Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
nian explorers who kept to the main channel, but younger “off-route” travelers—like
Lange, Hardenberg, Woodroffe—who were caught in the snares of the upriver econom-
ies saw the intersection of international economic forces with local power as structuring
the lives of countless thousands, and “natural” social hierarchies as simple ideological
masking of economic brutalities.
Enlightenment Explorers and Nineteenth-Century Naturalists
The eighteenth-century European voyagers had forged a tradition of adventure, science,
and measurement that increasingly defined “Greater Amazonia” *1 as a terrain of mythic
endeavor, scientific exploration, and global ambitions. While the imperial narrative has
largely dropped out of the popular perception of these travels (perhaps due to Rio
Branco's success at deflecting incursions), it was certainly not far from the interests
of the many observers of Amazonia from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century.
Earlier expeditions set forth with surprisingly august protection and were manned by
Europe's aristocratic intelligentsia. De la Condamine traveled with the blessing of the
French crown. The Spanish royals issued a laissez passer to von Humboldt in the hopes
that his mining experience might lead to new sources of wealth, especially if he was
roaming around Raleigh's El Dorado in the Guyanas. The Brazilian explorer Alexandre
Rodrigues Ferreira was contracted by the Portuguese crown. The young aristocrats von
Spix and von Martius, who form a bridge between the Enlightenment travelers and the
nineteenth-century naturalist-collectors, traveled in Brazil as emissaries of the king of
Bavaria;theAgassizfamilyvoyagedundertheprotectionofEmperorPedroII(although
the funds came from financial tycoon J. P. Morgan). By midcentury, scientific institu-
tions had replaced the coffers of kings, reflecting new forms of states, new global insti-
tutions, and new imperial statecraft.
Reports of the voyages of de la Condamine and, most famously, Alexander von Hum-
boldt initially defined the tropical scientific travel genres and the early technical exped-
itions of tropical empire. These travels were seen as Enlightenment enterprises whose
central concern was theoretical as well as practical knowledge derived from scientific
principles. These highly public itineraries were sponsored respectively by the crowns of
France, and Spain, which were hardly indifferent to the possibilities of Amazonia and
the information collected by these scientific icons with excellent mapping skills. These
aristocratic travelers galvanized Europe with their South American natural history and
philosophical voyages and imbued European tropical travel with scientific luster and
manly daring. 3
These travels lacked the explicit tinge of imperial exploration that clung to the later
deedsofStanley,Livingston,Rhodes,andBrazzainAfricainthenineteenthcentury,but
the studies of von Humboldt and de la Condamine figured in the arsenals of the Guyana
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