The Indigenous versus the Exotic: Debating natural origins in early modern Europe

During the early modern period, a series of debates arose around the relative value and desirability of 'exotic' vs. 'indigenous' European natural objects. Focusing on such highly visible imports as coffee, tea, chocolate and tobacco, but also scrutinizing a wide range of foodstuffs and medicines (often to be found in the new botanical gardens), 17th- and 18th-century pamphleteers—especially physicians—alternately praised and disparaged the substances in question. While some lauded the new imports, others issued cautions about them and called for renewed attention to 'indigenous' European natural worlds, successfully urging the production of what we might nowadays call local floras and environmental surveys of their own European landscapes. In the 17th-century Netherlands, the works of Jan van Beverwyck, Lambert Bidloo and Jan Commelin provide a particularly rich introduction to the themes of the indigenous-exotic debate.

Keywords:

• Indigenous
• Exotic
• Netherlands
• Local Floras
• History Of Environmental Surveys