Le bureau des colonies et le savoir scientifique : articulation entre sciences et actions dans la construction d’un projet atlantique (1763-1767)

Abstract

In 1763 the Duke of Choiseul decided on rapid white settlement of French Guiana, in an enterprise that engaged the major players in France during the Choiseul years. This sensation however, had a purpose: to make French Guiana the exact counterpoint of British domination in the north in four years. But to “shape” the colony, the government found itself ignorant of this equinoctial France. The war opened a space conducive to welcoming or listening to ideas and projects. The government solicited diverse scientific bodies (physiocrats, hydrographers, botanists, academics) to evaluate the potential of the “torrid zone” of continental America.Thus the Duke de Choiseul intended to learn about the “local” gaining information organized around several activities. These activities highlight, on one hand, the level of knowledge that emerged, and on the other, the variety of scientific stakeholders. The emergence of two actors, the intendant Chanvalon, director of the Académie de Sciences in Bordeaux and the knight Turgot, governor and associate member of the Académie des Sciences, transformed the proposed project of setting up a colony that would stand comparison with the population of the thirteen colonies of America. Scientific knowledge was no longer a local knowledge but became a legislative political conception, subject to military context. In so doing, the rupture of this field knowledge induced a relative unpreparedness for installing an expedition of 17,0000 men, and explains, to some extent, the tragic failure of a colonial project of the Enlightenment.

Keywords

• Académie des sciences
• colonies
• duc de Choiseul
• sciences