Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
graphy in an imaginary of a new tropical, Brazilian civilization to defy other colonial
ambitions.TheScramblefortheAmazonhasreceivedlittleattention,evenfromAmazo-
nian scholars, yet the final outcome is reflected in every modern map of South America.
The Brazilian national territory emerged from its mostly uncharted physical and cultur-
al tropical backlands in the span of less than two decades as Baron Rio Branco fixed
Brazil's formal sovereignty over most of the basin, thus ending four hundred years of
contest.
Tropical Hot Spots
When Rio Branco came to power in 1902, two guerrilla wars unfolded in the Purús
watershed: one between Brazil and Bolivia over the Acre Territories and the other on
the upper Purús and parts of the Juruá Rivers between Peruvian
caucho
gatherers and
Brazilian rubber tappers. The Treaty of Petrópolis between Bolivia and Brazil (1903)
gaveBraziltheBolivianTerritoriesofAcreanditsunimaginablyvaluablerubberforests.
But Peru claimed these same terrains on the basis of earlier Spanish colonial claims, ar-
guingthatBoliviahadnolegalrightsoverthemandsosurrenderofthoselandstoBrazil
was illegal. While mediations between Peru and Bolivia over these territorial claims
would last for most of a decade, the Purús-Juruá remained engulfed in guerrilla warfare.
A modus vivendi was signed to neutralize the conflict zones between Peru and Brazil
while various documents and boundary surveys could be worked out. This was why da
Cunha headed up the great rubber River Purús on a binational survey commission of
Brazilians and Peruvians to the demilitarized zones. The issue was extremely sensitive:
if Bolivia had had no right to relinquish Acre, Rio Branco would have made a devastat-
ing, costly and unconscionable diplomatic blunder.
12
Acting as a kind of Lewis and Clark to Rio Branco's Jefferson, the reconnaissance
team was supposed to travel up to the remote headwaters of the Purús River to map the
“unknown heart” of the Amazon. Da Cunha's job would be to ascertain where and what
were the lands that should be handed over to Brazil, based on patterns of discovery, set-
tlement, treaties, historical cartography, the nationalities of current settlers, and a huge
diplomatic dossier. He was also charged with describing anything interesting he might
seealongtheway.Thelatterincludedeconomicandsocialvignettes,naturalhistory,and
the intrigues unfolding in the expedition itself.
Da Cunha's travels were fraught with disasters, and he lived in perpetual anguish and
near starvation throughout the voyage. Beset with shipwrecks, humiliating penury, dis-
ease, and setbacks, he and his men ascended the Purús under the worst possible condi-
tions.ThebinationalsurveyexpeditionthatdaCunhaledwithCaptainAlexandreBuen-
año became a bitter rivalry as they advanced to the headwaters. Their personal anim-
osity mimicked the politics of the larger international intrigue and grew more acute as
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