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Making Patagonia an “Australian Argentina” and making the Amazon tightly Brazilian: depictions and political projects in Roberto Payró’s and Euclides da Cunha’s travel writings (1898, 1904-1905) José Bento de Oliveira Camassa

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/GHSJ.2021.408

Source: Global Histories, Vol. 7, No. 1 (May 2021), pp. 136-160. ISSN: 2366-780X

Copyright © 2021 José Bento de Oliveira Camassa

License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Publisher information: ‘Global Histories: A Student Journal’ is an open-access bi-annual journal founded in 2015 by students of the M.A. program Global History at Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. ‘Global Histories’ is published by an editorial board of Global History students in association with the Freie Universität Berlin.

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Contact information: For more information, please consult our website www.globalhistories.com or contact the editor at: [email protected]. Making Patagonia an “Australian Argentina” and Making the Amazon Tightly Brazilian: Depictions and Political Projects in Roberto Payró’s and Euclides da Cunha’s Travel Writings (1898, 1904-1905)

by JOSÉ BENTO DE OLIVEIRA CAMASSA

136 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m ABSTRACT

The Patagonia and Acre territories were not part of Argentina and Brazil respectively by the time of their independences in the early nineteenth century. Instead, they were annexed during the Latin American Belle Époque, when both countries ascended economically and geopolitically and bore frontier impulses. Therefore, the incorporation of these territories

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was founded upon broader endeavors of national expansion M a k i n g P and development. With these aspirations in their luggage, the Argentine journalist Roberto Payró traveled to Patagonia in 1898, while the Brazilian essayist Euclides da Cunha a t g o n i “ journeyed to Acre and the West Amazon in 1904-1905. Using a comparative history approach, this article shows how their travel writings debated modernizing and territorial integration projects and echoed similar plans, as both regions faced A resemblant challenges. It also demonstrates how Payró’s and u s t r a l i n A g e Cunha’s beliefs about race and national identity contrasted, a point that is linked to different mainstream ideas in Argentine and Brazilian intellectual debates, entailing dissonant points of view over which groups of people should ultimately populate Patagonia and Acre. ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r

The author would like to thank the São Paulo Research Foundation (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo – FAPESP) and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – CAPES) for financial support (grant #2018/02958-0, São Paulo Research Foundation).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

José Bento de Oliveira Camassa received a Bachelor of Arts in History (2016) and a Master’s degree in Social History (2021) from the University of São Paulo in São Paulo, Brazil. For his master’s thesis, he researched Latin American Intellectual History (nineteenth and twentieth centuries). He looks forward to becoming a PhD candidate and developing his investigations on that field of study. Currently, he is also an undergraduate student at the University of São Paulo’s Faculty of Law.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 137 INTRODUCTION about local cultures and political or economic issues. Travel writing was In the Latin American Belle established as a journalistic genre, Époque, many capital cities, including which was mastered, among several Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, others, by two remarkable South witnessed immense changes, from American essayists: the Argentine the outset of industrialization to journalist, dramatist, and novelist the execution of urban reforms Roberto Jorge Payró (1867-1928) and inspired by Baron Haussmann’s the Brazilian engineer and writer Paris. One of these transformations Euclides da Cunha (1866-1909). was the blossoming of new spaces Considering the importance of both ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r for intellectual sociability, including authors in their countries’ Belle cafés, theaters, bookstores, and Époque press and literature, this publishing houses. Many newspapers research article aims to analyze and to and magazines were established, compare two pieces of travel writing and the press experienced a composed by Payró and Euclides2 u s t r a l i n A g e modernizing effort, as well as an about Patagonia and the Amazon A incipient professionalization.1 New respectively. opportunities for journalists and Initially, the article scrutinizes writers emerged, notedly in the 1890s the similarities concerning the (geo) a t g o n i “ and the 1900s. political and intellectual contexts of One of those possibilities their journeys. Then, it investigates consisted in the publishing of travel the depictions and policy propositions M a k i n g P | writings in the press. Many Latin each author embraced in their travel American intellectuals of that period writing. In doing so, the affinity of seized the opportunity and wrote both authors’ general modernizing about places they had travelled aspirations is highlighted. Finally, as a to, communicating points of view counterpoint, this paper verifies and explains the discrepancies between the way Euclides da Cunha conceived 1 Two important works about the series of transformations mentioned

J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m in the paragraph are, regarding 2 Since his tragic murder in 1909, Brazil and Argentina respectively: Euclides da Cunha has been so well- Nicolau Sevcenko, Literatura como known and revered among Brazilian Missão: Tensões sociais e criação scholars that he is usually referred to cultural na Primeira República by his first name. This article follows (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, that convention, referring to him by 2003); Alejandra Laera, “Cronistas, his forename, which has already novelistas: la prensa periódica como been done in English. See: Barbara espacio de profesionalización en la Celarent [pseud.]., review of Rebellion Argentina (1880-1910),” in Historia de in the Backlands by Euclides da los intelectuales en América Latina I. Cunha, trans. Samuel Putnam, La ciudad letrada, de la conquista al American Journal of Sociology 118, no. modernismo, ed. Carlos Altamirano 2 (September 2012): 536-542, http:// (Buenos Aires: Katz, 2008). www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/668402.

138 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m of the settlement of the West Amazon about diverse subjects. and how Payró imagined the same Working for the Brazilian process in southern Argentina. Ministry of Foreign Affairs during Ultimately, this paper explores how the Baron of Rio Branco’s tenure as Payró’s and Euclides’s points of view Minister (1902-1912), Euclides was the about the regions they visited were head of a commission in charge of related to their personal, national, the geographical exploration of the professional, and political identities. Amazonian area of Upper Purús, as a

| In close years, both writers part of border negotiations with Peru. M a k i n g P traveled to peripheral regions in He had been celebrated as one of their countries, areas that faced Brazil’s great essayists since his Os social conditions vastly different Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands) a t g o n i “ from the metropoles. Payró went (1902),5 a book that recounted the to Argentina’s Patagonian Coast in War of Canudos (1896-1897) in the 1898 as a reporter from La Nación, Brazilian Northeastern backlands A one of the largest newspapers in (more precisely in the state of Bahia’s u s t r a l i n A g e Buenos Aires. In the same year, he countryside), which described its published La Australia argentina (The environment and reflected on its Argentine Australia),3 a compilation of people. In 1904, the conflict with his Patagonian reports and narratives. Peru seemed to escalate. After

Between 1904 and 1905, Euclides writing about it in the press, the then- ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r made a journey to the territory of unemployed Euclides was invited to Acre in the Brazilian West Amazon. join the team of the above-mentioned He wrote several essays about the commission.6 Amazon, most of them posthumously collected in À margem da História (The Amazon: land without history) the second book: Euclides da Cunha, (1909),4 a book that includes texts Um paraíso perdido: reunião de ensaios amazônicos, ed. Hildon Rocha (Brasília: Conselho Editorial do Senado Federal, 2000). Euclides’s 3 Roberto Jorge Payró, La Australia Amazonian essays were translated to argentina: excursión periodística a las English in 2006: Euclides da Cunha, costas patagonicas, Tierra del Fuego The Amazon: land without history, e Isla de los Estados (Buenos Aires: trans. Ronald W. Sousa and Lúcia Imprenta La Nación, 1898). Sá (Oxford and New York: Oxford 4 Euclides da Cunha, À margem da University Press, 2006). História, ed. Leopoldo M. Bernucci, 5 Euclides da Cunha, Os Sertões Francisco Foot Hardman and Felipe (São Paulo: Ubu Editora; São Paulo: Pereira Rissato (São Paulo: Editora da Edições Sesc São Paulo, 2016). The Unesp, 2019). The essays published book has been translated into several in À margem da História have languages, including English. See: been republished in Um Paraíso Euclides da Cunha, Rebellion in the Perdido [A Paradise Lost], a book Backlands, trans. Samuel Putnam that includes more articles and (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, letters Euclides wrote about the 1944). Amazon. In this article, I will quote 6 Susanna B. Hecht, The scramble for

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 139 Although Payró was not By defining this scope of directly involved with his own analysis, this article uses both country’s diplomatic issues, they comparative and global history were a crucial background that approaches that extend beyond influenced his decision to travel to the national framework of the two Patagonia. The region was at the countries. The two selected cases center of an old litigation between involve the extremities of South Argentina and Chile that resurged in America, encompassing huge 1896-1898,7 which drove La Nación distances and deeply differing to publish news and stories about geographies. The global historian the area’s social and economic Sebastian Conrad reminds us that ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r conditions, as well as about its global history does not necessarily people and their everyday life. As imply worldwide coverage; the fact a correspondent reporter who had that the regions are in the same already travelled to Chile in 1895 and subcontinent cannot be disregarded to different Argentine provinces (such as a global scale for historical u s t r a l i n A g e as Santiago del Estero, Corrientes, research.9 In addition to examining A Córdoba, and Santa Fe), Payró took wider South American intellectual the job.8 debates, this text also discusses The unstable national how Euclides da Cunha and Roberto a t g o n i “ border situation was not the only Payró interpreted the global affairs similarity between the two regions. of their time, connecting events Acre and Patagonia were annexed occurring in India, Australia, and the M a k i n g P | by their countries in a similar context United States to their South American of national ascent and territorial homelands. consolidation. Likewise, both areas The authors investigated embodied analogous social and by this text also shared resonant geographical challenges to Brazil and enthusiasm for the development Argentina in the years following their of the Amazon and Patagonia. conquest. Both writers fashioned themselves as experts and political thinkers, as opposed to mere tourists that J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m the Amazon and the “Lost Paradise” travelled for leisure. Still, there remain of Euclides da Cunha (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), substantial distinctions between 199. the political perspectives in their 7 Susana Bandieri, Historia de travel writing. It is a purpose of this la Patagonia (Buenos Aires: paper to try to explain how these Sudamericana, 2014), 146, 266. differences echoed disparities in 8 Martín Servelli, “A través de la República: La emergencia del ideas about race and national identity reporterismo viajero en la prensa porteña de entresiglos (XIX-XX)” (PhD diss., Universidad de Buenos Aires, 9 Sebastian Conrad, What is Global 2014), 52, http://repositorio.filo.uba.ar/ History? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton handle/filodigital/6156. University Press, 2016), 8-10.

140 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m in Brazilian and Argentine intellectual should be understood as essays, circles during the Belle Époque, which were meant to open new paths despite sharing the same Eurocentric of thinking.12 common ground. As the Argentine literary critic Beatriz Colombi argues, this type of travel enjoyed great prestige in THE ROLE OF TRAVEL WRITING Hispanic-American literary networks AS ESSAY IN THE LATIN between the decades of 1890-1910.

| AMERICAN BELLE ÉPOQUE It conferred considerable discursive M a k i n g P authority on the figure of the traveling In the late nineteenth century, intellectual, who came to occupy the growth of the hotel market and a prominent place in the Hispanic- a t g o n i “ major international events such American press.13 For instance, as the Universal Exhibitions gave Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío way to the rise of tourism as a (1867-1919) and Guatemalan Enrique A way of traveling.10 The embryonic Gómez Carillo (1873-1927) worked u s t r a l i n A g e popularization of tourism challenged as foreign correspondents in Europe Latin American economic and and received big highlight features intellectual elites, insofar as traveling in Argentine papers, and as a result, to Europe was an old symbol of their texts seized larger readership power and high culture. Authors with and generated frequent intellectual ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r literary pretense tried to distinguish debates.14 Travel essays were among their travelogues or travel books the few signed articles in Latin from simple travel guides for middle- American newspapers, an indication class tourists.11 The French-Argentine of their authors’ renown.15 As can be writer Paul Groussac (1848-1929), gleaned from Darío’s examination of for example, made the appeal that local cultures, Groussac’s sociological traveling should be a stimulus for approach, and Manuel Ugarte’s (1875- intellectual reflection. On this kind 1951) anti-imperialist overtures, travel of travel, which he called viaje writing became a journalistic genre intelectual (intellectual travel), and was frequently used for voicing Groussac advised that travel writing different concerns.16 Euclides da Cunha and Roberto Payró were travelers of this 10 Cristobal Pera, “De viajeros y turistas: genre. Subscribing to Groussac’s reflexiones sobre el turismo en la literatura hispanoamericana,” Revista Iberoamericana 64, no. 184-185 (July- 12 Beatriz Colombi, Viaje intelectual: December 1998): 512, https://doi. migraciones y desplazamientos en org/10.5195/reviberoamer.1998.6124. América Latina, 1880-1915 (Rosario: 11 Graciela Montaldo, “Prólogo,” Beatriz Viterbo, 2004), 72. in Rubén Darío, Viajes de um 13 Colombi, Viaje intelectual, 13-17. cosmopolita extremo, ed. Graciela 14 Ibid, 13-17. Montaldo (Buenos Aires: Fondo de 15 Servelli, “A través,” 6-8. Cultura Económica, 2013), 22. 16 Colombi, Viaje intelectual, 13-17.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 141 aforesaid conception of travel interior. Despite not constituting writing as an intellectual and political empires, then-recently emancipated tool, both strove to influence countries such as Brazil and public opinion by debating certain Argentina also sought to enlarge issues related to the Amazon and their territories in the age of the Patagonia.17 To better understand Second Industrial Revolution, marked what these issues were, a further by a progressively integrated global historicization of the settings of these economy.21 As they were massive regions between the nineteenth and world commodity suppliers, broader the twentieth centuries is needed. territories meant the possibility of deeper wealth. That condition was ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r not exclusive for Brazil and Argentina PATAGONIA AND ACRE AS in South America. In fact, it was the NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL main issue in the Pacific War (1879- BATTLEGROUNDS 1884), in which Chile (another South American power) managed to defeat u s t r a l i n A g e In the late nineteenth century, Peru and Bolivia to annex areas A both Patagonia and Acre were like Antofagasta, rich in guano and what Mary Louise Pratt visualized saltpeter that provided nitrates, a as contact zones, or “social spaces valuable product at the time.22 a t g o n i “ where disparate cultures meet, clash, The Argentine impulse and grapple with each other, often towards Patagonia was related to in highly asymmetrical relations of the desire to expand its areas for

M a k i n g P 18 | domination and subordination.” agriculture and livestock, its major These regions were focuses of export for international markets in the what Walter Nugent conceived late nineteenth century.23 In the case as a frontier impulse,19 that is, a of Brazil, Acre was enticing because national expansionist drive towards of its rubber tree areas. Before the “extensive ‘free’ lands within their introduction of rubber species to own borders”20, aiming to combat Britain’s South Asian colonies in the native peoples and to colonize the 1910s, the Amazon and the Congo were the most important world J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m suppliers of rubber, as its vegetal

17 Ibid, 16. 18 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial eyes: Travel writing and transculturation 21 Eric J. Hobsbawm, A era dos (London and New York: Routledge, Impérios, 1875-1914, trans. Sieni Maria 2008), 4. Campos and Yolanda Steidel de 19 Walter Nugent, “Frontiers and Toledo (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, Empires in Late Nineteenth Century,” 1988), 95. in The American West: the reader, 22 Hobsbawm, A era dos Impérios, 113. ed. Walter Nugent and Martin Ridge 23 Ibid, 65, 79, 111; David Rock, El (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University radicalismo argentino, 1890-1930, Press, 1999), 40. trans. Leandro Wolfson (Buenos Aires: 20 Nugent, “Frontiers and Empires”, 45. Amorrortu editores, 2001), 13.

142 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m sources were rare, available only in peoples, some of them Trans- certain equatorial zones.24 Andean, such as the Mapuche. By the time of Payró’s and The Argentine authorities and Euclides’s travels, Patagonia and Acre landowners’ experience shifted had just been annexed by Argentina between varying degrees of and Brazil respectively. Emerging negotiation and bellicosity with the as victors of the Paraguayan War Indigenous groups on its border.27 (1864-1870, also known as the War Argentine elites, however,

| of the Triple Alliance), these two also claimed that geographical zone M a k i n g P South American powers used their (which included a part of the Pampas) military and geopolitical strength to as their legitimate territory inherited annex the aforementioned areas.25 from Spain, longing to attack its a t g o n i “ Even so, the means for these Indigenous societies and occupy accomplishments were different in the area. This plan became viable each case. and was launched in 1878, under the A The incorporation of the far presidency of Nicolás Avellaneda and u s t r a l i n A g e southern territories by Argentina Julio Argentino Roca’s administration was a martial enterprise. The in the Ministry of War. The ensuing southernmost region of the Americas military offensives—the so-called had theoretically belonged to the “Conquest of Desert”—lasted

Spanish Empire in previous centuries. until 1885, when Roca served as ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r Nevertheless, from the beginning President. The consequence of that of Hispanic-American national process was the murder of more than independence movements in the 12,000 Indigenous individuals, the 1810s to the end of the nineteenth breakdown of their societies, and the century, the area had not yet been beginning of Argentine rule over the formally incorporated by Chile on region.28 the Pacific side, nor by Argentina On the other hand, the on the Atlantic side. According incorporation of Acre by the to international law, the area was Brazilian government was a result terra nullius,26 even though it was of insurgencies upheld by Brazilian the homeland of many Amerindian seringueiros (tappers that extracted latex from Hevea brasiliensis, a tree known as seringueira) in the 24 Barbara Weinstein, The Amazon area and subsequent diplomatic rubber boom, 1850-1920 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983). 25 David Viñas, Indios, ejército y frontera (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI Editores, 27 Gabriel Passetti, Indígenas e criollos: 1982), 16. política, guerra e traição nas lutas 26 Ana Carollina Gutierrez Pompeu, “A no sul da Argentina (1852-1885) (São construção da Patagônia argentina” Paulo: Alameda, 2012). (master’s thesis, Universidade de 28 Carlos Martínez Sarasola, Nuestros Brasília, 2012), 111, https://repositorio. Paisanos los índios (Buenos Aires: unb.br/handle/10482/10816. Emecé, 2005).

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 143 negotiations. Until 1903, Acre had American chartered company also been a peripheral part of Bolivian known as the “Bolivian Syndicate”) territory and was mostly inhabited by for a period of thirty years.32 Tensions Brazilian migrants.29 Since the 1870s, quickly escalated, and although the there was an ongoing migratory wave United States Department of State of Brazilian people to the Amazon. denied it, the lease posed a clear risk The migrants were mostly escaping of future American interference in the draughts in the Brazilian Northeastern Brazilian Amazon.33 backlands (especially from the In 1902, Acre witnessed a state of Ceará).30 Simultaneously, as new uprising of Brazilian settlers Susanna Hecht writes, “by the 1880s, led by Plácido de Castro (1873- ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r Acre was becoming one of the most 1908) against Bolivia, backed by the commercially desirable areas on government of the Brazilian state earth”: rubber held the promise of of Amazonas.34 This time Brazil material wealth or, at the very least, formally supported the movement, survival.31 as the government believed that u s t r a l i n A g e The Bolivian government had the “Bolivian Syndicate” would A not yet occupied Acre until the arrival pose a threat to its hegemony in of Brazilian immigrants. The country the Amazon. A war was about to tried to recover its sovereignty explode in the beginning of 1903 a t g o n i “ over the area in April 1899. As the but eventually, Castro’s military attempt failed, the country discussed success made Bolivia give up the a deal with the United States to plan of recovering Acre. The Baron M a k i n g P | receive American diplomatic and of Rio Branco, who had taken military support to exercise Bolivian office at the Brazilian Ministry of rights over Acre. When the news Foreign Affairs in December of the of the forthcoming deal circulated, previous year, managed to conciliate Brazilian settlers rebelled and with Bolivia and incorporate Acre declared the Acre Independent with Brazil through the Treaty State, which was not recognized by of Petrópolis (1903). The Treaty Brazilian authorities. Later, in 1901, stipulated the payment of 2 million Bolivia signed a contract that would pounds for Bolivia and the pledge J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m lease most of the Acre territory to of constructing a railway (which the Bolivian Trading Company (an would be called Madeira-Mamoré) to improve the transportation of Bolivian products through the Amazon 29 Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, “O Basin.35 Barão de Rothschild e a questão With this agreement, Acre do Acre,” Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 43, no. 2 (December 2000): 150-169, https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034- 32 Ibid, 172-173. 73292000000200007. 33 Bandeira, “O Barão de Rotschild,” 155. 30 Hecht, The scramble, 181. 34 Ibid, 155. 31 Ibid, 96. 35 Hecht, The scramble, 181.

144 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m was finally a part of Brazilian territory. They had not yet been integrated But another international dispute into Brazilian and Argentine national was impending, this time with Peru. imagined communities,39 popularized Brazil and Peru had not signed a by literature and widespread civic border treaty since the respective symbols throughout the nineteenth independences of both countries. century. Patagonia and Acre were Lima also had not recognized Acre as products of a “territorial fiction that legitimate Bolivian territory, arguing sought to legitimize the expansion

| that during Spanish colonization it of the Republics.”40 The immediacy M a k i n g P had belonged to the Viceroyalty of their incorporation demonstrates of Peru. Besides this, the Peruvian the artifice of the concept of national government wanted to annex Acre territory as a supposed traditionally a t g o n i “ due to the presence of Peruvian shared geographic land by one caucheros (who extracted latex from people. Castilla ulei, known as caucho) in In short, as Alberto A the region.36 Another war seemed Harambour-Ross stated about u s t r a l i n A g e imminent, but the conflict was solved Patagonia, “Patagonia as a national by diplomatic means, leading to the frontier refers to its paradoxical formation of the Joint Commission location as ideologically central and for the Reconnaissance of the Upper materially marginal at the same time.”41

Purús, integrated by Peruvian and According to Leopoldo M. Bernucci, ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r Brazilian members to cooperate on Acre typified an identical ambiguity for the demarcation of borders. Euclides Brazil in the 1900s.42 These conditions da Cunha was nominated head of the entailed the problems Euclides and Brazilian delegation.37 Payró tackled in their writings. Acre and Argentine Patagonia were thus outcomes of different national endeavors. These areas Prometeo Libros, 2010). were key pieces in the puzzle 39 Benedict Anderson, Imagined of expanding territories, which Communities. Reflections on the made nations feel more powerful. Origin and Spread of Nationalism Nonetheless, Patagonia and the (London and New York: Verso, 2006). West Amazon were still too far from 40 Alberto Harambour-Ross, “Borderland Sovereignties. Postcolonial their national capital cities. Their Colonialism and State Making in environments were so divergent that Patagonia. Argentina and Chile, they were often considered foreign 1840s-1922” (PhD diss., Stony Brook territories within their own countries.38 University, 2012), 79, http://hdl.handle. net/1951/59684. 41 Harambour-Ross, “Borderland Sovereignties,” 78. 36 Hecht, The scramble, 187-195. 42 Leopoldo M. Bernucci, “Imagens 37 Ibid, 216. utópicas e distópicas do deserto e 38 Claudia Torre, Literatura en tránsito. da floresta em Euclides da Cunha,” La narrativa expedicionaria de la Signótica 23, no. 1 (2011): 114, https:// conquista del desierto (Buenos Aires: doi.org/10.5216/sig.v23i1.16148.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 145 DEPICTING PATAGONIA AND THE economy. Moreover, upon arriving AMAZON: DENYING NEGATIVE in Buenos Aires, Payró said that he STEREOTYPES had not caught a cold on his trip, contrary to what was expected.44 The portrayals of Patagonia in He also reported no tribulation in Payró’s writings and of Acre in those his boat on the Magellan Strait, of Euclides’s have two dimensions. famous for its harsh conditions for Payró and Euclides indeed described navigation.45 The icebergs, alpine the regions’ faults, such as a shortage snow slides on the seashore, and of transportation infrastructure, an channels of Tierra del Fuego did absence of public facilities, poverty, not seem quite so frightening ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r abysmal economic inequality, and to Payró as much as beautiful. weak enforcement of the rule of law. The journalist even suggested Nevertheless, both authors remained that the region became a tourist hopeful about the future of the destination for summer vacations.46 Amazon and Patagonia. How was He characterized its landscape as u s t r a l i n A g e that possible? “spectacular”: “We were astounded A These writers did not view by the spectacle of a snow mountain these problems as inherent in both […] whose snow almost reached areas. Unlike previous authors, they the sea, with bluish smooth shades, a t g o n i “ tried to disconnect the regions’ really delicate, that highlighted problems from their natural features. the nearly absolute whiteness of Of course, as metropolitan men, the snow in the top, contrasting

M a k i n g P 47 | Euclides and Payró were astonished with the leaden sky.” Another by their peculiar landscapes and negative stereotype minimized by perceived them as indomitable at Payró was the Patagonian “curse first glance. Still, as their writings of sterility” mentioned in Charles illustrated, this depiction of the Darwin’s Beagle diary.48 Payró zones as ill-fated wild places was not solidified. In La Australia argentina, 44 Ibid, 418. Payró intended to relativize the 45 Ibid, 117. J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m coldness imputed to the Argentine 46 Ibid, 168-169. 47 Own translation. Original quotation: South Coast. Presenting statistics, he “[N]os sorprendió el espectáculo related Tierra del Fuego’s weather de uno de los ventisqueros […] cuya to Dublin’s, an important European nieve llegaba hasta el mar, con tonos city.43 By making that comparison, azulados suaves y tenues, muy finos, the author argued that Patagonian que hacían resaltar más la blancura casi absoluta de la nieve en la cima, climate was not an obstacle to destacada á su vez sobre el fondo develop both settlements and the plomizo del cielo.” Ibid, 172 48 Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin’s Beagle diary, ed. R. D. Keynes (Cambridge: Cambridge University 43 Payró, La Australia argentina, 311. Press, 2001), 253.

146 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m argued that shortages of drinkable accentuated that the strains with Acre water could be easily prevented and the Amazon were derived from through the creation of cisterns. But the recent process of integration most Patagonian areas did not face of these regions into Brazilian, this issue; they were suitable for more central and developed agriculture and cattle grazing, which areas. Euclides also asserted that made Payró optimistic about the all Amazonian problems would region’s future. disappear “as soon as that kidnapped

| In Euclides’s writings, there society [the Amazon] is incorporated M a k i n g P was also a refutation of some to its country [Brazil].” 51 prejudices about the Amazon. Euclides and Payró made

He refused to see affluents of the an argument for the fitness of the a t g o n i “ Amazon River as eternal natural Amazon and Patagonia for Western obstacles for navigation. For him, modern and scientific social the navigational difficulties were patterns, which they believed were A not predetermined by nature, but paradigms of civilization. The alleged u s t r a l i n A g e by the absence of relatively simple shortcomings which both essayists improvements to riverbeds.49 As noticed in those areas had more to an engineer, Euclides believed that do with political and social matters. water engineering could easily Payró and Euclides were among cope with the complexities in fluvial the authors that first wrote about ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r transportation in the Amazon Basin. Patagonia and the Amazon from a Euclides also refuted political and social approach rather preconceptions about Acre in than the naturalistic, traditional one particular. He strongly opposed that characterized early European the idea that the territory had an colonization. Thus, in their point unhealthy climate: “The exaggeration of view, political, social, and is clear. Territory of Acre and economic solutions were available generally the Amazonian plains for developing both regions and perhaps have that absolutely installing a “civilizing routine” onto common mortality in every new them. 52 settlement area. But it is substantially narrow.”50 Mentioning “every new settlement area,” Euclides 51 Own translation. Original quotation: “desde que se incorpore a sociedade seqüestrada ao resto do país.” 49 Cunha, Um paraíso perdido, 140. Euclides da Cunha, Obra completa, 50 Own translation. Original quotation: ed. Afrânio Coutinho (Rio de Janeiro: “O exagero é palmar. O Acre, ou, em Nova Aguilar, 1995), 802. geral, as planuras amazônicas […] tem 52 Jens Andermann, “Reporters en talvez a letalidade vulgaríssima em la frontera Periodismo de viaje e todos os lugares recém-abertos ao imaginación progresista en Payró y povoamento. Mas consideravelmente Arlt,” El Rodaballo 10 (Summer 2000): reduzida.” Ibid, 145. 76.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 147 IMAGINING PATAGONIA AND of shipping transportation in Punta THE AMAZON: STRESSING Arenas, in the Chilean Patagonia.56 POSSIBILITIES FOR The reporter proposed that the DEVELOPMENT Argentine state should offer aid to private sea routes to integrate its As demonstrated, both national Patagonian territories.57 authors presented many possibilities Payró also stressed the of modernizing and deepening importance of the creation of the exploitation of the regions railways and the installation of they wrote about. As a priority, telegraphs for the Argentine South better transportation networks Coast. Telegraph lines were being ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r were absolute necessities. Payró installed by the Army, and there was noted that the complaint about a prospect of a new railroad in the transportation was unanimous Patagonian Territory of Chubut to be among Patagonian settlers, an constructed by a private company.58 ineffectiveness that undermined That territory was already served by u s t r a l i n A g e trade and supply networks.53 the Ferrocarril Central del Chubut A In 1898 only Transporte railway since 1888.59 The railroad was Nacional Villarino, a steam cargo ship a typical emblem of the nineteenth- from the Argentine Navy, connected century aspiration for technology a t g o n i “ the region with Buenos Aires by sea. and progress.60 It also appeared As much as it reached some of the in Euclides’s propositions for Acre. main points of the Argentine South Apart from his ideas of improving M a k i n g P | Coast, Villarino still did not stop in navigation in Amazonian rivers, Camarones, Puerto Deseado, Puerto Euclides planned a Trans-Acrean San Julián, and the entire east coast railway, which was his greatest of Tierra del Fuego.54 Villarino’s conditions for transporting people

were far from ideal, as stated by 56 Payró regarded Punta Arenas Payró, himself one of its passengers: as an example to be followed by “And some people even dare to say Argentina, considering that the that this shipping line, that makes its Chilean government had allegedly J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m route once a month, really pursues often executed public works projects 55 to upgrade the harbor and urban the Patagonian development!” infrastructure in the town. See: Ibid, Payró envied the plentiful nature 134, 144. 57 Ibid, 11. 58 Ibid, 28. 59 Colin M. Lewis, British Railways in 53 Payró, La Australia argentina, 256. Argentina 1857-1914: A Case Study of 54 Ibid, 10-11. Foreign Investment (London: Athlone 55 Own translation. Original quotation: Press, 1983). “¡Y dicen que esta línea de 60 Marshall Berman, All that is solid transportes que hace un viaje al melts into air: The experience of mes, tiene por objeto el desarollo de modernity (New York: Penguin Books, aquellas regiones!” Ibid, 9. 1988), 18, 74, 92, 194.

148 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m project for the Amazon.61 This This quotation reveals a initiative would have been associated core belief Euclides and Payró had: with the grand Madeira-Mamoré increasing the population in the railway project, whose construction Amazon and in Patagonia was not would start in 1907. The connection only a way to maximize the economic between the two railroads would exploitation of the regions, but have allowed Acre to have a greater was part of a process of creating connection with the current Brazilian fairer, new societies in them. Both

| state of Rondônia. authors’ political plans regarding the M a k i n g P Euclides da Cunha had regions envisioned the promotion of a positivistic and evolutionist settlement not just as a demographic background, which made him issue, but as a tactic to establish a t g o n i “ a devotee to the sciences and certain social conditions and to technology. He also carefully overcome deprivation. observed international political Payró considered that A happenings, particularly the imperial a main source for the plights u s t r a l i n A g e policies of European powers. Having of Patagonia was its unequal in mind the British Empire and its landowning policies. The largest technological feats in Asia, Euclides part of rural area belonged to said that “Here, as in India, there absentee landlords, interested in were a plenty of professionals country estate speculation. This had ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r frightened of geographic and climate two effects: first, it decreased the difficulties – professionals that forgot chance of settlers, peasants, and that Engineering precisely exists for shepherds having their own lands or overcoming them.”62 renting a small rural estate. Second, Euclides knew about American it also contributed to keeping infrastructure successes as well. Argentine Patagonia uncultivated Evoking a railway that integrated and underdeveloped. Most of the the First Transcontinental Railroad, Patagonian National Territory of completed in 1869, he idealized that Chubut was unoccupied and, in the “just as the Union Pacific Railway did, fraction that was indeed occupied, the Trans-Acrean railroad will not suit the sheep population prevailed a present traffic once it does not yet over the human one, something exist. Instead, it will create that traffic.”63 Harambour-Ross conceived as a sheep sovereignty.64 According to Payró, this was due to legal 61 Cunha, Um paraíso perdido, 195-208. 62 Own translation. Original quotation: “[n]a Índia, como entre nós, não faltaram profissionais apavorados “a linha acriana, a exemplo da Union ante as dificuldades naturais – Pacific Railway, não vai satisfazer um esquecidos de que a engenharia tráfego, que não existe, senão criar o existe precisamente para vencê-las.” que deve existir.” Ibid, 201-202. Cunha, Um paraíso perdido, 201. 64 Harambour-Ross, “Borderland 63 Own translation. Original quotation: Sovereignties,” 133-143.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 149 proceedings that filibustered small caused Celman’s resignation, a land renting, which he deemed remarkable achievement, despite “disgusting.”65 PAN remaining the ruling party. A Payró fashioned himself prominent leader of Unión Cívica was as an ally of Patagonian pioneers, Bartolomé Mitre, former Argentine characterizing them as self-made President (1861-1868) and owner of men harmed by the Argentine La Nación, the political pamphlet government and its corrupt favoring of that movement. Because of their bias towards the terrateniente convergence in antirroquismo (landholder) elite. The writer (opposition to Roca and his followers), regretted how that scenario Mitre and Payró became close and ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r undermined the possibility of the latter started to write in La Nación development, framing country land in the mid-1890s. Mitre would even speculation as a parasitism that sign the foreword of Payró’s La blocked development.66 Australia argentina.68 Hence, Payró’s Those ideas were linked to criticism towards the Argentine u s t r a l i n A g e Payró’s political positions beyond government’s policy on Patagonian A Patagonia. He was a political rival issues was a political weapon against of roquistas gathered in PAN, or PAN and its administration. the Partido Autonomista Nacional The fact that the journalist a t g o n i “ (National Autonomous Party), the represented himself as a passionate group that had governed Argentina’s Patagonian spokesperson against federal government since 1874 that government and the landowner M a k i n g P | until 1916 and had Julio Roca as its elites is also affined to his links longstanding leader. As a young with early Argentine socialism. journalist in Bahía Blanca, Payró Payró founded the Socialist Party supported the Revolución del Parque in Argentina in 1896 with writers (Revolution of the Park) (1890), a and compatriots,69 such as José civic-military movement led by the Ingenieros (1877-1925) and Juan opposition group Unión Cívica (Civic B. Justo (1865-1928). Passages of Union) against President Miguel La Australia argentina indicate Juárez Celman (1886-1890). The a concern about the harsh life J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m movement criticized the corruption conditions of the urban working class and the electoral fraud under PAN’s in Buenos Aires. Payró mentions political hegemony.67 that jobless men from the capital city The political mobilization migrated to Patagonia and tried to make a living through high-risk and illegal work, such as gold panning

65 Payró, La Australia argentina, 40-41. 66 Ibid, 68. 67 Natalio R. Botana, El orden 68 Botana, El orden conservador, v-viii. conservador: la política argentina 69 Eduardo González Lanuza, Genio y entre 1880 y 1916 (Buenos Aires: figura de Roberto J. Payró (Buenos Hyspamérica, 1986), 164-174. Aires: EUDEBA, 1965), 54.

150 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m and wolf hunting.70 As opposed to tree plantations). He described that, agriculture and livestock in that form of work as a cruel, unfree Patagonia were highly attractive labor: “the most villainous division of alternatives for subsistence, insofar labor, which also created the most as they were safer and more shameless selfishness […] Tappers profitable activities. perform a terrific anomaly: they These elements may have work to slave themselves.”72 This been what lured Payró to the economic bondage involved a series

| region. In 1894, the first edition of of ruthless contracts imposed on M a k i n g P La Vanguardia (a Socialist paper tappers and made them endlessly based in Buenos Aires) stated that indebted to seringalistas (owners of in modern Argentina, impoverished seringais), which Euclides compared a t g o n i “ people’s possibility of subsistence to feudalism.73 The denunciation became increasingly constrained of these horrors resembled the to selling their labor and being tone of Joseph Conrad’s Heart A exploited for their surplus value.71 The of Darkness (1902), a book that u s t r a l i n A g e newspaper nostalgically remembered described how European colonizers, a past in which the production of the just as its ignominious character means of subsistence was freer in Kurtz, tyrannized people on the the country, something Payró thought African continent. Conrad’s classic rural Patagonia could offer in the novella was inspired by the Belgian ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r future. colonization of the Congo Free Small farming was an State.74 Euclides’s approach also ongoing possibility of subsistence in Patagonia that could be invigorated, but it had practically not yet begun 72 Own translation. Original quotation: in Euclides’s Acre. Acre’s settlers “a mais criminosa organização do were almost exclusively occupied trabalho que ainda engenhou o mais desaçamado egoísmo. [...] [O] as rubber extractors, as that was the seringueiro realiza uma tremenda sole extractive economic activity in anomalia: é o homem que trabalha the region. This had catastrophic para escravizar-se.” Cunha, Um consequences for the seringueiros’ paraíso perdido, 127. work conditions. Euclides was 73 Ibid, 128. 74 There is a long literary and academic horrified by what he witnessed in debate about Conrad’s relationship Upper Purús’s seringais (rubber with imperialism. In a public lecture, the Nigerian novelist and professor Chinua Achebe argued that Conrad’s racist representation of African 70 Payró, La Australia argentina, 310. peoples contributed decisively to the 71 Gonzalo Adrián Rojas, “Os socialistas imperial project. On the other hand, na Argentina (1880-1980) – um the Palestinian literary critic Edward século de ação política” (PhD diss., Said reasoned that Conrad should Universidade de São Paulo, 2006), be regarded both as an imperialist 275, https://doi.org/10.11606/T.8.2006. (due to his refutation of the idea tde-25052007-151218. that Africa and South America could

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 151 resembles José Eustasio Rivera’s La the river margins in Acre, especially in Vorágine (The Vortex) (1924), a novel Upper Purús and Upper Juruá. about exploitation in the Colombian Euclides da Cunha’s Trans- Amazon, and Roger Casement’s Blue Acrean railway project devised to Book on the Putumayo (1912), a work transform that situation, insofar as it that investigated the enslavement intended to disperse the population and extermination of Native people throughout the whole of Acre. The by the Peruvian Amazon Rubber engineer claimed that unoccupied Company, a British corporation. areas in that territory could afford Euclides thought the colonizers the possibility of having dependence on latex extraction was small farms and properties and being ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r poor for the economy in the long released from the fate of oppression term as well. As a predatory activity, they suffered as seringueiros. In it did not deliver foundations for the regions to be populated, a less further development. This intuition unequal society could emerge, was dreadfully confirmed in the early which could facilitate the presence u s t r a l i n A g e 1910s,75 not long after Euclides’s of public institutions, absent where A writings were published and the seringalistas ruled. author’s death in 1909, as the Brazilian Payró and Euclides were rubber boom did not manage to unsuccessful in their propositions a t g o n i “ endure. Though it had been a source because they were not embraced and of tremendous wealth for Brazilian enabled by national administrations. Northern oligarchies (as evidenced by In the years following La Australia M a k i n g P | Manaus’s sumptuous Belle Époque argentina, PAN’s government architecture), it did not leave a legacy attempted to advance some of welfare in Amazonian inlands such improvements in Patagonian as Acre. As Euclides warned, due infrastructure, but continued to favor to the lack of alternative activities, big landowners and country estate rubber tapping was producing a poor speculation, contrary to Payró’s and nomadic society. It suppressed anti-oligarchic position.76 Euclides’s population growth and geographic Trans-Acrean railroad, meanwhile, occupation, which remained stuck to inspired some projects and plans in J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m the National Congress of Brazil in the 1910s. However, none of them were have independent cultures and approved and they were gradually histories) and as an anti-imperialist (he forgotten as time passed.77 criticized the “corruption of overseas domination”). See: Chinua Achebe, “An Image of Africa,” Research in African Literatures 9, no. 2 76 Pedro Navarro-Floria, “La mirada (1978), 11-15, https://www.jstor.org/ del reformismo liberal sobre los stable/3818468; Edward W. Said, Territorios del Sur argentino, 1898- Culture and Imperialism (New York: 1916,” Quinto Sol 13 (2009): 78, https:// Knopf, 1993), xviii. doi.org/10.19137/qs.v13i0.3. 75 Weinstein, The Amazon rubber boom. 77 André Vasques Vital, “Política e

152 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m Beyond this common neglect across centuries. That is, defeat, both writers clearly shared having inherited from Spain a lack expectations and held many similar of colonizing abilities, Argentina propositions for Patagonia and the lingered to seize Patagonia while Amazon. Nevertheless, one topic England was sending its own on which they had quite contrasting explorers there.78 Since the mid- views was the racial and national nineteenth-century, there had identity that should reign in the been British settlers in Patagonia

| region each one visited. and its surroundings, most notably M a k i n g P in the Falkland Islands. Anglican missionaries had been in Tierra del PAYRÓ’S PATAGONIAN UTOPIA: Fuego since the 1830s, and Welsh a t g o n i “ EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION AND farmers had been in Chubut since ANGLOPHILIA 1865.79 For Payró, the British could take credit for all the trade, towns, A Payró strongly advocated for and livestock the region had already u s t r a l i n A g e Patagonia to be populated mainly by achieved. Thus, in order to grow, European immigrants, particularly of Payró believed Patagonia should Anglo-Saxon descent. Although the not expel the British community, but writer did not want to expel Argentine instrumentalize it. people from their own freshly Additionally, during most of ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r conquered national territory, he the nineteenth century, Argentine believed that British colonists were pundits were almost consensually the most capable of developing the fascinated by European immigration South Argentine Coast and positively as an alleged path to civilization. This influencing the native Argentines in point of view was shared both by the process. This Anglophile opinion PAN and its rivals, even though each was derived from several factors. administration had its own policy for First, Payró’s views stemmed attracting European settlers.80 Article from a repudiation of the Spanish colonization and its heritage. Payró not only thought that the colonial 78 Payró, La Australia argentina, 287. past was a burden for Argentine 79 Bandieri, História de la Patagonia, 158-165. development, but he understood 80 Alejandro Fernández, “La inmigración that Patagonia’s late integration subsidiada en la Argentina y la in Argentina was due to Spanish crisis económica de 1890,” História Unisinos 22, no. 2 (2018): 158-162, 167-169, https://doi.org/10.4013/ htu.2018.222.01. According to Saúde Pública no cativeiro dos rios: Fernández, until 1886, Argentine a integração nacional do território national and provincial governments federal do Acre (Alto Purus, 1904- promoted immigration by providing 1920)” (PhD diss., Fundação Oswaldo European settlers with provisional Cruz, 2016), 203-212, https://www. accommodation, job offer information, arca.fiocruz.br/handle/icict/16345. and favorable land renting and

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 153 25 of the Argentine Constitution Patagonian settlers (like Charles of 1853 established the official Ross and “Mary X”, characters of La promotion of European immigration Australia argentina) as prototypes as an essential state responsibility.81 of virtues supposedly associated Since the generation of Domingo with Protestantism, like willpower, Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888) and abnegation, and industriousness.83 Juan Bautista Alberdi (1810-1884), Evoking racial evolutionism, Payró Argentine intellectuals and politicians even wished for miscegenation had hoped that European immigrants between British settlers and would bring a better workforce and Argentines, which he saw as a way of a superior culture.82 Reverberating purportedly improving the latter.84 ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r those ideas in 1898, Payró stood Another reason for Payró’s within an Argentine mainstream Patagonian Anglophilia was his intellectual tradition. He described admiration towards the British male and female Anglo-Saxon Empire’s power85 and to the astonishing economic ascent of u s t r a l i n A g e Anglo-Saxon countries and colonies A acquisition conditions. Nevertheless, like the United States and Australia. the state had not yet subsidized transatlantic tickets for immigrants. Payró repeatedly mentioned national In 1887-1890, despite the fact that and colonial Anglo-Saxon frontier a t g o n i “ rates of immigration to Argentina spaces like the American West,86 were already consistently growing, South Africa, and Australia as models Juarez Celman’s government for Patagonian administration and started a program to subsidize M a k i n g P | immigrants’ transportation and development. He yearned for advertise Argentina as an immigrant Patagonia to imitate the ethnic destination in Europe. This policy was too expensive, however, and ultimately failed. In addition to the political and economic crisis, this 83 Payró, La Australia argentina, 80-91. resulted in a sudden retreat of 84 Ibid, 82; Harambour-Ross, European immigration to Argentina “Borderland Sovereignties,” 85. in the early 1890s. That conjuncture 85 Alan Knight, “Britain and Latin probably influenced Payró’s criticism America,” in Andrew Porter and Alaine

J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m towards PAN’s immigration policies in Low, ed., The Oxford History of the Patagonia, which he called inefficient. British Empire, Vol. 3, The nineteenth 81 Fernández, “La inmigración century (Oxford: Oxford University subsidiada en la Argentina y la crisis Press, 2001), 122-142. económica de 1890,” 158. 86 Before Payró, Argentine essayists, 82 Tulio Halperín Donghi, “Para qué such as Groussac, had already la inmigración. Ideología y política compared their country’s territorial inmigratoria y acelaración del expansion process to the American proceso modernizador: el caso Western experience in the form of argentino (1810-1914),” Jahrbuch für manifest destiny. Groussac himself Geschichte Lateinamerikas 13 (1976): had visited California and Utah in 437, https://www.degruyter.com/ the early 1890s. See: Paul Groussac, view/j/jbla.1976.13.issue-1/issue-files/ Del Plata al Niágara (Buenos Aires: jbla.1976.13.issue-1.xml. Administración de la Biblioteca, 1897).

154 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m melting pot and civil and economic given by Spanish colonization.90 freedoms of white pioneers in the This point of view was a reaction to American Far West.87 Payró also the Spanish-American War (1898), desired for Patagonia to become in which the United States defeated as affluent as Australia,88 especially the Spanish Empire.91 While some since one of its key products, cattle, essayists were afraid of the United was also an important Argentine States’ power in the Americas, commodity, whose production could Payró realized that the future of

| be increased with Patagonian lands. the continent was Anglo-Saxon. As M a k i n g P Similarly, Payró exalted the prosperity a result of that supposition, Payró the Falkland Islands had attained and assumed that, in order to keep rising, claimed that if Patagonia were under Argentina should uproot its Iberian a t g o n i “ British colonization, it would have a legacy and, in its place, implant better administration.89 Anglo-Saxon features. Patagonia, in The fact that Payró titled his view, could be a vital part in that A his Patagonian book La Australia process. u s t r a l i n A g e argentina not only referred to the southern, austral, location of the region, but also glorified the ASSURING THE AMAZON Oceanian colony, which served as WOULD REMAIN BRAZILIAN: a synecdoche of the Anglophone EUCLIDES’S PROJECT FOR THE ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r world. It is curious that Payró gave BRAZILIAN WEST AMAZON such praise to Anglo-Saxons in a moment when great Hispanic- On the other hand, Euclides American writers like Paul Groussac, undoubtedly thought Acre should be Rubén Darío, and José Enrique Rodó populated by national people rather (1872-1917) defended the alignment than immigrants. For him, the process of Hispanic-American nations and of demographic densification of these celebrated their Latin cultural ties spaces had to be an endogenous process, whereas Payró conceived of populating Patagonia as an

87 Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” [First published 90 José Luis Bendicho Beired, in 1893] in John Mack Faragher, ed., “Hispanismo e latinismo no debate Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner: intelectual ibero-americano,” Varia “The Significance of the Frontier in Historia 30, no. 54 (2014): 637- American History” and Other Essays 639, https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104- (New York: Henry Holt, 1994), 31-60. 87752014000300003. 88 Robert Vincent Jackson, Australian 91 Mónica Quijada, “Latinos y economic development in the anglosajones: el 98 en el fin de nineteenth century (Canberra: siglo sudamericano,” Hispania 57, Australian National University Press, no. 196 (1997): 596-604, https:// 1977), 4-11. doi.org/10.3989/hispania.1997.v57. 89 Payró, La Australia argentina, 447. i196.687.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 155 exogenous phenomenon, with Anglo- disregarded its own national people, Saxons at its center. Why, then, was who, despite degrading conditions, there such a difference in approach? were vigorously developing a brand- To argue that it was due to new Brazilian territory.96 a lack of late nineteenth-century Euclides da Cunha’s position European immigration to the Amazon can be properly contextualized by is a mistake. By the time of Euclides’s a set of personal and intellectual journey to Acre, there were already factors. Euclides traveled as a state many European and Middle Eastern worker of the Brazilian Ministry immigrants in the regions of Purús of Foreign Relations, so he had a and Juruá,92 which Euclides certainly nationalist civic duty, unlike Payró’s ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r noticed.93 During the 1890s, Pará, a rivalry with PAN in the Argentine Brazilian Amazonian state, became Presidency. In private reports and a destination for significant waves letters to the Baron of Rio Branco, of Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian he displayed a sharp national pride immigrants.94 Therefore, if Euclides and registered his disguised distrust u s t r a l i n A g e perceived immigration as the best towards the Peruvian authorities A alternative for the Amazon, he could he had to work with in the Joint have plainly championed it. Instead, Commission.97 Beyond that, since his Euclides argued that the people pre-Commission articles, Euclides a t g o n i “ from Ceará who had been living in had always been a champion of Acre since the 1870s had already retaining Acre in Brazil. done a great job, even if they were That concern was linked M a k i n g P | not assisted by any government to the ambition of maintaining and aid. Euclides rebuked the fact that reinforcing Brazilian hegemony the Brazilian state subsidized Italian over the Amazon region. Euclides migrants to settle in the opulent followed an intellectual tradition that state of São Paulo95 whereas it was preached since the times of the national monarchy (1822-1889): a celebration of Brazil’s hegemony 92 Márcio Souza, História da Amazônia: do período pré-colombiano aos

J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m desafios do século XXI (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2019), 259-260. received approximately 1,850,000 93 Cunha, Um paraíso perdido, 156. immigrants (mainly concentrated in 94 Marília Ferreira Emmi, Um século the state of São Paulo), a considerable de imigrações internacionais figure even though it was a smaller na Amazônia brasileira (1850- quantity than immigration to Argentina 1950) (Belém: Editora do Núcleo in the same time (nearly 2.5 million de Altos Estudos Amazônicos da people). See: Thomas Skidmore, Preto Universidade Federal do Pará, 2013). no branco: raça e nacionalidade 95 Similar to their Argentine no pensamento brasileiro (Rio de counterparts, Brazilian elites favored Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1976), 154-162. European immigration, which they 96 Cunha, Um paraíso perdido, 152-153. conceived as the path to supposed 97 Euclides da Cunha, Obra completa, 1: civilization. In 1870-1900, the country 583.

156 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m and exceptionalism over the other For Euclides, this Brazilian South American countries due to manifest destiny would be its great territory and supposed materialized by the constitution political stability.98 The West of a professedly ethnically fit Amazon interested Euclides not people, masters of environments so much because of its precious that were different from Europe. natural resources, but as a means Notwithstanding his early theoretical of bolstering Brazilian territorial reservations towards miscegenation,

| dominion. Brazilian settlers were in his view, this people had to be M a k i n g P indispensable for making Brazil’s a racially mixed one, with both sovereignty over the region more Amerindian and Portuguese legitimate and ensuring Acre would ancestry.100 As he praised Amazonian a t g o n i “ not be dominated by neighboring seringueiros, Euclides had already or imperial countries. Promoting lauded sertanejos (people that lived systematic European immigration in the backlands such as cowboys) in A to Acre would symbolically loosen Rebellion in the Backlands for their u s t r a l i n A g e Brazilian rule there, which could be courage and resilient adaptation perilous. to inhospitable biomes like the Euclides recognized the dry Caatinga in Brazil’s Northeast. consolidation and the occupation Sertanejos did not have exclusive of the national territory as a main European ancestry: they had ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r national priority, more important than accentuated Indigenous roots, so increasing GDP. He conceived of it their ethnic profile was far away from as the natural conclusion of a historic European-descended elites. mission initiated by bandeirantes Euclides was among the (adventurers and slavers who national writers that proclaimed explored remote Brazilian inlands, miscegenation as the most distinctive including the Amazon) in the feature of Brazil. Sílvio Romero (1851- sixteenth century.99 1914) and Capistrano de Abreu (1853- 1927), both authors of the influential 1870 Brazilian intellectual generation, advocated that idea through their 98 Leonardo Vieira de Oliveira, “Da sociological and historical works. ‘planta exótica’ ao excepcionalismo brasileiro: a missão Carneiro Leão Though Euclides, Romero, and ao Prata e a identidade internacional Abreu supported Eurocentric and saquarema (1851-1852)” (master’s racist worldviews, they denied any thesis, Universidade Federal possibility that Brazil could become Fluminense, 2018), 31, https://www. homogeneously and predominantly historia.uff.br/stricto/td/2213.pdf. 99 Danilo José Zioni Ferretti, “Euclides white anytime soon. In fact, Romero da Cunha historiador: a reinvenção do believed that Brazil would ultimately bandeirante em Os sertões,” Revista de História 160 (2009): 270-282, https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9141. 100 Thomas Skidmore, Preto no branco, v0i160p261-284. 126.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 157 go through a deep whitening heavily overstated it.104 In 1887, process, albeit he emphasized that only 1.8 percent of Buenos Aires’ it would be a dilatory one, lasting population were Afro-Argentine, for centuries.101 In the meantime, according to the city’s municipal the writer thought that Brazil should census.105 The national census of embrace miscegenation (which could 1895 estimated that the Indigenous even favor whitening) and recognize population declined from 93,138 itself as mestiço (mestizo). In light of in 1869 to about thirty thousand in that assumption, the great literary 1895, which represented less than 1 critic Antonio Candido (1918-2017) percent of the country’s population.106 said that Romero annihilated the This background allowed Payró to ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r Brazilian “illusion of whiteness.”102 dream of not just a white Argentine Nineteenth-century Argentine Patagonia, but rather a British essayists, on the other hand, seemed Patagonia—that is, an even more to nurture that illusion for their “Europeanized” region. nation. Argentina’s government had Euclides did not, nor could u s t r a l i n A g e managed to spread the conception he, project a similar horizon for the A that it was already an all-white Amazon or for Brazil. After all, the country. This belief relied on the official census conducted in 1890 Amerindian ethnocide, economic and indicated that 44% of Brazilians a t g o n i “ cultural marginalization of African were white,107 which (in spite of Argentines, and the enormous waves being 6% more than registered in of European immigration into the the national census of 1872),108 was

M a k i n g P 103 | country. Argentine late nineteenth- century censuses were symbolic mechanisms that reinforced that 104 Andrews, The Afro-Argentines, notion. Not only did they register 106-112. a real and huge decrease of the 105 Ibid, 66. 106 Comisión Directiva, Segundo censo proportion of Indigenous and African de la República Argentina: Mayo Argentines in the total population, 10 de 1895, 3 vols. (Buenos Aires: but, as historian George Reid Taller tipográfico de la penitenciaría Andrews argued, they also probably nacional 1898), 2: l, http://www.

J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m estadistica.ec.gba.gov.ar/dpe/ Estadistica/censos/C1895-T2.pdf. 107 República dos Estados Unidos do Brazil (Ministerio da Industria, viação 101 Ibid, 86. e Obras Públicas. Directoria Geral 102 Antonio Candido, Sílvio Romero: de Estatistica), Sexo, raça e estado Teoria, crítica e história literária (Rio civil, nacionalidade, filiação culto de Janeiro: LTC; São Paulo: Edusp, e analphabetismo da população 1978), xxi. recenseada em 31 de dezembro 103 George Reid Andrews, The Afro- de 1890 (Rio de Janeiro: Officina da Argentines of Buenos Aires (1800- Estatistica, 1898), 2, https://biblioteca. 1900) (Madison, WI and London: ibge.gov.br/visualizacao/livros/ University of Wisconsin Press, 1980), liv25487.pdf. 4-9. 108 Núcleo de Pesquisa em História

158 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m still not the majority. Euclides and have never heard of one another, his colleagues had to cope with the but the reasons why they made certainty that Brazilian national and their journeys to their countries’ racial identities were in some way furthest regions are ultimately original and dissimilar from European connected. They were bonded to ones. This clarifies why Euclides’s the same global context of territorial settler heroes were racially mixed expansion that South American sertanejos and caboclos (Amazonian leading countries such as Brazil and

| backwoodsmen), while Payró’s Argentina attempted to join. M a k i n g P heroes were British. Because of their condition as brand-new territories, Acre and

Patagonia faced similar problems a t g o n i “ CONCLUSION: HERMANOS, during the Belle Époque. Thus, PERO NO MUCHO Euclides and Payró championed similar plans for infrastructure A This article examined how and territorial integration based u s t r a l i n A g e Roberto Payró’s and Euclides on technological integration and da Cunha’s travel writings had settlement. Reflecting on Acre’s deep underlying geopolitical and future, Euclides resorted to examples economic roots. Brazilians tend such as important railroads in the to think of Acre only as a specific United States and the British Empire’s ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r chapter of their national history109 technological achievements in India. and presumably Argentines do the Imagining a forthcoming Patagonia, same when it comes to Patagonia. Payró appealed to the example of A comparative approach to history Chilean Punta Arenas’s infrastructure writing demonstrates that this and the cases of economic traditional point of view may not be development in Australia and the as encompassing as an historical Falkland Islands. Studying each perspective concerned with writer’s propositions alone might give connections and similarities between them the appearance of exoticism countries.110 Euclides and Payró may or brilliance. On the other hand, this comparative study suggests they shared a fairly widespread Econômica e Demográfica, modernizing international repertoire, Publicação crítica do Recenseamento which characterized the late long Geral do Império do Brasil de 1872 nineteenth century.111 (Belo Horizonte: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 2012), 40. 109 Leandro Tocantins, Formação histórica do Acre (Brasília: Senado gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k101615j; Federal, 2001). Jürgen Kocka, “Comparison and 110 Marc Bloch, “Pour une histoire beyond,” History and Theory 42, no. 1 comparée des sociétés (February 2003): 43-44, https://www. européennes,” Revue de synthèse jstor.org/stable/3590801. historique 46 (1928): 17-19, https:// 111 Hobsbawm, A era dos Impérios, 96.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 159 Stating that Payró and Euclides were just the same, however, would also be unsatisfying. The relations each writer had with their governments were decisively different. That justifies why the Argentine wished to develop Patagonia without relying much on the state, while the Brazilian considered the national state as the leading actor in improving Acre. ” a n d M k i g t h e A m z o T l y B r Euclides and Payró were also on different sides regarding ethnic and national identity matters, which illustrates the state of divergence of racial theory in nineteenth-century u s t r a l i n A g e South America. In popular culture, A Brazil and Argentina are usually referred to as hermanos in Spanish and irmãos in Portuguese, both a t g o n i “ meaning “brothers.” One can say Payró and Euclides were somewhat brothers…pero no mucho (but not M a k i n g P | that much). The Amazon and Patagonia are perhaps the most contrasting natural landscapes on Earth. If they came together…well, maybe there would be a crack because of the thermal shock. But another result would surely be a better historical understanding of South American J o s é B e n t d O l i v r a C m history: not only the parallels between nations, but also the discrepancies between them. It is a strong hope that examining the global or continental contexts of different cases of travel writing can henceforth lead in that direction.

160 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021