Euclides and the Baron - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 167

Viceroyalty superseded those of an audiencia and had won the day. Peru was also de-
ploying this precedent in the case with Bolivia, but Acre was still a fresh and unpleasant
object lesson in the limits of Spanish imperial organization on the current frontier and
the dangers of taking on the numerous and riled-up Brazilian tappers. Bolivia's enorm-
ous loss of territory after the Acrean War was a somber reminder of the potential costs
of defeat.
There were worries in Peru that the conflicts on the Purús and the Juruá could spill
over into the nearby Ucayali basin and potentially result in the capture of the Amazon
city of Iquitos, the only Peruvian port (and Peruvian navy base) that connected to the
Amazon and the Atlantic. Brazilians worried that Manaus might fall to the Peruvian
navy. Under terms of the Treaty of Petrópolis, the Peruvian government opted for de-
militarization and reconnaissance with Brazil while the debate over Bolivian boundary
rightscontinued.ItwasinthisuneasychessgameofincipientwarthatdaCunhaentered
the fray.
Da Cunha had yet to set foot in Amazonia, but he read well: for his grounding in re-
gional history he pored over Tesouro descoberto by the great eighteenth-century Jesuit
João Daniel, who had languished for twenty years in an Inquisition jail. Da Cunha also
scrutinized the work of the usual throng of naturalists: Alexander von Humboldt, Henry
Walter Bates, Alfred Russel Wallace, Agassiz, Johann von Spix, and Carl Friedrich von
Martius as well as Brazilian politicians like Tavares Bastos. There were the works of
the British explorer William Chandless regarding travels up the Purús and Juruá Rivers:
Da Cunha's Amazon itinerary would retrace his route. Euclides, again, was captured by
Brazil's unknown interior, guerrilla conflict, and national identity.
From Nationalism to Imperialisms
In 1904 Brazil was in the midst of a major modern pulse of globalization as its rubber
monopoly fed insatiable international industrial demand and its coffee exports soared.
The nation was also thrilling to its own stylish cosmopolitanism, with flourishing
transnationalartistic,literary,andpoliticalculturesandanewsenseofitselfasamodern
hemispheric power. 9 Rio was being rebuilt with airy boulevards inspired by the mo-
numentalism and visual drama of Georges-Eugène Haussman's Paris. The fashionable
shops and cafés of Rua Ouvidor burbled with the accents of numerous languages, with
topics focusing at least as much on international politics and economics as on romantic
affairs. 10 Fancy hotels served whiskey, champagne, and tropical ice creams on outside
terraces, a delightful innovation.
Brazil was also emerging into its own internationalism in complex political and
diplomatic interactions with numerous states. From 1890 to 1910 it was involved in
major border revisions involving diplomats from Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia,