This paper examines French instructions for how to acquire, import and acclimatize breeding stallions from North Africa in the eighteenth century. The French royal institution for horse breeding, the Haras Royaux, was created in 1665 with the objective of ‘perfecting the race’ of the domestic horse stock, which was perceived to be hopelessly degenerated. The Haras mainly sought to improve the French horses by importing superior foreign stallions, of which the most prestigious were the Arabian and Barb ones. This paper focuses on a series of instructions written by the Haras administration around 1750, outlining its plans for creating a permanent establishment in Tripoli (present-day Libya). From the perspective of ‘history of projects’, I follow how the instructions for the Tripoli establishment were drafted in several steps; from choosing its location to giving detailed guidance to the horsemen who were sent on the mission. The paper explores how the Haras’ activities tied into France's imperial ambitions, including how the instructions stressed that the extraction of North African stallions – intended to serve as resources for ‘racial improvement’ – would bolster their commercial and military power. It argues that instructions can be understood as a key technology in the complex relationship between metropolitan ambitions, knowledge and ignorance, on the one hand, and overseas sites of extraction, on the other, in histories of imperial science. It furthermore underscores how the transnational transfer of animals and knowledge faced challenges as realities and individuals’ actions on the ground diverged from the metropolitan plans.
Jens Amborg is a PhD candidate in the Department of History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala University. He is interested in the history of science and medicine, environmental and animal history, and the French Enlightenment. His thesis examines theories and practices of animal breeding in eighteenth-century France, particularly focusing on how animal breeding knowledge shaped ideas about race, reproduction and improvement. Jens previously studied at Cambridge University and the EHESS in Paris, and was a visiting researcher at Stanford and Cambridge.
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