An herbal El Dorado: the quest for botanical wealth in the Spanish Empire

Few historians of science would associate the Spanish Empire with scientific innovation. However, recent research is increasingly demonstrating the Crown's strong commitment to scientific research, particularly in the areas of botany, natural history and medicine. Although this commitment began in the 16th century, it reached full development in the 18th, when Enlightenment ideals led to growing interest in exploiting natural resources in the New World. Interest in new resources, which offered alternatives to silver and traditional cash crops, focused largely on medicinal herbs indigenous to the Americas. Herbs that provided 'miracle cures' for age-old diseases would bring both material and moral wealth to the Crown, and were thus pursued vigorously throughout Spanish America. The result was a search for an 'herbal' El Dorado, reminiscent of 16th-century expeditions in search of a mythical land of gold--only in this case, medicine, not metal, was the goal.