Native American experts had, and continue to have, deep knowledge of North America’s biodiversity and ecology. Euro-American scientists in the 18th and 19th centuries used this knowledge when developing their ideas. Although they relied heavily on Native expertise in their work, they rarely acknowledged the contributions of specific Native individuals. Moreover they made racist claims that Native Americans were socially and intellectually inferior to people of European descent. Appropriating Native expertise was another way that Euro-Americans could assert both dominion over the American landscape and their own intellectual authority.
Precursors: Eighteenth-century Natural History
Early American natural history was influenced by European science. Europeans offered diverse approaches to natural history. Some, like the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (APS, 1769), focused on taxonomy, or identifying, naming, and cataloging new species. Linnaeus developed one of the most influential taxonomic systems, which classified plants according to their reproductive parts. French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (APS, 1768) thought Linnaeus’ system was too simplistic. Buffon advocated detailed observation of living things in nature, including their behavior and relations to plants, animals, and habitats. He also hypothesized natural laws relating to ecology and evolution. Ideas about nature drawn from art also found their way into American natural history. Naturalists depicted the beauty of nature like painters and highlighted their emotional responses like poets.
