223. Empire of Plants: From Kew Gardens to Botany Bay

Summary

Empire of Plants: From Kew Gardens to Botany Bay
Goalhanger Podcast, Episode 223
Hosts: William Dalrymple and Anita Anand
Release Date: January 23, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 223 of Empire, titled "Empire of Plants: From Kew Gardens to Botany Bay," hosts William Dalrymple and Anita Anand delve into the intricate relationship between botany and the rise of the British Empire. Exploring the origins, influences, and lasting impacts of imperial botanic gardens, the episode unpacks how plants were not just passive elements of nature but active agents in shaping empires and societies.

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Botanic Gardens and the Foundations of Empire

The episode opens with a discussion on the genesis of botanic gardens, contrasting royal gardens and physic gardens. Dalrymple emphasizes, “The focus of this series is going to be the way that botanic gardens became collections of imperial plants… how that botany was exploited in the building of empire” (04:22).

Royal vs. Physic Gardens

Anand highlights the competitive nature among royals to showcase international connections through their gardens: “these are what the royals vying with each other to, you know, sort of show how very international they were” (04:54). Dalrymple adds that botanic gardens featured diverse architectural styles, symbolizing global reach and exoticism (05:05).

Historical Context

Tracing back to the 1500s, the hosts discuss the Arab contributions to horticulture and how European empire builders expanded upon these foundations, incorporating plants from across the globe into their imperial networks (05:25).

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Joseph Banks and the Endeavour Voyage

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Joseph Banks, portrayed as a pivotal figure in imperial botany.

Banks' Voyage on the Endeavour

Dalrymple recounts Banks' participation in Captain James Cook's 1768 voyage aboard the Endeavour, emphasizing his extensive plant collections: “They collected 30,000 samples” (13:47). The naming of Botany Bay after their botanical pursuits underscores the intertwining of exploration and plant collection (14:12).

Impact on Colonization

Anand connects Banks' botanical work to broader colonial actions, questioning whether his enthusiasm for plants influenced decisions like the deportation of criminals to Australia: “do we have him to thank for subsequent deportations of criminals to Australia?” (14:31).

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Economic Botany and Imperial Economics

The discussion shifts to the evolution of botanic gardens into centers of economic botany, with Kew Gardens as the focal point.

Linnaeus and Plant Classification

Dalrymple explains Carl Linnaeus' revolutionary system for classifying plants based on sexual reproduction, facilitating the organization of diverse botanical specimens from the empire’s vast territories (06:55).

Economic Implications

Anand and Dalrymple explore how economic botany became integral to the British economy. For instance, the introduction of cinchona plants, which produced quinine, was crucial for sustaining European presence in Africa by combating malaria: “cinchona is the bark that produced quinine, which in turn enabled Europeans to survive in West Africa” (18:08).

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Botanical Commodities and Imperial Trade

Breadfruit and the Bounty Mutiny

Banks' initiative to cultivate breadfruit as a sustainable food source for enslaved populations led to the infamous Mutiny on the Bounty. Dalrymple states, “...and he thought we could set up breadfruit plantations” (15:56), while Anand discusses the resistance from enslaved individuals who viewed breadfruit with disdain: “they saw it as fit only for feeding pigs” (16:34).

Rubber’s Role in Empire

The episode also covers the introduction of rubber cultivation in Malaya, highlighting the brutal conditions faced by indigenous populations: “many uncontacted Indians are descendants of the survivors of that time who fled into remote areas” (29:40). The establishment of rubber plantations exemplifies the dark side of economic botany, linking plant exploitation to violence and oppression.

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Kew Gardens Today: Decolonizing the Imperial Legacy

Modern Controversies

Anand and Dalrymple discuss Kew Gardens' contemporary efforts to address its imperial past. The institution’s manifesto for change, aiming to decolonize its collections and narratives, has sparked debate: “they are doing lots of positive work… these are academics who want to have open discussions” (35:49).

Cultural and Ethical Reflections

Dalrymple reflects on the duality of botanical beauty and colonial exploitation: “there was great beauty and incredible innovation, but at the same time there's colonization, vicious war, torture, espionage, slavery and indenture” (38:43). This tension underscores the complex legacy of botanic gardens as both centers of scientific advancement and instruments of imperial power.

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Mariana North and Artistic Contributions

The episode introduces Mariana North, an artist whose contributions to Kew Gardens reflect the cultural dimensions of imperial botany.

North’s Artistic Legacy

Dalrymple mentions North’s unique and vibrant paintings, contrasting with the scientific illustrations typical of botanic collections: “they're quite garish… like fantasy paintings that you'd expect in Lewis Carroll” (27:59). North’s works add an artistic layer to Kew’s botanical narrative, illustrating the aesthetic appreciation of imperial botany.

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Legacy and Ethical Implications

Interconnected Histories

The hosts emphasize that understanding the historical context of botany enriches contemporary appreciation: “I mean, completely...” (38:43). The episode argues that the beauty of botanical gardens is inextricably linked to their imperial histories, urging listeners to recognize both the aesthetic and ethical dimensions.

Ongoing Cultural Debates

Anand raises questions about how botanical institutions navigate their colonial pasts while promoting scientific discovery: “can mar the beauty in your eyes… knowing more is better” (38:43). The conversation highlights the importance of transparent and inclusive historical narratives in modern botanical practices.

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Conclusion

"Empire of Plants: From Kew Gardens to Botany Bay" offers a comprehensive exploration of how botany and imperialism were mutually reinforcing forces. Through detailed discussions on figures like Joseph Banks, institutions like Kew Gardens, and commodities like breadfruit and rubber, Dalrymple and Anand reveal the profound ways in which plants influenced and were influenced by the dynamics of empire. The episode encourages listeners to appreciate the botanical beauty while critically engaging with the historical contexts that shaped them.

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Notable Quotes

• William Dalrymple (04:22): "The focus of this series is going to be the way that botanic gardens became collections of imperial plants… how that botany was exploited in the building of empire."

• Anita Anand (04:54): “these are what the royals vying with each other to, you know, sort of show how very international they were.”

• Ryan Reynolds (06:55): "He said that Europeans were acute and inventive and governed by laws. And crucially, he said that Africans were, quote, crafty, indolent, negligent and governed by caprice."

• William Dalrymple (13:47): “They collected 30,000 samples.”

• Ryan Reynolds (14:12): "He was the first European to sight a kangaroo."

• Anita Anand (16:34): “they saw it as fit only for feeding pigs.”

• Ryan Reynolds (18:08): “cinchona is the bark that produced quinine, which in turn enabled Europeans to survive in West Africa.”

• William Dalrymple (38:43): “there was great beauty and incredible innovation, but at the same time there's colonization, vicious war, torture, espionage, slavery and indenture.”

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Note: Timestamps correspond to the transcript segments referenced in the discussion.

Transcript

[William Dalrymple]

If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to empire [e-mail].

[Ryan Reynolds]

Hey there, Ryan Reynolds here. It's a new year and you know what that means. No, not the Diet resolutions. A way for us all to try and do a little bit better than we did last year. And my resolution, unlike big wireless, is to not be a raging and raise the price of wireless on you every chance I get.

[Anita Arnan]

Give it a [e-mail] Switch $45 upfront payment required. Equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first 3 month plan only. Taxes and fees, extra speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited. See mintmobile.com for details. Hello and welcome to with me, Anita Arnan.

[William Dalrymple]

And me, William Dalrymple. And it is up to me to congratulate my co host on becoming Prime Minister of Canada.

[Anita Arnan]

Can I just say how much you have absolutely eaten my time this week. So for those of you who don't know what a jolly shapester William Duranpole is, he literally ruined my week. So there is. Can I just clarify notes and clarifications right at the top of the program? I am not in the running to be Prime Minister of Canada. I have never been the Defence Secretary of Canada, nor have I been the President of the Board of Trade. Can I just say this is hilarious to you, but William did a congratulation because there is an Anita Arnan who actually I know who is in the shortlist to become the new Prime Minister.

[William Dalrymple]

Of Canada, the new Justin Trudeau.

[Anita Arnan]

And William very helpfully congratulated me and Twitter and other various social. Social media silos went mental. And I have been fielding messages for such a asking whether this might be a conflict of interest with my job at the BBC. I mean, it's not me. He was joking.

[William Dalrymple]

I've been telling people that when you're in office you'll still find time, given your skills in multitasking.

[Anita Arnan]

Yes, I know. You did carry on. I did also notice with great mirth that you nominated yourself as Foreign Secretary.

[William Dalrymple]

I thought I'd be very good Foreign Secretary and you'd be. It was only a matter of time before you'd ask me.

[Anita Arnan]

Oh my God. And people still, even after you said the most ridiculous thing anyone could ever say, still believed it. It's still coming up like little D. DMs slipping into my DMs going really well but you've done such a terrible job. Or you've, you know, I've always supported you. It's like, no, it's a William. It's a Dalrymple thing. It isn't true. So it's not me. So glad to have clarified that right at the top of the program.

[William Dalrymple]

I'm still holding out for office for you, Anita. One of these days, greatness calls.

[Anita Arnan]

Somebody did say, why don't you become president of an independent Scotland? Which. That yielded a conversation which you quickly pulled in Hamza Yousef and others for your campaign.

[William Dalrymple]

I thought Hamza. I thought Hamza should be consulted on this.

[Anita Arnan]

Direct ating Hamza Yousaf. Anyway, shall we get on with what we're here to talk about? We should thank you for all your kind comments about the Mughal series. We really enjoyed doing it and glad you enjoyed it, too. But we're taking a departure now because we're taking a stroll around the garden. That's what we're going to do, a little miniseries for your delectation and delight. But this is, you know, why. Why are you talking about gardens? Why?

[William Dalrymple]

This is. No, just Monty Don or Alan Titmarsh Garden. This is a fancy garden.

[Anita Arnan]

Did you say Titmarsh? We really have to. About your pronunciation before we go. Titch, Marsh, Pharrell and Latitude. Let's repeat after me. It is not Titmarsh, it is not Latitude, and it is so not feral. So, look, it's. It's okay. Just try, you know, Anyway, look, it's not that. It's not that. This is because botany is such an integral part of empire that we thought it was very, very important to talk about it. And especially because we've got a special guest who I'm going to sort of hide for a little while longer, but we'll tell you in a minute who that is. Just come for a walk with us around the garden, because where are we starting here? We're going to start with the royals. So this is where we go back to William.

[William Dalrymple]

Exactly. And it's the story of where botanic gardens come from. The focus of this series is going to be the way that botanic gardens became collections of imperial plants, the way that empire pulled in within it examples of botany from across the world and how that botany was exploited in the building of empire. But looking at the roots of it, it starts with royal gardens on one hand and physic gardens on the other. Have you ever been to the Chelsea Physic Garden, Anita?

[Anita Arnan]

I have been to the Chelsea physic garden. So these are what the royals vying with each other to, you know, sort of show how very international they were, how very plugged in they were.

[William Dalrymple]

And, you know, not just in Britain, but in Padua and across Europe. They are places known for their follies and temples, their pagodas. Some reason the garden has always attracted this idea of, as well as pulling in plants from across the globe, pulling in different kinds of architecture with it.

[Anita Arnan]

Well, we're talking back as far as the 1500s. I mean, the Padua Garden that you mentioned is 1545. You've got Hampton Court as well. And largely in the medieval period, it's the Arabs who are credited with. With bringing this sort of east to west transition and style and desire for plants that are exotic. I mean, they bring citrus fruits, melons, mulberry trees, cotton, sugar, and at the same time, they're expanding their spice trade that we're talking about as well.

[William Dalrymple]

These plants arrive in the Arab world from further east still. A lot of these plants come from Malaysia and Malacca Straits, and the Arabs are instrumental in bringing them from India into the Arab world and then through to Spain and Europe. So they have long histories of movement before the Europeans get in on the act. But it is European empire builders who take it a whole new stage.

[Anita Arnan]

One could say they make it biblical, because a lot of the early collectors fantasize about reconstructing the Garden of Eden. You know, that they are going to get the most beauteous, the most exotic flowers that might have been carried on Noah's Ark. And there is this, I mean, you can say, a tsunami of new plants that hit Europe as a result of this. The thing is that, you know, you've got all these plants coming in, and then it becomes a question of how do you classify them? And then you've got to mention Linnaeus in this. Tell us about why Linnaeus is so very important. And it's also the springboard to the desire to get more and to fill in the gaps in the classification.

[William Dalrymple]

Well, as plants start pouring into Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, as people bring them back from their imperial wanderings, there is an increasing chaos as people haven't got any means of classifying or ordering them. And Linnaeus proposes an entirely new basis for classifying plants, one that uses, I think it's called the sexual method of classification. Because plants reproduce sexually, they should be classified by a single feature. The number and arrangement of their male stamens and female pistols is the. Is the phrase. So he comes up with 24 classes subdivided into orders and families, and generates a system of classification that can include all plants from all over the world using this method. And botanists take this challenge up and begin to add to Linnaeus system. And at the same time as this is happening, the Dutch are experimenting with exotics in cape town in 1694, followed by the French, who establish Pamplemuses on Mauritius in 1735. The British have a botanical garden on St. Vincent in the West Indies by 1764. And when Queen Victoria ascends the throne in 1837, there are about 10 active British botanical gardens. And by her death in 1901, that's grown to 126.

[Anita Arnan]

Yeah. And in that British period, this is what we're focusing on today, because our very, very special guest is Satnam Sangara, author of Empire How British Imperialism has Shaped the World. Welcome. I bet you thought we'd never get to Satnam.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I enjoyed it. I listened to your podcast more than I listened to my mother. Oh, I'm very used to it.

[Anita Arnan]

Oh, Mrs. Sangara, we apologise. But we're delighted.

[William Dalrymple]

Secretly, after that copy of it. We should point out that Satnam's wonderful book, which has won a whole variety, rich variety of literary awards, is out in paint paperbacks at them.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's right.

[Anita Arnan]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think people know about Empire Land a lot, but I don't think people realise I've written a sequel which is about how the British Empire shaped the world more than Britain. So thank you for the plug.

[Anita Arnan]

Not at all. Not at all. And it is, because it is so interesting. It's a sort of international look, you know, from in to out is so fascinating. You heard William talking about some of the raw botanic gardens that were created around the world, or these, you know, places where these exotic things could be gathered. But when we think about botanic gardens and Britain, our mind immediately turns to places like Kew Gardens, which is a really central part of this imperial dream, if you like.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. I mean, it's not something that I particularly saw as imperial. I think the most imperial thing about Kew for me, before I started researching it, was that a lot of Asians live nearby. And actually you two live nearby, including Anita.

[Anita Arnan]

Yes, I did.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think both of you are quite close to Kew Gardens, but I would no more have viewed British Empire through the prism of plants than viewing it through the prism of, you know, PlayStations or shoe buckles. But it turns out it's a massive branch of the British Empire and actually something you crucially need to mention in relation to Carl Linnaeus is that not only did botany shape colonialism? But colonialism shaped botany in that Linnaeus, in his system of plants, included human beings, crucially, and he put them into four groups based on their geographic origin and skin color. And he said that the Europeans were acute and inventive and governed by laws. And crucially, he said that the Africans were, quote, crafty, indolent, negligent and governed by caprice.

[William Dalrymple]

He sounds like Elon Musk.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, yeah, exactly. It was deeply racist. And actually, until the early 90s, common plant names, which is a different system to Linnaeus, included the N word, like were used frequently and phrases like jew, bush and keffir plums. Deeply racist language. And it just goes to show you how imperialism and botany are just totally linked together and it all comes together at Q.

[Anita Arnan]

And let's talk about some of the characters who are also really very important at this time. Now, we've sort of touched on Joseph Banks and the Joseph Banks building which carries his name.

[William Dalrymple]

We had a big session on Joseph Banks during our Endeavour.

[Anita Arnan]

Endeavour and Cook. Indeed.

[William Dalrymple]

It's the single episode which had more complaints than any other in our entire series, because we did it after our Christmas lunch, even more than usual. Talked over each other.

[Anita Arnan]

Yes, yes.

[William Dalrymple]

Descended into fits of giggles, it's true.

[Anita Arnan]

But let's do it with some order now. So, Satnam, tell us a little bit about Joseph Banks. A little pen portrait would be really good. Who was he and why is he important?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. Joseph Banks, you know, famously went on Captain James Cook's journey to the South Pacific on the Endeavour that sparked British colonization of the region, the places they visited. It sounds like an amazing luxury cruise, doesn't it? Madeira, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Horn, New Zealand, Tahiti. And he was from a very posh family, a very wealthy family, and he basically bought his way onto that trip. He contributed £10,000, which is nearly £1.5 million. The king, King George III, only gave £4,000. And it goes to show you, it was equivalent of a very rich person, you know, buying a seat on a spacecraft.

[Anita Arnan]

Exactly what I was thinking. Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Or to the bottom of the. To see the Titanic. Right. But he was obsessed with botany. Although he wasn't a trained scientist, he'd been obsessed with botany since a kid. There's a quite strange story involving toads. At the time when he was growing up, toads were thought to cause warts, but he knew they didn't cause warts, so he's. He had a party trick where he would rub a toad against his face and shock everyone around. But as he got more Older, he got more serious about botany. He went to Oxford.

[William Dalrymple]

Hang on, you haven't missed out the bit where one of the frogs jumped into his mouth, didn't it?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Is that right?

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I didn't know that.

[William Dalrymple]

This was a story which I read in Peter Moore's wonderful book Endeavour. And in the course of doing that party trick of rubbing the frog against his face, one frog didn't get as far as his face, it just jumped into his mouth.

[Anita Arnan]

Right. Was it a frog or a toad? I think it was toads, wasn't it? It was toads. It was warty toads. Yes, that's right. He must have had a big mouth. Toads aren't little Joseph Manx. You're amateur, but passionate and very, very rich. I mean, his dad was an mp, so he came from, you know, money and power. He buys his way onto Cook's voyage. Does he do good work while he's on the voyage? What does he do and what does he see and what does he collect?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, crucially, you know, he brought along with him two expert botanists. It often gets forgotten. Daniel Solander and Herman Sporing, who probably knew more than he did, but he did amazing work.

[William Dalrymple]

They were drawing too, weren't they? They were doing these very beautiful illustrations of the plants that they found.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, they collected 30,000 samples. But also, crucially, when they landed in Australia, you know, Cook initially nicknamed the area where they landed Stingray Harbour, but because Banks collected so many plants, they renamed it, famously, Botany Bay. Also, he was the first European to sight a kangaroo.

[Anita Arnan]

Is that right? Is that right?

[Ryan Reynolds]

And one of the ship's dogs, a greyhound, tried to outrun this creature, famously.

[Anita Arnan]

The botany thing is really important. But also with Banks, do we have him to thank for subsequent deportations of criminals to Australia? Because doesn't he say, this is perfect, You've got cowardly natives and it'll be fine here?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, he was. He did loads of things like that, but, yeah, that was one of his many ideas. But when he came back from this journey, he became hugely famous. He joined the Royal Society. He, you know, he started advising the East India Company on how to grow Chinese hemp in Britain. He lobbied for the government to choose Botany Bay as a penal colony for these prisoners because the extremely cowardly natives would not cause a problem. But also, crucially, this royal garden, which was basically a hobby at Kew, he became an advisor to the King and helped to turn it into something much more serious. And another initiative he was involved in was the breadfruit project. So when he was in Tahiti, he came across the breadfruit. I don't know if you've ever eaten it or seen it. It's a very fleshy kind of fruit. And he thought it was a brilliant solution to the challenge of feeding large numbers of enslaved people. And the way he saw it, it wasn't cost effective to be importing food from North America. And also he didn't think we should encourage the enslaved to grow their own food because that would stop them working. So he thought, let's set up breadfruit plantation because this is an amazing fruit. And that actually led to one of the most famous mutinies in history, the.

[William Dalrymple]

Mutiny in the Bounty.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Mutin the Bounty. There's five films on the subject. But this is all part of his project to try to set up breadfruit plantations in the Caribbean.

[William Dalrymple]

Saddam this is all after George III has gone mad in Kew, isn't that right? George III was kept in Kew when he was, when he was insane. And that's where he had all these sort of very painful treatments to try and bring him back to his senses.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. And also, I think there were two palaces, weren't there? There was Richmond and there was Kew, and they ended up being part of the same thing. But what Banks crucially hadn't considered was whether the enslaved even wanted to eat breadfruit. And it turned out they didn't and they resisted it. And this is very important because we often don't, we don't have records of how the enslaved felt about so many things. But the evidence suggests that actually they.

[William Dalrymple]

Saw it, they didn't like bread, they.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Didn'T like it, and they saw it as fit only for feeding pigs. But breadfruit is now part of the Jamaican diet. And that really does suggest that there was willful resistance to the slave owning class to Joseph Banks's project. And something that the historian B.W. hickman has written about. And it's a very important aspect of the breadfruit story.

[Anita Arnan]

Well, I mean, the Joseph Banks building today now at Kew is home to a collection from the Economic Botany department. I mean, just first of all, what is economic botany?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Economic botany. It was the Museum of Economic Botany. And this was set up in 1847 by a successor to Joseph Banks, a man called Sir William Hooker. He and his son pretty much ran Kew Gardens during his early years. And it's very controversial that it's named after Joseph Banks because obviously he's a man who's considered to have enabled enslavement but the idea of the Museum of Economic Botany was to encourage investment in homegrown innovation in plants. We've lost the idea that plants are technology, but, you know, in 1853, three quarters of the total value of British imports were quote articles of vegetable origin. This was crucial to imperial trade. And William Hooker wanted to encourage people to think of ways in which of using plants in innovative, businesslike ways.

[William Dalrymple]

Give us some examples, Satnam, of the sort of thing you're talking about. What planty imports were crucial to Britain's economy.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, so you'd go to the Museum of Echinog Botany and you'd see a palm, for example, and you'd see how it had been fashioned into a walking stick and it would show you how actually how important palm was to wood. You'd also see one of the biggest items in the collection at the moment. I think 10% of the collection is cinchona plants. And I think you're covering that in another episode. But cinchona is the bark that produced quinine, which in turn enabled Europeans to survive in West Africa, which in turn enabled the colonization of West Africa and led to the creation of an entire country, Nigeria. And, you know, the survival rate of a European in Mali in the early 19th century was something like, I think you would survive for one third of the year if you were lucky. You had an annual mortality rate of 300%. But suddenly you've got cinchona, you've got quinine, and you're still going to get sick, but you can survive.

[Anita Arnan]

Right. And this guy, I mean, you were saying Joseph Hooker sort of takes over where Banks leaves off. And his is very much an imperial agenda. He thinks, you know, what, we go, we collect, but we also. Does he say take over or we claim land? I mean, does he say it as explicitly as that?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think he's focused specifically about the plants. And he realizes, you know, you got sugar, you got tea, you got cinchona, you got rub. These industries, plants can change the world indirectly. And there's now a collection of around 100,000 objects in that Economic botany building. And it actually led to copycat museums in all sorts of places. There was one in Missouri, there's one in Adelaide, There was one in Edinburgh and Hamburg. It was a hugely popular idea. We forget that, you know, sugar. The sugar plantations were a botanical exercise, you know, of trial and error. And Also Britain sent 1 million indentured laborers around the world to run plantations, to work on sugar plantations, Cinchona plantations, indigo plantations. And these were all botanical processes. And also when these plantations failed, like when Barbados was over farmed, when the soil failed, those were botanical processes to revive the soil. Famously, the soil in Barbados was so bad that they tried to import new soil from another colony in a boat. Didn't work. But all these processes were botanical. And also the legacies of botanical in that. One of my favorite facts about the British Empire is that, you know, ganja, which is one of the most famous things associated with Jamaica, is so intrinsically Jamaican, but actually was brought to Jamaica by Indian indentured laborers. Ganja is a Hindi word, it's a Hindi crop. But so much about British colonialism, and colonialism in general, was actually botanical.

[Anita Arnan]

You know, I'm actually really struck by that. When you were saying breadfruit now is part of the staple of the Jamaican diet, detested at first and having a horrible history behind it. But, you know, anyone tucking into a curry this week that, you know, the chilies, the heat in your curry, is also a gift of Portuguese colonialism. You know, the Portuguese who came to India who had brought boatloads of the stuff for trade from South America, that is where that came from. You know, Indians didn't have heat before.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, the Columbian Exchange, famously. But also you've got another building at Kew which symbolizes the Palm House. It's probably the most famous building. Right. 16,000 glass plains.

[Anita Arnan]

It's a gorgeous building. I mean, people who haven't seen it, it is like looking into an enormous glass palace. It is. How many panes of glass? You just said it and I spoke over you.

[Ryan Reynolds]

16,000. And originally the glass was green, literally a greenhouse.

[William Dalrymple]

Greenhouses were green. I never knew that it was literally green.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. And we forget. We just think, oh, it's a nice place to see some pretty plants. But actually, palm in the 19th century was a massively important industrial product. You know, it produced wood, wax, oil, fiber, starch, alcohol and sugar. And, you know, the Palm House was a celebration of this also for many visitors. When it opened in 1848, it was an insight into the British Empire, because a lot of the plants, most of them came from the Calcutta Botanic Garden.

[Anita Arnan]

This is very much the thought at the time. So this is Albert wanting to show the world how great his wife Victoria is in her empire. And, you know, the. The Great Exhibition, 1852, around the same time, is exactly an attempt to show, look, we have dominion over so much of the world. And this is what we bring back to show you, because you'll never go to see it. So we bring it here for you to enjoy it.

[William Dalrymple]

I remember meeting someone who was coming to do a BBC training course from, I think, Papua New Guinea. And he arrives in London in January, I think, in the middle of winter. And of course he absolutely hates it. He thinks it's incredibly cold, incredibly miserable. And then a mutual friend of ours, Anita, takes him to Kew Gardens and thereafter he spends his weekends in the Palm House and just sits in there because it's the only place in London that feels like home.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, he's not alone. The other person who loved the Palm House was Queen Victoria. She visited it three times in six weeks when he opened in 1848. And she, of course, she famously never visited the Empire, so it was the closest you could say she ever got to India. And a lot of people visited it to get a taste of what it was like to be in India.

[Anita Arnan]

Yes, it was. Must have been so odd, actually, you know, the only experience she had were plates of glass and the plants that grew onto them and what was served on her plate, you know, famously adoring curries. And, you know, the hotter the better she was. She was delighted by all of that. We're going to take a break. Join us after the break where I do want to talk and we've got so many things to talk about, but I want to talk about Mariana North. There is a Mariana north gallery at Kew and I'm quite keen because I really don't know who she was.

[William Dalrymple]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Katie Kaye]

Hi, it's Katie Kaye here from the Rest Is Politics us. We felt at this time, as America is heading into to the Trump administration, that we should look back on one of the darkest moments in recent American history. So we have done just that with a series on Trump's insurrection and his attempts back in 2020 to steal the election from Joe Biden.

[Ryan Reynolds]

There was an incitement of an insurrection. They stormed the Capitol. They literally have senators running for their lives. We break it down. We give a hour by hour of all the incidents. The fences smashing, the window breaking, gunshots firing, Trump supporters smoking joints in Statutory Hall. Just imagine the bedlam. And incredibly, some of these people are going to be pardoned by Mr. Trump. And so January 6th. I've never told Katty K this, but January 6th is my birthday. Okay, tune in and listen.

[Katie Kaye]

Yeah, that's not the only extraordinary thing about the date of January 6th, however. I mean, this is why this story in this series is so important and so gripping, because so many of these characters are coming back with us today and so much has been forgiven and swept under the carpet. And America decided in the election last year that they were going to reinstate Donald Trump. With that, there really is no better time to take a look at these events.

[Ryan Reynolds]

To hear more, just search the Rest is Politics Us. Wherever you get your podcasts, hear a clip from this miniseries at the end of this week's episode.

[Anita Arnan]

Welcome back. So just before the break, we were talking about, well, who knew greenhouses were green? I just genuinely thought it was because the plants were green. I didn't know it was because the glass was green. I mentioned a name. Mariana North. There is a Mariana north gallery at Kew. Who was she and why does she get a gallery?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Mariana north was this intrepid female artist and a bit like Joseph Banks. She inherited a fortune from her father and then she rejected the small life expected of her and chose instead to roam the world and painting landscapes and the people she encountered. And there's a Mariana north gallery. And in an act of solipsism, she actually set it up herself. In 1879, she persuaded the Q's director, Joseph Hooker, that she would fund the new gallery on condition that it would display her oeuvre so now it contains around 800 paintings by her. And they're very interesting paintings. They're very unlike the East India Company paintings of plants. They're quite garish.

[Anita Arnan]

Oh, they're like fantasy paintings that you'd expect in Lewis Carroll, where, you know, Alice has been shrunk and is surrounded by these giant, vibrant plants. That's what I mean. It's the kind of thing.

[William Dalrymple]

She moved to Ceylon, didn't she, at one point, to Sri Lanka. And she was a great friend of my great, great aunt, Julia Margaret Cameron, who photographed her. And there's a whole set of photographs of her by Julia Mark Cameron, who was one of the very first women photographers and who brought her equipment out to Sri Lanka.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think I've seen the photograph because there's a photograph there of her dressed up, quote, as a Sri Lankan native.

[William Dalrymple]

Exactly that. With sort of palms behind her.

[Anita Arnan]

I've seen that photo and she doesn't look much like a Sri Lankan to me. I mean, somebody's having a little joke with her at her expense, saying, yes, yes, this is what we all wear. Very, very good. So, look, let's talk about another commodity which is also central to empire and that is rubber. Now, natural rubber is the. The sticky white SAP which you can tap from certain trees. At what point does imperialism come into contact with rubber and say, you know what? This could be an earner for us?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, rubber was being grown mainly in Brazil and it was being extracted, became massive, obviously, because of the Industrial Revolution. And also when Thomas Goodyear invented vulcanization in 1839.

[William Dalrymple]

Thomas Goodyear was a guy. Goodyear tyres are named after Goodyear.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He said, man. Actually, my dad worked in a Goodyear factory in Wolverhampton. And perhaps less importantly. But demand for rubber boomed. But this resulted in terrible conditions for the indigenous South Americans who were murdered, enslaved, tortured. In some places, 90% of the Indian population was eliminated by atrocities and disease.

[William Dalrymple]

In order to get the rubber.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, yeah. And today, many uncontacted Indians are descendants of the survivors of that time who fled into remote areas to escape a similar fate. But then one of the people who lobbied Kew Gardens to help the British Empire to get involved in this very lucrative trade was a manufacturer called Thomas Hancock. And he suggested in 1855 to William Hooker that the east and West Indies would be a good place for rubber cultivation. It was a very challenging thing to do because, first of all, South America had a monopoly and they weren't keen to share their knowledge and seeds. Secondly, rubber seeds are recalcitrant, which means they die if they're permitted to dry out, which made them hard to transport. And thirdly, it could take decades of trial and error to set up rubber plantations. But nevertheless, two men, Henry Wickham and Robert Cross, collected seeds. And between them they managed to break into the wild rubber industry. And despite facing loads of other problems, the British became big rubber producers over around two decades of trial and error. And one of the first places they managed to make it work was Ceylon, Sri Lanka. But the place that it really took off was Singapore. And that's because the coffee plantations there weren't doing very well when coffee prices fell in 1896. And that's when the Malay Peninsula turned to rubber and planted 12,000 acres of trees over five years.

[William Dalrymple]

What sort of date was that? Satnam?

[Ryan Reynolds]

That was the late 19th century.

[William Dalrymple]

So quite recently. I mean, it's not as if it's an indigenous plant that's been there for centuries, literally late 19th century.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And also it's very poorly understood. But the crude rubber at that point became Britain's top re export. It became massively lucrative. And these seeds that Kew Garden sent helped to establish what is now a multibillion dollar rubber industry. It's incredible that it all came from a few seeds. And even some of the brands flourishing today, like Dunlop, the British tire firm, you know, have their roots in plantations in Malaya.

[Anita Arnan]

This is so interesting. And, you know, just when you talk about, you know, the plantation In Singapore, the 1896 adventure, if you, if you like, I mean, they do it with gusto. 12,000 acres of trees are planted over just five years. I mean, this is very committed planting and also sort of changing the ecosystem of a place that you have gone into. I'm really fascinated by this man Hooker, though. He seems so very powerful. Does he work hand in glove with government somehow sort of being able to greenlight expeditions or saying, yes, I agree, I rubber stamped this, if you will, that this is a good idea to go and, you know, pursue rubber as an economic exercise.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, him and his son, Joseph Hooker, both of them did incredible work. But I think it's really important to remember that as well as it being very impressive, it also led to one of the darkest episodes in the history of the British Empire because Malaya became hugely profitable to the British. But then obviously the Malayans weren't so keen on it. And when they resisted in 1948, it led to the Malayan emergency. And you've had Caroline Elkins on your show who describes it as one of the worst episodes in the British Empire. And do you know why it was called the Malayan emergency rather than a war? Insurance reasons. Because if you call it a war, the business people don't get the insurance payout if you call it an emergency. But it's also. That euphemism is one of the reasons why it's so poorly understood, because you know, what the British did, and they resorted to starving people.

[William Dalrymple]

It was one of the kind of experiment places for counterinsurgency techniques, wasn't it?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, massacring livestock, destroying crops, but with agent origin. I mean, Caroline Elkins talks about how at the same time as the British were helping to draft the European Convention of Rights, you know, they were involved in mass murder. And, you know, famously, 24 unarmed villagers were killed in a robber estate in Batangkhali. You know, it's often called Britain's Mylai. It was absolutely appalling. So we should marvel at how Kew Gardens, I think, spent £1,500 establishing this industry.

[William Dalrymple]

I've seen Caroline Elkins give a lecture about this, and she has a map in her presentation showing how counterinsurgency experts in inverted Commons, in other words, the people doing these massacres and these horrific things get drafted from one counterinsurgency to another. And so they move to the Suez Zone and then to, I think, the Caribbean and then to various parts of Africa. As the kind of decolonial struggles crop up in different places, the same characters are moved around to deal with this.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And actually, her passages in her book are so shocking. I mean, opening fire with live ammunition on detention camps, torturing detainees by starvation, locking them up in cages beneath the hot sun for days on end, force feeding them soapy water. I mean, this is what the British Empire was doing after World War II. And also all of this comes indirectly from Kew Gardens, a place where we take our grandmother.

[Anita Arnan]

I mean, I go there a lot. Every happy memory I have of children toddling around is that you can go to Kew Gardens and three hours, three hours will be taken up by beautiful pointing at big ferns and, you know, big palm leaves and things like that. I mean, you are somebody who manages to find yourself on the battlefield of culture wars on any given day. Have you found that Kew Gardens, or talking about Kew Gardens in this way, has led you into another crossfire. If you like.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Kew Garlands has found itself in the center of a culture war, inevitably, because they've been talking about wanting to decolonize. And that attracted the attention of the Daily Telegraph and certain Tory MPs and so after initially talking positively about decolonization, you had the Q's director, Richard Deverell, saying that, oh, you know, he didn't like the word decolonize. And also, you're not going to read anything, I think, that is critical of Q's or indeed British history. This idea that history is this like grandmother, you need to shield from insult or attack.

[Anita Arnan]

So what was the initial proposition, the decolonized cube proposition was what? That we put labels beside things to explain the history of why this coffee bean plant is here or why this giant palm is here. Was that what the proposition was?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Partly. Basically, it was in the shadow of the Black Lives Matter protest. And Kew gardens published a 10 year manifesto for change where it declared that it really wanted to face up to its imperial and colonial past. That was it really, that was enough to really trigger people. But I think Kew Gardens has found a way of talking about this history in a much more, you know, sane way. Even though they made that statement, you know, they, they are doing lots of positive work. They've got a lot of PhD students looking into the history. They've published a bunch of books or helped to publish a bunch of books on the subject. And one brilliant one, palace of Palms by Kate Telcher, another one called Just the Tonic, about tonic water and cinchona. And, you know, last time I went, they had Empire World on sale in the bookshop and I went to talk to their experts and, you know, these are academics who want to have open discussions.

[William Dalrymple]

We're going to be coming back to Kew in a later episode because we're going to be looking at the network of botanic gardens set up well around the world, but also specifically in India. And it's a very distinct story because what you get is that companies such as the East India Company are very keen to have academic botanists working for them in order to find places where, for example, you can grow the poppy, the opium poppy, which we're going to be dealing with, and we're going to have a whole series on the Opium War at some point is something which derives from botanists discovering where you can grow your poppies. And. And you get this strange nexus between academic botanists who see these botanic gardens in Saharanpur or in Calcutta or wherever it is, as places where they can get funding for their work. And yet it's also being used by the East India Company to make a buck. And in the case of, obviously the opium poppy spread a narcotic that is going to affect, ultimately, is it 30% of the Chinese population at some point become addicted to opium. It's like worse than the fentanyl cris in the United States. And yet there are parts of it just like we like going to Kew and love taking our children in pushchairs. There are aspects of this story which are very attractive and some of the most beautiful botanical art, for example, comes from men who were sent out by hooker, employing late mogul artists to paint these images and producing works of great beauty. And I think this is the whole complexity and interest of this period.

[Anita Arnan]

I've never understood why understanding the history of a thing can mar the beauty in your eyes. I mean, it enriches, you know, knowing more is better. It's beautiful. I think totally.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And opposite things can be true at the same time, which I think should be your slogan, because that is what your podcast is all about. And yeah, there was great beauty and incredible innovation, but at the same time there's colonization, vicious war, torture, espionage, slavery and indenture.

[William Dalrymple]

And as you say, both those things are true at the same time.

[Anita Arnan]

And also, I mean, the works that places like you do with seed banks and, you know, perhaps future proof our benighted species as we sort of mess around with the climate and everything else. Listen, can we have you back? Because I don't, I think we've just scratched the surface on this. Will you, will you come back and talk to us about the science? Because you mentioned one thing and I don't think we've drilled down into this when you talked about Linnaeus and classification. Come back, come back for another episode. Until the next time we meet. It is goodbye from me, Anita Arnan.

[William Dalrymple]

And goodbye from me, William Duranpool.

[Katie Kaye]

Here is that clip from our miniseries on Trump's Insurrection. And these senators are being kind of ushered out through a very narrow corridor. And one of them says, we were 20ft away from the rioters. If the rioters had just looked the other way and seen that a whole bunch of senators were coming out, who knows what would have happened? Who knows what could have happened to Mike Pence. And I think it is important to point out that Donald Trump. Trump was getting these reports and did not care. The Senate has been evacuated at 2:18pm Nancy Pelosi is also pulled out of her chair by the Capitol Police and taken off the podium and taken to a safe location, Fort McNair in Southwest Washington. She originally tried to stay. She didn't want to leave the building, but because of security, she had to get out of there. One of the Democratic members of the Congress at this point, as they realize that the rioters are starting to breach their area, one of the members, Democratic members of Congress, yells down to the Republicans, this is because of you. And the members are getting texts. This is how they know that things are bad, because they're getting texts from their family saying, what are you doing there? Why haven't you left? Are you safe? And they haven't got a television. They're not watching it. They're trying to get on with the business of the day. I mean, this surreal. I keep thinking how surreal it was that inside the chambers, they're trying to do business as usual. And feet away, the rioters are there saying that they want to have some of these people hung and that they want to overturn the election result. So then a few minutes after that, the House floor is evacuated, literally in front of the rioters. The police manage again to secure a very narrow passageway through the rioters to get them out. And one member afterwards says, I could look in the eyes of those officers and I saw the fear. They knew that the officers were outnumbered.

[Ryan Reynolds]

To hear more search, the rest is politics. Us, wherever you get your podcast.