Collecting for Catherine the Great : Empire and the Assembling of New Granada’s Indigenous Language Texts (1785–1791)

Abstract

In 1787, King Charles III of Spain ordered each of his viceroys to collect dictionaries and manuscripts in languages Indigenous to Spanish America that would be sent to Saint Petersburg for use in Catherine the Great’s universal dictionary. While scholars have examined the significance of this project for linguistics and early globalization, this article analyzes it within the context of the history of scientific collecting in the eighteenth-century Spanish Empire. Focusing on the response to this royal order from the Viceroyalty of New Granada, this article examines the assembly of this collection to highlight its use as a tool of empire at the local and imperial level. Overtime, the project was continually expanded, most notably by José Celestino Mutis, the naturalist in charge of New Granada’s collecting initiative, who was influenced by his own personal attempts at gathering linguistic texts and a network of informants upon whom he relied. Tracing these changes, I argue that individuals in areas the Crown considered peripheral often shaped imperial orders, not only in resistance, but as a way to expand the power, presence, and prestige of the Spanish Empire. Though the collection of texts from New Granada never made it to Russia, the assembly of this project demonstrates the overlapping political and intellectual goals of collecting for the empire in this time of geopolitical competition.