Redhead, Paroissien, Parish & Co.: British Field Science in early Independent Río de la Plata

Abstract

This article explores the activities of those British travellers and settlers who carried out open field research in the Andean northwest of Río de la Plata during the 1820s. The focus is set upon Doctor Joseph Redhead, who became a regional expert on questions of mountain altitudes and natural portents such as giant fossil bones and large masses of native iron. Redhead was at the centre of a network of British doctors, entrepreneurs, adventurers and civil servants who crisscrossed the territory attracted by new mining ventures and the opening of trade, and driven by the need for geographical surveys implicit in the logic of empire. James Paroissien, Woodbine Parish, Joseph Pentland and others managed to combine research on the natural environment while engaged in their commercial, diplomatic or military missions. Particular attention is paid to the interactions of Redhead and his fellow countrymen with Humboldt and the kind of science cultivated by him, as well as to issues of scientific authority at the time of deciding on the cause of unexplained natural phenomena.