Science in the British Colonies of America

In colonial America there were "all things to doe, as in the beginninge of the world. . . . "⁠—John Winthrop, Jr., 1668. There were a "thousand different kindes of birdes and beastes of the forest, which have never been knowne, neither in shape not name. . . ."⁠—José d'Acosta, late sixteenth century.The new Americas were endlessly exciting to early colonials and to European scientists as well. Raymond P. Stearns here brings together for the first time the full story of American colonial science with all its patrons, contributors, and contributions to the "new science" of the Western world from 1520 to 1770. His comprehensive overview, based on primary sources, provides a new dimension to the cultural history and literature of the American colonies.Stearns shows that during the seventeenth century, colonials did little more than serve as field agents and collectors for European scientists (especially the Royal Society of London) in the Americas, the West Indies, and the Hudson's Bay region. They were greatly hampered by isolation, lack of libraries, and the absence of like-minded men of science. Stearns shows, however, that early commentators on the New World so demonstrated the inadequacies of the "old science" that the New World, with its manifold new products, challenged the old science and created a demand for something more applicable to the new-found data.During the eighteenth century scientific communities arose in the colonies and colonial scientists began to exhibit a new scientific stature. Stearns quotes the "shrewdest" of their observations and describes their personalities, experiments, explorations, collections, and publications. Some of these men eventually rose far above the role of mere field agents and emerged as scientists in their own right, as did Benjamin Franklin with his "Paper Containing a New Theory of Thunder Gusts." Stearns stresses the creation of a matrix, a product of collective forces in the growth of colonial society which transcended in importance the achievements of any individual scientist, for it assured the future of science in America as no individual could.