Botany as a Colonial Discourse? The Case of Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles by Eliza Gleeson

Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles is best known as the founder of Singapore. Less well known is that he was a distinguished amateur naturalist who pursued a fascination with the natural world throughout his career with the East India Company (“EIC”) in South East Asia. It has recently been suggested that the practice of botany by EIC officials in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was a form of colonial discourse that aimed to impose a European world order on the natural world. This article will examine whether this is a fair reflection of Raffles’ aims through two artefacts: a letter written in November 1822 in support of the establishment of a botanical and experimental garden in Singapore and one of a number of natural history drawings commissioned by Raffles during his service with the EIC. It will be seen that, while Raffles was a man of his time and undoubtedly displayed some of the characteristics of which he stands accused, it is misleadingly reductive to see either his practices or his motives as solely a colonial discourse.