In 1995 I helped organise an Australian tour for Jack Herer,
the Californian author of a book called The Emperor Wears No
Clothes, which was subtitled the true authoritative history
of cannabis hemp. Herer was an amateur historian and a crusader
against marijuana prohibition who had discovered that marijuana
was also this plant called hemp, which had once been an extremely
important plant, but was now banned because it was said to be
an evil drug plant. During his research Herer discovered that,
in previous centuries, hemp had been a major American crop,
and that the first and third US Presidents, George Washington
and Thomas Jefferson, had grown hemp while the sixth President,
John Quincy Adams, had even written an essay on the growing
of hemp in Russia when he was the US consul in St Petersburg.
Herer concluded that hemp had been the most important plant
on the planet and he developed the theory that marijuana prohibition
had come about as a backdoor attempt to make hemp illegal. Hemp
been banned because of the economic competition it offered to
the plastic industry, to paper-from-trees and to new synthetic
fibres like Nylon.(1)
My response to Herer was ambiguous. I found his history of
cannabis remarkable, yet he was such a cannabis enthusiast that
some of his conclusions seemed far-fetched. I set to work researching
the history of hemp in Australia, and I was surprised to discover
that Herer’s claims about hemp’s historical importance,
which I thought overstated, were justified. From reading the
documents about the founding of Australia and from reading books
like Blainey’s The Tyranny of Distance, I came to see
how central concerns about hemp were in Britain in 1786 when
the decision for New South Wales was made. The history we had
been taught at school that convicts were the original reason
for the settlement was simply a cover story. New South Wales
was intended as a hemp colony.
During this research I became aware that Sir Joseph Banks played
a central role in planning the colony of New South Wales and
that Banks was deeply concerned about hemp. Just as the founding
fathers of the US were hemp enthusiasts, so was the founding
father of Australia.
For Europeans in the Age of Sail, cannabis did not mean marijuana:
it meant hemp, the long vegetable fibre extracted from the stem
of the European hemp plant. The word canvas comes from the Dutch
word for ‘cannabis’. To fit out a first rate man-of-war
required 80 tonnes of hemp for sails, cables and rigging, and
to produce that much hemp 320 acres of Cannabis sativa had to
be grown. Because it was the basis for sail and rope, hemp was
as central to sea-power and empire in the Age of Sail as oil
is in our era.
* Just as the oil industry provides the technological basis
for our commerce and our warfare, 200 years ago hemp was basic
to the technology of war and trade;
* As the military strategy of the Second World War and the
current Middle Eastern wars revolve around oil supplies, naval
strategy during the Napoleonic Wars was based around cutting
hemp supplies;
* As oil supplies and alternatives to oil occupy some of the
greatest minds of our era, two hundred years ago, Sir Joseph
Banks, was preoccupied with hemp supplies and alternatives to
hemp.
While reading Joseph Maiden’s biography, Sir Joseph Banks
- the Father of Australia, I discovered a reference to
a file in the Kew Banks’ collection called Hemp 1764-1810.
For many years, I have been sifting through this file, laboriously
deciphering Banks’ gout-crippled handwriting, trying to
understand the history it contained. Having long suspected Banks’
central role in British hemp policy, I was pleased to discover
that the file more than confirmed my view. (2)
Dr John Jiggens will be talking on his book Sir Joseph Banks
and ther Question of Hemp at MardiGrass, Saturday 2:00PM. and
Sunday at 11:00AM in the LoTHC Tent.
