The Unlikely Protagonist - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 23

Cartoons showed villages full of animals while men hid in and peered out from forests.
This resistance became more intense as other bureaucratic actions, usually associated
withtaxesandotheremergingformsofstatecontrollikecensusesandlanddemarcation,
seemed to extract more and deliver less in return. A strong antimonarchist streak existed
among the praças , the “grunts” drafted against their will into the Brazilian army, which
only intensified over time. 40
The military came to be seen as the “integrating molecule” of Brazil. Its leaders
were deeply aware of the idea of a “nation in arms” unfolding in the United States and
Europe and took inspiration from models of land-based militarism for galvanizing cul-
tural,economic,andpoliticalunity. 41 Themilitarysoughttotakeregionalidentitiessuch
as“Bahian” andmake them “Brazilian.” These shifts broughtpowerful newformsofal-
legiance that transcended the regionalism and racism (though certainly not eliminating
them) that had historically defined Brazilian society. The armed forces saw itself as a
populist, integrative model for the nation, an institution that could “teach” the rest of the
countryaboutmodernnationhood. 42 Thisapproachtoidentity,ratherthantheusualones
embedded in place, position, or patronage, was especially evident in the officer class; its
“philosophercadets,”anemergentgroupoftechnocratsalliedtoRepublicanelites.They
wereespeciallyimpatientwiththearchaicpoliticalandeconomicstructuresofmonarch-
ist Brazil.
This military, which Euclides would encounter, and which would exile Dom Pedro II,
was shaped in the crucible of a largely forgotten war, one that actually was a prelude
for the Scramble for the Amazon, since large of areas of Paraguayan (142,000 km 2 ) and
Bolivian lands (97,000 km 2 ) shifted to Brazil in this conflict.
The Paraguayan War (1864-70)
The Paraguayan War had complex outcomes for Brazil. A distant war now known
mainly through novels about the Paraguayan leader's tempestuous Irish mistress, Eliza
Lynch, it was the largest and bloodiest war in South American history, claiming the
livesofmorethan300,000soldiersandciviliansthroughbattleandepidemicsofcholera
and smallpox. It was one of the largest wars anywhere in the world at the time, rival-
ing the Crimean War, and was the largest ever fought by Brazil. 43 It was a “total” war,
one waged against civilians (mostly Guaraní Indians), a fact that gave the hostilities the
tinge, if not the full obliterative reality, of ethnocide.
Though distant, the conflict was of broad international interest because of its racial
and political dynamics as well as the huge territory that was up for grabs—some
14,244,934 hectares, an area about the size of New York State. It was quite exotic com-
paredtoEuropeanconflictsofthetime:awarfoughtbyIndiansagainstblacks,by“neb-
ulous republics” (Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina), and directed by the only monarchy in