Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
still be seen in Belém's Museu Goeldi today. But it would appear that there was another
object of this foray: a devastating colonial report.
Goeldi's report stated the following:
The Contestado territory is, and I can affirm this in the most positive way, inhabited in most of its
area by Brazilians. Without exception Brazilians occupy the area from the Amapá River to the south,
as they do the Cunani, the Oiyapoc. The language used is Portuguese, the way of life, the customs,
the manners, all this is just like Pará because they are almost all Paraense. In those areas there are
maybe a half-dozen foreigners, of these a few are creoles from Cayenne. The only place where this is
inverted is on the Rio Calçoene, where creoles from Cayenne, Martinique and Guadeloupe, and from
southernFrancearedecidedlythepreponderantnumber.Francemaintainsconstantrelationswiththis
river directly and via Cayenne and Martinique.
Figure 7.6.
Emilio Goeldi: melding scientific exploration with espionage.
Butinthespiritofanyarbitration,itisnotenoughtoknowwhetherthepeoplelivingintheContest-
ado are of Brazilian origin. What is equally or perhaps more important is whether they
want
to be
Brazilians. In this I can affirm because what I saw and convinced me is that they in fact want to be-
long to Brazil and not to France. What Mr. Henri Coudreau wrote about their sympathies for France
were the grossest lies. Many people in Cunani were indignant when I read them sections of the topic
by Coudreau. . . .
As to the value of the Contestado, I don't want to underplay my firm conviction that the lower
areas(CaboNorteandAmapá)willnotbeworthwhileforalongtime.Ontheotherhand,thenorthern
regions are beautiful and worthy of discussion from the Cunani to the Oiyapoc. It's not for nothing
that France was content to take the northern part from the Calçoene area and above. That way France
would keep the best section and we would have the worst. Cutting this gordian knot in half would ab-
solutely not be convenient for Brazil. The division should be
everything or nothing
. If the Contestado
is limited to only the Amapá part, it is not worth the trouble and time to fight over it. But the north
of the Contestado is as good as the southern part is bad: litigation is completely justified and Brazil
should look after its legitimate rights.
103
Goeldi clearly had his terms of reference, to explore who occupied the region and
what citizenship they preferred. This question goes to the deepest irony in these pro-
Search WWH ::
Custom Search