Argonauts of the Amazon - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 232

Scramble. Both would identify significant regional resources that would shape tropical
imperial history: quinine, latexes, petroleum, and gold.
Science, Espionage, and the Deep History of Scrambles
The template for modern scientific expeditions in Amazonia first appeared in the late
eighteenth century with the reports of de la Condamine (1735-44), who was measuring
the length of a degree of meridian at the equator with astronomical techniques but took
the opportunity to note curiosities, build pyramids, 4 outline potential resources, and dis-
cuss them in detail with the French crown. De la Condamine made a special point of
visiting the French colony in the Guyanas, a place embroiled in regular boundary con-
flict with Brazil, and in fact it was there that he was introduced to Hevea latex (he'd
encountered Castilla latex or caucho earlier in Ecuador).
Von Humboldt's expedition (1799-1804) remained on the perimeter of Amazonia, al-
though he traveled well inside the Orinoco watershed and the Guyanas, areas of signi-
ficant interest to Spain, his sponsor. He was concerned to transcend mere description
and to “track the great and constant laws of nature.” Measuring the Earth and the “con-
gressofalltheformsofknowledge”wouldprovidethescientificframeworkfromwhich
“natureitselfwastoemergeasadynamicequilibriumofforces.” 5 Itwas,inhisview,the
task of natural philosophy to develop a history and theory of nature, one unleashed from
the religious dogmas of the time, one that was scientific but also lyrical and expressive:
“nature herself is sublimely eloquent.” 6 The integration of aesthetics and natural scien-
ce was a way of overcoming the limitations of mere description or pure sensation and
united the insights and understandings of nature in Enlightenment science and emerging
romantic sensibilities. As one of the most influential scientists and literary stylists of the
South American tropics, he had an impact on the method of reportage on virtually all
nineteenth-century expeditions that was incalculable, with even young William James
yearning toreplicate hismanly style ofrational science with romantic rapture. Theunity
between scientists assessing the natural world and imperial survey more or less bifurc-
atedlater inthemid-nineteenth centuryintodivisions between the“purer”natural scien-
ces of biogeography and taxonomy and the applied trades of colonial survey, though the
lines between them remained famously blurry. 7
Another eighteenth-century traveler, whose exploits received far less attention though
his circuit was much more extensive and thorough, was the Portuguese-Brazilian Al-
exandre Rodrigues Ferreira, whose nine-year expedition (1783-92) in remote parts of
the basin produced extraordinary botanical, zoological, and ethnographic results, not to
mention exquisite paintings and drawings by José Joaquim Freire. Rodrigues Ferreira
traveled regions seething with boundary conflict, including the Oyapoque River, the Rio
Negro,thePantanal,MatoGrosso,andParaguay.AlthoughRodriguesFerreiraisknown