Euclides and the Baron - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 168

Venezuela, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, the United States, Britain, and France.
With Rio Branco at the helm, Brazil was active in sponsoring pan-American conferen-
ces, making sure its pavilions were visited at the world's fairs, and angling for a seat on
theInternationalCourtoftheHague.Brazilinauguratedaforeignservicewithembassies
and ambassadors, not just legations, and began seeing itself as a diplomatic player in
modern global affairs. 11
DaCunha'swritingmarkedhimasamemberoftheassemblageofthinkersonBrazil's
international relations and the larger questions of imperialism and civilizations, espe-
cially addressing state formation in Russia, the United States, and South Africa, places
with the most obvious parallels to Brazil. His perspective had a durable influence on the
military geopolitical ideologies of the Amazon during the twentieth century and on the-
orists on Lusophone imperialism like Gilberto Freyre. 12
For all his seeming social ineptness, da Cunha had a profound sensibility of political
zeitgeist. His writings of May 1904 show him situating himself for the next round of
his political and artistic life. His newspaper articles bear the stamp of his unusual blend-
ing of geography and history for evoking a national character, showing how these un-
derpinned political cultures, destinies, nations, and emergent civilizations. It is useful to
review the themes and content of these short articles written in that unhappy May, be-
cause they presage the ideas he later expanded in his political writing on Amazonia: the
dialectics of place and national character, racial politics, guerrilla warfare, and the con-
trasting natures and destinies of Brazil and Peru's Amazon economic ecologies. These
articles helpexplaindaCunha'sriseintoRioBranco'sclosestdiplomatic circle andwhy
later his relations with the Peruvians on the joint reconnaissance commission were so
rancorous.
It is often assumed that Rio Branco's interest in da Cunha was due to the prominence
of Os Sertões. Although the Baron adored writers and artists and catapulted many of
them into positions of great political importance, 13 he was not sentimental or dazzled by
artistry. Rio Branco's Amazon statecraft required good historical geography and carto-
graphy. In each of Rio Branco's adjudications and negotiations in Amazonia, the lead
ideologue was carefully chosen with the style of the opponents and adjudicators clearly
in mind. Da Cunha, who knew something about Northeasterners, guerrilla warfare, and
environment, was a quick study on Amazon history and, an additional plus, knew field
survey techniques.
Contrasts and Comparisons between the Madeira and the Javari
The series of articles that da Cunha published that May build upon one another, devel-
oping ideologies of national character that embody his “post-Canudos” racial positions
and how these would play out in the new arena of Amazonia. They no longer embrace