UNIT 8 COLONIALISM AND ENVIRONMENT –

GREEN IMPERIALISM
Structure
8.0 Objectives
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Ecological Imperialism: Understanding the Concept
8.3 European Colonialism and Early Modern World
8.4 Emergence of Botany as an Imperial Science
8.5 South Asian Context
8.6 Contemporary History of Ecological Imperialism
8.7 Summary
8.8 Key Words
8.9 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercise
8.10 Suggested Readings

8.0 OBJECTIVES
This Unit should make you able to critically understand:
• Social and ecological impacts of European and American imperial
expansion;
• Complex relationship between modern botany and imperial expansion for
massive appropriation of natural resources;
• Global geographical perspective as basic canvas to write histories of
human-nature interactions; and
• Historical perspective to policy decisions on contemporary strategies of
natural resource management and sustainable development.

8.1 INTRODUCTION
This Unit will elaborate on relationship between ecological transformations and
imperial power in past 500 years of global history. Imperialism in modern
context can be defined as political and military domination imposed by advanced
capitalist countries over backward countries for economic and political
advantages. For a historian of modern societies, the term ‘imperialism’ refers to
deep impact of unequal relationship on cultures and ecologies of colonies.
Central focus of European colonizers in Asia, Africa, Australia and Latin
America was to extract natural resources to feed European cities. Consequently,
European domination radically transformed biosphere and livelihood patterns of
colonized societies. European planters, miners and entrepreneurs invested their 9
 capital in colonies to generate maximum profit. They transformed fertile soil,
dense forests, mineral, animals and plants as commodities to be sold in European
markets. Large-scale transformation of natural environment had tremendous
social impacts:
1) impoverishment of indigenous peasantry,
2) remarkable increase in number of landless poor,
3) long-distance migration of workers to find new livelihood, and
4) transoceanic slave trade.

The term ‘ecological imperialism’ or ‘green imperialism’ provides critical

perspective on how human-made environmental transformations reproduce social
differences including class, gender, caste, ethnicity and nationality. German
scientist Ernst Haeckel first used the term ‘ecology’ (oecologie) in 1866 to refer
to “science of relations of living organisms to external world, their habitat,
customs, energies, parasites etc.”. The subject ‘ecology’ helps us to understand
complex relationship between living beings and their surrounding environment.
From 1970s environmental historians began to consider climate, topography,
animals, insects, soil and vegetation as crucial factors in shaping society and
economy. This was a major departure from excessive focus on political events as
key factors in shaping history.
Understanding complex history of ecological imperialism is crucial when the
world is entering a phase of intensified contests over natural resources – water
bodies, forests, hills, mineral resources and fertile soil. In contemporary context
capitalist countries dominate natural resources of the world exclusively for their
benefits. Unequal distribution of natural wealth reproduces social inequalities
based on class, nationality, ethnicity and gender. Thus, providing a historical
perspective on ecological imperialism is important to develop a critical
perspective on contemporary society, especially when we face climate change as
a major issue.

8.2 ECOLOGICAL IMPERIALISM:

UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT
The term ‘ecological imperialism’ help historians to explain social and economic
impact of converting natural riches of colonies as commodities and raw material
for metropolitan industries. American environmental historian Alfred Crosby
introduced the term ‘ecological imperialism’ to refer to successful European
colonization of temperate regions such as North America, South America, New
Zealand and Australia. According to Crosby, success of European colonial
expansion which started around 1500 CE has a strong ecological aspect. He
observed, “European emigrants and their descendants are all over the place which
requires explanations.” (Crosby: 1986, p. 2). White European settlers carried
plants and animals to temperate zones thousands of miles away from Europe to
10
make new regions suitable for European farmers and settle down. Crosby
developed the term ‘Columbian exchange’ to describe large-scale transfer of
flora and fauna from Europe to New World (Crosby: 1972). The term referred to
ecological impact of geographical expeditions conducted by Christopher
Columbus and other early modern European mariners and naturalists in reshaping
biosphere of the world for benefit of rich European countries. He argued that
European invaders could successfully develop their colonies in temperate world
by implanting European plants, animals, pathogens and weeds. Crosby
considered large-scale transformation of ecology and society of New World to
develop colonies for White Europeans to reproduce their European homeland –
Neo-Europe.
Crosby observed that the impact of European colonial expansion was noticeably
different in ecological experiences in Old World and New World (Crosby: 1986).
He argued that impact of European colonialism in New World regions like
Canada, Australia and New Zealand was primarily ecological by making
significant changes in the complex of diseases, plants and animals and resultant
destruction of indigenous socio-ecological life. On the other hand, Europeans
failed to make Neo-Europe in Asia and Africa because of high population density
and power of centralized states. However, Europeans could successfully develop
political dominance to exploit indigenous knowledge and commercialize rich
landscapes.
At the same time, historians have critiqued Crosby’s approach of considering
ecological imperialism as a watershed in history of environment. For instance,
Richard Grove, the environmental historian of early modern world, pointed out,
“the hypothesis of a purely destructive environmental imperialism constituting a
complete break with pre-colonial past does not stand up well at all.” (Grove:
1993, p. 320). Grove developed the term ‘Green Imperialism’ to refer to Asian
and African context of European colonial expansion. Instead of considering
ecological imperialism as one-sided process of imposing European plants,
animals and knowledge Grove considered imperialism as two-way process of
interactions and exchange. By analyzing early colonial development of imperial
botanical garden and growth of Botany as a modern scientific discipline Grove
argued that indigenous knowledge influenced European idea of nature (Grove:
1995). For instance, Grove observed that Alexander von Humboldt, the famous
18th century European botanist and explorer, studies Indian indigenous botanical
knowledge.
Environmental historians of South Asia have published several important studies
in past four decades to explain the concept of green imperialism. They examined
how colonialism devastated forest economies, pastoral economies, irrigation
techniques, patterns of shifting cultivation, hydraulic environments and fisheries
of colonized regions. It is important to notice that ecological transformation of
colonies was in tandem with industrialization of production in metropolitan
regions. Large-scale monocropping of cash crops, capitalist extraction of mineral
resources and massive development of railway infrastructure in colonies enabled
European capitalists to supply raw materials, food and energy sources to 11
metropolitan industries. Colonial entrepreneurs and planters modified colonial
 landscapes as sugar, indigo, cotton, rubber and tea plantations and mines.
Colonial project of commercializing natural resources led to massive extinction
of endemic species of plants and animals. Large-scale monocropping of
marketable crops like cotton, tea, sugar and hemp led to extinction of plants and
animals and heavy loss of biosphere. Traditional livelihood resources of farmers,
pastoralists and fishers based on a thousand varieties of plants and animals and
lost their livelihood resources. The dispossessed people were either enslaved or
had to work in precarious environment of plantations. Transformation in
ecosystem also led to spread of epidemics such as cholera and malaria.
Environmental historians use the term ‘ecological imperialism’ to evaluate
totality of social and ecological experiences of European domination.

8.3 EUROPEAN COLONIALSIM AND EARLY

MODERN WORLD
European colonial expansion to Asia, Australia and America initiated by great
European sailors in 15th century was a turning point in history of capitalism and
modern imperialism. In 1487 Bartolomeu Dias ventured a long sail to southern
tip of Africa, opening possibilities to enter Indian Ocean. Christopher Columbus
travelled west and touched West Indies in 1492. Vasco da Gama started his
voyage from Lisbon to Asia and reached ancient port town of Calicut in Kerala in
1498. Magellan reached Philippines in search of spices. These visits produced
enormous body of knowledge about sea routes, winds and opportunities to
accumulate wealth.
European visitors to New Zealand or New England and Austria in 15th and 16th
centuries found natural goods that were scarce in Europe. After initial phase of
confining to coastal belt, ships from Europe started transporting farmers to New
World to expand cultivation of wheat and other food crops. For them natural
riches of New World they discovered were marketable commodities. White
settlers considered indigenous people as potential cheap labourers. European
intelligentsia supported white settlers’ view by considering indigenous people as
people without history. By middle of 16th century mercantile companies
supported by Portuguese, Dutch and British governments established their
trading posts along coasts of Indian Ocean, Atlantic and Pacific.
Illustration of Arrival of Vasco Da Gama at Calicut in 1498. National Library of
Portugal. Source: Wikimedia Commons
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_chegada_de_Vasco_da_Gama_a_C
alicute_em_1498.jpg).

Consequently, European expansion to these continents in early modern period

(1500s to 1800s) was largest imperial expansion in human history. Massive
emigration of European settlers with their plants and animals to colonies has been
most radical moment in human-made transformation in biosphere since Neolithic
agricultural revolution. European expansion began to redraw map of the world
12
considerably by annexing subcontinents and islands located thousands of miles
away as colonies. Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and other European farmers and
low-ranked nobles sailed to new world with hope to become richer by investing
in agriculture, mining and trade.
Before expansion of European colonies societies never engaged in domestication
of any specific species of plants or animals in concentrated numbers. European
settler-farmers started practicing monocropping of commercially valuable food
crops. They preferred to grow plants with market value. Commercialization of
agriculture made other plants and animals unnecessary and removable. For
instance, white settlers found rabbits and fast-growing indigenous vegetation as
obstacle for their cultivation. They started eliminating these obstacles such as
weeds and rabbits. They considered plants that were not commercially valuable
as ‘weeds’ and engaged in eliminating them. Moreover, “[t]he European
colonists were livestock people, as their ancestors had been for millennia.”
(Crosby: 1986, p. 172). Therefore, colonists found “wilderness” as opposite to
civilization.
European settlers carried their domesticated animals to colonies. Thus, they
introduced new world to horses, cattle, pigs, goats, sheep, asses, chicken, cats.
Columbus carried cattle from Canaries to Espanola in 1493 since settlers
depended largely on cattle for milk, meat, fiber and leather. They carried pig to
colonies because of its remarkable ability to convert large amount of food into
proteins and carbohydrate for human consumption. As a result, colonies like
Australia became chief centres to export meat producers in the world. At the
same time plants and animals carried by colonists were carriers of a number of
microscopic organisms to New World. This introduced colonies to issues of pox,
measles, green-sickness and malaria. Major change in ecosystem and extinction
of indigenous species made local societies prone to these epidemic diseases.
Crosby provided example of rapid spread of honeybee from Iberia to other
colonies and its major role in changing ecosystem survived by other insects.
Transformation of physical environment had major impact in shaping people’s
relationship to nature. Colonists perceived the land they ‘discovered’ merely as
commodities. They cleared impenetrable forests to export timber and cultivate
food crops. Massive process of deforestation for commercial cultivation of crops
like sugar increased the problem of topsoil erosion, flood and famine as well as
gradual reduction in rainfall. However, for centuries European ships regularly
carried wheat, sugar and timber in large quantities from colonies to England,
France, Italy and other mainland European cities.
Expansion of cultivation by white settlers transformed population of New World.
Slave traders exported indigenous people from Africa as slaves to colonial sugar
and cotton plantations. For instance, population of Madeira – an archipelago
comprising four islands off northwest coast of Africa – increased from 800
people in 1455 to 20,000 or more at end of the century (Crosby: 1986, p. 77).
European plantation elites employed uprooted African people in highly hostile
environments of plantations to convert food crop fields and forests into sugar
plantations. Annual sugar output in Madeira increased from 80 tons to over 1,000 13
tons between 1456 and 1494 (Moore: 2000, p. 416). Madeiran population started
 depending on imported food crops for their daily survival. Crosby has elaborated
the process of ecological imperialism in Madeiran context:
As soon as Europeans conquered a given island in the Canaries, they set about
transforming it in accordance with their plans to become wealthy. They sold off
the orchil to the European market, and as much grain, vegetables, timber, skins,
and tallow and as many Guanches as could find buyers. They “Europeanized”
their island, importing species of Old World plants and animals that were already
doing well in Mediterranean lands. Several of the more important of these species
– dogs, goats, pigs, and probably sheep, barely, peas, and probably wheat – were
already present. The Europeans added cattle, asses, camel, rabbits, pigeons,
chickens, partridges, and ducks, as well as grapevines, melons, pears, apples, and,
most important of all, sugar (Crosby: 1986, pp. 94-95).
History of plant and animal transfer is a complex historical process. Crosby
argued that European white settlers could establish their farms in Australia, New
Zealand, South Africa and Argentina because of careful process of species
transfer. They made these regions into Neo-Europes by replacing indigenous
plants and animals with commercially preferred varieties. He examined global
scale migration of cultigens like maize, potato, bean and manioc. List of flora and
fauna circulated globally included:
1) rice,
2) wheat,
3) oat,
4) barely,
5) cattle,
6) sheep,
7) chicken, and
8) horse.

By tracing global circulation of plants and animals Crosby argued that European
settlers’ interventions in biospheres of New World transformed social and
economic relationships of colonies. White settlers developed a new world where
indigenous population had no rights of a citizen-farmer. New flora and fauna
implanted by European colonizers replaced thousands of local species. For
instance, colonial planters eliminated wild hogs and elephants since they
destroyed cultivated plants. Moreover, white settlers considered hunting as
favourite leisure time activity. Planters also engaged in massive deforestation for
firewood requirements. Massive deforestation eventually led to large-scale
erosion of fertile topsoil. Rich topsoil from hill slopes and plains silted rivers and
lakes and, thus, affected underwater ecosystem. This connected and
geographically extended process of ecological transformation had major impact
14 on the economy based on local ecological specificities.
Map showing early 18th century (c. 1719) European idea of the world. Explorers
and mercantile companies perceived Indian Ocean and Pacific regions as rich
landscapes to accumulate raw material and markets to expand mercantile
activities. Source: Wikimedia Commons
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moll_-
_A_new_and_correct_map_of_the_whole_World.png).

From 18th century industrialized countries of western Europe began to colonize

geographically distant regions for massive production of raw material, sources of
energy and food crops. This was a response to industrial revolution that began in
England. Technology-based factory production required uninterrupted supply of
woods, coal and raw materials. Colonies were potential sources to extract forests,
develop mines and large agrobusiness to produce raw material. European
plantation and entrepreneurial elites gained subsidies and land-grants from local
rulers to tap natural resources and transformed them as commodities for mass
consumption. European planters began to establish large plantations to produce
sugar, cotton, hump, teak, rubber and coffee in Indian Ocean and Atlantic
regions. Consequently, European plantation capital transformed face of the world
by reshaping mountains, valleys, rivers, coasts and ocean as resource bases.
Capitalist societies perceived colonized regions as spaces to produce
commodities cheaper for metropolitan industries. Plantation agriculture or large-
scale monocropping of commercial crops massively shifted natural resources of
colonies as commodities and wealth of capitalist countries. For instance, Sidney
W. Mintz in his well-known work on sugar plantations has elaborated how
European and American planters made sugar a global commodity by enslaving
indigenous population and colonizing natural resources (Mintz: 1985).
In last 600 years around 60 million Europeans have migrated around the world to
engage in trade or settle down majorly as farmers, agricultural or industrial
workers and miners. Population in Australia and New Zealand is dominated by
descendants of European emigrants. In 19th and 20th centuries over 50 million
Europeans migrated to colonies that were far from their homeland in search of
cultivable land and to engage in trade activities. Consequently, it is possible to
argue that there is no region in the world directly or indirectly unaffected by
European imperial expansion. Corey Ross, a well-known environmental
historian, observed, “[a]t the heart of European imperialism was an attempt to
transform forests, savannahs, rivers, coastal plains and deserts into productive
and legible spaces, all of which brought hefty environmental consequences:
deforestation, erosion, siltation, pollution, disease and habitat destruction.” (Ross:
2017, p. 3).
It is also important to notice that environmental historians have problematized
Crosby’s ecological imperialism theory and point out that migration of biota was
not one-sided process. For instance, William Beinart and Karen Middleton
15
argued, “[e]ven in the period from 1500-1900 plant transfers may have been
 more evenly balanced than Crosby suggests.” (Beinart and Middleton: 2004, p.
4). They considered plant-transfer theory developed by Crosby asymmetrical and
Eurocentric and consider actions and decisions of powerful European nations as
prime mover in world history. Moreover, they criticised Crosby’s approach of
considering European plants as powerful colonizers. Environmental historian
Jonah H. Peretti considered ‘ecological imperialism’ proposed by Crosby as a
problematic concept. He argued that ‘native’ and ‘natural’ as given conditions go
against in a world shaped by millions of years’ long history of species migration
(Peretti: 1998).

8.4 EMEREGENCE OF BOTANY AS AN IMPERIAL

SCIENCE
It was not just political powers and skilled soldiers alone but scientists who
played key role in establishing superiority of European imperial powers over
colonies. Since 16th century European imperial expansion had depended heavily
on development of scientific knowledge. Modern European idea of gaining
mastery over nature was central to emergence of botany as important discipline.
From 15th century scientists began to specialize in fields of agriculture, forestry,
natural resource extraction and conservation. Traveller-scientists like German
explorer and naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt (1769-1859) started identifying,
classifying and collecting plants as part of their great imperial expeditions.
European national governments promoted expedition of natural scientists to Latin
America and Asia to identify species with commercial potential, acclimatize
them in new surroundings and breed them to increase yields. Humboldt made
valuable contribution in field of ecology by studying and classifying plant species
found in Spanish colonies in Central and South America. Similarly, Hortus
Malabaricus (Garden of Malabar) – an illustrated epic treatise conceived by
Dutch Governor of Malabar Hendrik van Rheede – documented medicinal
properties of flora in southwest India (Kerala) and was published in Amsterdam
between 1678 and 1693 in 12 volumes of about 500 pages each. Considering
several such sources it is possible to argue that 14th and 15th centuries was the
time of great revival of botany as a scientific discipline after Babylonian
civilization and Graeco-Roman antiquity.

European explorers and naturalists facilitated growth of Botany as a modern

discipline. Imperial Botany promoted by European mercantile states played key
role in worldwide transfer of plants
Illustration from Hortus Malabaricus (Garden of Malabar), an epic treatise
dealing with medicinal properties of flora in Malabar coast. Source:
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/hortus-malabaricus-1678-1693.
such as:
16 1) cinnamon,
2) cloves,
3) coffee,
4) maize,
5) nutmeg,
6) pepper,
7) rubber,
8) sugar,
9) cocoa,
10) tea, and
11) tobacco.

Modern discipline of Botany helped cultivators to develop better farming

methods to support production of commodities that were scarce in Europe.
Developments in agricultural sciences promoted monocropping of crops such as
indigo, coffee, tea, sugar cane, banana and rice for sale. White settlers produced
these crops in large quantities to export to Europe. Inflow of cheap commodities
from colonies started promoting a new lifestyle in Europe. Elites and urban
middle-class Europeans made imported meat, sugar, coffee, tea, banana, spices
and vegetables a part of their daily diet. However, commercial production of
crops for an external market began to replace traditional farming methods and
indigenous agricultural knowledge. Scientific inventions made “green
revolutions” in colonies possible by massively privatizing and commodifying
hills, valleys, pastures, fertile slopes and water bodies. Moreover, development of
scientific knowledge included systematic appropriation, destruction or
elimination of indigenous farming knowledge and its commercial applications.
White supremacist domination with support of colonial states dispossessed
indigenous people from their land and resources. They were forced to work as
plantation coolie labourers in colonial plantations.
Colonial states were instrumental in developing botany as an important discipline
by promoting establishment of botanical gardens. In Great Britain ruling elites
promoted foundation of botanical gardens at Oxford, Chelsea and Edinburgh to
experiment with cultivation of medicinal plants. Kew garden in London was an
important botanical research and experiment space before introduction of modern
botanical research laboratories.

Shaft of Great Palm-Stove-Royal Botanical Garden, Kew, London. Source:

Wikimedia commons
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shaft_of_the_Great_Palm-
Stove,_Kew_Gardens.jpg).
17
 William Turner (1510-1568), father of English Botany, experimented in Kew
with development of plants. It facilitated scientific research to find plants to meet
commercial requirements like pharmaceuticals and fibers. Historian Lucile
Brockway’s Science and Colonial Expansion (1979) examined how British
garden networks developed and transferred commercially valuable plants to
different parts of the world to promote their cultivation. Brockway elaborates
three case studies of plant transfer – cinchona (a source to produce quinine to
cure malaria), rubber and sisal – to show interconnection between emergence of
Botany and the development of capitalism. He argued, “Botanical gardens have
contributed much to colonial expansion of the West through active participation
in transfer of protected plants and their scientific development as plantation crops
for tropical colonies of mother country. Cinchona, rubber and sisal are prime
examples.” (Brockway: 1979).
Imperial botanical networks developed scientific methods to improve various
plants through species selection, new methods of cultivation and hybridisation.
They engaged in acclimatising plants with commercial value to various
ecosystems. For instance, production of a cheap source for quinine from cinchona
plantations in south Asia and other colonised regions allowed white migrants to
Africa to resist malaria. Botanical knowledge helped agricultural entrepreneurs to
successfully transfer rubber and cinchona – plants indigenous to Brazil – to Asia.
Rubber seed carried from Brazil became an important plantation crop in Malaya.
Rubber played a crucial role in industrial production and motorisation of road
transport. Similarly, colonial planters and botanists experimented coffee,
cinchona and tea in various colonies to explore possibilities for commercial
cultivation.
Environmental historian Richard Grove located the process of ecological
imperialism as a complex process of infusion of indigenous knowledge by
imperial botanists. He revised the Eurocentric idea of spread of European plants,
animals and knowledge to colonies. By specially focusing on tropical experiences
of European natural scientists he argued that early modern geographical
expeditions and botanical researches radically transformed European idea of
nature. Botanists began to classify plants of global basis and led to development
of fields of natural history and pharmacology. Portuguese and Dutch botanists
were pioneers in the field of developing botanical gardens. They linked medical
and botanical knowledge of Asian, West African, Caribbean and Brazilian
regions (Grove: 1996, p. 121).

8.5 SOUTH ASIAN CONTEXT

Environmental historians of South Asia have examined the impact of European
colonialism in rapidly reshaping natural environment and its social and economic
consequences (For instance, see Arnold and Guha (Eds.): 1995). Historical
studies on colonialism and environment in South Asia are directly connected to
growing concerns about ecological degradation, species extinction and climate
crisis. Historians of South Asia from 1970s started giving attention to various
18
tribal and peasant movements to protect land and environment and to popular
movements against large dams. For instance, Chipko movement, the women and
peasants-led movement to protect trees of Himalayas in 1970s, influenced
historical thinking and writing in India (see Guha: 1989, Shiva: 1989). Influenced
by Crosby’s ‘Ecological Imperialism’ Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha,
two prominent historians of South Asian environment, revised history of
colonialism (Gadgil and Guha, 1992) that was largely based on political
developments. They developed Crosby’s concept of “within reach but beyond
grasp” to analyze history of environmental transformations in South Asia.
Unlike temperate regions identified by Crosby as Neo-Europes due to its climate
similarities with Europe, regions like South Asia, Korea and Japan had dense
population, ancient traditions and strong state institutions. Crosby noticed that
imperialists could not transform arid tropics as Neo-Europe to facilitate larger
settlements of European farmers. He observed, “Like Europeans these Indians,
Indonesians, Malaysians and so on planted and consumed small grains
(especially rice which had not arrived in Europe until Renaissance), depended on
approximately same animals (though in much smaller numbers per human being)
and struggled to maintain health against same pathogens and parasites, plus
several venomous species unknown in Europe.” (Crosby: 1986, p. 136). Gadgil
and Guha argued, “In India Europeans could not create Neo-Europe by
destroying indigenous populations and their natural resource base but they did
intervene and radically alter existing food-production systems and their
ecological basis” (Guha and Gadgil: 1992, p. 103). However, political dominance
helped European colonisers to make unprecedented intervention in transforming
natural riches and common property resources of India into wealth of European
industrial cities. European planters produced sugar, tea, spices, cotton and indigo
at the cost of fertile soil and small peasantry.
British East India Company (EIC) with its political dominance until mid-19th
century took interest in trading than in developing plantations in hinterland. It
promoted cultivation of Opium in Bengal to export to China to exchange for tea.
However, by middle of 19th century imperial botany departments, especially
Saharanpore (now Saharanpur) Botanic Garden, recommended that foothills of
Himalayas were suitable for tea cultivation. After defeating China in Opium War
(1839-1842) EIC engaged in great transfer of tea from China to India, especially
to Himalayan foothills, Assam, Sylhet and Sahyadri. For instance, Robert
Fortune, a great plant collector, carried 2000 tea plants and 17,000 tea seeds from
China to start tea cultivation in India. Planters brought Chinese experts to India to
establish tea plantations in India. Indian tea plantations supplied increasing
demand for tea from English factories and households. European planters
dominated expansion of tea plantations, privatised hills and water bodies and
dispossessed tribal cultivators, alpine pastoralists and marginal peasantry. After
dismantling Indian indigenous industries EIC and later, European ruling and
plantation elites promoted production of raw material-indigo, cotton and hemp
for metropolitan industries. Foothills of Himalayas, Assam valley, Sylhet and
Western Ghats were converted into massive tea plantations. Fertile plains were
19
converted into cotton, indigo and sugar plantations. Chota Nagpur forest regions
 were converted into mines. Small and marginal farmers, fisherfolk, tribal
population, pastoralists lost their community-owned common property resources
like forests, pastures and water bodies.
Technological and economic changes introduced by European colonisers in
second half of 19th century had far-reaching impact on establishing their
ecological dominance. European ruling and industrial elite-controlled
introduction of submarine cable, opening of Suez Canal in 1869, European steam
ship company-monopolised expansion of steamships in Indian Ocean
subsequently provided infrastructure for massive appropriation and export of
natural resources from India to European metropolitan cities (Headrick: 1981).
Use of technology also played crucial role in allowing colonial powers to
transform social and physical spaces by developing big cities, plantations,
railway networks and road and canal systems. Universalisation of use of coal
and, later, petroleum as a source of energy for industrial production, transport and
lighting played crucial role in transforming relationship between man and nature.
Dominant social groups established their technological dominance over nature to
convert resources as marketable commodities. Mechanisation of ploughing
controlled by European planters and engineering firms resulted in massive
clearance of forests and hill slopes for cash crop cultivation. Invention of
refrigerator car in late 19th century allowed industrialisation of meat production
for intercontinental transport. Integration of storage and transport in larger
refrigerator ships commercialised livestock raising. This was an outcome of so-
called “second industrial revolution” in Europe or large-scale mechanisation of
factory production. Demand to ensure constant supply of raw materials to
metropolitan factories required new overseas regions to produce:
1) textiles,
2) minerals,
3) coal, and
4) food crops.

European ruling and plantation elites-controlled commercialisation of agriculture

to feed metropolitan industrial demand for food, raw material and energy had
tremendous social and economic impacts. Colonial planters had no sympathy for
peasant production based on community-based management of water bodies and
pastures. They tended to privatise common property resources to enhance
production of ‘cash crops’ like:
1) spices,
2) cotton,
3) sugar cane,
4) and hemp.
20
Colonial state imposed taxes on agricultural land and took over grazing lands and
irrigation ponds. Colonial forest policy promoted replacing of mixed forest with
single-species and commercially valuable trees such as:
1) teak,
2) sal, and
3) deodar.

They encouraged export-oriented monocropping of trees in name of forest

conservation. Colonial forest conservators blamed livelihood activities of tribal
cultivators and alpine pastoralists responsible for forest destruction (For instance,
see E. P Stebbing: 1921). Colonial state introduced a series of forest acts and
administrative reforms to control forest resources in India. This was to meet
heavy demand from Europe to provide wood as crucial material to develop
industrial infrastructures like railways, factories, furniture and carts to package
materials. Community-managed livelihood resources started depending on
colonial planters and industrialists for their everyday survival.

8.6 CONTEPORARY HISTORY OF ECOLOGICAL

IMPERIALISM
End of formal colonial rules after Second World War did not end imperial
domination of capitalist countries over rest of the world. Well-known geographer
David Harvey used the term ‘new imperialism’ to refer to post-Second World
War condition of global capitalism. British empire came to an end after Second
World War. However, industrial capital continued to dominate the world.
Metropolitan capitalists, especially from United States, started gaining
dominance and control over natural resources and labour-power of much of
former colonies. It established control over production and distribution of
petroleum: the main source of energy for industrial production. Military might of
United States became supreme after end of Cold War in early 1990s. In addition
to this, American ruling and industrial elites dominated international banking and
trade institutions such as World Trade Organisation and International Monetary
Fund (also known as Bretton Woods Institutions). Metropolitan capitalist control
over international trade and tariff regulations was a way to help massive
extraction of natural resources from former colonies.
American dominated international agribusiness massively expands its control
over natural resources to meet the condition of man-made scarcity of food and
sources of energy (Tucker: 2000). Environmental historian Richard Tucker’s
Insatiable Appetite argues that American demand for food crops and energy
resources had a devastating impact on Latin American environment. United Fruit
Company – the United States-based multinational food crop producing enterprise
– made several Latin American regions its private empire. Peter Chapman’s
Banana: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World explains how it made
a ‘banana republic’ by converting rich soil, water bodies and indigenous people 21
 as well as governments of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa
Rica and Panama as infrastructures to produce banana.
Massive clearance of forest for monocropping of banana in Ecuador eliminated
2500 endemic plant and animal species and cleared 25,000 square kilometres of
forests and food crop fields (Richard Tucker: 2000). Moreover, large tracts of
forests were converted as pastures to produce milk, meat and leather products.
From 1960s American demand for cheap hamburger beef triggered deforestation
in Central America. These developments were at the cost of ecosystem and by
making indigenous people a cheap source of manual labour to work in
plantations. Local government supported American corporate enterprises of
sugar, banana and rubber cultivation by providing them railway infrastructures
and granting land for a throw-away price. Tucker argued that US imperialism in
Latin America was not limited to strategic domination but primarily based on
ecological exploitation. American insatiable appetite played major role in
transforming wide spectrum tropical ecosystem of Latin America into
commodities.
Capitalist appropriation of agricultural fields and natural resources for benefit of
multi-national companies was not confined to Latin American regions.
Multinational companies and indigenous elites began to grab rural land all over
the world to develop plantations, mineral extraction industries, biofuel production
and provide leisure infrastructures for urban population. Capitalist accumulation
of land was usually achieved by claiming that the land cultivated by small
peasantry or occupied by pastoralists are under-used. Industrialists usually aim to
grab fertile land to increase productivity. Contemporary context of ecological
imperialism resulted in severe inequalities of income and wealth. Corey Ross
observed, “the world has been witnessing a process of ecological imperialism in
which powerful countries and organizations have tapped huge resource subsidies
in other parts of the world as a means of overcoming ecological limits that their
own territories place on economic growth and commercial activity.” (Ross: 2017,
p. 2). Industrialised countries use their political and military power to transform
global ecology to meet their food, energy and raw material requirements.
Petroleum replaced other locally available sources of energy. Control over
natural resources has become a shaping factor in global diplomacy in 21st
century.
Check Your Progress Exercise
1) How did European colonialism and imperialism harm and damage
ecological conditions of their colonies?
……………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
22
2) Fill in the blanks:
a) Richard Grove used the term ______________________________ to
refer to Asian and African context of European colonial expansion.
b) Alfred Crosby called large-scale transformation of ecology & society of
New World to develop colonies for Europeans to reproduce their European
homeland as ___________.
c) William Turner, father of British Botany, in
__________________________ at ______________ experimented with
development of plants.
d) ___________________ was the women & peasant led movement to
protect Himalayan trees from felling.
e) East India Company promoted cultivation of ___________ in
__________ to export to ___________ to exchange for tea.
f) Colonial forest policy in India promoted replacing of mixed forest with
single species and commercially viable trees like _________, ___________ and
____________.
g) Our colonial rulers tried to privatise common property resources to
enhance production of cash crops such as ___________, __________,
_____________ and ____________.
h) American multinational food crop producing enterprise called
______________________________ made several Latin American regions its
private empire.
i) From 1960s American demand for cheap ____________________
triggered deforestation in _______________________.

8.7 SUMMARY
This Unit elaborated the relationship between imperialism and ecology in a long-
term historical perspective. Central focus of historical writings on imperialism
has been economic and political dominance established by one country over
geographically distant regions or countries. We have argued that dominant
political history-based periodization is insufficient to understand history of
environment and resultant changes in social and economic life. Similarly,
considering nation-state as primary geographical scale to write history is also a
limiting factor to write socio-ecological history of colonialism.
In a seminal intervention in field of ‘ecological imperialism’ environmental
historians Alfred Crosby and Richard Grove transformed the nature of historical
studies on imperial past of former colonies in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
They argued that the 500 years long history of western domination of the world
was not just political and military domination but systematic expansion of
ecological dominance. Imperial botanists, European settler-farmers and 23
 plantation entrepreneurs played crucial role in transforming ecological
specificities of colonies to commodify their natural resources. Massive transfer of
natural riches of colonies to European and US metropolis resulted in massive
ecological destruction, changes in livelihood patterns, spread of epidemic
diseases, species extinction and dispossession and elimination of indigenous
population.
The concept of ecological imperialism will give a historical perspective to
understand and assess current climate crisis and its potential social outcomes.
Environmental activists and scientists argued that limitless appropriation of
natural resources for industrial production gradually contributed to acceleration
of global warming, ocean acidification, air pollution and desertification of fertile
landscapes. Government policies and programmes for a sustainable and
environmentally friendly future require in-depth knowledge of social issues
arising out of ecological degradation. Developing a historical perspective on
access and use of nature will help government and policymakers develop a
critical perspective on issues of social inequalities. Ecological imperialism in
contemporary context provides a critical perspective to understand alienation and
dispossession of people from their land and livelihoods.

8.8 KEY WORDS

Imperial Botany: Wealth of Britain’s empire was largely based on plants: from
cotton and timber, spices, dyes and indigo. Voyages into its colonies were partly
concerned with mapping vital natural resources and discovering new ones. For
example, as a traveler and later as Director of Kew Botanical Garden, London,
William Hooker relied on a wide network of plant collectors to provide him with
more specimens from Britain’s many colonies. This process or phenomenon can
be summed up as Imperial Botany.
Neo-Europe: Concept for widespread European colonization of geographically
distinct areas across the world, behaviours that settlers displayed and ecological
changes they initiated.
Plant-transfer: Transfer of trace elements of flora within the soil. It is an element
flow from nonliving to living compartments of biosphere. It is historically
defined and elucidated more specifically in the context of European imperialism.

8.9 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

EXERCISE
1) See Section 8.3
2) a) Green Imperialism; b) Neo-Europe; c) Kew Botanical Garden, London; d)
Chipko movement; e) opium, Bengal, China; f) teak, sal, deodar; g) spices,
cotton, sugarcane, hemp; h) United Fruit Company; i) hamburger beef, Central
America

24
8.10 SUGGESTED READINGS
Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural
Consequences of 1492 (Westport: Greenwood, 1972).
Alfred W. Crosby, “Ecological Imperialism: The Overseas Migration of Western
Europeans as a Biological Phenomenon” in J. R. McNeill and Alan Roe, Global
Environmental History: An Introductory Reader (London: Routledge, 2013), pp.
166-180.
Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe,
900-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
Corey Ross, Ecology and Power in the Age of Empire: Europe and the
Transformation of the Tropical World (Oxford University Press, 2017).
Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European
Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press,
1981).
David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha (Eds.,), Nature, Culture, Imperialism:
Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1995).
David Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford University Press, 2003).
E. P. Stebbing, The Forests of India, Volume I (London, 1921).
Jonah H. Peretti, “Nativism and Nature: Rethinking Biological Invasion”,
Environmental Values, Vol. 7, No. 2 (May 1998), pp. 183-192.
Lucile H. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British
Royal Botanic Gardens (New York: Academic Press, 1979).
Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha, Ecology and Equity: The Use and
Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India (Gurgaon: Penguin Random House,
1995).
Peter Chapman, Banana: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World
(Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2007).
Ramachandra Guha and Madhav Gadgil, “Conquest and Control” in This
Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1992), pp. 99-127.
Ramachandra Guha, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant
Resistance in the Himalayas (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Richard Drayton, Nature’s Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the
‘Improvement’ of the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
Richard Grove, “Conserving the Eden: The (European) East India Companies
and Their Environmental Policies on St. Helena, Mauritius and in Western India,
1600 to 1854”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 35,
Comparative Studies in Society and History 35, no. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 318-351. 25
 Richard Grove, “Indigenous Knowledge and the Significance of South-West
India for Portuguese and Dutch Construction of Tropical Nature”, Modern Asian
Studies, Vol. 30, no. 1 (February, 1996), pp. 121-143.
Richard Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island, Edens
and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860 (Cambridge University Press,
1995).
Richard Tucker, Insatiable Appetite: The United States and the Ecological
Degradation of the Tropical World (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2000).
Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History
(New York: Viking, 1985).
Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development (London:
Zed Books, 1989).
William Beinart and Karen Middleton, “Plant Transfers in Historical Perspective:
A Review Article”, Environment and History, Vol. 10, no, 1 (February 2004), pp.
3-29.
William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of
New England (New York, 1983).
William Cronon, Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1996).

26