In the Times of Scrambles in the Land of the Amazons - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 73

To grasp the dynamics of the Amazon Scramble, it is useful to understand the general
frameworktreaties,someofthelocalities,theformsofstatelegibility(suchasnewmap-
ping exercises) as well as the ideologies invoked as forms of claiming, and the specific
talentsandstrategiesusedbyRioBranco.HewasbuildingonalongBrazilianhistoryof
recasting formal boundaries. Four main treaties had initially structured Brazilian claims,
and Rio Branco overrode them all.
The first, the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Papal Bull of 1494, divided South America
between Spain and Portugal almost immediately after the return of Columbus along a
meridian 370 leagues (about 1770 kms) to the west of the Cape Verde Islands. Lands to
the east of the line would belong to the Portuguese crown; those to the west to Spain.
Since measuring longitude was a dicey enterprise and the interior path of the Tordesillas
line was a matter of speculation, it was more a vague instrument of policy than a barrier
to action.
Almost as soon as Tordesillas was decreed, there were substantial modifications to
its location, mainly due to Portuguese and Spanish concerns about their valuable Indi-
an Ocean holdings rather than the amorphous New World lands. In the space of forty
years,thecartographersandtreatieshadmovedtheTordesillaslinemorethansevenhun-
dredmilestotheeastandthenback.Thefluidityofabstractboundariesbeforelongitude
could be adequately measured, coupled with the most tenuous forms of administrative
occupation, would ultimately privilege “citizens” on the ground as final arbiters of na-
tional territory. The Tordesillas line, it should be noted, was negotiated for boundaries
between Iberian crowns. The French, the Dutch, the Irish, and the English were not sig-
natories and habitually ignored it.
The Brazilian and Spanish colonies were linked by their shared rivers: The Amazon
River joined what today are Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia with Brazil. The Paraguay/
Parana/La Plata drainage connected Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay with
Brazil to the east. The explorers from São Paulo plied this immense Paraguay basin
northwardinsailingvesselsmovingontherelentlessAntarcticwindsthatblowfromthe
pole to the tropics for part of the year, the monsões , from whence we get the English
term monsoons . Later the term monsões came to be applied to the adventurers, laborers,
and traders who routinely plied and explored the western territories of the Parana basin.
With a combination of sailing and rowing it was possible to move from São Paulo to
the center of the continent in Mato Grosso. To return, the currents carried one down the
Paraguay River to the La Plata, a route that had connected silver from the Potosí mines
for untaxed contraband for Atlantic embarkation. It was the great interior integrator, as
well as its perennially contested boundary.
A map from 1600 clearly shows an “Island of Brazil,” with the substantial Lake of
Xayaros linking the Amazon and Paraguay Rivers. By 1601, Antonio de Herrera in his