SEX, BOTANY & EMPIRE

When imperial explorer James Cook returned from his first voyage toAustralia, the scandal writers mercilessly satirised the amorous exploitsof his botanist, Joseph Banks, whose trousers were reportedly stolen whilehe was inside the tent of Queen Oberea of Tahiti. But Enlightenment botanywas fraught with sexual symbolism. And in Sweden and Britain, bothimperial powers, Banks and Carl Linneaus ruled over their own smallscientific empires, promoting botanical exploration to justify exploitingterritories, peoples and natural resources. Regarding native peoples withdisdain, these two scientific emperors portrayed the Arctic North and thePacific Ocean as uncorrupted Edens, free from the shackles of Westernsexual mores. Patricia Fara reveals how, barely concealed under Banks' andLinneaus' camouflage of noble Enlightenment, were the altogether more seedydrives to conquer, subdue and deflower - in the name of the Britishimperial State.