver, not much is known.


Establishment of the Royal Botanical Garden

The project was envisioned to be multifaceted. A large garden of 56.25 hectares was to be established in central Mexico City to cultivate and propagate plants of New Spain that were of economic interest to the crown. Another component was to be a school to train doctors and pharmacists. A third aspect was to analyze and publicize New Spain's botanical riches. Although there was considerable indigenous knowledge of plants and their medicinal uses, the expedition did not draw on it, but rather imposed the system of classification of
Carolus Linnæus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
.López, Rick A. "Nature as Subject and Citizen in the Mexican Botanical Garden, 1787-1829" pp. 73-78


Travels outside the capital

During the first year the members of the expedition only made short journeys into the countryside, besides assisting in the creation of Mexico's Botanical Garden, which opened on March 27, 1788. In May of the same year, the team began exploring the areas of
Cuernavaca Cuernavaca (; nci-IPA, Cuauhnāhuac, kʷawˈnaːwak "near the woods", ) is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico. The city is located around a 90-minute drive south of Mexico City using the Federal Highway 95D. The na ...
,
Tixtla Tixtla (formally, Tixtla de Guerrero ) is a town and seat of the Tixtla de Guerrero Municipality in the Mexican state of Guerrero. The name is Nahuatl, and means either "maize dough" ''(masa) ''from ''textli;'' "our valley" from ''to ixtla;'' ...
, Chilpanzingo, and
Acapulco Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , also , nah, Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay and has bee ...
, among others. During 1790, the team explored large areas of the territories that comprised New Spain, crossing
Michoacán Michoacán, formally Michoacán de Ocampo (; Purépecha: ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Michoacán de Ocampo ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of ...
,
Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is d ...
, and Apatzingan. When they reached
Guadalajara Guadalajara ( , ) is a metropolis in western Mexico and the capital of the list of states of Mexico, state of Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population of 1,385,629 people, making it the 7th largest city by population in Me ...
, the group split in two, with Mociño, del Castillo, and Echeverría heading for Aguas Calientes, via
Álamos Álamos () is a town in Álamos Municipality in the Mexican state of Sonora, in northwestern Mexico. Historically an important center of silver mining, the town's economy is now dominated by the tourist sector. Designated a ''pueblo mágico ...
and Tarahumara, while Sessé traveled to the same destination via an alternative route crossing
Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sinaloa), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. It is d ...
. When they regrouped in Aguas Calientes in 1792, they were made aware of a royal provision ordering them to travel to
Nootka Island Nootka Island (french: île Nootka) is an island adjacent to Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It is in area. It is separated from Vancouver Island by Nootka Sound and its side-inlets, and is located within Electoral Area A of the ...
, which at the time was under litigation between Spain and Great Britain. All explorers set route for the northwest coast, except Juan del Castillo, who died of scurvy in 1793, shortly after having finished his book ''Plantas descritas en el viaje de Acapulco''. After returning from Nootka, expedition members focused their efforts on the southern territories. They split into two teams, one led by Mociño that explored
Mixteca The Mixtecs (), or Mixtecos, are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerrero. The Mixtec Culture wa ...
and the
Tabasco Tabasco (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tabasco ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco), is one of the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa. It is located in ...
coast, and the other led by Sessé that headed for
Jalapa Xalapa or Jalapa (, ), officially Xalapa-Enríquez (), is the capital city of the Mexican state of Veracruz and the name of the surrounding municipality. In the 2005 census the city reported a population of 387,879 and the municipality of which ...
and Guaztuco. The two groups reunited in Córdoba, continued to
Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...
, and returned to Mexico City via
Tehuantepec Tehuantepec (, in full, Santo Domingo Tehuantepec) is a city and municipality in the southeast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is part of the Tehuantepec District in the west of the Istmo Region. The area was important in pre Hispanic period ...
and Tabasco. In March 1794, Sessé was granted permission to extend the expedition in order to further explore Central America, specially Guatemala, Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico. The expedition again split into two teams, with Sessé and Echeverría going to Cuba, while Mociño, de la Cerda, del Villar, and others went to Guatemala. Sessé was finally ordered to conclude their studies and return to Spain, but it took another two years to compile and classify all the material collected during the different explorations. The team ultimately brought back some 3500 species, including 200 new genera and more than 1000 species new to science. They also created several thousand drawings and watercolors, mostly of botanical subjects, and including in many cases duplicate sets. These appear to be largely the work of Echeverría (the best of the expedition artists) and de la Cerda, though most are unsigned. The members of the exploration team finally returned to Spain at different times during 1803.


Aftermath and legacy

Both Sessé and Mociño were honored for their work by being promoted to the Royal Academy of Medicine in Madrid in 1805. During the years following their return to Spain, Sessé and Mociño published a few medical works, such as Sessé's writings on the eradication of yellow fever, which was prevalent in southern Spain in 1804. Sessé underlined the importance of environmental and hygiene conditions that had been disregarded until then. Sessé died on October 4, 1808, after which Mocinõ—who had proven to be one of the most active of the expedition's botanists—tried to keep interest in the project alive. However, due to his Bonapartist sympathies he was forced to flee from Spain in 1812, taking refuge in Montpellier, France. He entrusted some of the manuscripts and drawings related to the expedition to the Swiss botanist
Augustin de Candolle Augustin Pyramus (or Pyrame) de Candolle (, , ; 4 February 17789 September 1841) was a Swiss botanist. René Louiche Desfontaines launched de Candolle's botanical career by recommending him at a herbarium. Within a couple of years de Candolle ...
, who had some 1200 of the illustrations copied by local artists in Geneva in early 1817 before giving the originals back to Mociño. In that same year, Mociño was finally able to return to Spain, but his health had deteriorated, and he died on May 19, 1820. Thereafter, the collection of expedition illustrations appears to have passed through many hands, beginning with Mociño's last doctor, before eventually winding up in the hands of a Catalan family from which
Carnegie-Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
was able to acquire the collection in 1981. During the intervening century and a half, the whereabouts of the original illustrations was uncertain, so many publications about the expedition's work had to rely on the Geneva copies. After Sessé and Mociño died, other botanists like Gómez Ortega, de Candolle, and Mariano Lagasca published new species based on their plants and drawings. But due largely to various political upheavals in Spain throughout the century, the bulk of the expedition's work was not published until the 1880s, nearly a century after the expedition set out. Some manuscripts from the expedition were published in Mexico in different editions between 1887 and 1894. The volume titled ''Plantae Novae Hispaniae'' focuses on plants of Mexico, while the misleadingly titled ''Flora Mexicana'' is a miscellany of species from all parts of the New World visited by the expedition. By the time any of these publications appeared, the expedition's work had been substantially superseded by the appearance, starting in 1815, of the monumental ''Nova Genera et Species'' by the German botanist
Carl Sigismund Kunth Carl Sigismund Kunth (18 June 1788 – 22 March 1850), also Karl Sigismund Kunth or anglicized as Charles Sigismund Kunth, was a German botanist. He is known for being one of the first to study and categorise plants from the Americas, American c ...
. Many of the collected plants and seeds, as well as engravings and some duplicate copies of drawings and watercolors, ended up in the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid, where today they share space with plants collected during other Spanish scientific expeditions. The set of copies made under de Candolle's oversight remains in Geneva. Tracings have been made from the Geneva set from time to time, and these have found their way into collections around the world. In 1981, the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie-Mellon University acquired many of the original botanical illustrations made during these expeditions from the nephews of a Catalan historian named Lorenzo Torner Casas. Now called the Torner Collection of Sessé and Mociño Biological Illustrations, it comprises some 2000 drawings by Echeverría, de la Cerda, and Oliver. Of these, 1800 are botanical subjects while the rest range across mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and insects.


See also

*
Botanical Expedition to the Viceroyalty of Peru The Botanical Expedition to the Viceroyalty of Peru ( es, Expedición Botánica al Virreinato del Perú) was a Spanish expedition to the colonial territories of the Viceroyalty of Peru and Chile between 1777 and 1788. It was commissioned by King ...
*
Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada The Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada ( es, Expedición Botánica al Virreinato de Nueva Granada) took place between 1783 and 1816 in the territories of New Granada, covering present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, Peru and northe ...
*
Malaspina Expedition The Malaspina Expedition (1789–1794) was a five-year maritime scientific exploration commanded by Alessandro Malaspina and José de Bustamante y Guerra. Although the expedition receives its name from Malaspina, he always insisted on giving Busta ...
*
Enlightenment in Spain The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment ( es, Ilustración) came to Spain in the 18th century with the new Bourbon dynasty, following the death of the last Habsburg monarch, Charles II, in 1700. The period of reform and ' enlightened despotism' u ...


Further reading

*Arias Divito, Juan Carlos. ''Las expediciones científicas españolas durante el signl XVIII. Expedición Botánica a Nueva España'', Madrid: Instituto de Cultura Hispánica 1968. *Bleichmar, Daniela. ''Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2012. *López, Rick A. "Nature as Subject and Citizen in the Mexican Botanical Garden, 1787-1829" in Christopher R. Boyer, ed. ''A Land Between Waters: Environmental Histories of Modern Mexico''. Tucson: University of Arizona Press 2012, pp. 73-99. *Lozoya, Xavier. ''Plantas y luces en México. La Real Expedición Científica a Nueva España (1787-1803)''. Barcelona: Ediciones del Serbal 1984. *Maldonado Polo, José. "La Expedición Botánica a Nueva España, 1786-1803: El Jardín Botánico y la Cátedra de Botánica," ''Historia Mexicana'' 50, no. 1 (July-Sept 2000), 5-56. *Sánchez,Belén, Miguel Angel Puig-Samper, and J. de la Sota (eds.) ''La Real Expedición Botánica a Nueva España 1707-1803. Madrid: V Centenario 1987. *San Pío Aladrén, María Pilar (ed.) ''El águila y el nopal. La expedición de Sessé y Moziño a Nueva España (1787-1803)''. Madrid: Lunweg Editores 2000.


References

{{Reflist , refs= {{cite book , title=Spanish scientists in the New World. The eighteenth-century expeditions , publisher=University of Washington Press , author=H. W. Engstrand, Iris , year=1981 , location=Seattle and London , pages=325 {{cite book , title=Plantas americanas para la España ilustrada , publisher=Editorial Complutense , author=González Bueno, Antonio. Rodríguez Nozal, Raúl , year=2000 , pages=7 , isbn=84-89784-95-7 {{cite web, last1=McVaugh, first1=Rogers, title=Persons, Collections and Topics: Torner, url=http://huntbotanical.org/art/show.php?10, website=Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, accessdate=8 October 2015 {{cite book , title=Los virreyes españoles en América , publisher=Mitre , author=Montero, José , year=1990 , pages=93 , isbn=84-7652-070-0


External links


Sessé and Mociño Herbarium
at the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid Botanical expeditions North American expeditions Expeditions from Spain New Spain 1780s in New Spain 1790s in New Spain 1800s in New Spain Taxa named by Mariano Lagasca