Cannabis Yarn in the Spanish and English Empires. Different Policies, but the Same Results?

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ywar20 War & Society ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ywar20 Cannabis Yarn in the Spanish and English Empires. Different Policies, but the Same Results? Manuel Díaz-Ordóñez & Antonio José Rodríguez-Hernández To cite this article: Manuel Díaz-Ordóñez & Antonio José Rodríguez-Hernández (2021) Cannabis Yarn in the Spanish and English Empires. Different Policies, but the Same Results?, War & Society, 40:1, 25-42, DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2021.1860317 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2021.1860317 Published online: 22 Dec 2020. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 340 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 2 View citing articles Cannabis Yarn in the Spanish and English Empires. Different Policies, but the Same Results? MANUEL DÍAZ-ORDÓÑEZ a AND ANTONIO JOSÉ RODRÍGUEZ-HERNÁNDEZ b a Econom ıa e Historia Econ omica, Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain; b Departamento de Historia Moderna, Universidad Nacional de Educaci on a Distancia, Madrid, Spain Since the 16th century, the maritime empires of Spain and England faced a major logistical problem to supply their merchant and military fleets with materials made of hemp. This difficulty increased as both empires were incorporating the new American territories into their possessions, because of the impact that this expansion had on the increase in the number of vessels needed to keep the parts of the empire connected. Since most of Europe’s hemp came from the Russian Empire, what to do when trade with the Baltic was interrupted by the war, and, in addition, in the American biota, hemp did not exist? This article uses a comparative methodology to focus on and analyse the measures implemented to achieve the objective of sufficiency of a strategic commodity such as hemp. KEYWORDS hemp, empires, globalisation, crops, strategic commodities We can think of no better simile than to compare hemp in the Early Modern Age with oil today, as both enjoy the status of strategic products for national economies and, more specifically, each has determined the planning of specific policies by governments for their production, their industrial transformation and distribution. The main reason hemp became a strategic raw material was its close ties with shipbuilding; this plant was used to manufacture the ropes and sails of the ships that took part in and made possible the great overseas expansion of many nations at that A first approach to this question: Manuel D ıaz-Ord o~ nez, ‘Radiograf ıa de un fracaso angloespa~ nol: el c a~ namo, un producto que deber ıa de haber llegado de Am erica durante los siglos XVI–XIX’,Obradoiro de Historia Moderna, 27 (2018), 263–89 http://dx.doi.org/10.15304/ohm.27.5138; Manuel D ıaz-Ord o~ nez, ‘Las nuevas periferias americanas en la circulaci on de c a~ namo y jarcia para la construcci on naval militar espa~ nola en el siglo XVIII’,Magall anica. Revista de Historia moderna, 11, 6 (2019), 181–202. #2020 School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW Canberra DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2021.1860317 WAR & SOCIETY, Vol. 40 No. 1, February 2021, 25–42 time. From 1500 onwards, control of the new American peripheries would result in some European countries becoming enormous maritime empires, dependent upon vast fleets of sailing ships laden with manufactured hemp in the form of sails, rigging, hammock, ropes, wicks and canvas. Therefore, thousands of tons of hemp were produced and distributed in an antagonistic race between empires that were advancing in their development as great powers. This generated new economic policies and measures to promote agriculture, technological and industrial innovation, and the development of new forms of trade on a global scale. The study of these factors soon provided a key idea that this complex competition could only take place with the collaboration of the state and individuals, and on an increasingly global scale. In essence, it seems interesting to insert this contribution into the fruitful discussion of current historiographical debates on the mobilisation of resources for war by the state, or the role of the contractor state as a consumer of arms and war materiel, 1 along the lines of the academic discussion on the formation of the modern state. This article mainly focuses upon the decisions that the European empires of Spain and England, as transnational institutions in their global operations, had to take when they discovered that there was no hemp in the Americas. This presented both empires with the challenge of exploring two main strategies: either they would have to organise a system of supply of hemp and its derivatives to supply their colonies, initiating a purchasing system in the Russian Empire which would be the great supplier of strategic naval materials during the age of sail. 2 In addition, this system of acquiring hemp derivatives would have to be safe, extensive and economical. Alternatively, they would have to move cultivation to the new peripheries, which would involve an environmental clash between the different habitats of Eurasia and America and, subsequently, create and develop specialised hemp manufacture in America. 3 1 The discussion of the contractor state has produced a rich historiography of texts that have addressed this concept from different approaches. A sample in Roger Knight and Martin Wilcox, Sustaining the fleet, 1793–1815: war, the British Navy and the contractor state, (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010); Rafael Torres-S anchez, Military entrepreneurs and the Spanish contractor state in the eighteenth century, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Richard Harding and Sergio Solbes-Ferri (eds.), The contractor state and its implications, 1659–1815, (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 2012). 2 J. K Fedorowicz, England’s Baltic Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century: A Study in Anglo-Polish Commercial Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980); Milton E. Miller, ‘Naval Stores and Anglo-Russian Encounters in the Baltic: The English Expedition of 1715’,inShips, Seafaring, and Society: Essays in Maritime History, ed. Timothy J. Runyan and Great Lakes Historical Society (Detroit: Published for the Great Lakes Historical Society by Wayne State University Press, 1987), 167–82; Chris Evans and G€ oran Ryd en, Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2007), http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004161535.i-360; Lennart Bes, Hanno Brand, and Edda Frankot, Baltic Connections Archival Guide to the Maritime Relations of the Countries around the Baltic Sea (Including the Netherlands) 1450–1800 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2007); James Davey, ‘Securing the Sinews of Sea Power: British Intervention in the Baltic 1780–1815’, International History Review 33, no. 2 (2011): 161–84. 3 A. W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 26 M.D IAZ-ORD O~ NEZ AND A.J.R.-HERN ANDEZ The first option would connect the hemp produced in the distant Russian fields with England and Spain, where it was transformed into different articles for ships and, from there, sent by sea to America or the Philippines. The second option would necessitate the transfer of Russian seeds and experienced peasant harvesters to American territory. Both would thus involve complex political, human and economic processes that were building global connections integrating regions which were very far apart. Ultimately, the empires of the modern age had to mobilise strategic resources on a global scale, which we consider to be another element of the complex multidimensional phenomenon represented by early globalisation. 4 With regard to this last process, we do not support the definition defended by authors such as Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson. 5 They established the origin in the integration of markets and the convergence of prices that took place in the middle of the 19th century in Europe. On the contrary, our concept of globalisation is much more comfortable with the term ‘early’in relation to this process, coinciding with Dennis O’Flynn and Arturo Gir aldez. 6 The term describes how, from the 16th century onwards, long-distance maritime connections increased, leading to the gradual connection, on an unprecedented planetary scale, of different cultures, economies, biologies, languages, religions and traditions. In other words, we are not interested so much in the impact of the volume of global economic implications, which were probably as marginal as Pieter Emmer has advocated, 7 as in the construction of a system of relations between previously disconnected spaces. We therefore regard the analysis of hemp as a tool to better understand the phenomenon of early globalisation. 8 This phenomenon was largely dominated by the European empires that became the main players in this global history of hemp, because they prompted its biological migration to the new peripheries. 9 The 4 Bernd Hausberger, Historia m ınima de la globalizaci on temprana (M exico: El Colegio de M exico, 2018), 11. 5 Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson, Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth- Century Atlantic Economy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999); Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson, ‘When Did Globalisation Begin?’,European Review of Economic History 6, no. 1 (2002): 23–50, https://doi.org/10.3386/w7632; Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson, ‘Once More: When Did Globalisation Begin?’,European Review of Economic History 8, no. 1 (2004): 109–17. 6 Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Gir aldez, ‘Path Dependence, Time Lags and the Birth of Globalization: A Critique of O’Rourke and Williamson’,European Review of Economic History, 8,1 (2004), 81–108; Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Gir aldez, ‘Born Again: Globalization’s Sixteenth Century Origins (Asian/ Global versus European Dynamics)’,Pacific Economic Review, 13, 3 (2008), 359–87; Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Gir aldez, China and the Birth of Globalization in the 16th Century (Surry: Ashgate Variorum, 2010); Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Gir aldez, ‘Los Or ıgenes de la Globalizaci on en el siglo XVI’,inOro y Plata en los Inicios de la Econom ıa Global: de las minas a la moneda, ed. Bernd Hausberger and Antonio Ibarra (M exico, D.F.: El Colegio de Mexico. 2014), 29–76. 7 Pieter Emmer, ‘The myth of early globalization: the Atlantic economy, 1500–1800’,European Review 11, no. 1 (2003): 37–47; Pieter Emmer, ‘The Myth of Early Globalisation: The Atlantic Economy, 1500–1800’,Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos., 2008, 1–10, https://doi.org/10.4000/nuevomundo.42173. 8 Jerry H. Bentley, ‘Globalizing History and Historicizing Globalization’,Globalizations, 1 (2004), 69–81; Jerry H. Bentley, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, The Cambridge World History, 6, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139194594. 9 D ıaz-Ord o~ nez ,‘Las nuevas periferias americanas’, 190–1. CANNABIS YARN IN THE SPANISH AND ENGLISH EMPIRES 27 transfer process involved global connections that affected the rest of the world, as Flynn and Gir aldez have argued. These measures, taken by the European empires, can only be understood in the context of the rivalry and conflict between them, on a secular battlefield for political and economic domination and hegemony at sea and on land, achieved by force of arms. Recent historiography has shown that imperial rivalry can be considered an important factor in early modern globalisation. 10 The methodology of comparative history appears to be the best way of tackling these complex processes that, on occasions, occurred at the same time, but almost always in different regions (Europe and Asia). Moreover, these differences and similarities can only be understood from the perspective of connected histories and the comparison of empires. 11 Thus, whenever possible, we shall approach the case of hemp cultivation in the Americas comparing the Spanish and British empires, analysing the political and economic measures implemented in order to supply this strategic product to their respective homelands and colonies. This work focuses on the strategies developed by imperial states to foster hemp production during the 16th and 17th centuries, first in Europe, and later in the American continent. It is based on recent international historiography, and first-hand Spanish and English archival sources. It further develops several topics we have addressed in our recent publications, namely, the different measures adopted by the Spanish monarchy to promote hemp cultivation in the Iberian Peninsula, its dependence on Baltic imports, and its attempts to promote production in its American possessions. Hemp between 1500 and 1800: a starting point At the start of the 19th century, the new nations that emerged on the American continent continued to be heavily dependent on European –mainly Russian –hemp. This situation, studied some time ago by Alfred W. Crosby for the case of the USA, reinforces the argument that England had succeeded in creating a market of exchange of colonial products obtained in North America, especially tobacco, for strategic products for shipbuilding. 12 This market development eventually led to a relationship of mutual dependence in which the Tsar obtained income from the sale of US tobacco in his empire, whilst the new republic fitted its ships to the extent that ‘America was, for most purposes, completely dependent on Russia for this rope fiber’. 13 10 Hausberger, 18; Manuel D ıaz-Ord o~ nez, ‘El “triunfo”de la administraci on directa en el abastecimiento estrat egico de jarcia y lona a la Real Armada espa~ nola en el arsenal de Cartagena en 1751’,Obradoiro de Historia Moderna, 26 (2017), 149–77. 11 Sanja Subrahmanyam, ‘A Tale of Three Empires: Mughals, Ottomans, and Habsburgs in a Comparative Context’,Common Knowledge, 12, 1 (2006), 66–92; J. H Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008); Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History Power and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). 12 A.W. Crosby, America, Russia, Hemp, and Napoleon: American Trade with Russia and the Baltic, 1783–1812 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1965), 6; Nadra O. Hashim, Hemp and the Global Economy: The Rise of Labor, Innovation, and Trade (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2017), 27–8. 13 Crosby, America, Russia, Hemp, and Napoleon, 17. 28 M.D IAZ-ORD O~ NEZ AND A.J.R.-HERN ANDEZ Since Crosby’s study, subsequent works have been more related to specific aspects of the hemp economy. The most recent book to deal with this question by Nadra O. Hashim analyses how hemp was integrated within the economic activities of large areas of the USA, provoking significant changes in labour relations. 14 An important part of this work is a reconstruction of the history of hemp in North America, which permits comparison with work on the development of the hemp economy in Spanish America. 15 This historiography offers a fairly clear picture, in which the empires of Spain and England seem to have depended, until the 19th century, on hemp imports from the Russian empire. 16 This option, however, did not convince the imperial thinkers and leaders of the age, deeply concerned by the excessive dependence on a single supply market for a strategic product. In fact, in this context, it comes as no surprise that many contemporary authors, traders, politicians and some civil servants and soldiers in both empires began to think of the potential benefits of using natural American resources. They thought that metropolitan agricultural production could be increased by cultivating strategic inputs or colonial products on the large American arable land areas, creating a new supply of productive land which Kenneth Pomeranz defined as ‘ghost acreages’. 17 The Europeans reach America and find no hemp Both the Spanish, early in the 16th century, and the English, from the last quarter of the century onwards, realised that, in the territories they were exploring in America, there was no hemp among the indigenous plants of the continent. The absence of this fibre from the American territories that came under Spanish control made it necessary to use alternative fibres that they found there, including vines, lianas, agave and damahagua, depending on their accessibility. 18 In North America, 14 Hashim, passim. 15 Ram on Mar ıa Serrera Contreras, Cultivo y manufactura de lino y c a~ namo en Nueva Espa~ na, 1777–1800 (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla, 1974); Jos e Patricio Merino Navarro, ‘Cultivos Industriales: El C a~ namo En Espa~ na (1750–1800)’,Hispania: Revista Espa~ nola de Historia, 35, 131 (1975), 567–84; Manuel D ıaz-Ord o~ nez, ‘La Burgues ıa Barcelonesa, El Asiento de Jarcia y El Comercio Con Am erica’, in John R. Fisher (ed), Actas Del XI Congreso Internacional de AHILA (Liverpool: Inst. de Estudios Latinoamericanos, 1998), 156–83; Manuel D ıaz-Ord o~ nez, ‘El C a~ namo y La Corona Espa~ nola En Ultramar: Am erica y Filipinas (Siglos XVI-XVIII)’,Revista de Historia Naval, 90 (2005), 45–60; M. D ıaz- Ord o~ nez, Amarrados al negocio: reformismo borb onico y suministro de Jarcia para la Armada Real (1675–1751) (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa, Secretar ıaGeneralT  ecnica, 2009); Manuel D ıaz-Ord o~ nez and Jos e Antonio Rodr ıguez-Hern andez, ‘Cannabis sativa y Chile (1577–1700): un insumo al servicio del imperio’,TEMPUS Revista en Historia General, 6 (2017), 1–21. 16 Hashim, 66. 17 Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 275. 18 Joaquin Garc ıa Icazbalceta, Colecci on de documentos para la historia de M exico, vol. 1 (M exico: Librer ıa de J. M. Andrade, 1858), 244; Antonio S anchez Valverde, Idea del valor de la isla espa~ nola de Santo Domingo, (Santo Domingo: Imprenta nacional, 1862), 50; Juan L opez de Velasco, Geograf ıay descripci on universal de las Indias: desde el a~ no 1571 al de 1574 (Madrid: Establecimiento Tipogr afico de Fortanet, 1894), 95; Alonzo de Zorita, Historia de la Nueva Espa~ na, vol. 1 (Madrid: Librer ıa General de Victoriano Su arez, 1909), 128. CANNABIS YARN IN THE SPANISH AND ENGLISH EMPIRES 29 the French and English reached the same negative conclusion regarding the presence of this plant in their travels, along the coast from Virginia to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. 19 Like the Spaniards before them, the English who settled in America also had to resort to local plant fibres that could partially substitute for European hemp. 20 The absence of hemp in the Americas confronted the authorities of both empires with the problem of how to supply their respective machines of continental dominance. The need was acute because the groups of Spanish and English explorers, soldiers, sailors, traders and even farmers participating in the penetration of the continent demanded vast quantities of ropes, harnesses, tackle for cattle, sacks, canvasses, wicks, rigging and sails. Soon, recourse to alternative American plants in order to cover these needs proved insufficient. Technical reports or mentions provided in contemporary bibliography reflect the technical inferiority of the fibres obtained from these plants, in comparison with the characteristics of hemp. 21 Realising that the American plants could not replace the European fibre on a permanent basis, the imperial governments began to deploy measures to transfer the cultivation of hemp to the new continent. To this end, the Spaniards began to send Russian and Spanish seeds from at least 1513 onwards in order to establish permanent harvests in America. 22 A fundamental strategy of the monarchy itself was to load the ships destined for the new territories with the materials required by the conquest. 23 Years later, around 1530, sources refer to the existence of some small hemp harvests in Mexico (Coyoac an and Mexcaltepec). 24 After 1545, the monarchy decided to expand the arable areas, taking advantage of the pacification of some zones in Chile. In 1545, the emperor ordered that hemp seeds be planted in those regions and that, if fibres were obtained, the local natives should be put to work to produce derivatives. Despite this royal command, the introduction seems to have failed. Although we are unsure as to the precise timing of the introduction 19 Jonas Howe, Early Attempts to Introduce the Cultivation of Hemp in Eastern British America (Saint John: New Brunswick Historical Society, 1892), 1; William Douglass, A Summary, Historical and Political, of the First Planting, Progressive Improvements, and Present State of the British Settlements in North-America (London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1740), 161. 20 Francis Higginson, New-England’s Plantation: Or, a Short and True Description of the Commodities and Discommodities of That Country (London: T. C. and R. C. for Michael Sparks, 1630), 7; J. Leander Bishop, A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860, vol. I, (Philadelphia: E. Young & Co., 1861), 16 and 27; Richard Hakluyt, A Discourse Concerning Western Planting, written 1584, (Cambridge: Press of J. Wilson, 1877), 155. 21 Archivo General de Indias (henceforth AGI), Indiferente, 100. Andr es G omez to Jos edeG  alvez; Madrid, 6 May 1778. J. Juan and A. de Ulloa, Noticias secretas de Am erica. (London: Printed by R. Taylor, 1826), 62; Lee J Alston, Shannon. Mattiace, and Tomas Nonnenmacher, ‘Coercion, Culture, and Contracts: Labor and Debt on Henequen Haciendas in Yucat an, Mexico, 1870–1915’,The Journal of Economic History, 69, 1 (2009), 104–5. 22 AGI, Contrataci on 4675A, L. 2, Libro de cargo y data, F. 258 23 AGI, M exico, 1068, L. 2, Real C edula; Medina del Campo, 20 March 1532. 24 Andr es Cavo, Los tres siglos de M ejico durante el gobierno espa~ nol, hasta la entrada del ej ercito trigarante. (M exico: Imprenta de J. R. Navarro, 1852), 34; Laura Maria Iglesias G omez, La Transferencia de Tecnolog ıa Agron omica de Espa~ na a Am erica de 1492 a 1598 (Madrid: Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio. Oficina Espa~ nola de Patentes y Marcas, 2008), 268, 300. 30 M.D IAZ-ORD O~ NEZ AND A.J.R.-HERN ANDEZ of hemp, it appears that the transfer of this crop to Chilean soil only took place during the last quarter of the 17th century. 25 From the early 17th century onwards, the English, who were settling on the North American Atlantic coast, also required considerable quantities of hemp, to the extent that the Crown had to accept that the migration of hemp was the only solution. As had occurred in the Spanish case, the physical transfer of hemp to the new world thus became a goal of early expeditions. 26 The first crops were obtained in 1606 in Acadia, Canada, 27 where the explorers thought that the climate and environment were very similar to those of the Baltic. 28 Sources suggest, however, that these first crops did not really flourish, with similarly poor results to those obtained in subsequent harvests in fields near Jamestown. 29 As an initial explanation for this, some authors comment that the pre-existence of tobacco in the agricultural rotations of Virginia as a high-yield product acted as an obstacle to the developmentofhemp. 30 According to this argument, the colonial farmers preferred to devote their resources to the cultivation of tobacco because they knew that it was much more in demand as an export to Europe. Paradoxically, tobacco was also one of the main barter items with which the English acquired Russian hemp in the Baltic ports. 31 Cannabis in the Americas in the 17th century By the mid-17th century, the Spanish managed to stabilise hemp harvests in Chile, having abandoned those previously attempted in Mexico on account of their poor yields. These lands produced about 100 tons a year, manufactured by the natives working there, providing various products such as rope, harnesses, rigging and wicks. 32 These products were subsequently exported to Peru where there was 25 Luis Correa Vergara, Agricultura chilena., vol. 2 (Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Nascimento, 1938), 310. 26 Bishop, I, 310; Paolo Ronchetti, ‘The Barriers to the Mainstreaming of Lime-Hemp: A Systemic Approach’, M.Sc. thesis, (Dublin: Dublin Institute of Technology, School of Spatial Planning, 2007), 16. 27 Ernest Small and David Marcus, ‘Hemp: A New Crop with New Uses for North America’,inTrends in New Crops and New Uses, ed. Jules Janick and Anna Whipkey (Alexandria: ASHS Press, 2002), 284–326. 28 Ronchetti, 15. 29 Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States; a Narrative of the Movement in England, 1605–1616, Which Resulted in the Plantation of North America by Englishmen, Disclosing the Contest between England and Spain for the Possession of the Soil Now Occupied by the United States of America (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1890), 492; Lewis Cecil Gray and Esther Katherine Thompson, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1933), 25; Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery (Westport: Praeger, 1997), 319. 30 Anonymous, American Husbandry. Containing an Account of the Soil, Climate, Production and Agriculture, of the British Colonies in North-America and the West-Indies; …By an American. In Two Volumes, vol. 1 (London: J. Bew, 1775), 143, 151, 162; A History of American Manufactures,I,27–8. 31 Crosby, America, Russia, Hemp, and Napoleon, 6. 32 Manuel D ıaz-Ord o~ nez, ‘European Imperialism, War, Strategic Commodities, and Ecological Limits. The Diffusion of Hemp in South America and its Ghost Fibers’,inAmerican Globalization. On the introduction of Old World’s goods in the Americas (c. 1492–1898), ed. By Bartolom e Yun Casalilla, Ilaria Berti and Pedro Omar Sriz Wucherer (In press, Routledge). CANNABIS YARN IN THE SPANISH AND ENGLISH EMPIRES 31 considerable demand resulting from the urban growth of the viceregal cities of Cuzco and Ciudad de los Reyes (Lima). There was also demand from the increase in mining activities in Potos ıand Huancavelica, and shipbuilding in the Pacific yards of Guayaquil and El Callao. 33 Indeed, shipbuilding and maintenance also explained the English interest in increasing hemp harvests in their American colonies. 34 This required the articulation of a stable dynamic of integration between the production of valuable raw materials like hemp and the increased construction of ships destined for trading and fishing in North America from the 1650s onwards. For both countries, the strategic need for large quantities of hemp was at the centre of the ideological debate of certain theoretical representatives of commercial policy. In England, Thomas Mun voiced strong criticism in 1669 of the constant drain on precious metals employed by the English to purchase strategic products in Russia. 35 In parallel, he presented a mercantilist theoretical framework in the debate on the exploitation of American natural resources in the country’s intellectual and political circles. In fact, the ideas of Mun and other authors of a similar mind established the principle of introducing new forms of agricultural development, which should transcend the traditional royal orders to nurture and care for these kinds of crops. Among these new ways of understanding hemp production, in England the subsidising of harvests was being introduced as a new and original formula. The first subsidies for hemp harvests were established in Maryland in 1671, 1682, 1688 and 1695, and, generally speaking, were offered by the boards and other governing bodies of the privileged companies that had interests in the area. This explains why American settlers, like Thomas Budd, argued that crops would be increased provided that the English population of the colonies appreciated their importance. To this end, he proposed raising public awareness based on an ambitious programme of hemp cultivation with other subjects taught in schools in English North America. 36 This British mercantilism was not very different from that which, in the same period, was expressed by Francisco Mart ınez de Mata, who requested that the monarchy introduce an appropriate system of colonial exploitation to halt the drain on precious metals that was bankrupting the nation. 37 33 Juan and de Ulloa, 62; A. de Ram on, ‘La Encomienda de Juan de Cuevas a La Luz de Nuevos Documentos 1574–1583’,Bolet ın de La Academia Chilena de La Historia, 62 (1960), 90; Agricultura chilena, 2, 310; ‘Cannabis sativa y Chile (1577–1700)’,8. 34 Bishop, I, 49; A. S. Dewing, A History of the National Cordage Company with a Supplement Containing Copies of Important Documents (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913), 5. 35 Thomas Mun, La riqueza de Inglaterra por el comercio exterior: Discurso acerca del comercio de Inglaterra con las Indias Occidentales (M exico: Fondo de Cultura Econ omica, 1954), 59. 36 Thomas Budd, Good Order Established in Pennsilvania and New-Jersey in America: Being a True Account of the Country; with Its Produce and Commodities There Made. And the Great Improvements That May Be Made by Means of Publick Store-Houses for Hemp, Flax and Linnen-Cloth; Also, the Advantages of a Publick School, the Profits of a Publick-Bank, and the Probability of Its Arising, If Those Directions Here Laid down Are Followed. With the Advantages of Publick Granaries. (S.l: William Bradford, 1685), 13. 37 Francisco Mart ınez de Mata, Los ocho discursos de Francisco Mart ınez de Mata, con uno de nuevo sobre el comercio nacional, en que se presentan las observaciones, que parecen adaptables al estado presente (Madrid: Antonio de Sancha, 1777), 97. 32 M.D IAZ-ORD O~ NEZ AND A.J.R.-HERN ANDEZ recruited from the indigenous population. R.M. Serrera, 67 who made a detailed study of this project, concluded that it failed completely for human, technical, administrative and economic reasons. 68 During these final years of the 18th and early years of the 19th century, the Spanish and English explored new American territories, obliged to do so by the political and military situation in Europe and the Americas. The Spanish Empire, in disintegration at the turn of the century, accelerated the agricultural development measures beyond the 32nd parallel north, starting to experiment with hemp plantations in California, around Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego from 1792 onwards. 69 Finally, in addition to the hemp produced in Chile, the Spaniards succeeded in cultivating it in a profitable quantity and quality in this part of the new world. This success was very late, however, and Spain began to relinquish its American territories in the first decade of the 1800s. The new century thus presented a Spanish American geography with stable production in Chile, some harvests in Mexico, 70 and the relatively prosperous plantations of California. 71 In Chile, production in Quillota had risen to around 138 tons per year by the end of the 18th century, 72 while in California it reached approximately 100 tons per year in 1810. Napoleon’s military campaigns in Europe created renewed uncertainty for the British in the trade between the Baltic and the North Atlantic, especially after 1812 with the start of the French invasion of the Russian Empire. Authors such as Margrit S. Beerb€ uhl have examined the real impact of the obstruction of Baltic trade with England during the Napoleonic campaigns, highlighting the importance of clandestine trade, the use of flags of convenience and smuggling as alternatives to legal trade. 73 It is no less true that the limits of these temporary and emergency measures became clear in the Embargo Act of 1807 but, especially, in the Embargo Act of 1812, because these laws prevented US seafarers from continuing to act as middlemen for Britain in the Baltic cannabis trade. These problems forced the British Parliament to resume hemp cultivation in the territories still under control in the New World. Canada became the focus of the policies of experimentation and cultivation although Nova Scotia had been an area of interest for the British Empire since the early 18th century. 74 Since 1752, the Governor of Halifax had subsidised hemp farming in the area and, from 1780 onwards, the colonial authorities were increasingly interested in taking hemp to Quebec and Montreal, offering the purchase of all the hemp produced by the English government at pre-established prices. Following a criterion of efficiency, the British authorities stipulated that the 67 Serrera Contreras, 267–84. 68 D ıaz-Ord o~ nez, ‘Radiograf ıa de un fracaso angloespa~ nol’, 281. 69 S.A. Mosk, ‘Subsidized Hemp Production in Spanish California’,Agricultural History 13, 4 (1939), 175. 70 J. M. de Aurrecoechea, Memoria geogr afico-econ omico-pol ıtica del Departamento de Venezuela (C adiz: Imp. H ercules, 1814), 35–36. 71 Mosk, 175. 72 D. Barros Arana, Historia general de Chile, vol. 8 (Santiago de Chile: Jover, 1890), 374. 73 Margrit Schulte Beerb€ uhl, ‘Trading with the Enemy: Clandestine Networks during the Napoleonic Wars’,Quaderni Storici 48, no. 143 (2) (2013): 541–65, www.jstor.org/stable/43780113. 74 Howe, 1. CANNABIS YARN IN THE SPANISH AND ENGLISH EMPIRES 39 experiments should be conducted by the Montreal Agricultural Society, which was sent some shipments of hemp seed from the Baltic. A year later, on 26 July 1791, John McKindlay, secretary of the Agricultural Society, reported that he had received a large amount of hemp seed sent by the governor to begin cultivation of the plant. The hemp seeds would be distributed at no cost to all the peasants in the zone for them to begin cultivation. 75 The following years produced quite poor results in these experiments in Canada. In 1806, Charles Taylor, secretary of the London Society for the Encouragement of Arts, reasoned that the cultivation of the fibre was not flourishing because they had not respected the minimum distance between plants. His impressions reveal that science was slowly beginning to enter agriculture. What were previously only experiences and impressions acquired over time became, during this age, scientific analysis and criticism. 76 Conclusions From 1500 to 1800, the Spanish and English empires faced a complex problem arising from their strategic dependence upon the supply of hemp, a resource in huge demand in order to produce the sails and rigging that permitted European overseas expansion. Much as occurs today with oil, in the Early Modern Age there were centres of production that monopolised hemp harvesting. Among others, the Russian empire stands out. The harvests in the Ukraine, Belarus or Russia itself were sold in the principal Baltic ports to English and Dutch traders who distributed it throughout Western Europe. When the Spanish arrived in the American continent, the dimension of the problem of strategic dependence on hemp became a global problem. On the one hand, the task of exploring and controlling the new American territories created demand for thousands of tons of hemp. On the other hand, the conquistadors noticed that this plant was not to be found in the continent that they were beginning to discover. This was a global problem that would also face England at the beginning of the 17th century, when English colonists began to settle in North America The difficulty resulting from the absence of hemp in the new world, however, became a possible solution to the dependence on Russian hemp, when the Spanish and English authorities began to consider the possibilities of globalising cultivation of the fibre. Planting and harvesting in America appeared to be the best option because they had to meet the demands of the colonies, and at the same time satisfy the global needs of the empire. At the end of the Early Modern Age, the Spanish Empire had achieved stable harvests in Chile, starting from the late 16th century, and in Mexico and California, in the last quarter of the 18th century. To this end, an agro-industrial project was established in Chile, assigning land and labour for the cultivation of hemp and its transformation into articles that were then sold in a dynamic regional market in the 75 Biblioth eque et Archives nationales du Qu ebec, Microfilm, CIHM_54860. 76 Charles Taylor, Remarks on the Culture and Preparation of Hemp in Canada: Communicated at the Desire of the Lords of His Majesty’s Privy Council for Trade and Plantations (Quebec: Printed by John Neilson, 1806), 4. 40 M.D IAZ-ORD O~ NEZ AND A.J.R.-HERN ANDEZ neighbouring Viceroyalty of Peru. In the case of Mexico and California, development came via the transfer of Spanish peasants, experts in hemp farming, to Nueva Espa~ na, Louisiana and Venezuela. Export tariffs on the fibre and its by-products were eliminated to encourage the Spanish peasants in Mexico to dedicate their lands to this crop. The result, however, was that Spanish America could not supply the Peninsula at any time. England succeeded in extending hemp cultivation to Virginia, Massachusetts and New York and, in these last two regions, was able to integrate them with the establishment of rigging and sail industries, which were in great demand in colonial English shipbuilding. The main problem in this case was competition with tobacco, a highly profitable product for export to England which hindered the growth of American cultivation. The high operating costs of shipping American harvests to England were addressed via the concession of subsidies for harvesting, which began in 1704 and were maintained, with interruptions, throughout the century. US independence obliged England to concentrate on cultivation in Canada, again with limited success. Neither England nor Spain managed to free themselves of their need for Russian hemp during the early modern age. Their navies and merchant fleets continued to be supplied mainly with hemp produced in the Russian Empire. This global experience though was not without its positive side. The American territories, under Spanish or English control, were supplied with some difficulty with these highly strategic products and, consequently, their respective homelands could devote their efforts to better satisfying their own European needs. There remains, then, a new question in the light of the development of this complex process of globalised hemp production: were competition in the form of tobacco, the high costs of exporting to Europe and the technical limitations of the European peasants reasons enough to explain the mediocre results of hemp farming in the Americas between 1500 and 1800? It seems prudent to explore new possibilities involving multidisciplinary approaches and scientific knowledge to reach a more accurate conclusion. Notes on contributors After obtaining his Ph.D. in Early Modern History at the University of Barcelona, Manuel D ıaz-Ord o~ nez joined the University of Seville as a lecturer in Economic History, and he is Director of the Masters Degree in History and Digital Humanities of the Pablo de Olavide University. His research focuses on the study of the naval rigging of the Spanish Real Armada in the 18th century; he is currently interested in hemp expansion from Europe to the Americas and methodologically learning global and comparative history. In addition, he is presently Research Fellow in Global Encounters between China and Europe (1680–1840) GECEM Project –679371. Horizon 2020, ERC - Starting Grant. After obtaining his Ph.D. in Early Modern History at the University of Valladolid, Antonio Jos e Rodr ıguez-Hern andez obtained a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Almer ıa. Currently, he is a lecturer in Early Modern History at the Universidad Nacional de Educaci on a Distancia CANNABIS YARN IN THE SPANISH AND ENGLISH EMPIRES 41 (UNED). His research focuses on the study of the Spanish army in the 17th century, paying special attention to the analysis of the figure of the soldier in the social context. He is a specialist in the field of military history, and one of his works won the Research Award in Humanities and Social Sciences in 2006. He has also published more than 50 papers, mostly focused on topics like the recruitment of soldiers, the development of war in the Early Modern Age and the relationship between soldiers and civilians. Funding This work was supported by Ministerio de Econom ıa y Competitividad – Gobierno de Espa~ na under Grant HAR2014-53797-P Globalizaci on ib erica: redes entre Asia y Europa y los cambios en las pautas de consumo en Latinoam erica and Ministerio de Econom ıa y Competitividad –Gobierno de Espa~ na; under Grant HAR2016-80673-P Guerra, ej ercito y poder en la lucha por la conservaci on de la monarqu ıa de Carlos II. ORCID Manuel D ıaz-Ord o~ nez http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3492-6210 Antonio Jos e Rodr ıguez-Hern andez http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0389-4647 Correspondence to: Manuel D ıaz-Ord o~ nez. Email: [email protected] 42 M.D IAZ-ORD O~ NEZ AND A.J.R.-HERN ANDEZ