Missionary hydrography and the invention of early modern Amazonia

Abstract

Amazonia became an important laboratory of inquiry and evangelization for Franciscans and Jesuits in the early modern Spanish Empire. The missionary endeavours depended upon knowledge friars acquired and produced about the rivers, landscapes, and societies of their new home in the tropical lowlands of South America. Friars were particularly interested in finding and naming the axis of this new territory. ‘Amazonas,’ however, became an untameable fluvial entity that defied unitary conceptualization. Whereas the sixteenth-century concept of the river revolved around the dimensions of its estuary, seventeenth-century missionaries focused on length, volume, and headwaters to define Amazonia. The attempts to define the river produced a dispute between the two religious orders and indeed within each group, as Franciscans and Jesuits sought to make their ‘Amazonas’ normative. The present study explores this debate and asserts that hydrography became a language of authority and contention among early modern missionaries of Amazonia.

Biographical note

Roberto Chauca is an Adjunct Lecturer of History at the University of Florida.

Acknowledgements

This article derives from the second chapter of my doctoral dissertation, which was supported by a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council, a Beca de Apoyo a la Investigación from the Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, and a Dissertation Writing Fellowship from the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine. I want to thank Andréa Ferreira, Ida Altman, Mark Thurner, and the two anonymous reviewers for CLAR for their comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. For general surveys of early modern Western Amazonia underscoring the important role Jesuits and Franciscans played in its exploration and evangelization, see Ardito 1993, Celi 1998, Espinoza 2007, Hemming 2008, Heras 1992, Jouanen 1941–1943, Santos 1992, and Tibesar 1953.

2. Unlike John Hemming (2008, 32–33) and Mariano Cuesta (2012b, 98 n.10), I argue that the fluvial name ‘Amazonas’ did not become normative. In regard to the conflicting representations of Amazonia as a region since early modern to present times, see Gondim 1994, Pineda 2011 and 2013, Pizarro 2009, and Slater 2015. By following these studies, I aim to elucidate how missionaries came to define the ‘Amazonas’ as a river.

3. These descriptions resembled, in particular, the classic Greek periplous and the Roman ‘itinerary,’ which were two of the earliest genres of travel writing that prominently featured rivers ‘as part of a geographical framework marking distance and progress’ (Campbell 2012, 51).

4. Both Spaniards and Portuguese had sailed the waters of the Amazonas since the first half of the sixteenth century. Besides the Orellana and Ursúa expeditions, Alonso Mercadillo had explored the upper Amazon in 1538. Among the Portuguese, Diogo Nunes (1553), Gabriel Soares de Sousa (1587), Manuel de Sousa d’Eça (1614), André Pereira (1616), Simão Estácio da Silveira (1618), and Luis Aranha de Vasconcelos (1622) had also provided information on Amazonia before the arrival of missionaries in the 1630s (Cardoso 2012, 56–61, 66; Cruz Neto 2014, 121–46; Cuesta 2012a, 153; Lucero 2004, 26, 28; Martins 2007, 34–36; Neves 2011, 67–114; Ribeiro and Neto 1992, 304–6; Saragoça 2000, 15–19; Silveira 1904 [1618], 361–66; Ugarte 2009, 35–74).

5. For the Jesuits of Quito, see Almeida 2003a and 2003b, Barquero 1914, Capello 2010, Dias 2012, Langer 2009, Larrea 1963 and 1977, Latorre 1988, Lucero 2004, and Safier 2008. For the friars of the Franciscan province of Peru, see Arbesmann 1945, Craig 1972, Cuesta 1986, 1992 and 1997, Gridilla 1943, Ica 1921, Heras 1980 and 1992, 303–27, and Meléndez 2009.

6. Although seemingly outdated, David Buisseret’s assertion that the study of the academic background of Jesuit missionaries deserved further study (1997, 114) remains valid, especially when affirmations on the friars’ lack of ‘minimum preparation and experience’ to map Amazonia still persist (Cuesta 2012b, 104).

7. In the present article, ‘province’ does not refer to viceroyal political jurisdictions but to missionary administrative units.

8. By the early eighteenth century, there would be Dutch and German translations as well (Arellano, Díez Borque, and Santoja, 2009, 43).

9. On the events that led to Acuña’s Amazonian exploration, see Cortezão 1950; Gondim 1994, 93–94; Jiménez 1889; Lucero 2004, 24–41; Saragoça 2000, 71–79.

10. ASJQ, Quito, 1639, 22 January, leg. 3, doc. 186, f. 2.

11. Ibid., f. 3.

12. Ibid., f. 6.

13. Ibid., f. 7.

14. Near today’s Pernambuco, Brazil.

15. A peninsula in Venezuela, off Trinidad and Tobago.

16. That is, the southern branch of the mouth of the present-day Amazonas River. The seventeenth-century American Spaniard polymath Antonio de León Pinelo enumerated a series of rivers that might correspond to Enciso’s Marañon. One of these is a ‘Miarin’ River, which resembles the current name of the Mearin River near the city of São Luis. However, due to the plenitude of options, he stated that it should be better to name it the ‘Portuguese Marañon’ (1943 [1656], 446–54).

17. Present-day Ecuador. See ASJQ, Ibarra, 1767, 24 August, leg. 29, doc. 1570, f. 79r.

18. On the Orellana expedition see Cuesta 2012a, 149–50, and 2012b, 99–100; Hemming 2008, 27–34.

19. By the mid-seventeenth century, it had become a norm that the third largest river on the northeastern coast of South America was the Orinoco. However, as León Pinelo (1943, 432–46) noted, it was frequently confused with the Marañon, mostly by Spanish authors.

20. Today’s Colombia and Ecuador, respectively. See ASJQ, Popayán, 1767, leg. 28, doc. 1562, f. 40r, and ASJQ, Loja, 1767, 1 September, leg. 30, doc. 1577, f. 36r. On the importance of Pliny for the development of geographic knowledge in early modern Spain, see Hernando 2000, 10–11.

21. At the end, Brieva navigated the Amazonas River in its entirety three times between 1636 and 1639 (Cruz 1999, 331).

22. Franciscans from the province of Quito were initially involved in the evangelization of Amazonia until the first half of the seventeenth century. Later on, their presence would be less evident and their peers from the Peruvian province became more avid participants (Celi 1998, 51).

23. The authorship of the ‘Descripción de la América Austral o reinos del Perú’ has been traditionally attributed to Cruz. However, according to Julián Heras, Cruz was only the author of the section on the Franciscan discovery of the Amazonas and the rest of the manuscript should remain anonymous (Cruz 1999, vii).

24. See Biblioteca del Convento de los Descalzos de Lima, A-72.

25. The emphasis Cruz put on the role the Seraphic Order played in the exploration of the Amazonas was also aimed at responding to a contemporaneous report written by the Provincial Father of the Jesuit province of Quito, Rodrigo Barnuevo, who had indicated that the Society had played a much more difficult and honourable role during the beginnings of the discovery of the Amazonas and that Franciscans merely were in charge of its conclusion (1942 [1643], 22, 26).

26. Current hydrographic conventions indicate that, whereas the Napo is a northern affluent of the Amazonas, coming from eastern Ecuador, the Marañon springs from central Peru and follows a northwesterly direction before giving birth to the Amazonas. Meanwhile, Cruz’s description of the Marañon corresponds to today’s Ucayali River.

27. The Cundurises corresponds to the Cunuris River in Acuña’s account (1641, 37r).

28. AMCE, Madrid, 1642, 24 February, ADQ.9.1.9.III(63), SG.13.64, f. 32r.

29. AMCE, Quito, 1739, ADQ.9.7.41, SG.13.42, doc.2, ff.. 27–28.

30. ALMREP, Lima, 1687, 24 April, LEB-11-47, caja 94, f. 33r.

31. ALMREP, Lima, 1692, LEB-11-47, caja 94, f. 267r/v.

32. Ibid., f. 267v.

33. Ibid., ff. 319v, 321v, 330r.

34. Ibid., f. 322v.

35. Apurimac was the first name that the river received at its headwaters. After the Vilcanota and Cocharcas Rivers joined it, the river’s name changed to Vilcamayo. Later, after the Simaponte and Paucartambo emptied their waters into the Vilcamayo, the river was named Taraba. A few leagues downriver, the Taraba received the waters of the Ene, and the river received another name, Gran Paro. Further downstream, the river’s name changed to Ucayali. This is, lastly, the river coming from the south that emptied its waters into the ‘great Marañon Apurimac’ (ibid., ff. 316v–19r, 320v).

36. Lope de San Antonio, General Procurator of the Franciscans of Quito, noted in a 1750 account on the missions under his jurisdiction that they had friars in two ‘distinct but large’ provinces, Sucumbíos and Mocoa. These provinces were ‘next to the great River of San Francisco of Quito, colloquially called Marañon and Amazonas.’ ACC, Colonia, Misiones, Sig 8946 (Col-E I-11ms), f. 1v.

37. On the circulation of Rodríguez’s work, see ASJQ, Riobamba, 1756, leg. 17, doc. 1360, f. 81; ASJQ, Popayán, 1767, leg. 28, doc. 1562, f. 42r; ASJQ, Buga, 1767, leg. 28, doc. 1563, f. 10r; ASJQ, Ibarra, 1767, 24 August, leg. 29, doc. 1570, f. 78v; and ASJQ, Quito, 1753, 1 May, leg. 17, doc. 1362, f. 31.

38. Silveira (1904 [1618], 362) and León Pinelo (1943, 471–72, 476, 480, 483) had also proposed this separation between the Marañon and Amazonas. However, they did not make a comment on the supremacy of the one over the other.

39. The current Brazilian ‘Solimões’ River.

40. Current hydrographic conventions follow Fritz’s cartographic description and consider Lake Lauricocha one of the sources of the Marañon River. Instead, Rodríguez and Álvarez’s version of the Marañon, springing from southern Peru, corresponds to the larger basin of today’s Ucayali River.

41. By 1675, Peruvian Franciscan friars had also informed their Jesuit peers from Quito about Lauricocha—‘a very mighty lake due to the volume of the waters that it contains or overflows, is venerated as mother of the great Marañon River’ (Maroni 1988 [1738], 108).

42. The Apurimac River drainage spreads over today’s province of Caylloma, department of Arequipa, southern Peru. Yet, the precise location of the ultimate source of the Amazonas is such a matter of dispute that ‘cannot yet be unambiguously identified’ (Janský et al. 2011, 138–39, 149–50).

43. In the Rumi Cruz mountain range, near the boundary between the departments of Lima and Pasco, central Peru (Contos and Tripcevich 2014, 36).