A ROYAL BOTANIST IN THE PHILIPPINES

‘A ROYAL BOTANIST IN THE PHILIPPINES’ and CAPTAIN BLIGH’S ROLE IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BREADFRUIT MYTHMAKING !

Almost two years before HMS Bounty set sail for Tahiti, Juan de Cuéllar, having been appointed Royal Botanist in the service of the Real Compañía de Filipinas, embarked from Cádiz on board the Águila Imperial heading for the Philippines. By August 1786 Cuéllar was in Manila undertaking his commission. Using the fleet sailing between the Philippines and Spain, Cuéllar shipped natural products from the Philippines to Spain from as early as 1787 and until 1797. Among many economic plants of interest were seeded and seedless breadfruits shown here. Currently on display at the National Art Gallery Museum in the Philippines is an exhibit of 50 drawings of Philippine flora originally commissioned by Cuéllar and now gifted by King Juan Carlos I of Spain to President Fidel Ramos and the Filipino People during the King’s visit to the Philippines in 1996 [see also http://www.rjb.csic.es/jardinbotanico/jardin/].

CONSPIRACY ON THE BOUNTY brings science in to investigate the Bounty’s cargo of breadfruit plants. The notion that breadfruit had to be collected from Tahiti was intentionally misleading. Tahiti was merely one of many places where esteemed seedless breadfruit could be found. The real reason for choosing Tahiti has its roots in the territorial contention that existed between France and England at the time. In order to achieve the goals of Empire the manager of the Bounty expedition, Sir Joseph Banks, perpetrated a very big lie. Part of the lie was that only at Tahiti could be found the best kinds of breadfruit when in fact, Banks fully realized that breadfruit of an equal or superior kind were more closely obtainable in areas nearby to East Indiaman ship trunk routes.

During the Endeavour Voyage, Lieutenant Cook refitted his fatigued vessel at a Dutch naval shipyard in the Bay of Batavia (Jakarta). Though Jakarta was under Dutch control, the port was a busy staging point for any ships entering or leaving the Indian Ocean. Here Cook’s artist, Sydney Parkinson, wrote how pleasant were many avenues of breadfruit, ‘cultivated there to the highest degree of perfection’, extending a long way into the country from the city. Bligh’s breadfruit pretense was very effective and though it was Banks who had brokered the affair, as the tail wags the dog, it was Bligh who carried out the subterfuge.

In terms of the historic times and the botanist’s rudimentary knowledge of breadfruit, it is arguable that neither the East Indies breadfruit nor Pacific breadfruits were superior as a staple food for slaves. Acquiring breadfruit plants from Jakarta or nearby ports in the Philippines would mean a saving in outward direction alone of approximately one hundred and ten degrees of longitude to traverse. That is a staggeringly long distance for an eighteenth-century sailing ship to unnecessarily roam, particularly if it meant navigating the unsurveyed treacherous return route through Torres Strait. Obtaining breadfruit from the East Indies would have meant a substantial saving in ship’s demurrage; it would also have greatly reduced the risks of keeping breadfruit plants alive at sea.

Bligh’s expedition to distant Tahiti was more vulnerable for any number of technical or nautical concerns. CONSPIRACY ON THE BOUNTY concentrates upon the need to obtain breadfruit; what it was that propelled the breadfruit politic; Banks’s management of the expeditions; why Bligh made no physical attempt to suppress the mutiny, and what most likely would have occurred had there been no mutiny, and Bligh had continued merrily on his way. (Photo: exhibit ‘A Royal Botanist in the Philippines’ National Museum of the Philippines)