Ambiguous empire: The knowledge of the natural world in British colonial New York

Imperialism and science are historically linked endeavors to extend mastery over the world. Beliefs about and practices in the natural world in New York during the First British Empire, 1664--1775, are the subject of this dissertation. It examines a variety of domains: mapping, climate and landscape, the sky, plant life, human health and illness, and formal natural philosophy. British imperial extension over the local natural world was ambiguous because settlers in New York worked to recreate a British natural world, interpreting the local natural world through British narratives, and ignored, as best they could, aspects of the local natural world that were difficult to integrate into British beliefs and practices. At the same time, the period of the First British Empire was a period in which there were shifts in what counted in British eyes as legitimate knowledge of the natural world, with knowledge that could be quantified, catalogued, and described in neutral language increasingly valued. Such polite, rational learning was only partially adopted at the periphery of the Empire, however, because political authority, social relations, and religious allegiances developed distinctively in New York and because the local natural world was too particular to yield entirely to settler desires.