sign in sign up
<<
Home , Alexander von Humboldt, Alvise Cadamosto, Antonio de Alcedo, Atahualpa (ship), Augustin Barruel, Barnaba Oriani

Annotations for von Humboldt’s Political Essay on the Kingdom of New

by

Giorleny D. Altamirano Rayos, Tobias Kraft, and Vera M. Kutzinski

Unless context made it more sensible to do otherwise, we have annotated a reference or allusion at its first occurrence. Entries in boldface refer to a main entry. The page numbers that precede each entry refer to the pagination of ’s 1826 French edition; those page numbers are are printed in the margins of our of the Political Essay on the

Kingdom of . In that edition, the names and concepts that appear in SMALL CAPS in the

annotations are marked with an ▼.

Weights and Measures

What follows are some of the most common weights and measures that Alexander von Humboldt

regularly uses. This is not an exhaustive list.

ACRE: an old English unit of surface area equivalent to 4,840 square yards (or about 4,046.85

square meters) in the USA and . The standard unit of measurement for surface area in the

UK, an acre in its earliest English uses was probably the amount of land that one yoke of oxen

could plow in a . Its value varied slightly in Ireland, Scotland, and . In , the

size of the acre varied depending on region. Humboldt states that an acre is 4,029 square meters. 2

ARPENT: a unit either of length or of land area used in France, Québec, and from the sixteenth

to the eighteenth century. The main measurement for land throughout France (sometimes called

the French acre), the arpent varied in value depending on region. When used as a linear

measurement, as was sometimes the case in Québec, it was equivalent to about 192 feet (58.5

meters). An arpent d’ordonnance (also called the arpent des eaux et forêts, grand arpent, arpent

de roi, or legal arpent) equaled 51.07 ares or 1.26 acres (5,107 square meters); the arpent

commun of the provinces, 42.20 ares or 1.04 acres (4,220 square meters); and the arpent de ,

34.19 ares or 0.84 acres (3,419 square meters). An arpent of 3,418.89 square meters (36,800.40

square feet) is still used in Québec. Humboldt mostly uses the legal arpent, giving it an

equivalent of 50 ares or 1.23 acres (half hectare, 5,000 square meters).

ARROBA: one fourth of a quintal; an old Spanish unit of weight of 24–36 lbs (11–16 kg), with regional

variations. In Spain, New Spain, , and , an arroba equaled 25 Castilian pounds or 11.50

kg. In and its territories, an arroba equaled about 32 lbs (14.68 kg); in , 25.32

lbs (11.485 kg); in New Granada, 27.55 lbs (12.5 kg). Humboldt gives its value at 11.49 kg, that

is, closest to the Castilian pound. As a measure of volume, the arroba equaled 32.33 L for liquids

in Chile; in Spain, 12.56 L for oil, 15.64 L for water, and 16.13 L for wine. The arroba as a

measure of weight is still used in some American countries and in Brazil.

BRASSE: a unit of length used in France to measure the depth of water at sea; originally, it equaled the

greater length of two extended arms. Prior to the eighteenth century, a brasse’s value was

between 1.6 and 1.9 meters (5–6 pieds); thereafter, it became equivalent to 1.624 meters (5

pieds). Also brassée or French fathom.

BURGOS FEET (pies de Burgos): a unit of length of about 10.95 inches (27.83 cm). The vara de Burgos,

also called vara de Castilla, which was 32.87 inches (83.50 cm), became the official length for a

vara in Castilian Spain. A vara de Burgos was divided into three tercias or feet, as well as into

four medias tercias or palmos and two medias or codos.

3

BUSHEL: a British measure of volume for grains equivalent to about 36.37 liters. Identical to the 1697

British Winchester bushel, the bushel in the USA equals about 35.24 liters (2,150.42 cubic

inches). As a unit of mass, the bushel is equal to 60 lbs (about 27.21 kg) for wheat and soybeans

in the USA. Humboldt states that a bushel of wheat weighs 30 kg.

CABALLERÍA: a unit of land area in Spanish-speaking countries in and the , including

Texas and the , from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. The caballería varied in

value in the Americas. In New Spain and Central America, it was equivalent to about 105 acres

(42 hectares); in Cuba, 33.16 acres (13.42 hectares). In , the caballería was a larger

unit equal to 194 acres (78.51 hectares); in Spain, it equaled about 100 acres (40 hectares).

Humboldt gives 32.15 acres (13.01 hectares) for a caballería de tierra in .

CORDEL (literally: rope): a unit of distance in Spain and its colonies used to measure land. It equaled

about 138.9 feet (42.33 meters) in New Spain; in Cuba it was about 66.80 feet (20.35 meters).

CWT (hundredweight): a unit of weight measurement created by USA merchants in the late 1800s; it

equals 100 pounds (45.35 kg). The “C” represents the Roman numeral for 100, and the letters

“W” and “T” abbreviate weight. Humboldt converts one CWT into 112 lbs (50.80 kg), which is

identical to the British hundredweight.

DUCAT: an ancient trade currency used in Europe. A was first minted by Roger II of ,

Duke of , in the twelfth century. A ducat was first minted in the thirteenth century in

Venice (). Officially approved in the sixteenth century, the gold ducat was the standard gold

coin in Europe until the end of the nineteenth century. A gold ducat weighed about 3.4 grams of

0.986 gold. A silver ducat (ducado de plata) was used in Spain and its colonies in the seventeenth

century. (1901–15) and Czechoslovakia (1923–38) issued gold in the twentieth

century.

FANEGA: an old unit of volume, mass, or surface area used in Spain and its territories; its value varied

regionally. As a unit of capacity, the fanega before 1900 oscillated between 50 and 288 liters

4

(Spain, 55 L; , 90.80 L; Chile, 96.99 L; Argentina: 137.19 L; , 288 L). As a unit

of mass, a fanega was equal to 202.4 lbs (92 kg) in Central America before 1912 and 141.7 lbs

(64.41 kg) in Peru before 1869. As a surface area, the fanega equaled 11,183 m2 in Cuba before

1882 and 35,662 m2 in Mexico before 1896. In addition, a fanegada was used to measure surface

area in Spain and Peru; a fanegada was about 3,144m2 in Peru and 6,439m2 in Spain. Humboldt

states that a fanega equals four arrobas or 120 livres (45 kg).

GROS: a French weight unit equal to 3.8242 grams; between 1800 and 1812 it was equal to 10 grams. It

was synonymous with the drachme, a weight unit typically used in medicine.

LIVRE: the principal unit of weight used in French-speaking countries and in Greece, where it was known

as litra. The livre esterlin, equivalent to 367.1 grams, became the first French standard used

between the late eighth century and the middle of the fourteenth. King John II (1319–64) of

France introduced the livre poids de marc or livre de Paris in the 1350s. Equal to 489.506 grams

and divided into 2 marcs (16 ounces), the livre de Paris was used until 1800. During that ,

physicians used the medical livre (equal to the livre esterlin of 367.1 grams), and merchants used

the livre marchande of 15 ounces (or 459 grams) for weighing silk. From 1800 to 1812, the livre

métrique was equal to 1 kg; from 1812 to 1814, however, it was equivalent to 500 grams. The

livre is still used in modern France as an informal metric unit equal to 500 grams, which

corresponds to the traditional Greek litra. Humboldt uses 489 grams for the livre de Paris.

LIVRE TOURNOIS (literally: pound from Tours): a French gold coin introduced in the seventeenth century

and subdivided into 20 sols. It was often referred to as franc, an older French monetary unit from

the fourteenth century. After the in 1795, livres tournois were replaced by the

new Franc.

LOT (or LOTH): a unit of weight in German-speaking countries equivalent to about 14.61 grams. In Russia

it equaled 12.79 grams, in Switzerland 15.62 grams. Also a measure of capacity for liquids in

France, a lot had a different value depending on the city and on the liquid being measured.

5

LOUIS (also: Louis d’or): a French gold coin created in 1640 under Louis XIII (1601–43). In 1726, the

Coin Acts, which aimed at monetary stabilization, created a new Louis d’or equivalent to 24

livres tournois. Used widely in Europe, this gold coin was minted up to 1795, when it was

abolished in favor of the system and replaced by the Franc.

MARK: a weight equal to 0.5 livre poids de marc or 8 ounces (244.753 grams). The mark at Paris could

subsequently be subdivided in 64 gros, 160 estelins, 192 deniers, 320 mailles, 640 félins, or 4608

grains. For gold transactions, the mark was equal to 768 grains.

MYRIARE: a metric measure of surface equal to one million square meters (about 247.1 acres). Myria-, a

now-obsolete metric prefix meaning ten thousand (10,000), was used in the nineteenth and early

twentieth century. Myriagrams equal ten thousand grams (10 kg); myriameters 6.21 miles (10

km).

PERTICA (from Lat. perch, round pole): an ancient Roman unit of length. Also called decempeda, it was a

measuring two paces (10 feet) in length. The pertica militaris was used to measure plots of

land assigned to veterans in military colonies.

PIASTER: a unit of currency originally equal to one silver dollar or peso. Original French word for the

USAmerican dollar; modern French uses dollar for this unit of currency as well. Slang for USA

dollars in the Francophone Caribbean, especially in Haiti.

PIASTRE FORTE (): a small silver coin. In Spain and its colonies, it was also known as peso

duro, peso fuerte, or piastra fuerte. From 1730–72, it was equivalent to 4 pesetas or 8 reales de

plata of Mexico, or 11 deniers. After 1772, it was worth 10 reales de plata nueva or 10 deniers.

PICUL: a unit of weight in Southeast Asia and China equivalent to about 133 pounds (60 kg).

PIED DU ROI: a traditional French unit of length equivalent to about 32.48 cm (or 12.79 inches).

PUD (also pood): a Russian unit of weight for 40 Russian pounds (funt). It is equivalent to about 36.113

pounds (16.3805 kg).

6

QUINTAL: also hundredweight, which initially corresponded to about 100 lbs (or 45.35 kg) and later to

112 lbs (c. 50.80 kg). In Spain, New Spain, Peru, and Chile, the quintal equaled 100 Castilian

pounds or four arrobas (46.025 kg). Humboldt gives 45.970 kg as its equivalent in New Spain.

In France, as in , the national standard quintal poids de marc was 100 livres (48.951 kg)

until the introduction of the 100 kg quintal via the metric system. In Argentina and Paraguay, it

was equal to 45.94 kg; in Portugal and Brazil, 58.75 kg; and in and , 50 kg.

Humboldt states that at one quintal equaled 110 livres (53.845 kg). The measure is still

used in some German-speaking countries.

REES: One hundred rees were equivalent to seven pence in English money in 1826.

SÉTIER: an old French unit of capacity typically used for dry goods, equivalent to about 151.68 L.

Although its value varied according to location and goods, a sétier of wine was 7.45 L, of salt

208.13 L, and of oats 312.20 L. Between 1812 and 1840, the sétier was equivalent to 100 L.

Derived from sextarius (sixth part), an antique Roman measure of capacity, one sétier de Paris of

dry goods was equal to 12 boisseau de Paris or 48 quart de Paris.

SOLES: past and present currency in several Latin American countries.

TAEL (Chinese liang): a unit of weight in East Asia equal to about one ounce; its weight and value varied

by region. As a basic unit of currency in China, it was equivalent to about one ounce of silver.

TERCIO: an old measure of weight in parts of Central America and the Caribbean, equal to about 150

pounds; in New Spain it equaled 162 lbs (73.63 kg). As a unit of length, it was equivalent to

27.97 cm.

VARA (stick or pole): a traditional Spanish and Portuguese unit of distance that varied in value depending

on region. In Spanish America, it was typically about 33 inches. Often used in land measurement

in as equal to 33⅓ inches (84.667 cm), 33 inches (83.82 cm) in , but only 32.993

inches (83.802 cm) in Mexico, and about 34 inches (86.4 cm) in the Southern Cone. The Spanish

vara equaled 32.908 inches (or 83.587 cm), whereas the Portuguese vara equaled 5 palmos

7

(palms), about 43.3 inches (110 cm). The Brazilian vara was 43.7 inches (111 cm). Humboldt

states that the Mexican vara was equal to 83.90 cm, close to the Spanish vara.

VOIE: a measure of volume for transported goods at Paris, which varied in value between goods. For coal,

it was 11.707 hectoliters; for firewood 1.919 m3; for free stone 5.142 decistere; for plaster 3.122

hectoliters; and for quarry stone 6.855 decistere. A voie of charcoal referred to the amount a

person could carry in a sack.

ZOLOTNIK: a Russian measure of mass equal to about 4.25 grams.

Annotations to Volume I

I.xi. Humboldt’s publisher inserted this preface and his own footnotes throughout. The footnotes

are marked as E.—R. and are distinct from Humboldt’s own.

I.xv. British antiques collector and naturalist William BULLOCK (1780s–1849) opened a museum in Liverpool between 1795 and 1801. A successful and popular cabinet of curiosities, Bullock’s museum displayed works of art, objects of , arms and armory, as well as curiosities brought by to England. In 1809, he moved his museum to .

The Liverpool Museum, as it was called, gained prominence after 1812 when it was housed in the specially commissioned Egyptian Hall (Piccadilly, London); the museum was auctioned in

1819. Traveling to Mexico in 1822, Bullock collected several artifacts of Middle American history, including plaster casts of a stone, a sacrificial stone, pyramids of Teotihuacán, and pictographical manuscripts and maps. Back in England since 1823, Bullock opened an exhibit of ancient and contemporary Mexican artifacts in the Egyptian Hall in April 1824.

Selling his collection, he traveled to Mexico in 1825 to engage in the mining business. Because of his failed venture in Mexico, he moved back to Britain (1827–1828), to try his luck in the

8

United States. He moved back to England by 1840. From his first trip to Mexico William

published Six Months’ Residence and Travels in Mexico (London: J. Murray, 1824). His trip to

the USA is recounted in Sketch of a Journey through the Western States of

(1827). George Bullock (1778/82–1818), the British cabinetmaker and sculptor, is his brother.

I.2. Humboldt refers to the “Tablas geográfico-políticas del Reino de Nueva España,” in which

he first summarized the results of his research on the country. In 1804, he offered this

preliminary study, which would become the starting point for The Political Essay on the

Kingdom of New Spain and was superseded by it, to Iturrigaray. Excerpts from the

“Tablas”—the sections about area and population—appeared in the journal El Diario de México

in May 1807. For information on a recent reprint, see Humboldt’s Library.

I.3. In the mid-eighteenth century, provincial INTENDANTS came to replace the earlier district

magistrates. The intendants symbolized Spain’s innovative practice of appointing salaried military and civilian career officials as colonial administrators. Intendants were effectively financial commissioners whose main function was to collect revenue for the Spanish Crown. In

New Spain, José de Gálvez y Gallardo set up a system of intendancies in 1768. Approved in

1769, the first interim intendancy was that of Arizpe (or Sonora/Sinaloa). Pedro de Corbalán (r.

1771–1787) served as Arizpe’s interim intendant for sixteen years; he received a permanent

appointment in 1776 and stayed in office until 1787. Although the intendancy system was

initiated in 1771, it was not formalized for all of New Spain until December 1786 in the Real

ordenanza para el establecimiento e instrucción de intendentes de ejército y provincia en el

reino de Nueva España (Royal ordinance for the establishment of military and provincial

intendants in the Kingdom of New Spain). This ordinance led to the creation of twelve

9

intendancies: , Puebla de los Ángeles, Nueva , Antequera de Oaxaca,

Mérida de Yucatán, de Michoacán, Santa Fé de , San Luis de Potosí,

Guadalajara, Zacatecas, Durango, and Arizpe. The intendancy system, which survived the

Mexican Revolution, was not legally abolished until 1824.

I.5. One of four Spanish vice-royalties, New Spain consisted then of the areas of today’s Mexico

(without Chiapas), the captaincies-general of (with Chiapas) and Habana, and the areas of today’s USAmerican states of California, , , Texas, Louisiana, and

Florida. Humboldt traveled in parts of today’s Mexican states of , , Mexico,

Hidalgo, Querétaro, Guanajuato, Michaocán, , Puebla, and Veracruz (see Figure 1 in our

Introduction).

I.6. German mathematician and astronomer Jabbo OLTMANNS (1783–1833) played a major role in assembling and revising the astronomical and barometrical results of Humboldt’s measurements in the Americas. He held a professorship in since 1824 and worked closely with Humboldt on the Recueil d’observations astronomiques (Collection of astronomical observations).

I.7. Like Humboldt, the Basque chemist, metallurgist, and mineralogist Fausto de ELHUYAR Y DE

ZUBICE (also DELHUYAR or D’Elhuyar, 1755–1833) studied under Abraham Gottlob Werner at the Freiberg School of Mines in Saxony. Together with his brother, Juan José de Elhuyar, another Freiberg alumn, Fausto discovered the metal (wolfram) in 1783. Humboldt did not meet either at Freiberg, as they had both left when he arrived in 1791. Instead, he made the acquaintance of another young Spaniard, Andrés del Río. In 1786, Elhuyar led a scientific expedition to the mines of New Spain, accompanied by eleven German colleagues from

10

Freiberg. His hope was to modernize the mining production in the colony. His brother headed a similar expedition in New Granada. That same year, Fausto became director of the Real Tribunal de Minería, the Mining Board in Mexico City, and, four years later, laid out the plan for a

Colegio de Minería, a College of Mines, which would open its doors on January 1, 1792, as the

Royal School of Mines (Real Seminario de Minería). Fausto directed this institution for thirty years, at the same time that he was also director-general of mines for all of Mexico. Humboldt’s mineralogical studies benefited significantly from his close collaboration with Fausto de Elhuyar and the Saxon scholars who gathered large amounts of data during their expeditions. See also

Velázquez, Joaquín; Sonneschmidt.

I.8. Haidar ‘Ali Khan, known as HYDER ALI (1722–82), was the Dalavai (commander-in-chief) and de facto pādshāh (emperor) of Mysore between 1761 and 1782. A Muslim soldier, he exercised power during the Hindu Wodeyar in the late , the head of which remained nominal ruler until Indian independence in 1947. In the half of the eighteenth

century, during the Carnatic Wars that the French and the British East Company fought

over territory, Hyder Ali consolidated his power, successfully challenging the expansion of

British power in southern India. With his remarkable grasp of European warfare and politics,

Hyder Ali waged two victorious wars against the British, in 1767–1769 and 1778–1781. His son,

Fath ‘Ali Khan, known as TIPU SULTAN (c. 1753–1799), inherited the kingdom of Mysore in

1782. The British eventually defeated and killed Tipu Sultan in Seringapatam, his capital.

I.11. For lack of reliable geometrical information, most eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century

navigators had to establish their own measurements to know the exact course of their travel

11 routes. For CHRONOMETRIC measurements based on the movement of time, a precise and portable timekeeper was set to a fixed geographical position; the time of this location could then be compared to the ship’s actual position. The difference between the chronometer’s time and the ship’s local time, which was established by observing the stars, determined the exact .

By pointing to his method of establishing a “single system of coordinates” with his own instruments, Humboldt indicates that his American measurements were exact, his methods modern. Humboldt’s own portable chronometer, which he describes at the beginning of his

Personal Narrative, was built by Pierre-Louis Berthoud (1754–1813), nephew of the famous

French chronometer-maker Ferdinand Berthoud (1727–1807). It was among the most advanced chronometers of its time and a perfect travel companion resistant to drifts caused by sudden movement or changes in temperature or air humidity. Before Humboldt’s departure, the instrument had been tested at the French Marine’s Observatory in for eighteen consecutive days, where it only differed from the planetary clockwork by a third of a second.

Unmatched in preciseness, this chronometer was also very robust and its mechanics stayed unaffected even while in a canoe, as Humboldt was to find out on his trip down the

River. Because of its unmatched accuracy, this timekeeper was so precious to Humboldt that he designated one of his indigenous carriers for its transportation alone. When he departed from

Mexico City, Humboldt donated the instrument to ’s Royal School of Mines.

This particular chronometer (model 27) might have been sold or lent to Humboldt by Jean-

Charles himself. As Humboldt enthusiastically points out, his chronometer had once belonged to the “great Borda,” the famous French mathematician and naval general with whom

Humboldt had specified the magnetic inclination of the in 1798. Magnetic inclination (or magnetic dip), which Robert Norman (c. 1550–1600) first described in 1581, is

12

the angle that a compass needle makes with the horizon at any point on the ’s surface. See also Observation, astronomical. See also Chronometer.

I.11. Geographer and cartographer Jean Baptiste Bourguignon D’ (1697–1782) was the

first geographer of the King of France. He greatly improved the standards of map-making by

revising his 1743 frequently. Humboldt owned D’Anville’s Nouvel Atlas de la Chine (1737;

New atlas of China), his Carte de la Province de au Perou (1751; A map of Quito

province in Peru), which was based on the journals of Charles-Marie de La Condamine, and

his Orbis veteribus notus (1763; A new general atlas of modern ).

I.12. Explorers, mathematicians, and astronomers, both Pierre (1698–1758) and

Charles-Marie de LA CONDAMINE (1701–1774) were members of the scientific expedition Louis

Godin (1704–60) led to the Province of Quito in the (now in ). In

1735, the French Academy of Sciences dispatched two expeditions, one to South America,

another to Lapland, to settle the question of Earth’s precise shape. Once the , along with

their Spanish colleagues and Jorge Juan y Santacilia, reached Quito, they

split the expedition in two, each carrying out geodesic measurements and surveying Ecuador’s

north–south mountain range. During his , La Condamine became fascinated by the

rubber trees, poison and its antidote, and quinine made from bark. Bouguer

made observations in the mountains and discovered that the density of local rocks influenced the

Earth’s gravity (this was later called the Bouguer anomaly). Bouguer returned to Paris in 1743

via Cartagena. La Condamine reached Paris two years later via Pará, after traveling down the

Amazon River with Pedro Maldonado. Once back in Paris, both scientists resumed the rivalry

that had begun during their expedition in the form of a bitter feud over their publications within

13

the Academy of Sciences. Bouguer was the first to present the expedition’s report to the

Academy of Sciences (it appeared in the Memoires in 1744), then published it separately as La

Figure de la Terre (1749; The shape of the Earth). He authored many other works, including

Traité du navire (1746; Treatise on navigation), the first modern text on naval architecture written by a . La Condamine reported his journey to the Academy a year later, in 1745.

His report included his adventurous trip down the Amazon and his efforts to map the river’s course and tributaries. In 1751, he published his report separately as Journal du voyage fait par ordre du Roi, à l’Équateur (Journal of the voyage to the , made on orders of the King). In addition to several other scientific volumes based on his travels, La Condamine authored

Mésures des trois premiers degrés du Méridien dans l’hémisphère austral (Measurements of the three first degrees of the meridian in the southern hemisphere) and Histoire des Pyramides de

Quito (History of the pyramids of Quito), both published in 1751.

I.14. Appointed first Surveyor-general of Bengal in 1756, James RENNELL (1742–1830) was also the first English geographer to establish a scientific approach to the study of geography and based on . Scientific pioneers, such as Rennell and the German naturalist

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), one of Humboldt’s most influential teachers,

instilled in the Prussian the importance of what contemporary scholarship has called experiential

knowledge. Humboldt, in Views of Nature, considered Rennell his “honored friend” and

frequently quoted from his works.

Establishing geographical measurements of a place and, by way of determining and

longitude, the position of that place, was not a trivial exercise in Humboldt’s day. One of

Humboldt’s methods of time keeping was based on astronomical movement: measuring lunar

14 distances (that is, measuring the angles between the of and fixed stars) and observing the Galilean Moons of Jupiter. Lunar distances require extremely accurate angular measurements for which two different instruments were perfected during the eighteenth century: the reflecting and REPEATING CIRCLE (also known as Borda circle) and the SEXTANT. It usually took two people to determine the sun’s zenith, in this case, Aimé who announced the local time in intervals of 30 , and Humboldt who determined the sun’s position from just before until after noon. The highest angle was the point of zenith. Invented by British Admiral

John (c. 1720–1790) to measure the altitude of celestial bodies, the sextant originally had an arc of one-sixth of a circle or 60º (hence its name). Humboldt had one of each: a sextant by Jesse Ramsden (1735–1800) and a Borda repeating circle built by Étienne Lenoir (1744–

1832). The Ramsden sextant was probably Humboldt’s most frequently used instrument, and it was one of his finest. Humboldt also used a three-foot achromatic telescope by the London manufacturer Peter (1735–1820). The movements of celestial bodies were only useful in combination with complex charts in which their positions relative to the Earth’s surface had been determined for each of the year. These charts had been in use since Jean-Felix Picard’s

(1620–82) annual publication Connaissances des temps of 1679. However, when Captain John

Garnier (d. c. 1801) gave Humboldt the much-needed and most recent edition of the British

Nautical Almanac during their boat trip along the shores of Cumaná in August 1800, the Prussian was able to take measurements with much greater accuracy. The Almanac, which Humboldt had tried desperately but unsuccessfully to obtain before his departure, was much more precise than its French counterpart.

I.14. While sextants, chronometers, and telescopes were helpful for determining longitude while traveling at sea and on land, BAROMETERS that measured atmospheric pressure were commonly

15

used to predict short-term changes in the local weather. The barometer was also used to ascertain

the leveling of the immediate surroundings, a basic and easy-to-obtain measurement on which

Humboldt relied heavily. This was “a highly precise operation” especially in the tropics, where

the barometer remained unaffected by temperature changes. Together with his chronometrical

and astronomical measurements, these data became indispensable for Humboldt when he drew

up his famous maps—maps prominently displayed in the Atlas géographique et physique des

régions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent (Geographical and physical atlas of the equinoctial

regions of the New Continent) and in the Atlas géographique et physique du royaume de la

Nouvelle-Espagne (Geographical and physicial atlas of the kingdom of New Spain) that

accompanies this edition.

I.15. Together with Jean Baptiste Joseph (1749–1822), with whom Humboldt was in

contact during his entire voyage, astronomer and hydrographer Pierre François André Méchain

(1744–1804) had measured the from Dunkirk, France, to , Spain, in the

mid-. Their aim had been to establish a basis for the units of length in the metric system for

the French national legislature.

I.15. Xaver Freiherr von ZACH (1754–1832) was a German–Hungarian astronomer who

worked under the patronage of Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1745–1804). Zach built an observatory—one of the most important of its time—on the Seeberg near Gotha and directed it from 1791, when it was completed, until 1806. During this period, Zach enlisted twenty-four astronomers from across Europe in a systematic search for new comets and for the between Mars and , expected to be there on the basis of Johann Elert ’s (1747–1826) law (the Titius–Bode law). The main result of this effort was the discovery of several minor

16

(commonly called ). Zach’s most lasting achievement was editing three

scientific journals from 1798 to 1826.

I.15. Astronomer and physicist Johann Tobias BÜRG (1766–1834) was university professor in

Vienna from 1792 to 1813. Together, Triesnecker and Bürg edited and published the journal

Ephemerides Astronomicae. The “Tabulae Mercurii, Martis, Veneris, Solares” and observational

data on the sun, , planets, and positions of stars were printed in this periodical between

1787 and 1806.

I.15. - astronomer and mathematician Johann Karl (1773–1825, also

known as Jean Charles) was trained by Zach. Upon moving to Paris in 1797, Burckhardt became

an adjunct member of Bureau des . Working with Pierre Simon de Laplace, he

completed 4,000 astronomical observations of the moon to improve the accuracy of Bürg’s lunar tables. The French published the tables as Tables astronomiques (1812).

Burckhardt’s lunar tables, which served as the basis for the French and British lunar ephemerides until 1861, were based on Laplace’s theory of celestial mechanics. In addition to publishing division tables (Tables des diviseurs, 1814, 1816, 1817), he translated Laplace’s work on celestial mechanics into German as Mechanik des Himmels (1800). Burckhardt became a French citizen in 1803 and a full member of the Bureau des Longitudes in 1817.

I.16. Humboldt’s “Chevalier de Croix” was the Spanish general Carlos Francisco DE CROIX, marquis de Croix (1699–1786), who was the forty-fifth viceroy of New Spain (1766–71). These were turbulent for the colony, including Indian revolts and labor unrests in the silver mines. In 1767, King Charles III of Spain ordered de Croix to expel the Jesuits from New

Spain, among them the distinguished scholar Francisco Javier Clavijero. De Croix

17

accomplished this with the help of colonial inspector José de Gálvez y Gallardo. The king’s

support for the and resulting acts of censorship fueled the budding tensions between

New Spain’s Criollo elite and the Peninsular colonial regime. De Croix returned to Spain upon

being succeeded as viceroy by Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa.

I.16. or Americans of Spanish descent conquered the northern frontier of New Spain

(present-day , Texas, New Mexico, southern Arizona, and the California coast) by converting the indigenous population to Catholicism. Unlike the British colonizers in New

England, who killed or displaced the indigenous population, Spain established three types of settlements to transform the indigenous population into subjects of the Spanish Crown: missions, or forts, and pueblos or towns. Jesuit Eusebio Francisco Kino established the missions of PIMERÍA ALTA (literally: upper Pima land) to convert the local indigenous peoples. In

1687, Kino began baptizing at the village of Cosari. He then established the mission of Dolores,

which served as a headquarters for all of the Pimería Alta in today’s southern Arizona (USA) and

northern Sonora (Mexico). The indigenous peoples who lived in the Pimería Alta, the northern

border of Spanish colonization, were the Pima (Akimel O’odham or “river people”), the Papago

(Babawi O'odham or “tepary bean people”), the Gileño peoples, and the now-extinct Soba and

Sobaipuri.

I.16. Plains peoples of the southwestern , the APACHE are an Athabascan-speaking

tribe that lives in present-day Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. At the time of contact with

Spanish in the late sixteenth century, the Apache were established in present-day

Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and northern Mexico. Apaches split culturally into Western and

Eastern Apache in 1300. The Western Apache, which include the Tonto Apache, lived in a

18

territory stretching from Peaks into Arizona, bordering the lands of the Pima. The

Apache were successful in fighting off invasions by Spain, Mexico, and the USA until the end of

the nineteenth century.

I.17n. Roger BARRY (1752–1813), a Lazarist priest, became an astronomer at the Mannheim

Observatory in in 1788. Barry had been taught by the Jesuits at Nancy, entered the

Lazarist Order in Paris in 1769, and was trained in by Joseph-Jérôme Lalande around 1787. In 1794, when the Napoleonic troops invaded Germany, the French captured

Mannheim. Barry had to flee the French invasion without his instruments. The French arrested

him in 1799 on charges that he had helped French immigrants, but he was exonerated. The small

planet Barry, discovered in 1930, is named after him.

I.17n. Maurice HENRY (1763–1825), Barry’s assistant, was also a Lazarist priest and an

astronomer trained by Lalande. Although Henry had sought to become a in China, he

moved to Mannheim in 1789 to work with Barry.

I.17n. Jesuit astronomer Christian MAYER (1719–83) was a professor for mathematics and

physics at the University of Heidelberg. In 1762, he was appointed Royal Astronomer and built

two observatories, one in Schwetzingen, the other in Mannheim. As the director of the latter,

Mayer pioneered the systematic study of double stars, on which he published his last major

work, Gründliche Vertheidigung neuer Beobachtungen von Fixsterntrabanten (1778;

Comprehensive defense of new observations on fixed star satellites).

I.17n. The QUADRANT mentioned here was manufactured by John Bird (1709–1776) in London

and sold to Humboldt by Pierre Bernard Megnié (1751–1807) during his stay in prior his

19

departure for the Americas in 1799. Quadrants were used for measuring altitude. Typically

consisting of a graduated arc of 90 degrees with an index or vernier, they usually had a plumb

line or spirit level for fixing the vertical and horizontal direction. Yet, while the instrument had

initially appealed to Humboldt, he soon considered it a useless travel burden and sold it to José

Ignacio de Pombo in Cartagena. Pombo later gave it to Francisco Caldas, together with more

than thirty books from Humboldt.

I.17n. Pierre Charles LE MONNIER (also Lemonnier [1715–99]) was a French astronomer from a

distinguished family of natural scientists and philosophers. In 1736, he presented an intricate

lunar map to the French Royal Academy of Sciences, was admitted to it as adjunct geometer, and

then was appointed professor of physics at the Collège de France. His most prominent pupil at

the College was Joseph-Jérôme Lalande. An outstanding observational astronomer who

introduced English astronomical ideas and scientific instruments to France, Le Monnier

significantly advanced the practice and precision of astronomical measurement in France. He is

particularly known for his work on lunar motion, Observations de la lune, du soleil, et des étoiles

fixes (1751–75; Observation of the moon, the sun, and the fixed stars). Worth mentioning is also

his Description et usage des principaux instruments d'astronomie (1774; Description and use of

the major astronomical instruments).

I.18. Commodore Dionisio Alcalá GALIANO (1760–1805, also Galeano) was a Spanish cartographer and explorer who met Humboldt in Havana. After graduating from the Naval

Academy in 1775, Galiano worked under Vicente Tofiño de San Miguel (1732–95) on a

hydrographic expedition off the coasts of the Iberian Peninsula (1784–85). As junior lieutenant,

Galiano was in charge of astronomical observations and cartography for Antonio de Córdoba’s

20

(c. 1740–1811) expedition to chart the Strait of Magellan (1785–86). Because of his scientific

experience, Galiano was recruited as main astronomer for the Malaspina Expedition, during

which he was promoted from senior lieutenant to commander. On the surveying expedition to the

Pacific Northwest in 1792, Galiano commanded the ship Sútil and Antonio Valdés y Fernández

Bazán (1744–1816) the Mexicana. That expedition was the first to complete a detailed survey of

the and to circumnavigate . After his scientific

expeditions, Galiano was promoted to the rank of commodore. He died in the while commanding the Bahama. In addition to the journals of his American expeditions, Galiano published works on astronomical observation.

I.18. José ESPINOSA y Tello (1763–1815) headed the Depósito Hidrográfico (Hydrographic

Office) in Madrid. He was succeeded in this position by Felipe Bauzá, a former shipmate from

the second Malaspina Expedition. In a letter to (1797–1884) in early 1828,

Humboldt wrote: “May I ask you please to return the Espinosa to me in a week or two, because I

use this book often. You know that it is old and needs to be handled with care.” The book in

question was Espinosa’s 1809 Memorias sobre las observaciones astronómicas (Report about

astronomical observations).

I.18. The role Felipe BAUZÁ y Cana (1764–1834) played in the Malaspina Expedition exceeded

that of a scientist. A sketcher and naval officer, he was in charge of the maps, hydrographic

charts, and landscape drawings that were to be produced during the voyage and for which

Malaspina had retained several painters. Bauzá kept Humboldt well informed about the details of

Malaspina’s expedition; his letters were an important resource as the Prussian naturalist prepared

for his own voyage to the Americas. Bauzá is frequently mentioned in Humboldt’s Political

21

Essay of the Island of Cuba in connection with the hydrographic measurements that both

scientists exchanged over the years. Bauzá shared data from the Malaspina Expedition and from his work as director of the Depósito Hidrográfico in Madrid.

I.18. Placed in charge of the astronomical and geodetic observations on the vessel Santa Eulalia

during Antonio de Córdoba’s second voyage to the Strait of Magellan (1788–89), Spanish naval

officer, mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer Ciriaco CEVALLOS y de Bustillo (1764–

1816) gained significant experience in astronomical work. Promoted to senior lieutenant in 1789,

he joined the Malaspina Expedition in in 1791. Four years later, Cevallos advanced

to the rank of commander, and in 1795 he was appointed military attaché to the Spanish

Ambassador in Paris. As post-captain in Veracruz, Cevallos carried out cartographic surveys of

the Yucatán peninsula. He retired from the navy in 1809 and died in seven years

later.

I.18. Mexican astronomer and archeologist Antonio León y GAMA (1735–1802) published the

first exact observation of the longitude of Mexico, which the astronomer Joseph-Jérôme

Lalande, one of Humboldt’s close contacts, brought to wider attention.

I.18. After his ship’s capture by the British, Spanish astronomer José Joaquín FERRER y Cafranga

(1763–1818) was imprisoned in England from 1780–86. Thanks to his family’s influence, he was able to use his prison time for studies and discovered his aptitude for mathematics and astronomy. Once freed, he traveled first to Peru and then to Mexico. The astronomical measurements he took in the Americas, including on the Island of Cuba, earned him the recognition of the American Philosophical Society, of which he became a member in 1801.

Having lived in the USA for some time, from where he corresponded with Humboldt and Franz

22

Xaver Zach, Ferrer returned to Europe in 1814 to work at Greenwich and at the Cádiz observatory. He died in Bilbao.

I.18. In 1802, Spanish military officer Manuel Díaz DE HERRERA explored the Yucatán peninsula

with Ciriaco Cevallos, then naval commander at Veracruz. Both Cevallos and Herrera had left

Cádiz for the Yucatán on the in May 1802. When he took part in the cartographic surveys of the peninsula and the Bay of Campeche, senior lieutenant Herrera commanded the Saeta; Cevallos was on board the Volador. As a result of the survey expedition,

they drew a detailed and accurate map of the Yucatán peninsula and the Bay of Campeche in the

Gulf of Mexico.

I.20. Spanish naval officer Joaquín Francisco FIDALGO (1758–1820) was commander of a hydrographic expedition to chart the coastal areas of Venezuela and the Antilles, which produced several important maps. Fidalgo began his career at the Coast Guard Academy of Cartagena de

Indias in 1773 and later became a professor at and director of that academy. In 1791, he was recruited for the second division of a Spanish hydrographic expedition to chart the southern coasts of the Caribbean Sea. Cosme Damián de Churruca was the commander of the first division. The expedition departed Cádiz for South America on July 4, 1792, charting until 1797 the coasts of Venezuela, Colombia, and (then part of New Granada). The expedition’s travel narrative was published by the Dirección de Trabajos Hidrográficos as Derrotero de las

islas Antillas, de las costas de Tierra Firme y de las del Seno Mexicano (1810; Tour of the

Antillean islands, the coasts of the mainland provinces, and the Gulf of Mexico). Fidalgo’s

expedition resulted in the publication of several important maps (see Humboldt’s Library).

Having advanced to interim commander of the Cartagena Navy and the Coast Guards (1796–98),

23

Fidalgo returned to Spain, where he was named interim director of the Depósito Hidrográfico under Felipe Bauzá. Once he reached the rank of commodore, Fidalgo directed the College of

San Telmo in (1812–20) and served as interim director of the Cádiz astronomical observatory (1813). Humboldt established contact with him by letter while in Cartagena.

I.20. Cosme Damián CHURRUCA y Elorza (1761–1805) led a geographical expedition to map the

Straits of Magellan together with Dionisio Alcalá Galiano. Churruca spent some time at the

Cádiz observatory, and, in 1792, signed on to Joaquín Francisco Fidalgo’s expedition to the

Americas, during which he drew valuable maps (see Humboldt Library). By the time the Franco-

Spanish war interrupted his work, he had completed twenty-four charts, including maps of the

coastlines of Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. He died in the Battle of Trafalgar.

I.22n. GEODESIC LEVELING is used for wide-range geometric surveying. Yet, it is “a slow and costly process” when compared to barometric and hypsometric measuring, as Humboldt points out in his Political Essay on the Island of Cuba (II.306). While barometric leveling only takes into account one specific location at a time, geodesic leveling is based on the method of triangulation. Triangulation links together a series of triangles and quadrilaterals formed between several suitable reference points across the area to be mapped. Because they needed to be visible over large distances, these sites were usually mountain peaks, church towers, or similarly prominent places. This is one of the reasons why Humboldt frequently mentions New Spain’s eye-catching volcanoes: they were important for the elaboration of his maps of New Spain. Once the two pinpoints of the triangle were defined, their connecting line—called the baseline—had to be calculated by demarcating the pinpoints’ geographical positions. The angles between these two and the remaining third reference point were usually measured either with theodolites or

24 with a sextant and an artificial horizon. This allowed the calculation of the lengths of the remaining two sides of the triangle by means of simple . The meshes of this weave were then filled in through first- and second-order areal triangulation, as Humboldt mentions in this footnote. If possible, the framework’s baselines were established along meridians and parallels. Large-scale arc measurements started in France under the direction of de

Thury in the 1780s and were soon extended from the Paris Observatory to Greenwich and the

Shetland Islands. In 1792, the French National Assembly commissioned the measurement of the meridian through Paris, between Barcelona and Dunkirk (see also Delambre), which was completed in Humboldt’s presence in Lieusaint near Paris on June 2, 1798. These observations not only contributed to the establishment of the metric system, but they also showed that degrees of terrestrial latitude increased in length toward the poles, implying a model of the Earth’s surface as a rotational ellipsoid. This insight was crucial since any given length between two terrestrial positions had to take into account the Earth’s curvature to be accurate. Further studies, however, proved that the large-scale arc measurements contradicted the ellipsoidal model. Works by (1777–1855) and Friedrich-Wilhelm (1784–1846), both connected with Humboldt through years of collaboration and epistolary exchanges, improved the existing methods for triangulation, distinguishing, for the first time, between the physical surface of the Earth, the geoid as the mathematical surface, and the ellipsoid as a reference surface approximating it. Until the introduction of electromagnetic distance measurements, triangulation continued to be the method for establishing horizontal control networks in the nineteenth and twentieth century.

I.22n. Resting on a socle with three adjustable legs, the THEODOLITE had to be put in a stable horizontal position in order to function properly. Equipped with an azimuthal circle and a

25

rotating telescope, the instrument was used to determine horizontal and vertical angles, mainly

for astral observations and geodesic surface measurements. Compared to most other optical

instruments Humboldt discusses, the theodolite, with its complex mechanics, was bulky and

unreliable when taken on overland journeys. Consequently, Humboldt left his own theodolite,

which had been manufactured by Johann Heinrich Hurter (1734–1799), in France.

I.23. Humboldt visited the PYRAMID OF CHOLULA outside the city of Puebla, Mexico, and wrote

extensively about it in his Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of

the Americas (Plate VII).

I.23. Originally a device for ascertaining elevation above sea level, a HYPSOMETER also indicates

with precision the boiling point of water, which, in turn, yields atmospheric pressure (there is a

relationship in which boiling point depends on atmospheric pressure, which, in turn, depends on

elevation above sea level). The hypsometer can thus determine differences in barometric

pressure between two locations. Hypsometry was an important part of in

the field. Humboldt constantly used his hypsometer, which was important to his plant geography,

together with his barometers and with Jean-Charles Borda’s inclination compass, to measure

checkpoints on his travel routes, the precise altitude of mountain peaks, and the leveling of

different vegetative spheres. This inclination compass, designed by Borda and manufactured by

Étienne Lenoir (1744–1832), was a gift to Humboldt from the Parisian Bureau des Longitudes.

I.23. Spanish naval officer and cartographer Mariano ISASBIRIVIL (also Isasbiribil, d. c. 1811)

entered the in 1786. He traveled to the Americas in 1793, where he stayed for almost six years. In 1802, Isasbirivil reached aboard the ship Rufina. On November 19 of

that year, he, together with Humboldt, observed the passing of before the sun at El

26

Callao (Peru) and determined the precise geographic location of Lima. Part of a reconnaissance

mission to Peru and Guatemala, Isasbirivil mapped the coastlines of these territories, the port of

Valparaíso, and Mocha Island. Because his ship was captured by the British, he had to return to

Lima, resuming his hydrographic works around 1806, when he traveled again to Chile, Peru,

Chocó, and up to . In 1808, Isasbirivil sailed once more to the Americas, this time to

Buenos Aires. The British once again intercepted his ship, and he died a prisoner of war around

1811.

I.24. Best known as a cartographer, César-François CASSINI DE THURY (1714–84), also known as

Cassini III, belonged to the Cassini dynasty of French–Italian geographers. Like the Buaches,

another such dynasty, the Cassinis had close ties to the centralized French state. The Cassinis had

played a key role in the development of astronomy and in France and Europe since the

works of Cassini’s grandfather, Giovanni Domenico Cassini (Cassini I, 1625–1712). In 1745,

after expeditions to Lapland and Peru had failed to support the Cartesian position that the Earth

is elongated along the lines of its poles, Cassini de Thury created a representation of the map of the world known as the Cassini projection. It differed from the more familiar equirectangular

Mercator projection in that it took the central meridian as an equator of sorts, which created significant distortions on the north–south axis. Cassini III established triangulation (see I.22n) as part of a national geodetic survey in France. The great topographical map of France that he

began in 1744—Description géometrique de la France—would be completed by his son Jean-

Dominique, of CASSINI (1748–1845, aka Cassini IV), more than forty years later, in 1793.

I.24. A protégé and collaborator of Jacques Cassini’s (Cassini II, 1677–1756), with whom he worked at the Paris Observatory and under whose name some of his early work is published,

27

French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de LACAILLE (1713–62) is known for his efforts to remeasure

the French arc of the meridian through Paris, between Barcelona and Dunkirk, in 1739. This was

his first important astronomical feat, in which he collaborated with his son Cassini III. Both

astronomers applied the method of measuring distances for geodetic survey with the help of light

signals. If executed properly, this method was, as Humboldt mentions, among the most accurate,

cost-efficient, and time-efficient of its day. It was usually done at night with two geodesists, each

of whom installed himself at an exposed triangulation point (e.g., mountain peaks), using a

lantern with an optical reflector to project the light into the right direction along the baseline of

the triangle to be measured. Night observation was easier especially for long-distance

measurements because the atmosphere was more settled than during the heat of the day, and thus

the angles could be measured more precisely. In 1750, Lacaille proposed an astronomical expedition to the Cape of Good Hope (via Rio de Janeiro) to test Isaac Newton’s (1643–1727) theory of gravity and confirm the shape of the southern hemisphere. During this journey, he observed and catalogued nearly 9,800 southern stars, including nebulae and new constellations.

He was the first to measure a South African arc of the meridian. Lacaille was also the author of the first solar tables to come into general use next to Tobias Mayer’s lunar tables. After their initial publication in 1759, Lacaille’s tables became the basis for the solar ephemerides of the annual Connaissance des temps, first published by Jean-Felix Picard (1620–1682) in 1679 (see also annotation for I.14). Named to the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in 1754, Lacaille largely withdrew from public life to work at his private observatory at Mazarin College in Paris, where he had been appointed professor of mathematics after having been elected to the Royal

Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1741.

28

I.24. POPOCATÉPETL and IZTACCÍHUATL are the two highest peaks in the Sierra mountain range and two of the three highest peaks in Mexico. Iztaccíhuatl (also spelled Ixtaccihuatl, from the for “white woman”) is a dormant situated on the México–Puebla state line in central Mexico. It lies 10 miles (16 km) north of its twin, Popocatépetl, and 40 miles (65 km) south-southeast of Mexico City. Iztaccíhuatl has three summits, the highest one reaching 17,159 feet (5,230 m), but no crater. As seen from the federal capital, the snow-covered peaks resemble the head, breast, and feet of a recumbent woman—hence the popular designation of sleeping woman. Iztaccíhuatl last erupted in 1868.

I.25. The DEPÓSITO HIDROGRÁFICO (Hydrographic Office) became Spain’s official cartographic publishing office in 1797. First created in 1770, the Depósito moved its offices to Madrid in

1789. Initially, the office served as an archive of maritime charts derived from Spanish expeditions overseas. In December 1797, the office’s charge included creating, correcting, and publishing charts for navigation and trade, as well as disseminating all other useful knowledge about naval expeditions, such as travelogs and reports. The sole repository of cartographic knowledge of the Spanish possessions in the Americas and the in the eighteenth century, the Depósito also ordered surveying and hydrographic expeditions to improve cartographic knowledge of Spain and its territories. Most of the Depósito’s archives are currently at the Spanish Naval Museum.

I.25. Criollo mathematician, astronomer, topographer, and geographer Pedro Vicente

MALDONADO (1704–48) collaborated with the French Academy of Science’s 1735 expedition to the then-viceroyalty of Peru to determine the shape of the Earth. A member of a wealthy, well- connected family from Riobamba (present-day Ecuador), he was trained as a teacher in the

29

Universidad Gregoriana in 1721 and was later appointed governor of the province of Esmeraldas

(1737–43). During his tenure as governor, Maldonado had a road built from Esmeraldas to Quito

and explored the northen part of the region to establish new settlements. The members of the

French scientific expedition, notably (1704–60) and La Condamine, established

friendly relations with the Maldonado family. In 1743, Maldonado met La Condamine at the

Spanish mission of Lagunas on the eastern slope of the . They sailed down the Amazon

River to the Portuguese-American city of Pará (today Belém, Brazil), then crossed the Atlantic

for Europe. In Spain, Maldonado had hoped to collect instruments and purchase books and other

supplies to establish a scientific laboratory in his home country. He also wanted to gain support

for an overland route from Quito to Panama and request city status for Riobamba, his home

town. After spending two years in Madrid, Maldonado embarked on a scientific tour through

Paris, London, and the , gaining entry into prestigious scientific circles, including the

French Academy of Sciences. He died shortly after having been nominated as member of the

Royal Society of London. Supported by the French Academy of Sciences, Maldonado’s Carta de la Provincia de Quito y de sus adjacentes (Map of the province of Quito and its surrounds), to which Humboldt refers, was published posthumously in 1750.

I.26. What is known as the began when, in 1569, Gerard(us) Mercator

(Gerhard Kremers, 1512–1594) published his famous map of the world as a set of eighteen

sheets that form a wall-size 48 x 80 inch mosaic. Most of today’s wall maps follow this early

example, including its controversial distortions that resulted in representing as smaller the

landmasses of the so-called developing world. Originally a student of the humanities, Mercator came under the influence of mathematician and astronomer Gemma Frisius (1508–55) at the

University of Louvain, where he enrolled in 1530. After receiving his master’s degree, Mercator

30

convinced Frisius to continue to tutor him. Meanwhile, Mercator also acquired skills as an

engraver, calligrapher, and maker of scientific instruments at the shop of a local goldsmith. He

soon began to collaborate with his academic mentor on globe making and map making,

publishing his first map (of Palestine) in 1537. The following year, he issued his famous world

map, laid down on the double heart-shaped projection that he had borrowed from the French

mathematician Oronce Fine (1494–1555), who had pioneered it in 1531. When the violent

suppression of Protestantism gained ground in , Mercator, because of his contacts

among alleged heretics, was jailed for seven months. After he was freed for lack of evidence,

Mercator moved to Protestant Duisburg, Germany, to take a position with the Duke of Cleves.

There, he continued to produce many outstanding wall maps of Europe and of Britain. The way

in which Mercator projected the world on his 1569 map revolutionized navigation by

straightening out rhumb lines on a flat map. To do so, Mercator progressively increased the

separation of the parallels. Humboldt adopted this method.

I.26. Patrick MURDOCH (c. 1700–1774) was a British parson and mathematician to whom his

friend, the Scottish poet James Thomson (1700-–1748), fondly but unflatteringly, referred as the

“little round, fat, oily man of God.” Following the attention that his English translation of

Johann Büsching’s Eine neue Erdbeschreibung (A New System of Geography, 1762) garnered,

Murdoch was appointed, in 1767, to the Royal Society’s committee that planned what became

Captain ’s first voyage two years later. The conical projections of the spheroid of the Earth that are named after Murdoch date from 1758, when an account of his paper “On the

Best Form of Geographical Maps” was published in London. They antedate almost all recognized conical projections of the figure of the Earth. Humboldt’s reference point here is likely the Third Projection, also known as Murdoch III.

31

I.26. Spanish naval officer and mathematician Jorge JUAN y Santacilia (1713–1773) was one of

the representatives of the Spanish Crown on the famous scientific expedition led by Louis Godin

(1704–1760), which reached Cartagena in 1735. Together with his Spanish colleague Antonio

de Ulloa, Juan wrote a separate account of the expedition. A more balanced and cartographically

ambitious report, the five-volume Relación histórica del viaje a la américa meridional (1748; A

Voyage to South America) contained an original series of maps and plans of cities in South

America. In addition to several other works published with Ulloa, Juan, who became Spanish

ambassador to Morocco, authored Estado de la Astronomía en Europa (1774; The state of

astronomy in Europe) and Compendio de navegación (1757; Compendium of navigation).

I.26. The Spanish mathematician and astronomer José de MENDOZA Y RÍOS (1762–1816), who

began his career as a naval officer in 1776, served as a sort of science attaché of the Spanish

monarchy, securing the latest publications and training for his countrymen. A member of the

Académie des Sciences in Paris and the Royal Society in London, he had access to state-of-the- art knowledge about navigation. By 1791, Mendoza y Ríos had acquired fifty-four boxes with instruments, books, and charts in Paris, Holland, and London. For the Malespina Expedition, he obtained several tools with which to measure the force of gravity at different locations, mainly a specially designed pendulum used to determine the true figure of the Earth. In 1796, his good offices secured a Herschel telescope, one of the world’s best optical telescopes and the second largest of its time, for the Royal Observatory in Madrid. He was also a prolific writer on navigation. The leading expert in mathematical and astronomical applications for navigation, he published several navigation tables (see Humboldt’s Library). Another of his lasting recommendations was the creation of a maritime library in 1788, which eventually became the

32

Depósito Hidrográfico in Madrid. In 1816, Mendoza y Ríos committed suicide in his Brighton

country home.

I.27. British navigator, explorer, and cartographer (1757–1793) surveyed

the northwest coast of the Americas between 1791 and 1795. Vancouver Island (Canada) was

named by and after him. In 1772 and 1776, Vancouver accompanied James Cook on his second

and third voyages to the Pacific. In 1789, Vancouver was given command of the Discovery, a

330-ton vessel built for a surveying expedition to the south Atlantic, which was canceled.

Instead, Vancouver was to sail as part of a fleet to prevent the Spanish from securing the fur-

trading port of Nootka. Because of the signing of the first on October 28,

1790, Vancouver was recommissioned again as commander of the Discovery to take charge of

the restitution of British property that had been taken by Spain in 1789. In addition to

implementing the Nootka Convention, Vancouver was also to conduct detailed surveys of the

American northwest up to latitude 60º N and explore the west coast in search of the entrance to

the mythical (not the modern-day passage via Canada’s north coast). With

three ships under his command, Vancouver sailed for the Americas in April 1791 via the Cape of

Good Hope. He explored King George’s Sound (), Dusky Sound (New Zealand), and

the Hawaiian Islands along the way, landing near Cape Mendocino in 1792 to commence the

first of three survey seasons in present-day and (1792–1794). In 1792,

Vancouver encountered Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Antonio Valdés y Fernández Bazán

(1744–1816) in the Sútil and the Mexicana and met with Juan Francisco de la Bodega y

Quadra, the Spanish representative, to interpret the terms of the Nootka Convention. They did not reach an agreement. During his return voyage to England in 1795, Vancouver mapped the northwest coast of the Americas from Baja California to Alaska, completed his survey of the

33

Pacific, and eliminated the possibility of a Northwest Passage. He settled in Surrey to revise his

travel journal for publication but died without finishing it, leaving his brother John to complete

the editing. The journal was published in 1798 in three volumes and two atlases (see Humboldt’s

Library).

I.29. ERRAMANGO (also Erromango, Erromanga, or Eromanga) is one of eighty islands in the

Vanuatu archipelago (New Hebrides until independence in 1980). Vanuatu has an area of 4,707 square miles and lies 1,000 miles east of Australia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Sixty-five of its islands are inhabited by about 200,000 people. At present, the language of about 1,200 people in Erromango is Sye; another language is Ura, a distinct pre-European contact language with only a handful of speakers. James Cook had landed on the northeast coast of the Vanuatu island of Tanna in 1774.

I.29. Phillip V of Spain (1683–1746) created the Real Seminario de Nobles de Madrid (Royal

COLLEGE OF NOBLES of Madrid) in 1725. Directed by the Society of and modeled after

French Seminaries established by Louis XIV (1638–1715), the college opened its doors in 1727 to educate the young nobility who did not normally attend universities but were nevertheless employed in local and national government. The students were trained in Latin, French, or

Italian; philosophy; physics; mathematics; and other subjects, such as dance, music, and art. In

the 1750s, the Jesuits incorporated the teaching of experimental physics and Isaac Newton’s

(1643–1727) theories into the established curriculum for mathematics, descriptive geography,

astronomy, and military arts. In 1746, the Jesuit Andrés Marcos Burriel y López (1719–62)

became director of the Seminary. A close friend of Jorge Juan y Santacilia’s, Burriel

introduced the question of the true shape of the Earth and modernized the course offerings to

34

include logic, metaphysics, general and experimental physics, astronomy, moral philosophy, and

navigation, among other subjects. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish territory in

1767, military officers ran the college. Jorge Juan y Santacilia directed the Seminary from

1770 until his death in 1773. In 1794, the directorship reverted to the clergy, notably the Seville

Inquisitor and later archivist Antonio de Lara y Zúñiga. After five years, it was returned to the military under the directorship of Andrés López de Sagastizabal (b. 1752). In 1808, the functions of the college were suspended because of the . Beginning in 1835, its name was changed to Seminario Cristiano (Christian Seminary).

I.29. Isidoro de ANTILLÓN y Marzo (1778–1814) was a Spanish geographer and liberal politician.

As chair of the prestigious Royal College of the Nobles, a position he held in his early twenties,

Antillón published widely on Spanish and American geography. Even though his most influential work, Geografía astronómica, natural y política de España y Portugal (Astronomical, natural, and political geography of Spain and Portugal), was published posthumously in 1824, significant portions of his studies had been printed as Elementos since 1808. A second edition of

Elementos from 1815 is dedicated to Humboldt, showing the respect Antillón, who had fought early for the abolition of in the Spanish Courts, had for the liberal ideas and scientific achievements of his Prussian colleague. By contrast, Humboldt, who repeatedly refers to

Antillón’s studies and maps, often mentions the unreliability of Antillón’s work, however

respectfully. For instance, Antillón had misinterpreted the geological shape of Spain’s highland plateau as an extension of the Pyrenees. Humboldt corrected this error with data he had collected

during his five-month stay in Spain in 1799. His astronomical recordings and measurements of

the barometric levels on the elevations around Madrid were first published in 1825. More than

three decades after his records were thought to have been lost, they appeared in his article “Über

35

die Gestalt und Klima des Hochlandes in der Iberischen Halbinsel” (On the shape and

climate of the highland on the Iberian Peninsula). In this article, Humboldt showed for the first

time that the Iberian Peninsula actually had one consistent high plateau: the Spanish Meseta

Central.

I.29. On July 31, 1498, during Columbus’s third voyage (1498–1500), the sailor Alonso Pérez

spotted three hillocks in the distance, which led to Columbus naming the island Trinidad. That

same day, he named a cape located on the southeast corner of the island “Cabo de la Galera” because of a large rock that looked like a under sail. The toponym used since the late eighteenth century for the southeasternmost corner of Trinidad is Galeota Point. GALERA POINT

is currently used for the northeastern most point of the island.

I.30. FERRO ISLAND () is an island in the Canaries archipelago off the northwest coast of

Africa. Part of an autonomous region of Spain, this island is the westernmost and smallest of the

Canary Islands. It was known to ancient geographers as the westernmost location of the known

world. In Geōgraphikē hyphēgēsis (Outline of geography), the Egyptian astronomer,

mathematician, and geographer (Claudius Ptolemaeus, c. 100—70 CE) chose Ferro

Island as the prime meridian of longitude for navigational charts (locating the Canaries 7º east of

their true position). Ptolemy used the westernmost island of the archipelago, known as Fortunate

Isles, so that all longitudes for the known inhabited world would be east of the meridian. During

the , the were identified with the Fortunate Isles of the ancient

Greeks and Egyptians, and the prime meridian was usually that of Ferro. After the European

discovery of America, Philip II ordered all maps to use Ferro Island as a reference point for

36

westward locations; this decision was internationally ratified in 1634. Ferro was used as the

north–south reference line until 1884 when the Greenwich meridian was chosen in its place.

I.30. In addition to being a naval officer, Charles Pierre Claret, Comte de FLEURIEU (1738–1810) was an impassioned navigator revered for the precision of his research. At the end of the Seven-

Year War (1756–63), he left the navy to study horology with Ferdinand Berthoud (1727–1807).

He participated in one-year sea voyage dedicated to testing Bertoud’s first marine chronometer in an attempt to beat Britain in the race for a reliable way to calculate longitude. Together with his mentor, who was refining his instrument, Fleurieu prepared for another expedition (1868–

1869), the results of which were published in 1773 under the Voyage fait par ordre du roi,

… pour éprouver les horloges (Voyage made by order of the king . . . to test marine chronometers). In 1770, Fleurieu returned to the navy until 1783, when he helped prepare the voyage of La Pérouse. Fleurieu was appointed secretary of the navy by Louis XVI of France

(1754–1793) in 1790, but, lacking the support of the Assembly, he had to retire a year later.

After having being jailed for fourteen months during the Reign of Terror, he resumed his scientific work upon being set free, working with the Institut de France and the Bureau of

Longitudes. He also edited the Voyage autour du monde (Voyage around the world) that Étienne

Marchand had written in 1790 and 1792. During the course of his career, Fleurieu amassed a significant collection of maps of different parts of the world.

I.30. Many of Humboldt’s “TABLEAUX” are hybrid forms of representation. They often resemble

mixed-genre painting in that they seek to combine scientific information (tables) with visual art

(drawings and paintings). This blend of seemingly unrelated categories of experience and

representation is characteristic of Humboldtian writing. We have retained the French “tableau/x”

37

(rather than translating it as the more familiar “table/s”) in contexts where visuality has at least

metaphorical importance. Ludwig von Eschwege, for one, similarly used the term Gemälde

(painting) to describe his geognostic studies.

I.33. Together with José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez, Antonio de León y Gama, and José

Ignacio Bartolache y Díaz de Posada (1739–90), lawyer, astronomer, geometer and

mathematician Joaquín VELÁZQUEZ y Cardenas de León (1732–86) is considered one of the four

Criollo scholars to shape the scientific of New Spain during the eighteenth century.

Humboldt calls Velázquez “the most remarkable geometrician that New Spain has seen since

Siguënza’s day” (I.430). In 1773, Velázquez determined the longitude and latitude of Mexico

and, for the first time, corrected New Spain’s position on maps. A year later, he led topographic

and geodesic surveys of the valley of Mexico. Following his initiative, a mining report was

submitted to Charles III in 1774, which led to a new mining code and the founding of the Real

Tribunal de Minería (Royal Mining Board) in 1777. The board would later become the Real

Seminario de Minería (Royal School of Mines), a project Velázquez had initiated and

successfully promoted. He served as the school’s director until his death.

I.33. Swedish astronomer and demographer Pehr Wilhelm WARGENTIN (1717–83) was the first

director of the Stockholm Observatory, founded by the Academy of Sciences and completed in

1753. Wargentin studied the movement of the moons of Jupiter and published his first paper on

the topic in the Acta of the Royal Society of Sciences. Humboldt is likely referring to the tables

in Wargentin’s Tabulae pro eclipsibus satellytism lovis (Tables for the eclipse of Jupiter’s

satellites), an elaborate chart for finding the moons of Jupiter. Tabulae was part of Wargentin’s

1841 master’s thesis at Uppsala University, where he had studied with (1702–

38

44). Secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for thirty-four years,

Wargentin was one of the major scientists of his time in the fields of astronomy and . He is also known as the forerunner of Swedish population statistics. See also

Henrik Nicander..

I.33. Spanish military engineer Miguel COSTANZÓ (1741–1814, also Constanzó and Costansó)

was admitted to the Royal Corps of Engineers in 1762. After working in Catalonia and Granada,

he was transferred to New Spain, where he arrived in 1764. During his time in Veracruz,

Costanzó worked under Miguel del Corral, drawing charts of the Gulf of Mexico. In 1768,

Costanzó was instructed to rendezvous with colonial inspector-general José de Gálvez y

Gallardo at the port of San Blas to plan an expedition to Monterey (Upper California) and to

accompany Gálvez to Baja California. Working with Gálvez’s detailed instructions, Costanzó

wrote two travel journals, drew four maps, and informed the viceroy and inspector of the

activities in Upper California. Costanzó’s official diary about the expedition was published as

Diario Histórico de los Viages de Mar y Tierra hechos al Norte de la California (An historical

journal of the expeditions, by sea and land, to the north of California) in 1770. Back in Mexico

City in 1771, Costanzó was promoted to and began working on expanding and

repurposing important public buildings, such as the Real Casa de Moneda (the mint) and the San

Andrés General Hospital. Costanzó also was in charge of constructing roads for defense

purposes. Stationed in Veracruz in 1797, he explored the area with Diego García Conde to

determine the feasibility of a better road to link Veracruz and Mexico City. The result was a

report and a map from 1797, which Humboldt used (see Humboldt’s Library). In 1799, Costanzó

also wrote a report about the fortifications of the port of Veracruz, which John S. Leiby

published in English in 2005 as “Miguel Costansó and his 1799 report on the defenses of

39

Veracruz” (Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas/Anuario de Historia de América Latina 42:

33–46). Besides working on numerous cartographic, architectural, and hydrographic projects,

Costanzó taught architecture and at the prestigious Royal

(1782–86).

I.34. To improve the hydrographic maps of the west coast of North and South America, report on

the political situation of Spain’s overseas possessions, and undertake scientific explorations,

Charles III of Spain and naval minister Antonio Valdés Fernández y Bazán (1744–1816) approved a voyage proposed by the Italian commander Alessandro Malaspina and José de

Bustamante y Guerra. For this scientific and political voyage, known as the MALASPINA

EXPEDITION (1789–1794), Spain prepared for eight months and furnished the fleet with state-of-

the-art equipment to determine the longitude and latitude of landmarks in its passage. The

Descubierta, commanded by Malaspina, and the Atrevida, captained by Bustamante, sailed to eastern South America, rounded present-day Argentina and Chile, and traveled northward along the coast as far northwest as Prince William Sound (Alaska). They continued on to (the

Philippines), New Zealand, New Holland (present-day Australia), the Tonga archipelago (in the

South Pacific), finally returning to Cádiz via Cape Horn. Most of the crew members had been chosen according to their scientific training in astronomy, cartography, hydrography, and natural science. The Descubierta’s crew of 102 included three senior officers: Cayetano Valdés y Flores

(1767–1835), second-in-command Manuel Novales (1757–1816), and Fernando Quintano

(1759–97); and three junior officers: Francisco Javier de Viana y Alzaybar (1763–1820), Juan

Vernaci, and Secundino Salamanca. The Atrevida, also with a crew of 102, had as senior officers Antonio Tova y Arredondo (1760–1825), Dionisio Alcalá Galiano, and Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha; junior officers were José Robredo (1761–1800), Arcadio de Pineda y Ramírez

40

(1765–c. 1826), and Martín de Olavide (1762–1821). Two botanists and an equal number of

artists who were to sketch plants were also part of the original crews. On the Descubierta,

Antonio de Pineda y Ramírez (1751–1792), Arcadio’s brother, was the botanist; Felipe Bauzá y

Cañas the cartographer; and José del Pozo Ximénez (c. 1757–1821) the sketch artist. On the

Atrevida, Louis Neé (1734–1807) served as the botanist and José Guio y Sánchez as artist. The

botanist Tadeo Haenke (1761–1810) joined the expedition in Chile. José Espinosa y Tello,

Ciriaco Cevallos, Fernando Brambila y Ferrari (1763–1834, painter), and Juan Francisco

Ravenet y Bunel (1766–after 1821, painter) came on board in Acapulco. Finally, Tomás de Suria

Lozano (1761–c .1835) joined up for six months to work with Pineda as painting instructor while

the expedition was on the northwest coast of America. In 1792, while on New Spain’s west coast

and upon Malaspina’s suggestion, four members detached from the main expedition to set out on

a secondary voyage to survey the Strait of Juan de Fuca: Valdés and Vernaci on the Mexicana;

Alcalá Galiano and Salamanca on the Sútil. Although the received Malaspina well

upon his return, managed to strip Malaspina of his rank. In 1795, Malaspina was

imprisoned and only released in 1803 because of ’s (1769–1821) intervention. As

Malaspina was in charge of gathering and editing the expedition’s accounts for publication,

many of the records and collections were scattered and remained unpublished until 1885. The

only account to escape obscurity was that of the voyage of the Sútil and Mexicana to the Strait of

Juan de Fuca, which José Espinosa y Tello edited and published in 1802. He never mentioned

Malaspina by name.

I.34. Alessandro (or Alejandro) MALASPINA Meli Lupi (1754–1810) was educated at the

Pontificio Collegio Pio Clementino in (1765–1773). His naval career began in in

1773 on the San Zacarria as a member of the order of the of St. John of Jerusalem. A

41

year later, he joined the Naval Academy of Cartagena (Spain) and participated in several military campaigns when Spain declared war against England during the USAmerican War of

Independence (1775–1783). In early 1783, Malaspina, then second-in-command of the Asunción, took to Manila the news of the Treaty of Paris. In 1784, he was appointed to the Naval Academy at Cádiz to take courses in astronomy and other advanced subjects under the famed naval hydrographer Vicente Tofiño de San Miguel (1732–1795). As Tofiño’s apprentice, Malaspina

gained experience in survey methods while working to create the first official maritime charts of

the Iberian Peninsula (see his Atlas marítimo de España, 1789). Between September 1786 and

May 1788, he circumnavigated the globe in command of the vessel Astrea. Upon his return, he conceptualized and proposed the political and scientific expedition that came to be known as the

Malaspina Expedition. Malaspina was in charge of preparing the manuscript from the materials

gathered during the expedition for publication and moved to Madrid for that purpose. Because he

proposed the dismissal of Manuel de Godoy, the prime minister and favorite of Queen María

Luisa (1751–1819), he was arrested, stripped of his rank and benefits, and tried. By Royal Order

from November 22, 1795, Malaspina was sentenced to ten years and a day in the Castillo de San

Antón in La Coruña, Spain. After Napoleon (1769–1821) intervened on his behalf, Malaspina

was freed and exiled from Spain in the spring of 1803.

I.35. British engraver, cartographer, and map seller Thomas JEFFERYS (c. 1719–1771) became

Geographer to the King in 1760. Having begun his map-making career in 1744, he produced his

first atlas, The Small English Atlas (1748–1749), with fellow cartographer and engraver Thomas

Kitchin (1719–84). Jefferys ultimately became known for his maps of the Americas, especially

for A General Topography of North America (1768), on which he collaborated with publisher

Robert Sayer (c. 1725–1794). Together with the engraver and cartographer William Faden

42

(1749–1836), Sayer published multiple posthumous editions of Jefferys’s maps of the Americas.

In addition to printing important British maps and collecting the most up-to-date cartography of his time, Jefferys also published geographical material from Spanish sources, including A

Description of the Spanish Islands and Settlements on the Coast of the West Indies (1762). His older son, Thomas (b. 1755), who had begun working with his father in 1769, continued the business in partnership with Faden.

I.35. Aaron ARROWSMITH (1750–1823) was a British geographer and cartographer, who

established his reputation in 1790 with a large map of the world based on the best sources

available in his day. After Arrowsmith’s death, his business was carried on by his sons and a

nephew. In mentioning these three cartographers in one breath, Humboldt combined

representatives of the French, Spanish, and British and their successive visions of various parts of the Americas. There is also an interesting subplot regarding Arrowsmith’s connection to Humboldt: in a December 20, 1811, letter to , Humboldt accused

Arrowsmith of having stolen his map of Mexico. See also Wilkinson, James.

I.35. Novo–Spanish mathematician, astronomer, and clergyman Diego RODRÍGUEZ (1596–1668)

was admitted to the Mercedarian Order in 1613. Trained in grammar, philosophy, and

mathematics, he was appointed of the Veracruz convent in 1623. More than a decade later,

in 1637, he was chosen as professor of mathematics at the Royal University, where, in addition

to being an administrator, he taught astronomy, trigonometry, geometry, algebra, cosmography,

and mathematics for over three decades. Besides writing Discurso etheorologico del Nuevo

Cometa (1652; Etheorological discourse about the new comet), Rodríguez authored several

works about mathematics and astronomy, six of which survive in manuscript form.

43

I.36. After studying in Salmanca, Spanish medical doctor Gabriel LÓPEZ DE BONILLA (c.

1600/05–1668) arrived in New Spain in 1628 to pursue a scientific career. In 1632, he began

publishing a series of essays on calendrics, astronomy, and weather prognostics. A friend and

brother-in-law of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, López de Bonilla predicted two eclipses in

his Diario y Discurso astrológico… para el año de 1667 (Journal and astrological discourse . . .

for the year 1667). In 1654, López de Bonilla wrote a book on comets.

I.36. URANIENBORG, on the small Baltic island of Hven, was the Danish astronomical

observatory founded and operated by Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), arguably the most famous

observational astronomer of the sixteenth century.

I.36. One of the most prominent scholars of baroque Mexico, Carlos de SIGÜENZA y Góngora

(1645–1700) was renowned as historian, mathematician, and astronomer throughout America

and Europe. Sigüenza, a native of New Spain, promoted an outspoken Creole perspective on

precolonial and colonial history. An unrivaled expert on Mexico’s pre-Columbian civilizations,

Sigüenza authored numerous historiographical studies, such as the Historia del Imperio de los

Chichimecas (History of the Chichimec ). Some of Sigüenza’s work as a historian and

collector of ancient Mexican codices endures in the Giro del Mondo (1699–1700; Voyage

around the world) by Italian adventurer and traveler Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (1651–

1725). Careri received copies of some of Sigüenza’s manuscripts while visiting the Mexican scholar in 1697.

I.36. The invention of the first TELESCOPE, an optical instrument that collects light from faint and

distant objects and magnifies their images, is usually attributed to the German-Dutch lens

manufacturer Hans Lippersheim (1517–1619, also Lippershey or Laprey). Lippersheim’s

44 telescope was unveiled in 1608, prompting other engineers to improve on this first model. It was, however, not until Isaac Newton (1643–1727) designed a lighter and more practical version in

1668 that the telescope started to be applied to astronomical observation. It can be assumed, then, that, even though Enrico Martínez most likely knew about Lippersheim’s invention in 1608, the telescope was probably not available when he made his measurements in 1619. He had to rely on his eyes only.

I.36n. A geographer and mathematician at Mexico City’s Real Seminario de Minería (Royal

Seminar for Mining), Juan José de OTEYZA (1777–1810, also Oteiza) was one of Humboldt’s key academic informants in New Spain. Humboldt used Oteyza’s studies on Teotihuacán (which

Humboldt never visited himself) and his data on Zacatecas, Durango, and the Toluca area for

Views of the Cordilleras and his Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain. Oteyza had conducted thorough research at the pyramid district in 1803, the same year that both scientists completed their calculations of the surface area of Mexico.

I.37. For COVENS, see annotation for I.49.

I.37. The Jesuit Maximilian HELL (also Höll, 1720–92) was a Hungarian astronomer who became director of the Observatory in 1756. In 1769, Hell and his assistant János

Sajnovics traveled to Vardo in the far north of Norway (then part of –Norway) to observe the . His account of the passage of Venus, Observatio transitus Veneris ante discum Solis die 3. Junii anno 1769, was published in 1770 by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, which had elected him as a foreign member the previous year. The publication of

Hell’s findings was delayed because he stayed in Vardo for an additional eight months, collecting non-astronomical scientific data about the arctic regions for an encyclopedia that never

45 materialized, in part because the Jesuits suppressed it. This delay caused some—among them fellow astronomers Jérôme Lalande and the Austrian Joseph Johann von Littrow (1781–

1840)—to suspect Hell of having falsified his data. Canadian-American astronomer and mathematician (1835–1909) ultimately exonerated Hell. Hell published a new volume of his astronomical tables, Ephemerides astronomicae ad meridianum

Vindobonemsem (Ephemerides for the Meridian of Vienna), each year between 1757 and 1786.

For several years, Hell’s Ephemerides were the only astronomical tables available besides those from the Paris Observatory. Hell fell ill with pneumonia in 1792 and died in Vienna. The crater

“Hell” on the moon is named after him.

I.37n. Franz de Paula TRIESNECKER (1745–1817) was a Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, and surveyor in Vienna, Austria, where he headed the observatory. Astronomer and physicist Johann

Tobias Bürg was university professor in Vienna from 1792 to 1813. Together, Triesnecker and

Bürg succeeded Maximilian Hell in editing and publishing the journal Ephemerides

Astronomicae. The “Tabulae Mercurii, Martis, Veneris, Solares” and observations of the sun, moon, planets, and positions of stars were printed in this periodical between 1787 and 1806.

I.38. In 1760, the French Academy of Sciences sent one of its members, the astronomer Jean

CHAPPE d’Auteroche (1722–1769), to Tobolsk, Russia, to observe the passage of Venus across the sun. During that voyage, he also collected minerals and returned with 160 specimens. In

1771, d’Auteroche published Voyage en Sibérie fait en 1761 (Travels in Siberia in

1761). Several years later, he was chosen for another observatory excursion, this time to

California, where he died of dysentery. His Voyage en Californie pour l’observation du passage de Venus in 1772 (Travels in California to observe the passage of Venus in 1772) was published

46

posthumously by Jean-Dominique Cassini (1748-1845), the son of Cassini de Thury. See also

Cassini de Thury and Cassini, Jacques.

I.38. The polymath José Antonio de ALZATE y Ramírez (1737–1799) played a pivotal role in

disseminating and popularizing scientific knowledge in New Spain. Born in Ozumba,

(present-day State of Mexico), Alzate moved to Mexico City in 1747 to attend the Jesuit College of San Ildefonso. He also studied at the University of Mexico and was ordained a priest. Between

1767 and 1795, he edited and published the four scientific periodicals: the Diario Literario de

México (8 issues, 1768; Literary magazine of Mexico); Asuntos varios sobre ciencias y artes (13 issues, 1772–1773; Miscellaneous science and art subjects); Observaciones sobre la física, historia natural y artes útiles (1787–1788; Observations on physics, natural history, and useful arts); and the Gaceta de literatura de México (1788–1795; Mexican literary gazette). Carlos

Francisco de Croix, marquis of Croix (1699–1786), then viceroy of New Spain (1766–1771), had the Diario Literario de México closed by decree of May 1768 because of an article criticizing the theater in Spain. Asuntos and Diario Literario de México met with the same fate.

Alzate also suffered setbacks in publishing Observaciones. Its first issue was delayed because viceregal authorization was still pending, and the journal ended up appearing at irregular intervals as a result. All these journals touched upon a variety of topics, ranging from philosophy to medicine, chemistry to geography, and archeology to . Like Humboldt, Alzate used his inheritance to publish his own work at different points in his career. Alzate’s descriptions of the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent at , which he had visited in 1777, were published in a supplement to the Gazeta de Literatura de México in 1791 and inspired numerous studies of the pre-Hispanic cultures of Meso-America. Alzate was a member of the Royal

Botanical Garden at Madrid, the Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País (Vitoria-

47

Gasteiz, Spain) and a correspondent of the Academy of Sciences at Paris. The genus Alzatea

(Alzateaceae) is partly named after him.

I.38. In 1801, Jesuit-trained French astronomer Joseph-Jérôme Lefrançais de LALANDE (1732–

1807) published the Histoire céleste française (French astronomic history), which contained a

catalogue of over 47,000 stars, including one that is still identified as Lalande 21185. His work

was reputedly based on observations made by his nephew Michel Lalande (1766–1839). In 1760,

Lalande became professor of astronomy in the Collège de France, a post he held for forty-six

years. In 1768, he was appointed director of the Paris Observatory. Among his disciples were

Pierre Méchain and Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre. Humboldt knew all of them well from

his Paris years. See also León y Gama, Antonio.

I.38. French astronomer and Catholic priest Alexandre Guy PINGRÉ (1711–96) embarked on several long exploratory voyages in the and . In 1769, he accompanied Charles

Pierre Claret de Fleurieu on the Isis to study the behavior of marine chronometers, using the journeys for astronomical observations. He was a member of the French Academy of Sciences.

I.40. Cuban librarian, editor, and astronomer Antonio ROBREDO (d. c. 1830) was among the founding editors of Havana’s first newspaper, the Papel Periódico (October 1790). In 1800, he started the journal Aurora: Correo político-económico de La Habana. Robredo, who met

Humboldt in Havana, was also the first librarian of the Biblioteca Pública de la Habana (1792), which improved considerably when he donated 300 books and moved it to his own house. In

1792, Robredo also edited the Calendario Manual y Guía de Forasteros de la Isla de Cuba, which had begun in 1791. In 1796 and 1806, he made metrological and astronomical observations in Cuba.

48

I.40. Domingo de CASTILLO (fl. ) was a pilot in Hernando de Alarcón’s (b. 1500) maritime expedition in search of Fray Marcos de Niza’s famous Seven Cities of Cíbola. The San Pedro

and Santa Catalina departed from Acapulco in May 1540, sailed north on the western coast of

present-day Mexico, reached the mouth of the Colorado River in August 1540, and returned

sometime in November. In 1541, Castillo drew a map of Alarcón’s expedition—a manuscript

that Humboldt consulted in New Spain—which was published in Lorenzana’s Historia de

Nueva España (History of New Spain, 1770). Engraved by José Mariano Navarro (1742–c.

1809), the map as published by Lorenzana shows the name “California” and locates the sought-

after city as “La Ciudad de Cíbora” in the interior of the continent.

I.40. Hernán (or Fernando) CORTÉS de Monroy y Pizarro (1485–1547) was a Spanish hidalgo

(low gentry) and adventurer. Sent in 1519 by the colonizer and first governor of Cuba, Diego

Velázquez de Cuéllar, to pillage the eastern coasts of Mexico, Cortés instead organized a small

expedition of 600 men to conquer and colonize the new land. With the help of his native

interpreter and mistress Malintzín (also known as Malinche, c. 1501–1550) and the allied

Tlaxcaltecas, Cortés and his men rapidly gained control of the Mexican heartland. In 1521, they

overthrew the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, where they captured and killed Moctezuma as well

as his successor, Cauhtemoc (c. 1495–1522), the last kings of the . Cortés’s first

marriage, in Cuba, was to Catalina Xuárez Marcaida (d. 1522). Because she was rumored to have

been killed by her husband, an investigation was started against Cortés but never led to any

charges. He did not have any children from his first marriage. In 1528, Cortés traveled to Spain

to request in person the governorship of New Spain from Charles V. Instead, Charles V

confirmed him as captain-general and named him Marquis del Valle de Oaxaca. Cortés

remarried, this time to Juana Ramírez de Arellano Zúñiga, with whom he had several children,

49

including his heir Martín and three daughters named María, Catalina, and Juana. He also had five

children out of wedlock, notably Martín (from Malintzín) and Leonor (from , a

close relative of Moctezuma II). Cortés’s descendants were married to the Dukes of Monteleone

from Italy.

I.40. Spanish naval officer Vicente DOZ y Funes (c. 1734–81) took part in an international scientific mission to observe the transit of Venus in 1769 in Baja California, then Spanish domain, with Jean-Baptiste Chappe d’Auteroche and Salvador de Medina. A cartographer

and hydrographer who had begun his naval career in Cádiz, Doz had taken part in an expedition

that Spain’s foreign minister José de Carvajal y Lancaster (1698–1754) had organized to

demarcate the borders between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions in South America. Part

of the scientific expedition to New Spain, the party arrived at Veracruz on 1769;

continued on to Mexico City (March 26), Guadalajara (April 7), and San Blas (April 15); and

crossed the Pacific Ocean on La Concepción to the site of the observation at San José del Cabo

(Baja California). Six of the seventeen members of the expedition died of epidemic typhus at the

observation site, including Chappe. Doz, however, escaped that fate and managed to return to

Europe. Arriving in Madrid in the summer of 1770, an abridged version of his observations was

published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London and in the Mémoires

of the Parisian Royal Academy of Sciences. Acquiring scientific standing after the transit of

Venus expedition, Doz became director of the Colegio de Madrid and reached the rank of rear

admiral in the Spanish Navy. Doz’s observations of the transit of Venus, currently at the Museo

Naval at Madrid (MS 314, f. 155), were first published in English and edited by Doyce B. Nunis

in The 1769 Transit of Venus (1982), together with those by Chappe d’Auteroche and Joaquín

Velázquez Cárdenas de León.

50

I.41. Spanish merchant José Ignacio DE LA TORRE (fl.1797–1821) operated a commercial

establishment in Veracruz, trading in silver, textiles, and wine. One of the wealthiest and most

powerful businessmen in Veracruz, he received merchandise from several important ports,

including , , Havana, and New York. Serving in different positions in the

merchant guild of Veracruz from 1799 to 1814, he became counsellor of the constitutional

ayuntamiento (town council) in 1812.

I.41n. Humboldt’s references, here and elsewhere, to Vicente Doz (Gazeta de Mexico, 1772, p.

56) are really references to José Antonio Alzate y Ramírez’s “Estado de la geografía de la

Nueva España y modo de perfeccionarla,” Asuntos Varios sobre Ciencias y Artes No. 7 (1772),

p. 56. Doz’s observations appeared in a different publication, including the Gazeta de Madrid

(Oct. 26, 1770). Humboldt must also have known the reports by Joseph-Jerôme Lalande and

Alexandre Pingré published in the Mémoires de Mathématique et de Physique of the French

Royal Academy of Sciences (see Humboldt’s Library).

I.42. Brigadier Tomás de UGARTE y Liaño (1754–1804) was one of several officers of the

Spanish whom Humboldt met in Lima and . In 1799, Ugarte was in charge of designing the ports of the South Sea from Chile to the north coast of the Province Veraguas. In

1802, he became chief of the entire Spanish fleet but retired a year later. Humboldt was familiar with Ugarte’s maps, several of which can be found in the Karpinski Collection of the Library of

Congress.

I.42. Hydrographer and naval engineer Rigobert BONNE (1727–1794) was one of the most

important geographers of his age, widely admired for the precision and accuracy of his work. In

51

1773, he succeeded Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703–1772) as Royal Cartographer of France. Bonne

supplied the maps for Guillaume Raynal’s History of the Two Indies.

I.43. A popular teacher of navigation, John Hamilton MOORE (1738–1807) was born in

Edinburgh, educated in Ireland, and subsequently joined the Royal Navy at Plymouth, England.

Around 1770, Moore established a nautical academy in Brentford, Middlesex. In 1772, he published his popular manual of navigation, The New Practical Navigator and Daily Assistant,

which was appeared in twenty editions between 1772 and 1828.

I.44. Father José Antonio PICHARDO (1748–1812) of the Monastery of San Felipe Neri was a

linguist and antiquarian from New Spain. He met and collaborated with Humboldt on issues of

Mesoamerican historiography, and Humboldt made extensive use of his library. The Tira de

Tepechpan, the Cozcatzin Codex, and the Codex en Cruz are among the numerous manuscripts

and books Pichardo had collected. Executor of the will of Antonio de León y Gama, Pichardo safeguarded the documents that were part of Lorenzo Boturini Benaducci’s collection. Father

Pichardo made a copy of the Tira, the original and copy of which is housed in the French

National Library. He authored a treatise entitled Informe Pichardo sobre los Límites de Luisiana y Texas (Pichardo’s report on the borders of Louisiana and Texas) to disprove the USA’s claim that Texas was part of the 1803 . Part of the treatise, currently at the Archivo

General de la Nación in Mexico, was edited and published by Charles Wilson Hackett (1888–

1951) from 1931 to 1946. It is likely that Pichardo facilitated Humboldt’s purchase of part of

Leon y Gama’s library.

I.44. Spanish rear admiral Francisco de MONTÉS y Pérez (1753–1817) commanded the Santo

Ángel de la Guarda stationed at Havana from 1797–1799. In 1799, he carried out astronomical

52

observations later used by Humboldt. Admitted to the Spanish navy in 1768, Montés became commodore in 1794 and was appointed commander of the ports of San Blas the following year.

Because he moved the naval department from San Blas to Acapulco without viceregal approval,

Montés was transferred to Havana in 1796. During his long career, Montés served in Spain, the

Philippines, the Caribbean, and New Spain.

I.45. After returning from his American voyage, Humboldt lived mainly in Paris between 1804 and 1827. There he collaborated with many of the most renowned French scientists of the time.

In 1798, the year prior to his departure, Humboldt had already given lectures at the Parisian

Academy of Sciences, where he had met the mathematician, astronomer, and naval officer Jean-

Charles de BORDA (1733–1799). With Borda, Humboldt conducted observations on the magnetic inclination on top of the Paris Observatory. Borda’s vast experience in geodesic, trigonometric, and barometric measuring must have been an important source of knowledge for Humboldt, who frequently refers to the French captain. During his years as a naval engineer, Borda undertook

two marine expeditions, both commissioned by the Academy of Sciences. The first one, to the

North Atlantic (1771–1772), was to test the accuracy of different naval chronometers designed

by Pierre Le Roy (1717–1785) and Ferdinand Berthoud (1727–1807). After that expedition,

Borda kept the best timepiece for himself. The goal of the second expedition in 1774–76 was to

test two Berthoud chronometers and undertake hydrographical surveys. Together with José

Varela y Ulloa (1739–1794), Borda determined the longitude of Pico de and surveyed the

Azores, the Canaries, and the adjacent coast of . In 1756, Borda was elected a member of

the Academy.

53

I.45. Naval officer Antoine Hyacinth Anne de Chastenet, Count of PUYSÉGUR (1752–1809), was

the second of three sons from an illustrious family of French nobility. He suffered from dry

asthma and sought the help of Anton Frederick Mesmer (1723–1815), who had explored the idea

of the physiological influences of the planets in an attempt to harmonize astronomy and

medicine. The count himself started to experiment with animal magnetism, introducing it aboard

the ship under his command, the Frédéric-Guillaume. He also founded a magnetic society in

Saint-Domingue in 1784.

I.46. Frigate captain Baltasar Alvarez ORDOÑO y Rebin (b.1768) entered the Spanish navy in

1783, together with his brothers Fermín and José.

I.46. In 1756 British astronomer and surveyor Charles MASON (1728–86) worked at the Royal

Greenwich Observatory under James Bradley (1693–1762). In his Lunar Tables in Longitude and Latitude according to the Newtonian Laws of Gravity (1778), Mason published, for the first time, 1,200 of Bradley’s observations. Mason’s own observations of the transits of Venus across the sun from the Cape of Good Hope (in 1761 and 1769) became the basis for the Nautical

Almanac (1773). Mason is famous for working with Jeremiah Dixon (1733–1779), who also accompanied him on the survey voyage that defined the Pennsylvania–Maryland border, still known as the Mason–Dixon Line. Mason and Dixon were the first British scientists to measure a meridian arc; they also took the first gravity measurements in North America. After Mason’s death, the British Commission of Longitude published his revisions to lunar observations as

Mayer’s Lunar Tables, improved by Mr. Charles Mason (1787).

I.47. The ACTIVA was originally built as a 200-ton schooner to expand Juan Francisco de la

Bodega y Quadra’s fleet at the Pacific base of the Spanish navy in San Blas. Bodega used the

54 ship for his 1792 expedition to resolve the Spainsh and British claims to . In 1793 or 1794, the ship was reconfigured as a brigantine and renamed Activo, staying in service until at least 1808, when she was still listed in the inventory of San Blas ships.

I.47. Son of the geologist and chemist Sir James Hall (1761–1832), Scottish naval officer Basil

HALL (1788–1844) traveled to the Orient, South America, and the United States. Having joined the navy in 1802, Hall accompanied British ambassador William Pitt (1773–1857) to China in

1815. Hall’s Account of a Voyage of Discovery to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-

Choo Island was published in 1818. Two years later, he set sail for South America, relating his experiences in Extracts from a Journal Written on the Coasts of Chili, Peru and Mexico (1824).

During that voyage, he conducted a series of geophysical pendulum experiments, which were published in the 1823 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society; they also appeared as a separate publication in 1824. Hall subsequently left the navy, moved to the USA, and eventually returned to England, where he published his Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and

1828 (1829), a piece of candid criticism that was not appreciated in the land of the free.

I.47. In 1823, British geophysicist and naval officer Henry (bap.1796–1831) was asked to participate in ’s (1761–1800) voyage to Greenland and Norway. Afterwards,

Foster sailed with Sir William Edward (1790–1855) in search of a north-west passage

(1824–1825) and, again in 1827, to the North Pole. He received the Medal for his reports on the series of geomagnetic and astronomical observations he published in the Philosophical

Transactions of the Royal Society in 1826. In early 1831, Foster, who led a British naval expedition to the South Atlantic, drowned on a canoe return trip down the River Chagres after having measured differences in longitude across the Isthmus of Panama by means of rockets.

55

I.48. Malaspina arrived at Acapulco on March 27, 1791, and departed on May 1 of that same

year. Seeking to better determine the meridians of Acapulco, Mexico City, and San Blas relative

to one another, he left Acapulco for Mexico City to observe satellites that would be visible in

each city on April 12, 1791. The ASTRONONMERS in the Descubierta in Acapulco, the Atrevida in

San Blas, and Malaspina himself in Mexico City would make the observations to determine the

position of each place. Dioniso Alcalá Galiano, the main astronomer of the expedition and in

charge of the Descubierta at that moment, made the observations together with Juan Vernacci.

In Mexico City, Antonio de León y Gama helped Malaspina. At San Blas, Ciriaco Cevallos

made the observations with the assistance of Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha (1760–1810), who had trained in Cartagena under Gabriel de Ciscar. In December 1788, Gutiérrez was appointed to the Malaspina Expedition to undertake hydrographic work aboard the Atrevida. After being promoted to commander, he joined a border commission (1795–1802) in Paraguay to survey

Spanish and Brazilian territory. He also commanded a naval station in Río de la Plata in 1805 and was governor of Córdoba de Tucumán a year later. Defending Spanish interests in the former viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, Gutiérrez was taken prisoner and shot in 1810.

I.49. Jean or Johannes COVENS (1697–1794) and Cornelis MORTIER (1699–1783), his brother-in-

law, were the Dutch cartographers responsible for founding Covens and Mortier, one of the most

prolific map-making and publishing endeavors during the second and third quarters of the

eighteenth century. Relatives continued the firm until 1866. Covens and Mortier worked from

Amsterdam where they were well situated to acquire the plates and rights to many earlier atlases.

They reissued atlases, wall maps, and town plans by many well-known mapmakers, such as

56

Guillaume de L’Isle (1675–1726), Pieter van der Aa (1659–1733), and Frederick de Wit (1630–

1706).

I.49. Abbot Guillaume Thomas François RAYNAL (1713–1796) was a French Jesuit historian

who contributed extensively to preparing the intellectual climate for the French Revolution. His

most important work was the Histoire philosophique et politique des deux Indes (History of the

East and West Indies), which appeared in several editions between 1770 and 1789. The Histoire

was a very popular work whose revolutionary tone became more noticeable in its later editions.

In 1774, the Histoire was placed on the Roman ’s Index of Forbidden Books, and Raynal was banished from Paris in 1781. His property having been confiscated, he died penniless.

I.50. Chevalier Lorenzo BOTURINI Benaducci (1702–1755) was an Italian historian,

ethnographer, and collector of Mesoamerican antiquities. During seven years in New Spain

(1736–1743), Boturini sought to write a “History of America,” which was to culminate with the

appearance of in Mexico. In the process of collecting evidence for the

historical credibility of the virgin’s miracles, he amassed the largest collection of rare pictographs, linens, codices, maps, and other Mesoamerican artifacts. He copied, traded, and bought ancient indigenous documents from a variety of sources, including Carlos de Sigüenza y

Góngora’s private library, the archives of the Chapter House of the Cathedral of Mexico, the

Royal Tribunal, and the library of the University of Mexico. Then-viceroy Pedro Cebrián y

Agustín, Count of Fuenclara eventually arrested Boturini, confiscated his collection, and expelled him from New Spain. The charge was that Boturini had requested funds without proper authority from the crown. Once back in Spain (after being captured and released by pirates) and

57 with the support of his friend Mariano Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia (1718–1780), Boturini was able to argue his case successfully before the . The council authorized him to publish a fifteen-volume treatise on Mesoamerican calendrics and chronology. But he had to make haste to publish Idea de una nueva historia general de la America Septentrional (Idea of a new general history of South America), which included a catalogue of his collection in New

Spain, in 1746 because the council was about to withdraw its support; it did so days after the book appeared in print. In 1747, King Ferdinand VI (1713–1759) himself ordered the collection to be returned to Boturini immediately. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the chevalier never saw it again.

Although he was unable to rely on his collection, Boturini was among the first Europeans to propose a new interpretation of the indigenous documents and a reevaluation of pre-Hispanic history. In addition to recognizing the value of the different ways in which the recorded history—that is, putting pictorials and songs on par with written accounts—Boturini also studied the metaphorics of the Nahuatl language.

I.51. Cornelius DOUWES (1712–1773) was an examiner of naval officers and pilots for the

College of Admiralty at Amsterdam. He is best known for his method of calculating longitude by using two timed observations of the meridian altitude of a celestial body, one before and one after the sun’s meridian passage. This method was known as “double elevations.” It was revolutionary in that navigators did not have to rely on the sun’s passage alone, something that could be quite difficult under cloudy conditions. Douwe’s method also vastly reduced the number of calculations needed to determine the altitude of a celestial body because he formulated tables containing logarithms for the sine, cosecant, and versed sine of an angle in temporal measurements of and rather than in angular measure of degrees and minutes. Douwes first described his method in a 1754 report in the Actes de l’Academie de

58

Haarlem of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities. The accompanying tables

were initially available only in manuscript but were finally included in 1761 by Van Keulen in

Amsterdam (the final edition was printed in 1858). Douwes’s method quickly gained popularity

throughout Europe and eventually in the USA. Thomas Jefferson, for one, used Douwes’s

method as simplified by Nevil Maskelyne’s (1732–1811) tables.

I.55. Director of the Paris Observatory and a member of the Bureau of Longitudes, the French physicist and astronomer Dominique-François-Jean (1786–1853) succeeded Georges

Cuvier as permanent secretary of the French Academy of Sciences. A member of the first

graduate class of the École Polytechnique, a leading institution that fostered the disciplinary

specialization in the natural sciences, the young Arago and his fellow student Jean Baptiste

(1774–1862) were selected in 1804 to continue the meridional survey Delambre and Méchain

had begun. After Biot’s early return to Paris, Arago continued his journey to the Balearic Islands.

The Napoleonic troops’ invasion of Spain, however, impeded his research. He was imprisoned

under charges of espionage, escaped, was recaptured and then released, only to be captured again

in the Mediterranean and imprisoned in Algiers. After his final release, the twenty-three-year-old

Arago made his way back to Paris where his bravery and scientific achievements were honored

with a membership in the French Academy of Sciences. That same year, he was also appointed

astronomer at the Paris Observatory, a post he held for the rest of his life. Arago conducted

research on a variety of topics, including magnetism, sound, and meteorology. His preferred field

of study, however, was . Arago specialized in studying the properties of light and in 1811

invented an instrument that measured the angle of polarized light. It was in this area, and less in

astronomy, that he made his most significant contributions to science. A brilliant networker, an

eloquent advocate of science, and a passionate politician, he vigorously promoted scientific

59

research for nonspecialist audiences. As minister of state in the 1840s, he advanced many liberal reforms, including universal suffrage (for men) and the abolition of slavery in the French colonies. A member of Parisian society, Arago forged particularly close friendships with Joseph-

Louis Gay-Lussac and with Humboldt with whom he would maintain close contact for his entire scientific career. To Arago, Humboldt’s letters meant a constant flow of new scientific dispatches to present during the Academy’s public sessions, a task at which Arago excelled. For

Humboldt, Arago’s reports guaranteed continuous access to the French scientific establishment and allowed him to promote many of his fellow Prussian colleagues, among them Carl Friedrich

Gauss (1777–1855), Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (1795–1876), and Karl Sigismund Kunth.

I.60. MORÁN is a mine located in the Sierra of Pachuca near the mine of Real del Monte in the

present-day state of Hidalgo (Mexico). In pre-Columbian times, this mining district had been the

primary source of green obsidian. In 1552, Alonso Pérez de Zamora (b. 1492), son of a

and himself holder of an , founded several mines in the Pachuca

district, including those of Real del Monte, Santa Brígida, and San Andrés. In the eighteenth

century, that mining district had at least fifteen mines, including that of Regla, which was owned

by Pedro Romero de Terreros, the first Count of Santa María de Regla. Before 1749, the

Morán mine had not operated due to its high water level. José Alejandro Bustamante y Bustillo

and his associate, Romero de Terreros, however, succeeded in draining and working it after more

than a decade. Because the water level and cost of drainage increased over time, the mine fell

again into disuse in 1770. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Morán mine became one of many

that the British Real del Monte Company rehabilitated and operated until the company went

bankrupt in 1849.

60

I.63. NEW ALBION, as Humboldt uses the name here, designates the area between 43° and 48°

northern latitude (later, Oregon and ). Sir used the same name to

refer to the entire West Coast of North America. See also II.274.

I.63. Born in Lima, Juan Francisco de la BODEGA Y QUADRA (1744–1794, also Cuadra) began

his career in 1762 at the Cádiz Naval Academy. A year after arriving in New Spain (1774), he commanded the Sonora on a reconnaissance mission to the northwest coast of America ordered

by then-viceroy Bucareli. Piloted by the Galician Francisco Antonio Mourelle, the Sonora was

part of a fleet headed by . It was to travel between 42º and 65º northern latitude

to reassert Spanish territorial rights north of . At about 47º latitude, Bodega y

Quadra’s ship became separated from the rest of the fleet; he continued northward and

successfully reached 58º 30′northern latitude. The northwestern landmarks he located include

present-day Mount Edgecumbe in Alaska (which he named San Jacinto); the entrance to Sitka

Sound (“Susto” for him); and Bucarely Bay (in Alaska), which he named Puerto y Entrada de

Bucareli (Bucareli’s door and entrance) after the Novo–Spanish viceroy. Bodega y Quadra

rejoined Heceta’s fleet at Monterey in October 1775. Bodega y Quadra’s 1775 mission to the

Northwest coast of America preceded that of Captain Cook. In 1779, Bodega y Quadra sailed

again to the northern borders of New Spain, this time under Ignacio de Arteaga and in search of

the mythical Straits of Anian, a navigable northwest passage that supposedly had an entrance on

the west coast of North America. Two 300-ton vessels made up the fleet, the Nuestra Señora del

Rosario (commonly known as the Princesa) under the command of Arteaga and the Nuestra

Señora del Remedio (known as the Favorita) under Bodega y Quadra. Mourelle piloted the

Favorita as second-in-command, this time aiming for 70º northern latitude; they made it as far as

60º. In 1789, Bodega y Quadra was posted as commandant of the department of San Blas

61

(Nayarit, Mexico). To carry out the terms of the Nootka Convention (October 28, 1790), Bodega

y Quadra, together with Alonso de Torres, sailed to Nootka on the Santa Gertrudis to meet with the British envoy Captain George Vancouver in 1792. In addition to settling British and

Spanish territorial claims, this expedition had the goal of exploring and surveying the

northwestern coast between San Francisco and 56º northern latitude, with special attention to the

Strait of Juan de Fuca and the imagined Northwest Passage. Responsible for the scientific

component of the expedition were José Mariano Moziño, José Maldonado, and Anastasio

Echeverría y Godoy. From the Malaspina Expedition, with which they met up at San Blas,

Dionisio Alcalá Galiano, Cayetano Valdés y Flores (1767–1835), Juan Vernacci, and

Secundino Salamanca joined to explore the Strait of Juan de Fuca and beyond in search of a

navigable passage to Hudson Bay. Departing in Feburary 1792, Bodega y Quadra arrived at

Nootka Sound in April 1792. An agreement was not reached, and Bodega y Quadra had to return to Monterey. The Spanish occupation at Nootka continued.

I.63. Diego HURTADO DE MENDOZA (d.1532) was the commander of a reconnaissance mission to

the ordered by Cortés. Cortés’s cousin, Hurtado de Mendoza, was originally from Extremedura (Spain) and was part Cristóbal de Olid’s army sent to Honduras in 1524 to explore the Central American coast in search of an interoceanic waterway. On June 30, 1532,

Hurtado de Mendoza sailed westward from Acapulco along the coast of Mexico with Juan de

Mazuela (d. c. 1532). Their ships, the San Miguel and the San Marcos, became separated after some of the crew mutinied. Hurtado de Mendoza continued northwestward on the San Miguel.

The mutineers returned to Jalisco on the San Marcos, but most were killed. The few who survived informed Cortés that together the vessels had reached as far as the Fuerte River area.

Hurtado de Mendoza’s ship was lost somewhere around 24º northern latitude on the west coast

62 of Sinaloa. He is not to be confused with his namesake, the humanist writer, book collector, and

Ambassador Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1504–1575).

I.63. After learning of the fate that had befallen the mutineers aboard the San Marcos upon their return, Cortés sent Diego BECERRA de Mendoza from Mérida, Extremedura (d. c. 1533, alternate spelling Bezerra) and Hernando de GRIJALVA (d. 1537) from Cuellar in search of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. On October 30, 1533, Becerra and Grijalva sailed together aboard La Concepción and the San Lázaro, but the ships were soon separated at sea. Grijalva sailed westward on the

San Lázaro. He reached the and eventually landed on an island he named

Santo Tomás (present-day Socorro); nine days later he discovered the Isla de los Inocentes for the Spaniards (present-day San Benedicto). Grijalva returned to Cortés with a report of his voyage. In 1536, Cortés sent Grijalva to the aid of (c. 1470s–1541) in Peru, with secret instructions to explore the western islands on the Pacific on his return trip. After sailing in 1537, probably up to 29º southern latitude, Grijalva perished in a . Grijalva’s report of the voyage to Socorro and San Benedicto is titled Relación y derrotero del navío San

Lázaro al mando de Hernando de Grijalva y su piloto Martín de , portugués, 30 de octubre de 1533-febrero de 1534 (published in vol. 4 of Hernán Cortés, Documentos

Cortesianos, edited by José Luis Martínez. Mexico: UNAM, 1990.) Becerra sailed westward.

Upon reaching the coast of Colima, he, too, was killed during a mutiny led by his pilot Fortún

Jiménez de Bertadoña (also Fortún Ximénez, Ortuño or Ortún Ximénez de Bertadoña; d. c.

1534). Jiménez, who took command of the ship, succeeded in reaching as far north as the east coast of present-day Baja California. Upon landing around present-day La Paz, most of his crew members were killed by the Pericú; those who escaped were captured by Nuño de Guzmán,

Cortés’s rival. A few returned to Cortés with news of pearls in the California peninsula.

63

I.63. To establish his claims to the northern coastal regions of New Spain and take possession of

these pearl-filled lands, Cortés personally headed an expedition of the northern Pacific. In the

San Lázaro, Santa Agueda, and Santo Tomás, Cortés sailed westward, reaching the California

peninsula on , 1535. He took possession of the peninsula for Charles V and established a

settlement, naming the land Terra de Santa Cruz (present-day La Paz, Baja California) and

returned to Acapulco in 1537. A manuscript map of the Gulf of California, “Mapa de la Nueva

tierra de Santa Cruz, extremo meridional de la California descubierta por Hernan Cortés el 3 de

Mayo de 1535,” survives in the Archivo General de (Seville).

I.63. European pilot Juan RODRÍGUEZ CABRILLO (b. c. 1500–43) led an expedition to the shores of Upper California in 1542. Stationed in and Cuba, he arrived in America around 1510.

A merchant-adventurer trained as a crossbowman, mariner, and shipbuilder, he participated in the conquests of Tenochtitlán and Guatemala. Rodríguez Cabrillo settled in Guatemala until the infamous ordered him to build a fleet destined for the Moluccas (1536–40).

After Alvarado’s death, Rodríguez Cabrillo lived in present-day Antigua (then Santiago,

Guatemala), until he was stationed at port Navidad in western Mexico in 1542. Commissioned by Antonio Pacheco de Mendoza (1495–1552), the first viceroy of New Spain, to command an expedition to explore Upper California, Rodríguez Cabrillo sailed on the San Salvador (also known as the Juan Rodríguez), in the company of Bartolomé Ferrer as pilot of La Victoria and

others, from Navidad on June 1542. The expedition headed north to Baja California, passed

present-day Ensenada, and reached San Diego, Point Sal, Point Reyes, and the Russian River. It

then turned south to Santa Catalina Island, where Rodríguez Cabrillo, before dying in January

1543, handed over the captaincy of the expedition to Bartolomé Ferrer. Rodríguez Cabrillo’s

1542–43 expedition journal was first published as a facsimile copy with an English translation by

64

Henry R. Wagner in the California Historical Society Quarterly (7 [March, 1928]: 20–54). It

also appears in Wagner’s Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast of America in the Sixteenth

Century (San Francisco: California Historical Society, 1929). An account of the September 11,

1541, earthquake of Antigua (Guatemala) titled Relación del espantable terremoto que agora nuevamente acontecido en las yndias en uan ciudad llamada Guatemala (Mexico, 1541; 2nd ed.

Madrid, 1543) is also attributed to Rodríguez Cabrillo. The text is reproduced in volume 1

ofColección de incunables Americanos siglo XVI (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispanica, 1944).

I.63. The Spanish-employed sailor Juan GAËTAN (alternate spellings include Gaetano, Caetani,

Gaitan, Gaytano, or Gaytan, also Ivan Gaetan) was a member of the 1542 Ruy López de

Villalobos exploratory expedition to the Pacific Islands. Gaëtan was the pilot aboard the San

Juan and a chronicler of that expedition. Before joining López de Villalobos, Gaëtan had sailed to the western coast of Mexico as part of Hernando de Grijalva’s expedition, and he also participated in Francisco de Ulloa’s 1539 expedition to survey Mexico and Baja California. The

Italian historical geographer Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485–1577) published Gaëtan’s report of the Villalobos voyage as part of the three-volume Delle navigationi et viaggi (1550–1559).

Gaetan’s report was written around 1557. Lapérouse believed that Gaëtan had discovered the

Sandwich Islands (Hawai’i) before Captain Cook and had named them “la Mesa,” “los Majos,” and “la Disgraciada.”

I.63. Captain Francisco GALI (also Galli, Gualli, or Gualle, 1539–1591) was a navigator who

crossed the Pacific Ocean several times when the route and the Spanish trans-

Pacific trade routes to Asia were first established. In March 1582, Gali sailed from Acapulco to

the Philippines; from there, he continued on to Macao. In transit the crew spotted Taiwan, then

65

known as Formosa. Gali returned to Acapulco in December 1584. His report of the voyage

stirred interest in the coasts of northern California where one might establish a port as a way

station for trade ships headed to Asia. Gali died in the Philippines on another voyage to Asia, but

not before drafting a report of his voyages to Asia, which states that there was an ocean of about

1,200 leagues between Asia and California at the 38º northern latitude. Gali’s accounts of the

voyage were translated into Dutch and published by the Dutch geographer and explorer Jan

Huygen van Linschoten (1563–1611) as part of his Itinerario (Amsterdam: Cornelis Claesz,

1595–96). The English edition of Gali’s voyage was published by John Wolfe in Richard

Hakluyt’s (1552–1616) expanded edition of Principal Navigations (vol. 3, London: ,

1598–1600). The first separate printing of Gali’s travel narrative was published as Viaje y

descubrimientos y observaciones desde Acapulco a Filipinas, desde Filipinas a Macao y desde

Macao a Acapulco (Voyage, discoveries, and observations from Acapulco to the Philippines, and

from the Philippines to Macao, and back from Macao to Acapulco, 1638). Gali is also

responsible for the story of the fabulous Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata (gold and silver) islands.

Gali heard and spread the story of a Portuguese vessel that, driven off course by a storm on its way to Japan, reached an island inhabited by wealthy people; eventually one island became two.

Sebastian Vizcaíno and other explorers sought in vain for these fables islands. Gali is not to be

confused with the painter Francisco Galí (1880–1965).

I.64. British explorer, navigator, and cartographer Captain James COOK (1728–1779) joined the

British Merchant Navy as a teenager and the Royal Navy in 1755. After participating in the

Seven Years’ War, Cook surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence

River during the siege of Québec. His work caught the attention of the Admiralty and Royal

Society, prompting his commission as commander of the HMS Endeavor for the first of three

66

scientific expeditions around the world (1768–1771, 1772–1775, and 1776–1779). Their purpose

was to measure the transit of Venus in Tahiti and to explore the southern Pacific hemisphere in

search of the much speculated upon terra australis. As Humboldt indicates, Cook’s expeditions

were by far not the first European advancements into the Pacific. Nevertheless, his scientific

explorations and published accounts made Cook an international celebrity at a time that one

might call the second period of accelerated globalization (1750-–1800). During that time, the

European hunger, scientifically and financially motivated, for exploring the world spawned scores of expeditions around the globe. A skillful cartographer, Cook charted the coasts of New

Zealand, part of the eastern coast of Australia and southern New during his first trip. This allowed him to confirm the existence of the famous Torres Strait. Alexander Dalrymple had discussed this sea passage between Australia and New Guinea in 1769 in connection with his rediscovery of an account by the sixteenth-century Portuguese pilot Luis Váez de Torres (b. c.

1565–d. c. 1615) of the Quirós expedition. That expedition had claimed to have passed the narrow corridor between the two shores and sighted Australia for the first time in 1606. During his second voyage, Cook followed the edge of the Antarctic ice cap and found and several Polynesian archipelagos. During his third voyage, he charted the Pacific Coast of

North America and landed on the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands which, as Humboldt points out,

Cook only “rediscovered.” Humboldt is alluding here to Lapérouse’s thesis that the sailor Juan

Gaëtan of the Villalobos expedition (1542) had already set foot on the same islands where Cook

became the victim of his own ambitions. In 1779, Cook was attacked and killed by Hawaiian

natives after a dispute with the island’s king. In reaction to his death, , a member

of Cook’s second expedition, published a literary portrait of the famous captain whom he praised

as a charismatic leader, an enthusiastic naturalist, and a logistical mastermind. In the years to

67

follow, Cook’s achievements and the circumstances of his death were immortalized in numerous

poems, plays, and paintings.

I.64. VOYAGE DE MARCHAND is Humboldt’s short title for the travel log edited by French

politician and scientist Charles Pierre Claret, which narrates the second successful French circumnavigation led by Étienne MARCHAND de la Ciotat (1755–1793) and includes journals and

maps along with detailed descriptions of the Haida and Tlingit peoples and the Pacific islands.

Marchand was the captain of La Solide, a 300-ton French ship that sailed around the world on a

fur trading expedition. The vessel departed in 1790, sailed around Cape Horn, touched

the , and visited part of the northwest coast of America. In 1791, while

anchored at Sitka Bay, Marchand traded with the Tlingit peoples and made a chart of Sitka

Sound, entitled Plan de la Baie Tchinkitáné. He used the Tlingit language ethnonym of the

Tlingit Nation for the first time: Lingít Aaní (“Tlingit territory”). Thereafter, Marchand traveled

southward and stayed briefly in the area bordering Parry passage on the northern part of Queen

Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii), British Columbia. From America’s northwest coast, the expedition sailed to , Macao, Mauritius, around Africa, and finally reached Marseilles in

August 1792. Claret’s introduction includes an overview of early European navigations to the

North Pacific from 1537 to 1791.

I.64. The 1792 Spanish expedition to survey the STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA—the middle of which

is now part of the USA–Canada international boundary—and determine the existence of a

supposed western entrance to the Northwest Passage was commanded by Dionisio Alcalá

Galiano and Cayetano Valdés y Flores (1767–1835), both members of the Malaspina

Expedition. The expedition made a complete survey of the continental shore at the eastern end

68

of the strait. Alcalá Galiano’s second in command on the Sútil was Secundino Salamanca;

Valdés’s on the Mexicana was Juan Vernaci. These were the first European ships to

circumnavigate Vancouver Island and to spot and enter present-day (British

Columbia, Canada). The accounts of the expedition escaped the fate of Malaspina’s. This expedition’s results were published as Relacion del viage hecho por las goletas Sútil y Mexicana en el año de 1792, para reconocer el estrecho de Fuca (Account of the voyage made by the schooners Sútil and Mexicana in the year 1792 to find the Strait of Fuca) in 1802. The introduction by famed naval historian Martín Fernández de Navarrete (1765–1844) offers a thorough review of Spanish voyages to the Northwest Coast of America up to 1792. Included was also an atlas (17 plates) with a general map of the northwest coast of America in three parts.

The publication also featured a report on astronomical observations by another member of the

Malaspina Expedition, José Espinosa y Tello. While the narrative was based on Dionisio

Alcalá Galiano’s travel journal, the compiler and editor of the information was most likely

Espinosa y Tello. Vernaci has also been credited with editing the 1802 publication. See also

Malaspina Expedition.

I.64. XALTOCAN was a town located in the middle of a salt lake of the same name in the northern

basin of Mexico. Part of a system of lakes, Xaltocan, the lake, was located to the north of Lake

Texcoco. In pre-Columbian times, Xaltocan was an Otomí polity that controlled the north of the

basin. Now part of Mexico City, the city was linked to the mainland by causeways.

I.64. Discussing Miguel Costanzó’s methods for determining the latitude of San José and Cape

San Lucas, Humboldt briefly mentions two optical instruments of very distinct ages. The

GNOMON, in its mobile version basically a straight wooden stick, is the projecting piece on a

69

sundial that indicates the time by the position of its shadow. Even though the first use of the

gnomon has not been determined exactly, an ancient book on Chinese mathematics reveals that a

gnomon was used as early as the eleventh century BCE. A considerable advancement over this

method was the reflecting OCTANT invented by the British mathematician and naturalist John

Hadley (1662–1744) in 1731. Designed specifically for portable use, the octant measured angles by means of two mirrors that made the reflecting objects appear to coincide, which then produced a specific angle between them to be read on the octant’s scale. The arc of the instrument was one-eighth of a circle, hence the name octant. The practical octant soon became a sextant, enhancing the range of measurements from 90 to 120 degrees. Humboldt himself owned a 14-inch Hadley sextant manufactured by Thomas Wright (1711–1786) but left it in Europe

because of its substantial size.

I.66. Miguel José de AZANZA Navarlaz y Alegría (1746–1826) became viceroy of New Spain at the turn of the century (1798–1800). He held several : of Santiago (1796), Ordre de la Toison d’Or (1810), and Duke of Santa Fé (1810). Azanza was born in Aoiz (Navarra, Spain)

and first traveled to New Spain at the age of seventeen with his maternal uncle, Martín José de

Alegría y Egües (b. 1723). In 1768, he was attached to the office of the inspector-general of New

Spain, José de Gálvez y Galladro. A year later, he participated in Gálvez’s expedition to

California. Back in Spain, Azanza joined the armed forces in 1771, served in Havana, and

participated in the siege of Gibraltar (1779–1780). He also held several high-ranking offices in

the civil service, including that of diplomat to St. Petersburg and Berlin. After serving as

Secretary of War for Spain, he was appointed viceroy of New Spain, a position he assumed in

May 1798. During his administration, Azanza secured New Spain’s ports, including those of San

Blas and Veracruz, against British naval forces. Because of his affiliation with Joseph-Napoleon

70

Bonaparte’s (1786–1844) government, during whose reign he held key offices, Azanza lost most

of his titles and his fortune when Ferdinand VII (1784–1833) was reinstated. Azanza died in

France.

I.66n. Humboldt cited the journal as Periodico de México, which is incorrect.

I.66n. Humboldt credits CASASOLA, a frigate lieutenant in the Spanish Royal Navy, with

compiling the Compendio histórico de las navegaciones… sobre las costas septentrionales de

California (Historical compendium of sea voyages concerning the northern coasts of California).

Completed in Mexico and dated 1799, this manuscript is a chronological account of the

explorations of the Spanish navy along the Pacific west and northwest coast of America up to

Alaska between 1768 and 1796. It includes a brief history of the California peninsula; the early

missionary work of Kino; the expedition from San Blas (Mexico) by Bucareli commissioned in

1773, 1775, and 1776; and a rough sketch map of Nootka Sound, British Columbia. See also

bibliography under Mexico, 1948.

I.66n. Antonio María de BUCARELI y Ursúa (1771–1779) was the forty-sixth viceroy of New

Spain, from 1771 to 1779. Prior to that, he had served as governor and captain-general of Cuba

(1766–71). His early career in Europe had been in the military. He participated in campaigns in

Italy and Portugal, became a lieutenant-general, and he also served as inspector of coastal fortifications in Granada. As viceroy, he sent an expedition to explore and settle coastal

California, then a Spanish possession, and took steps to prevent Russia from invading North

America. See also Cramer y Mañenas, Agustín.

71

I.66n. Naval commander Manuel Antonio FLORES Maldonado (c. 1722–1799, alternate spelling

Florez) was viceroy of New Spain from 1787–89. Before settling into the viceregal office in New

Spain, Flores served in the Spanish navy in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean Seas, having

enlisted in 1736. He also served as viceroy of New Granada (1776-–82). Under his orders,

Esteban José Martínez (on the Princesa) and Gonzalo López de Haro (on the San Carlos)

sailed to Nootka Sound (present-day Vancouver Island) in 1789 to set up a Spanish settlement

there and secure Spain’s interest in the northwest against British and Russian merchants and

officials. Martínez’s actions at Nootka resulted in an international crisis that ended in Spain acceding to British demands in the Nootka Convention. Flores returned to Spain in 1789 where he was named honorary captain-general of the Spanish Navy.

I.66n. Havana-born Juan Vicente Güemes Pacheco de Padilla, second Count of REVILLAGIGEDO

(1740–1799), succeeded Flores as viceroy of New Spain (1789–1794). Revillagigedo was

effective in improving living conditions in Mexico City; he also founded the Archivo General

(general archives) and, in 1793, the Museum of National History. His father, Juan Francisco de

Güemes y Horcasitas, first Count of Revillagigedo (c. 1682–1766), was a Spanish colonial

administrator and a former viceroy of New Spain (1746–1755).

I.66n. José de CAÑIZARES Rojas (fl. 1769–96) was a Spanish naval pilot who came to America in

the late 1760s after having graduated from the Cádiz Academy in 1765. In 1768, he was posted

to the port of San Blas (Nayarit, Mexico), where he was stationed for twenty-five years,

participating in several expeditions to the west and northwest of America. Cañizares was part of

José de Gálves’s staff (as was the later viceroy Azanza) when the latter served as visitador to

New Spain (1765-–70). As royal envoys, visitadores reported in the form of secret missives to

72

the Spanish king and to the head of the Council of the Indies. Cañizares served as master’s mate on the San Carlos, also known as the Toisón de Oro in the 1769–70 exploratory missions to San

Diego and Monterey. Following Gálves’s orders to reach the port at San Diego, Cañizares traveled north along the coast of Baja California and California up to present-day Santa Barbara.

In 1769, the expedition reached San Diego where they joined the commanded by

Juan Pérez. In July of that year, Junípero Serra gave mass and established the mission of San

Diego. Cañizares kept the logs of astronomical observations for that expedition. In 1775,

Cañizares sailed to San Francisco Bay with Juan Manuel de Ayala on the San Carlos. While

the ship was anchored at Angel Island, Cañizares was the first to enter and make a chart of the

bay (currently at the Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Mexico, 305). A close collaborator of

Bodega y Quadra’s, Cañizares served as a pilot for the Arteaga-Bodega expedition of 1779 to

the Northwest of America and for the 1792 Bodega Expedition during the Nootka Crisis. For his services, Cañizares was promoted to midshipman (1776), sublieutenant (1781), and junior lieutenant (1791) of the Spanish Royal Navy. His son, Francisco Antonio de Cañizares, also became a naval pilot. Cañizares is not to be confused with his namesake, the Spanish playwright

José de Cañizares (1676–1750).

I.66n. In 1772, colonial administrator Antonio BONILLA (fl. 1772–1784) compiled a summary

account of the province of Texas commissioned by viceroy Bucareli. Based on archival material

and official and ecclesiastical reports about the region, this account summarizes major events in

Texas from 1685–1772. It also includes recommendations on how to improve the province’s administrative system. In 1773, Bonilla, who held the rank of infantry lieutenant, was transferred to the Interior Provinces as assistant inspector and secretary of the commander-general. In that position, he drafted reports on the state of defense of the presidios. In addition to writing reports

73

about Sonora (1774) and (1774, 1778), he prepared a report about New Mexico

known as “Apuntes Históricos sobre el Nuevo Mexico” (Historical notes on New Mexico, 1776).

By 1784, Bonilla had reached the rank of secretary of the viceroyalty and had drafted reports

about each and mission in the province. He was responsible for archiving most of what

was to become the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City.

I.69. French naval officer and explorer Jean-François de Galaup, Count of LAPÉROUSE (also La

Pérouse [1741–c. 1788]) inexplicably vanished, along with his entire crew, after his two ships,

the Astrolabe and the Boussole, had set out from the British colony of Bay to explore the

southern and western coasts of Australia and other parts of Oceania. In 1785, Louis XVI of

France (1754–93) had appointed Lapérouse to embark on a voyage around the world that would

complete the Pacific discoveries of James Cook. It was not until a 2008 French expedition (the

latest of four over time) retraced Lapérouse’s course that clear evidence came to light of the

shipwreck of both vessels on the coral reefs of the island of Vanikoro. What happened to

Lapérouse and his crew, some of whom were believed to have survived the shipwreck, remains a

mystery that has captured the of many, Jules Verne (1828–1905) prominent among them.

Lapérouse had sent his journals and other materials back to France before he disappeared; the

Voyage de Lapérouse autour du monde (La Perouse’s voyage around the world, 1797) is based on them. An English translation, The Journal of Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse 1785–

1788 (2 vols), dates back to 1799.

I.72. Father Eusebio Francisco KINO (bap. 1645–1711) was a Jesuit missionary, cosmographer,

astronomer, cartographer, historian, and explorer of present-day northwest Mexico, Lower

California, and the southwest USA. Born in Segno, Val de Non, Italy, his last name was Chini or

74

Chino, spelled Kino in New Spain as it was pronounced. As his origins were unclear (German or

Italian), his last name was also sometimes spelled Kühn. An excellent student at the University

of Ingolstadt, Kino turned down a professorship at the Royal University of Bavaria to become a

missionary to serve in the Far East. Instead, he arrived in New Spain in 1681 and spearheaded the ’s efforts to evangelize the people of the east coast of Baja California (then called Antigua California). In 1683, Kino arrived in the Bay of La Paz and founded a short-lived mission at San Bruno. With the financial support of María Guadalupe de Lencastre (1630–1715),

Duchess of Abeiro y Arcos, Kino extended the Jesuit mission’s frontier of Sonora into the land

of the upper Pimas, or Pimería Alta. In 1691, he established missions among the O’odham,

Sobaipuris, Sobas, and Primas in present-day Sonora and Arizona, including the Missions of San

Xavier del Bac, Guévavi, and San José de Tumacácori. A trained mathematician and

cartographer, Kino was the first to assert that Baja California was not an island, as it was thought

to be, but a peninsula that could be reached by land. Well documented is his dispute with

Sigüenza y Góngora between 1681 and 1690 over the nature of comets. In his Exposición

Astronómica (1681), Kino argued that the 1680 comet was a harbinger of future disasters, a

theory that Sigüenza opposed in his Libra Astronómica y Philosóphica written at the end of

1681. Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695) dedicated a poem (“Soneto”) to Kino with the caption, “Aplaude la ciencia astronómica del padre Eusebio Francisco Kino, de la Compañía de

Jesús, que escribió del cometa que el año de ochenta apareció, absolviéndole de ominoso” (I applaud the astonomic science of Father Eusebio Francisco Kino of the Society of Jesus who wrote about the comet that appeared in 1680, forgiving it for its gloom).

I.73. Father Pedro NADAL was one of the first Franciscan missionaries in what is now Arizona.

Together with the Franciscan friar Juan de la Asunción, Nadal left New Spain in 1538 under

75

orders of the viceroy. They followed in the footsteps of earlier explorers, notably the Spanish

conquistador Nuño de Guzmán in 1529. The fathers came as far as what would later be called the Río Colorado, where Nadal measured the latitude. In 1539, Father Marcos de NIZA (c. 1495–

1558), a French Franciscan who served in Central America and Peru and was stationed at New

Spain in 1537, followed Nadal. A year later, the first viceroy of New Spain, Antonio Pacheco de

Mendoza, sent Niza to the then-known northern borders of New Spain to investigate and report

on stories of wealth. Accompanied by Esteban (c. 1503–1539), a native of Azemmour

(Morocco), Niza left Sinaloa in 1539. Heading north, he reached the Sonora River, crossed the

the San Pedro River, and entered Arizona. When he arrived at Chichilticalo (near Benson), he

learned that Esteban, who had been sent ahead to survey the terrain, had died in Hawikuh (a Zuni

pueblo in New Mexico). Upon his return to Mexico, Niza told wondrous stories of the fabled

Seven Cities of Cíbola. In 1540, he accompanied Francisco Vazquez de Coronado’s (1510–1554)

expedition to the southwest of the present-day USA in search of the mythical golden cities

(Quivira, Cíbola). Niza went as far north as Hawikuh and returned in disgrace; he reached

Mexico in July 1540. Juan de Zumárraga (1468–1548) wrote a Relación (account) with the

details of Niza’s expedition, a copy of which was presented to Viceroy Mendoza in September

1540. This Relación is currently at the Archivo General de Indias (Seville).

I.73. Joseph-Nicolas (1688–1768) is chiefly remembered for his method for observing

the transits of Venus and Mercury by instants of contacts. As a preliminary to the transit of

Mercury in 1743, which he personally observed, he issued a map of the world showing the varied

circumstances of the transit’s occurrence. Besides the many papers Delisle sent to the French

Academy of Sciences, of which he became a member in 1714, he published Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire et au progrès de l'astronomie (Contribution to the history and advancement of

76

astronomy, 1738) after having taught in St. Petersburg for more than twenty years (1725–47).

Among his students in France, where Delisle had been appointed chair of mathematics in 1718,

were Joseph de Lalande and Charles Messier (1730–1817). Humboldt’s reference is to Delisle’s most important geographical work, his Mémoire sur les nouvelles découvertes au nord de la mer du sud (Account of the new discoveries in the northern South Sea, 752).

I.73. Spanish missionary Juan DÍAZ (1736–81) was a member of the 1774 exploratory mission to

California under (1736–88). Ordained in 1707, Díaz arrived in New Spain

in 1763. For five years he was a missionary in Sonora at the mission of Purísima Concepción de

Caborca (1768–73). Following Father Francisco Garcés, who had explored the Colorado Desert

and crossed the Colorado River in 1771, Díaz helped establish a feasible land route to California.

Stationed at the recently founded mission of San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer on the Colorado

River, Díaz died during an attack of the Yumas. After this attack, the land route the first Anza

expedition had set up was abandoned. Díaz’s travel journal of the expedition, titled “Diario que

forma el p. pred. fr. Juan Díaz missionero apostólico de la Santa Cruz de Querétaro en el viaje

que hace en compañía del r. p. fr. Francisco Garcés . . .,” is housed at the University of Arizona.

I.73. Spanish missionary Pedro FONT (1738–1781) was a member of the 1775–1776 Anza

exploratory mission to California. Admitted to the Franciscan Order in Spain, Font embarked to

New Spain in 1763. He was stationed at Querétaro until 1773, when he was transferred to the

San José de Pimas mission in Sonora. There, he was appointed chaplain, diarist, and cartographer to the second Anza expedition. Other members of that expedition included Francisco Garcés.

After the expedition, Font was stationed at the missions of Santa María de Magdalena (1776–

1777) and Pitiquito (1780–1781). Giving graphic accounts of the expedition to California and the

77

entry to San Francisco, Font wrote a journal. There are at least three versions of the diary, a draft

travelog, an abridged version submitted to the viceregal authorities, and a longer version. The

abridged version was printed in Spanish and translated into English by Frederick John Teggart

(1870–1946) in 1913 as “The Anza Expedition of 1775–1776; diary of Pedro Font”

(Publications of the Academy of Pacific Coast History, vol. 3, pp. 1–131). The longer version, called Diario Largo, was translated into English and published by Herbert Eugene Bolton (1870–

1953) in Anza’s California Expedition (vol. 4, University of California Press, 1930). Julio César

Montané published the Spanish version of the Diario Largo as Diario Íntimo in 2000

(Hermosillo: Universidad de Sonora; Mexico City: Plaza y Valdés Editores). See also Arricivita,

Juan Domingo.

I.74. Praising ’s accomplishments in accurate measuring, Humboldt not only

compares his own practical conditions of scientific field work with those of his French

predecessor but also gives an account of the quantum leap in astronomical observation during the

sixty years between Bouguer’s travels and his own. While the Frenchman’s method of using a

gnomon had been standard practice, Humboldt’s reflection instruments for optical

measurements, such as the Ramsden sextant, were the finest of his day. Instead of scaling his instrument with “a few strips of reeds,” as Bouguer had done, Humboldt used a chain of ten- centimeter metal sticks. This difference reflected the new standard in metrical measurements established in Paris in 1799.

I.75. Jesuit missionary and explorer Juan de UGARTE (1662–1730) worked in Baja California and explored the Gulf of California. Born in Tegucigalpa (Honduras) and educated in Guatemala, he

78

entered the Society of Jesus in 1679 in Mexico City. A prominent clergyman recruited by Juan

María Salvatierra, Ugarte left a professorship of philosophy at the prestigious Colegio Máximo

of Mexico City to become a missionary in Baja California. He arrived in Baja California in 1701 after having served as fundraiser and overseer of finances for the California missions’ fund

(Pious Fund for the of the Society of Jesus) since 1696. Ugarte became the head of

Jesuit missions Salvatierra had founded when the latter died on his way to Mexico City in 1717.

At the missions of Loreto and San Javier, Ugarte introduced cattle breeding and developed local agriculture of European crops. In an effort to ascertain whether California was indeed a peninsula, Ugarte supervised the building of the first ships constructed in California. He sailed through the Gulf of California (also known as Mar de Cortés, Mar Lauretano, or Mar Bermejo) and traveled as far as the mouth of the Colorado River in 1721. A year later, he explored the

Pacific in the northwest of Baja California. In his “Relación del descubrimiento del Golfo de

California o Mar Lauretano” (Account of the discovery of the Gulf of California or the

Lauretano Sea) from 1722, Ugarte describes the places he had explored and the construction of

El Triunfo de la Cruz and Santa Bárbara. Jesuit author Miguel Venegas used Ugarte’s reports and maps to compile Noticia de la California (1757; see Humboldt’s Library). Many geographers (Humboldt mentions Antillón), used Ugarte’s findings to improve their maps of the coast of western North America. Ugarte’s writings were also published in Roberto Ramos’s Tres documentos sobre el descubrimiento y exploración de Baja California (Three documents about the discovery and exploration of Baja California; Mexico: Editorial Jus, 1958) and Miguel León

Portilla’s Testimonios sudcalifornianos; nueva entrada y establecimiento en el puerto de La Paz

1720 (Testimonials from Southern California; return to and settlement in the port of La Paz,

1720; Mexico: UNAM, 1969).

79

I.75. Born in Antequera (Spain), brigadier-general Pedro de y Villalón (c. 1664–1744)

served as governor of Veracruz, Tlaxcala, and Yucatán. In 1724, he was commissioned to survey

the entire presidial system, an inspection of the northern frontiers of New Spain that lasted for

four years. Accompanied by engineer and cartographer Francisco Álvarez Barreiro, Francisco

de Sánchez, and two clerical assistants, Rivera was to determine the efficiency of fortifications in the north. His expedition traveled about 7,500 miles and about three years and seven months and visited all the key settlements from the Gulf of California to present-day western Louisiana, including Santa Fé, Sinaloa, and Nagadoches. Rivera’s journal is a daily logbook in which he recorded the geographical location, demography, and ethnology en route. After inspecting twenty-three presidios, Rivera completed a report of the expedition (with seven detailed maps) and drafted new regulations for the territory he had visited. Advisor to the viceroy upon concluding the inspection, Rivera became governor of Veracruz (1731) and president, governor, and captain-general of the Audiencia of Guatemala (1732–1742). Rivera’s manuscript journal from the archives in Mexico City, together with his official report and the drafted regulations, was published in 1736.

I.75. Spanish cartographer, engineer, and soldier Nicolás de LAFORA (c. 1730–after 1788) began his military career in the infantry regiment of Galicia in 1746. He served in this regiment for more than ten years and was stationed in Italy, North Africa, and Portugal. From 1752 to 1755, he studied at the Royal Academy of Mathematics in Barcelona. In early 1757, Lafora was admitted to the Royal Corps of Engineers as second lieutenant and draftsman engineer; he reached the rank of captain in 1763. Shortly after his arrival in New Spain in 1764, Lafora was appointed to the expedition of the MARQUIS DE RUBI to survey the northern territories of New

Spain. Lafora was the expedition’s recordkeeper and also assisted in mapmaking. His writings

80

about the provinces of New Vizcaya, New Mexico, Sonora, Nuevo León, Coahuila, Texas, New

Galicia, and Nayarit included descriptions of geographical features, population statistics, frontier

conditions, and suggestions to improve the defense of the presidios. He also wrote an “Opinion”

(Dictamen) in 1766 (at the Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Audiencia de Guadalajara, 511),

in which he recommended changes to improve the defense of the province of New Vizcaya.

Humboldt used Lafora’s Mapa de la Frontera del Vireinato de Nueva España (Map of the

border of the viceroyality of New Spain, 1771), which traces Rubi’s route and covers the areas

just south of Taos in the north, Nayarit in the southwest, Tampico in the southeast, and from the

Gulf of California in the west to Louisiana in the east. Despite his repeated request to be

promoted to lieutenant-colonel, Lafora was relieved of duty in America in 1770. Upon his return

to Spain in 1772, he served as commandant of harbor fortifications in hometown Alicante. In

1775, Lafora returned to New Spain as district magistrate of Oaxaca and was finally promoted.

Vito Alessio Robles (1879–1957) first published Lafora’s diary in 1939.

I.75. The Spanish inspector of New Spain and field marshal, Cayetano Maria Pignatelli Rubi

Corbera y San Climent, Baron de Llinas, better known as MARQUÉS DE RUBI (b. c. 1725–c.

1788), led an expedition to present-day northern Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas

(1766–1767). Rubi first arrived in Veracruz in late 1764. Rubi’s inspection of the presidios was

to assess the military organization and state of defense of the northern borderlands. His report

was to aid colonial inspector-general José de Gálvez y Gallardo (who later became Spain’s

Minister of the Indies) in recommending major financial and administrative reforms in the

viceroyalty. Rubi traveled from Mexico City to Zacatecas, Durango, Chihuahua, El Paso

(Texas), and Santa Fé (New Mexico). He inspected the missions of the Pimería Alta and traveled as far east as at the edge of Louisiana. Rubi covered nearly 7,600 miles in

81

twenty-three months and inspected twenty-three presidios. He recommended closing several

presidios in the northern frontier area in his 1768 Opinion (Archivo General de Indias, Seville,

Audiencia de Guadalajara, 273, 511), and most of his recommendations were implemented in

regulations issued in 1772. In 1768, Rubi departed for Spain. By 1788, the year Charles III died,

Rubi had reached the rank of lieutenant-general, served as a counselor of war, and was

commander-general and governor of the military district of Madrid. In addition to Lafora’s

diary, Rubi kept a travel journal that was discovered in 1989; it is housed at the Center for

American History of the University of Texas at Austin.

I.75. Engineer Manuel Agustín MASCARÓ (1747–d. c. 1809) entered the military at a young age and was trained in mathematics for five years at the Military Academy in Barcelona. In 1769, he was admitted to the Royal Corps of Engineers. In 1777, he was chosen to draw maps and supervise the construction of a mint at Arispe, the designated capital of the Pimería Alta

(, New Spain). Together with Spanish engineer Gerónimo de la Rocha y

Figueroa (1750–c. 1796), Mascaró embarked for New Spain in 1778. In Arispe, Sonora, Mascaró

was in charge of civil architecture and engineering for five years. In addition to his journal of

travels from Chihuahua to Arispe (1780), Mascaró also wrote a description of Arispe and its

surrounds in 1781. Two years later, Mascaró was promoted to captain and transfered to Mexico

City where he continued to work as an engineer.

I.75n. Following Cortés’s orders, Francisco de ULLOA (fl. 1535–40), his lieutenant, explored the gulf coast of the California peninsula. Originally from Mérida, Extremedura (Spain), Ulloa arrived in the Americas in 1528. After participating in the conquest of New Galicia, Ulloa traveled to present-day Baja California with Cortés in 1535 and became captain of the Santa

82

Cruz settlement near present-day La Paz, Baja California. Ulloa sailed northwestward from

Acapulco on July 8, 1539. Soon, one of his ships, the Santo Tomás, separated from the rest of the

fleet. Ulloa continued northward with the other two vessels, crossed the Gulf of California, and

reached the head of the gulf up to the Colorado River; there he took possession of the area in the

name of Charles V. Because of the red from the Colorado River, Ulloa named that part of

the Gulf of California “Mar Bermejo” (Vermillion Sea). On his return trip, he rounded Cabo San

Lucas into the Pacific Ocean and sailed northward. He reached the Isla de Cedros in 1540, continued on northward and sailed as far as 30º and probably 33º northern latitude. The vessel

Santa Agueda returned from the Isla de Cedros to Acapulco with Ulloa’s account of the voyage and a short travel journal by the ship’s captain, Francisco Preciado. Preciado’s account was published in 1565. Although Ulloa proved that California was a peninsula, the idea that

California was an island persisted well into the eighteenth century. A facsimile of Ulloa’s

account of his voyage, written at the Isla de Cedros on April 5, 1540, was translated into English

by Irene A. Wright (1879–1972) and published in Henry R. Wagner’s Spanish Voyages to the

Northwest Coast of America in the Sixteenth Century (San Francisco: California Historical

Society, 1929). Nieves del Olmo García’s Cartas de Francisco de Ulloa a Costanza Villalobos

(Mérida: Editorial Regional de Extremedura, 2007), a collection of recently discovered letters

(1528–1542) from the Archivo Histórico Nacional of Madrid, includes one by Francisco de

Ulloa, which states that Ulloa survived the California expedition and returned to Spain, where he

lived from 1541–1544. But the letter may also be from Ulloa’s namesake (d. 1571), a captain in

the Spanish navy who explored the Strait of Magellan in 1553–1554, proving that a west–east

passage of the Strait was possible. See also Hurtado de Mendoza, Diego; Becerra de Mendoza;

and Kino.

83

I.77. In addition to being an author of the USAmerican Declaration of Independence and the

third president of the United States, Thomas JEFFERSON (1743–1826) was an architect as well as an accomplished scholar and naturalist. After their meeting in 1804, Humboldt and Jefferson became longtime correspondents.

I.77. Born in Treceño, Santander (Spain), Silvestre VÉLEZ DE ESCALANTE (c. 1750–1792), a

Franciscan missionary and explorer, arrived in New Spain around 1767, where he entered the

Franciscan Order at the Convento Grande in Mexico City at age seventeen. Commissioned to travel to New Mexico, he arrived at Laguna pueblo in 1774 and was transferred to Zuni pueblo the following year. From 1776–1777, Vélez de Escalante was part of a pathfinding expedition to northern California led by Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez (c. 1740–1805) to find a direct passage between New Mexico and Monterey. Vélez de Escalante was the expedition’s journal

keeper. Although the party could not reach Monterey in their five-month travels, they were the

first Europeans to explore the area. In 1778, the cartographer of the expedition, Bernardo de

Miera y Pachecho (fl. 1743–1778), drew a map of the country they explored, which is now in the

British Library. Upon his return, Vélez de Escalante resumed his missionary work in New

Mexico. Herbert E. Bolton’s Pageant in the Wilderness: The Story of the Escalante Expedition to the Interior Basin, 1776, includes Vélez devEscalante’s diary and itinerary in an annotated translation (Salt Lake City: Historical Society, 1950, pp. 133–239). The latest English edition of Vélez de Escalante’s journal is Ted J. Warner’s The Domínguez-Escalante Journal

(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995).

I.79. José de Rivera (or Ribera) Bernárdez, second count of SANTIAGO DE LA LAGUNA (fl. 1710–

30), was born in Zacatecas (Mexico). Upon the death of his uncle, José de Urquiola (d. 1726),

84

the first count of Santiago de la Laguna, the title transferred to Rivera. A wealthy mine owner

who went bankrupt, Rivera, a patron of the arts and the Catholic Church, is remembered for his writings about his hometown. He designed the retablo-façade of the Cathedral of Zacatecas in

1745.

I.79. Spanish scientist Francisco Javier de SARRÍA is best remembered as the founding director of

the Royal Lottery in New Spain (1770). An advocate of Lavoisier’s chemical theories, he published the Ensayo de metalurgia (Essay on metallurgy, 1784) with a supplement (1791).

I.79. Novo–Spanish mathematician and instrument-maker Diego de GUADALAJARA Y TELLO

(1742–1801) was a professor of mathematics at the prestigious Academy of San Carlos in

Mexico City. In 1791, he collaborated in designing and building a chronometer; he also repaired instruments for the Malaspina Expedition. To replace Costanzó, the Tribunal de Minería awarded Guadalajara y Tello the directorship of mathematics of the Academy in 1789, a position he held until his death. In addition to teaching mathematics, building mathematical instruments, and conducting astronomical observations, he took part in public works, such as building roads and drafting plans for the construction of the drainage system of the Valley of Mexico (1796). A clockmaker, Guadalajara y Tello edited the first American journal that specialized in :

Advertencias y reflexiones varias conducentes al buen uso de relojes grandes y pequeños y su regulación (Miscellaneous warnings and reflections on the proper use of large and small clocks and their regulation, 1777).

I.81. Spanish cartographer, surveyor, and engineer Francisco ÁLVAREZ BARREIRO (fl. 1716–

1729) accompanied Pedro de Rivera on the 1724–1728 inspection of New Spain’s northern frontiers. Álvarez Barreiro’s charge was to describe and map twenty-three presidios; his survey

85

of the presidios’ surroundings resulted in seven detailed maps, along with descriptions that

accompanied Rivera’s report. Before joining the Rivera inspection, he had already had

considerable experience in northern expeditions. Shortly after arriving in New Spain in 1716, he

was appointed military engineer of the 1717–18 expedition to Texas under Martín de Alarcón (c.

1691–c. 1721), who had recently been named captain-general and governor of Texas. A member

of the Spanish Royal Corps of Engineers, Álvarez wrote descriptions and drew maps that were

published in Thomas H. Naylor and Charles W. Polzer’s Pedro de Rivera and the Military

Regulations for Northern New Spain, 1724–1729: A Documentary History of His Frontier

Inspection and the Reglamento De 1729 (1988, pp. 209–34). Álvarez’s 1722 Relación de

Servicios is available online at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville.

I.81. Zebulon Montgomery PIKE (1779–1813) was a USAmerican army officer and explorer.

Pike’s Peak in Colorado, which he tried (and failed) to climb, is named after him. In 1806, in the

wake of the Louisiana Purchase, Pike led an exploration party that traveled 2,000 miles by boat

on the River, from St. Louis, , to . In 1806, Thomas Jefferson

commissioned him to explore the and Red Rivers and to acquire intelligence about the

neighboring Spanish territory. Pike’s report noted military weaknesses and pointed out the

possibilities of overland trade with Mexico, thus feeding the dream of westward expansion into

Texas. In 1810, Pike published a Mexico map plagiarized from Humboldt; it was based on the

illicitly obtained copy that Wilkinson had given him (see also Arrowsmith). Pike died in battle

during the , a war that, in spite of its name, actually lasted until 1815.

I.82. Dartmouth-educated topographical and railroad engineer Major

(1784–1864) of the USAmerican Army Corps of Engineers led the first scientific expedition up

86

the Platte River, in 1820. After the failure of the 1819 Yellowstone expedition under the command of Henry Atkinson (1782–1842), also known as the Atkinson–Long expedition, which was to explore the upper Missouri River, James Monroe (1748–1831) gave Long orders to find the sources of the Platte, Arkansas, and Red Rivers and explore the new USAmerican borders with the Spanish colonies that John Quincy (1767–1848) had negotiated in his treaty with

Spain. The results of this expedition—reported in ’s 1822 Account of an

Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains—were very detailed accounts of the customs

of the Otoes and Pawnees whom the party had met as well as thorough descriptions and measurements of the land west of the Missouri River. Edwin James’s account was rather critical of westward expansion. Major Long’s 1823 expedition to the Red River led him up the

Minnesota River (then the St. Peter River) into Canada. While the purposes of this voyage were scientific research and an assessment of trade possibilities, military reconnaissance may also have been a motive. Long’s Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Peter’s River was published in 1824. During all his expeditions, he covered about 26,000 miles.

I.82. Lieutenant James Duncan GRAHAM (1799–1865), whom Humboldt also mentions here, was

one of Long’s two assistant topographers on his trek to the Rocky Mountains. During and after

the Mexican War, the USAmerican government regularly employed Graham to conduct border

surveys. For example, in 1839–40 he was the astronomer of the surveying party that established

the border between the USA and the then new .

I.82. New York–born Henry Schenck TANNER (1786–1858) was a distinguished and prolific

engraver and mapmaker. The first person in the USA to publish a map of Texas, Tanner is best

87 known for his New American Atlas, published in five parts from 1818 to 1823, with a last edition published in 1839.

I.85. Military officer Pedro de LAGUNA Calderón (c. 1755–c. 1813) had a career in the Royal

Artillery Corps. As a lieutenant-colonel, Laguna was appointed by then-viceroy of New Spain

Miguel la Grúa Talamanca y Branciforte to the intendancy of Oaxaca to oversee the establishment of the artillery division of the Spanish military. From Oaxaca, Laguna Calderón was transferred to Veracruz as inspector of artillery. In 1802, he submitted a report about the artillery; an illustration from that report depicting an artillery horserider can be found at the

Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico City, No. 0525; Classification, 977/0687). By 1811,

Laguna Calderón had earned the rank of brigadier. He died at Veracruz, where his widow, María

Micaela Medina, remained until around 1813.

I.89. GRAPHOMETERS, also known as semicircles, were widely used for angle measurement during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as they satisfied the need for a simple, strong, and portable instrument that was also inexpensive and accurate. Invented by Philippe Danfrie

(1572–1604) of Paris in 1597 and first introduced in his Déclaration de l’usage du graphomètre

(On the use of the graphometer), the graphometer consists of two alidades, or sighting rules, one fixed to a semicircle divided into degrees and the other movable across the scale of degrees. The instrument had a and socket joint that allowed it to be mounted on a tripod or Jacob’s staff.

Many graphometers had an inset magnetic compass so that they could be used for measuring magnetic azimuths (horizontal angles of a compass bearing). A graphometer is closely related to a circumferentor, the difference being that the former has a half-circle scale instead of the latter’s full-circle. By the early nineteenth century, graphometers and circumferentors went out of favor

88

in Europe, but they remained important for taking surveys in forests and on uncleared grounds, as was the case in the Americas. Graphometers and circumferentors were typically made in Italy,

France, Holland, and England. The ADAMS GRAPHOMETER Humboldt mentions refers to George

Adams, Jr. (1750–1795), whose instruments would have been marked with his signature.

Because of its ease in handling and its robust structure, Humboldt used the instrument frequently

during his travels, often as a substitute for the more delicate sextant.

I.90. The MOQUI peoples (also Hopi or Moki) live mainly in the mesas of northeastern present-

day Arizona, formally the province of New Mexico in northern New Spain. In pre-Columbian

times, the Moqui were horticulturalists who lived in villages. They have maintained their culture

despite the onslaught of foreign influence. Between 1629 and 1700, missionaries tried

unsuccessfully to convert the Moqui people, who had been initially contacted by Spaniards in

1540, to Catholicism. After the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the Moqui villages moved to the more

protected mesas to ward off foreign attacks. A matrilineal society, the Moqui are especially noted

for their mythology and ceremonial dances. The Moqui creation myth centers on Hurúing Wuhti

(deity of hard substances), a female deity associated with the Earth Mother. The Moqui language

belongs to the Uto-Aztecan family; also called Hopi, it has about several thousand speakers in

the USA. A dictionary of Hopi with about 3,000 entries was compiled by The Hope Dictionary

Project and published by Kenneth Cushman Hill et al. as Hopi Dictionary: A Hopi-English

Dictionary of the Third Mesa Dialect: With an English-Hopi Finder List and a Sketch of Hopi

Grammar in 1998.

I.91. Humboldt refers here to Nicolas DE FER (1646–1720), one of the most prolific and

influential French cartographers of his time. The youngest son of Parisian print and mapseller

89

Antoine de Fer (d. 1673), Nicolas inherited his father’s mapselling business, which was in decline in the late 1670s. In 1690, de Fer had the good fortune of becoming official geographer to the French Dauphin, and he published his first atlas of the coasts of France in 1705 after having become official geographer to the Spanish King (in 1702). After the death of the Dauphin in 1711, de Fer advanced to official geographer to both Spanish and French kings. De Fer’s maps reflected the power of his royal patrons, emphasizing the power and benefits of Bourbon rule and endorsing political and territorial imperialism. The first of de Fer’s many atlases, his Atlas

Curieux (1700–1705), included a 1705 map entitled “Le Vieux Mexique ou Nouvelle Espagne avec les costes de la Floride” (Old Mexico or New Spain with the Florida coasts). It seems likely that 1765 is a typographical error.

I.91. Pownall’s map is A New and Correct Map of North America (1777). Its creator, Thomas

POWNALL (1722–1805) was governor of colonial Massachusetts from 1757 to 1760 and a member of the English House of Commons. He was promoted to the governorship of South

Carolina in 1760 but decided to accept a position in Europe instead. In 1764, he published The

Administration of the Colonies, which is probably the work to which Humboldt refers here. In the 1770s, Pownall also contributed to the journal Archaeologia: or Miscellaneous Tracts

Relating to Antiquity, published by the Society of Antiquaries of London.

I.91. Sigüenza y Góngora’s map is likely the Plano de las cercanías de México from 1786.

I.91. Cuban-born military officer, colonial administrator, and author Carlos de URRUTIA y

Montoya (1750–1825) served as governor of Veracruz from 1810 to 1812), as captain-general of

Santo Domingo from 1812 to 1817, and as the last president and captain-general of the

Audiencia of Guatemala from 1818 to 1821. In 1790, viceroy Revillagigedo ordered Urrutia and

90

Fabián de Fonseca (d. 1813) to gather and edit documents that would help the financial

management of the viceroyalty. Urrutia and Fonseca collaborated with Joaquín Maniau

Torquemada to produce the fifteen-volume Libro de la razón general de la Real Hacienda en

Nueva España. Completed in 1793 and now at the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid (MSS. 10355–

69), the Libro—an inventory of the treasury of New Spain—was published as Historia general del Real Hacienda (6 vols., 1845–53). Urrutia’s Noticia geográfica del reino de Nueva España y estado de su población, agricultura, artes y comercio (Geographical report on the kingdom of

New Spain and the state of its population, agriculture, arts, and trade, 1794) was the first

statistical and demographic text to reflect the new intendancy system that redefined New

Spain’s administrative organization. The Noticia geográfica included a map that illustrated the

new divisions. Humboldt used this map, titled “Plano Geográfico de la Mayor Parte del

Virreynato de Nueva España” (1793).

I.93. Juan LÓPEZ de Vargas Machuca’s map is the “Mapa de las cercanías de México que

comprehende todos sus lugares y ríos; las lagunas de Tescuco, Chalco, , Sn.

Christóbal, Zumpango y Oculma.”

I.93. Antonio FORCADA (also Forcado) y la Plaza (d. 1818) established a drawing school in

Guadalajara in 1788. His drawing school was modeled after and approved by the famous Royal

Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City. He also worked as an assayer and was in charge of the city’s treasury. As chief assayer of Mexico City from 1790 to 1818, Forcada tested and guaranteed the quality of silver used by silversmiths; his marks were “FRDA” and

“FOR/CADA.” In November 1814, the administration granted him and his family permission to

91 return to Spain for two years; he had requested that leave the previous year. Humboldt used

Forcada’s manuscript maps drawn during his visit to Guadalajara.

I.93. A military engineer from Barcelona (Spain), Diego GARCÍA CONDE (1760–1825) began his career in the Spanish Royal Guard in 1772. In New Spain, he worked as a volunteer in the Royal

Corps of Engineers for two decades (1790–1810). Initially an assistant to Manuel Agustín

Mascaró from 1793–1796, García Conde worked with chief engineer Miguel Costanzó at a military base at Orizaba (Veracruz) in 1797. It was among his duties at Orizaba to survey and improve the roads between Veracruz and Mexico City. García Conde wrote a geographical survey of these roads entitled Reconocimiento geográfico con fines estratégicos de la zona comprendida entre las costas de Veracruz y la ciudad de Orizaba (at the Archivo Histórico,

Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Manuscripts, 2a., 43-1.). He also helped draft a map attached to the Reconocimiento, the “Mapa general de los terrenos que se comprenden entre el río de La Antigua y la Barra de Álvarado, hasta la Sierra de Orizaba y ” (MS. IX-A-14.

Museo Naval, Madrid). Humboldt used this map. In 1798, García Conde was appointed director of the construction of a road between Mexico City and Jalapa. Because of his support for the

Spanish Crown during the wars of independence, he was appointed governor and military commander of Zacatecas (1814–1816) and later replaced his brother, Alejo García Conde (1751–

1826), as governor of the intendancy of Durango at New Vizcaya (1818). Captured during the wars, García Conde became a Mexican citizen after independence. Promoted to major-general in the new republic, he became general director of the Corps of Engineers and the founding director of the Military Academy. In 1798, García Conde drew the map Plano en el que se representa la dirección de los dos caminos que bajan de México para Veracruz, por los distintos rumbos de

Orizaba y Xalapa, en la parte que media entre la Sierra a la Costa (Archivo General de la

92

Nación). A year later, he worked on the Plano topográphico nuevamente descubierto que

saliendo de la Villa de Orizaba con dirección a la Ciudad de México, encumbra la Sierra del

Volcán, por el paraje nombrado Lomaverde (Archivo General de la Nación, Fomento Caminos).

I.94. A Spanish military officer of Italian origin, Miguel de la Grúa Talamanca de Carini y

BRANCIFORTE (1755–1812), the first Marquis of Branciforte, was captain-general of the Canary

Islands from 1784 to1790. Charles IV named Grúa viceroy of the Kingdom of New Spain,

where he stayed in power from 1794 to 1798. Considered one of the most corrupt rulers in

Spanish colonial history, Grúa is also responsible for El Caballito, the famous equestrian statue

of Charles IV, which he commissioned in 1796 from Valencian architect and sculptor Manuel

Tolsá.

I.94. Following orders of Viceroy Antonio María de Bucareli, Agustín CRAMER y Mañenas (d.

1780) explored the Isthmus of Tehuantepec for the possibility of an interoceanic waterway. A

talented member of the Royal Corps of Engineers, Cramer was named extraordinary engineer

around 1750. After teaching mathematics at the Mathematics Academy in Barcelona and

working as an engineer in Spain, he was transferred to the Americas. By 1766, Cramer was

working in Cuba, analyzing the state of the military infrastructure and drawing several plans of

the forts and the island. Cramer became governor of the fort of San Juan de Ulua (Veracruz) in

1771. Promoted to brigadier by 1777, he worked in Cumaná, Guyana, and Colombia. As chief

engineer, a position he achieved in 1779, he worked in Campeche (Mexico), Nicaragua, and

Honduras. In 1780, Cramer was named governor of Havana, where he died.

I.94. Spanish military engineer Miguel DEL CORRAL (fl. 1746–1794) worked with Cramer on ascertaining the feasibility of an interoceanic canal across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Corral

93

began a military career as a cadet of the cavalry regiment of Barcelona in 1746. Already member

of the Royal Corps of Engineers in 1753, he was quickly promoted to lieutenant and

extraordinary engineer. He arrived in New Spain in 1764 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel and

as second engineer. Corral was first stationed in Veracruz, then in Mexico City and Perote. In

1773, Corral was promoted to colonel and was stationed at the Pacific Coast ports of San Blas,

Matanchel, and Chacala. In 1780, Corral advanced to chief engineer and served as interim

governor of Veracruz, a post he occupied on several occasions. His son, Manuel del Corral, was

also an engineer. Cramer and Corral’s writings on the forts of New Spain appears in José

Antonio Calderón Quijano’s Historia de las Fortificaciones en Nueva España (History of the the

strongholds of New Spain, 1984).

I.95. A double agent for the Spanish, General James WILKINSON (1757–1825) procured an

unauthorized copy of Humboldt’s New Spain map in 1804, which he then passed on to Zebulon

Pike. As a result of the theft, versions of this map appeared in print before Humboldt himself

could publish it in 1811. Wilkinson possibly shared with Humboldt his own sketch maps of the

area, and Humboldt might have incorporated data from these inaccurate sketches into his own

maps. See also Humboldt’s footnotes on I.65 and 68 in this edition.

I.95. Juan José de PAGAZAURTUNDUA (1755–c. 1817) was born in Mexico City and trained as a

military engineer in Spain. He joined the Royal Corps of Engineers of Spain in 1785 after having graduated from the Mathematics Academy at Barcelona and having served as a volunteer

engineer. He had entered the military service at Soria (Spain) and accumulated twelve years of

military experience before being admitted to the Corps. Pagazaurtundúa returned to his native

New Spain in 1786. The following year, he was stationed in the Western Interior Provinces, and,

94

a year later, he was promoted to lieutenant and extraordinary engineer. In 1793, Pagazaurtundúa

was sent to Guadalajara and remained there until his return to Spain in 1796. While in Cádiz in

1797, he wrote the “Succinta Descripción de las provincias internas,” an English translation of

which was published in Janet R. Fireman’s The Spanish Royal Corps of Engineers in the Western

Borderlands: Instrument of Bourbon Reform, 1764 to 1815 (pp. 227–29) in 1977. After being

captured by the English and spending three years as a prisoner of war, Pagazaurtundúa returned

once again to New Spain in 1802.

I.95. Spanish military officer José Tienda DE CUERVO (d. 1763) led an inspection to Nuevo

Santander, parts of present-day Tamaulipas and Texas. He arrived in the Americas in 1740 and was stationed in New Granada until 1749. In 1757, Tienda de Cuervo left Mexico City for Nuevo

Santander to conduct a six-month inspection, writing a comprehensive report of that province to

supplement that of its founder, José de Escandón y Elguera (1700–1770). The success of the

inspection earned Tienda de Cuervo a promotion to lieutenant colonel. From 1761 to 1762, he

served as interim governor and captain-general of the province of Sonora and Sinaloa. Tienda de

Cuervo’s 1757 report was published in 1929/30 by the Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico)

as part of Estado General de las Fundaciones hechas por D. José de Escandón en la Colonia del

Nuevo Santander Costa del Seno Mexicano (2 vols.).

I.96. Novo–Spanish engraver Manuel (or Emmanuel) Galicia de (1730–c. 1788) owned a printing business in Mexico City. His work was extensive and included some of the most important colonial publications of his time. Villavicencio engraved illustrations for Carlos

Tapia Zenteno’s Noticia de la lengua huasteca (Note on the Aztec language, 1767) and

Francisco Antonio Lorenzana’s Concilios Provinciales (Provincial councils, 1769).

95

Lorenzana’s Historia de Nueva España escrita por su esclarecido conquistador Hernán Cortés

(1770) also features Villavicencio’s work on its cover and in its illustrations. In addition,

Villavicencio engraved Los Meses de el Año Mexicano (The months of the Mexican year) and thirty-two plates in Cordilleras de los Pueblos que antes de la Conquista pagaban tributo á el emperador Muctezuma (Cordilleras of the peoples who paid tribute to the emperor Moctezuma prior to the conquest). Both are stylized reproductions of the important pictorial manuscript

Matrícula de Tributos (Register of tributes) copied from a source in the Boturini collection.

Villavicencio also created a portrait of viceroy Bucareli for Breve descripción de las solemnes exequias que en los días 25 y 26 de este año de 1779 se celebraron en la Santa Iglesia Catedral de México al Exmo. Señor Baylio Fr. Antonio Maria de Bucareli y Ursúa (Brief description of the solemn funeral rites held on the 25th and 26th days of this year of 1779 in the Cathedral of

Santa Iglesia in honor of Don Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa). In 1773 appeared his illustrations for Tomas Cayetano de Ochoa’s Tabla Ecclesiástica Astronómica (Liturgical astronomic table, reprinted in 2001). The Biblioteca Nacional de España (Madrid) houses several engravings by Villavicencio in the Sala Bellas Artes, including “Virgen de Guadalupe”—a copy of José de Alcíbar’s (1730–1803) painting of the virgin of Guadalupe with Saint John and

Juan Diego—and “San Felipe de Jesús.” In addition to drawing illustrations, Villavicencio also worked on maps and charts, among them the “Plano de la ciudad de México dividido en cuarteles. Diciembre 12 de 1782” published in Ordenanzas de la División de la Novilísima

Ciudad de México en Quarteles… mandada a observar por el Virrey Don Martín de Mayorga

(1782). Villavicencio’s “Mapa de la ciudad de Mexico dividido en Quarteles,” together with two religious engravings, is reproduced in Roberto L. Mayer’s México ilustrado: mapas, planos grabados e ilustraciones de los siglos XVI al XIX (1994). For a list of Villavicencio’s work, see

96

Manuel Romero y Terreros’s Grabados y Grabadores en la Nueva España (Mexico: Ediciones

Arte Mexicano, 1948).

I.96. Puebla-born Jesuit Miguel VENEGAS (1680–1764) wrote one of the most complete general histories of the Jesuit missions in California, from the time of their founding in 1697 to 1739.

One of the best sources of the Spanish exploration and conquest of California, especially Lower

California, the manuscript of Empresas apostólicas de los padres misioneros de la Compañía de

Jesús de la Provincia de Nueva España (683 pp.) was completed in 1739. Working from Mexico

City, Venegas relied on historical documentation from the Jesuit archives. The manuscript was sent to Spain and remained unpublished for several years until another Jesuit priest and historian,

Andrés Marcos Burriel y López (1719–62), who believed that the manuscript was too long and cumbersome, edited, updated, and added other reports to it. Venegas’s work saw print as Noticia

de la California y de su conquista temporal y espiritual hasta el tiempo presente (Information about California and its historical and spiritual conquest until the present) in 1757. The Noticia

contains several maps of California, including a folding map and appendices that critically

assessed the accuracy of Bartolomé de Fonte claims to having discovered a Northwest Passage.

Around 1780, Jesuit missionary Miguel del Barco completed his Historia natural y crónica de la Antigua California, in which he added to and revised Venegas’s Noticia. Also in response to the Noticia, Jacobo (or Johann Jakob) Baegert (1717–1772), a Jesuit missionary in Lower

California from 1751 to 1768, wrote Nachrichten von der Amerikanischen Halbinsel Californien

(Accounts of the American peninsula California, 1772), a major work on the Guaicura people of southern Baja California. Venegas also wrote the biography of the Italian Jesuit Juan María de

Salvatierra, a missionary to California and Arizona, entitled El apóstol mariano; vida admirable del V. P. Juan María Salvatierra, conquistador apostólico de las Californias (MSS, Archivo

97

General de la Nacion, Mexico, Historia 300). Venegasia, a sunflower native to

and northwestern Mexico, is named after Venegas.

I.96. Franciscan priest JUNÍPERO SERRA (1713–1784) was a missionary in the area that comprises present-day Mexico and the USAmerican state of California. Born in Petra (Majorca, Spain),

José Miguel Serre (Serra in Catalán) studied in a Franciscan Convent from an early age. In 1731, he joined the Order of Friars Minor and took the name Junípero. Ordained as a priest in 1737,

Serra became a professor of philosophy at the University of Palma until 1743. Arriving at the

College of San Fernando in Mexico City in early 1750, Serra performed missionary work in

Sierra Gorda from 1750 to 1758. While assigned at the College of San Fernando in Mexico City

(1758–67) and serving as a commissioner of the Inquisition, Serra was placed in charge of the

Jesuit missions in Lower California that had fallen into disuse after expulsion of the Society of

Jesus from the Spanish possessions in 1767. Since the Spanish were anxious about Russian activity in the Pacific Northwest, Serra, together with José de Gálvez y Gallardo, conceived of the idea of colonizing Upper California by setting up and maintaining a chain of missions on the west coast. Under the leadership of Captain Gaspar de Portolá Rovira (1723–1784), commander of a military regiment, Serra embarked on what became known as the Sacred Expedition of

1769. Serra reached San Diego by land in 1769; another group of Franciscan friars reached

Upper California by sea on the San Carlos, the San Antonio, and the Señor San José. Following instructions to set up Spanish settlements, Serra founded the mission of San Fernando de

Velicatá (1769) in Baja California. In Upper California, he founded no less than seven missions:

San Diego de Alcalá (1769), San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (1770), San Antonio de Padua

(1771), San Luis Obispo de Tolosa (1772), San Juan Capistrano (1776), Santa Clara de Asís

(1777), and San Buenaventura (1782). During his tenure, his followers also founded San Gabriel

98

Arcángel (1771) and San Francisco de Asís (1776), and Serra served as founding president of the

nine Upper California missions until his death. The missions Serra established in Upper

California were instrumental in securing a Spanish foothold in the region: by 1823, twenty-one

missions dotted the area from San Diego to Sonoma. Humboldt refers here to the Relación

Histórica de la Vida y Apostólicas Tareas del Venerable Padre Fray Junípero Serra (Historial

account of the life and spostolic tasks of the venerable Father Junípero Serra, 1787), written by

Serra-follower Francisco Palóu (1723–1789), a Franciscan missionary. Serra’s biography was

translated into English and annotated by Maynard Geiger (1901–1977) as The Life and Times of

Fray Junípero Serra in 1959. Antonine Tibesar (b. 1909) edited Serra’s writings in a four-

volume edition from 1955–66.

I.96. A Spanish Brigadier from the Canary Islands, Pedro DE NAVA (b. c. 1740) was commander-

general of New Spain’s Interior Provinces (Provincias Internas). Nava, who had entered the

Spanish military in 1753 and had quite a successful career, arrived in New Spain in 1790. He traveled to the interior in the fall of that year to replace Jacobo de Urgarte y Loyola (d. 1798) as commander-general. New Spain’s Provincias Internas was a huge semiautonomous administrative unit comprising Texas, Coahuila, Nueva Vizcaya, New Mexico, Sinaloa, Sonora, and the two Californias (Baja and Alta). In late 1792, Charles IV reunited the previously divided

Provincias Internas and made the territory independent of the viceroy’s control. His Royal Order

ushered in Nava’s administration, which lasted until 1802. Nava chose a peaceful diplomatic

approach to strengthening Spanish relations with the region’s indigenous peoples, especially the

Apaches who has successfully resisted religious (and political) conversion. Nava was replaced

by Nemecio Salcedo. The Spanish King changed his mind about the division of the Interior

Provinces once again in 1804.

99

I.102. Saxon mineralogist Friedrich Traugott SONNESCHMIDT (c. 1763–1824) was among the

eleven mining experts whom Fausto Elhuyar, director-general of the Board of the Mining

Guild, recruited in 1788 to come to New Spain. The purpose of their technical mission was to

introduce to New Spain the Austrian amalgamation method. The mission proved a dismal failure:

not only was the Austrian method more costly than the standard patio method, but it also

produced less silver. Sonneschmidt, who visited the mines at Guanjuato, Zacateras, Chihuahua,

and Catorce during his stay in New Spain (1788–1800), made a sustained but ultimately doomed

effort to find an alternative to patio amalgamation (beneficio de patio), a method first used on a large scale in the silver mines of Pachuca. The amalgamation process as such had been introduced to Spanish America by Bartolome de Medina as early as 1554. Humboldt came into

contact with Sonneschmidt’s work when he was at the Royal School of Mines in Mexico City,

where he met Elhuyar and was also reunited with Andrés del Río, a former fellow student at the

Freiberg Academy.

I.102. Andrés Manuel DEL RÍO (1764–1849) was a highly regarded academic from Madrid who

became the inaugural professor of mineralogy at the Royal School of Mines in Mexico City in

1793. Del Río arrived in Veracruz via Cuba in 1794. Having been chosen by Charles III to

acquire new scientific knowledge about mining and introduce it to New Spain, Del Río studied at

the Royal Academy of Mines at Almadén, the Austrian Imperial-Royal Mining Academy at

Schemnitz, and in Paris with great minds such as the French chemists Jean d’Arcet and Antoine

Laurent Lavoisier. Like Humboldt himself, Del Río also trained under Abraham Gottlob

Werner at the Freiberg Mining Academy. Forced into exile in 1829 when the Spanish were expelled from Mexico, Del Río left the now-independent Mexico for Philadelphia where he lived until resuming his post at the School of Mines in Mexico City in 1834. His vast accomplishments

100

include the independent discovery of the element erythronium, known as vanadium, in 1801 and

the publication of the first mineralogical textbook in the Americas, the Elementos de

orictognosia (Elements of mineralogy, 1795).

I.102. Isidro Vicente VALENCIA (1776–1811), whose parents were from the Mexican state of

Michoacán, was a graduate of the Royal School of Mines, Mexico City. A disciple of Andrés

Manuel del Río’s, Valencia entered the school in 1793; he graduated first in his class. The mining school sent Valencia to the Royal Mines of Zacatecas for an internship (1798), after which he worked at the of Valenciana mine in Guanajuato. Valencia wrote his doctoral thesis while working in Zacatecas; he completed it in 1799. Because of his affiliation with the Mexican independence movement, Valencia was executed in 1811.

I.102. Like Valencia, José Casimiro CHOVELL (1775–1810) was a student at the School of Mines

in Mexico City, which he entered in 1792 after training in mathematics at the Academy of San

Carlos. After studying mineralogy under Andrés Manuel del Río and graduating in 1797,

Chovell was dispatched to Guanajuato. The Mexican independence movement gained momentum while he was administrator of the Valenciana mine in Guanajuato. Because he organized an infantry regiment composed of local miners, then-colonel Chovell was executed in

1810.

I.102. Born in Villarpedre, (Spain), Manuel Ignacio ABAD Y QUEIPO (1751–1825) was

educated at the (Spain), where he studied canon law, literature, and

philosophy after his entry into the priesthood. His initial posting was in Comayagua, in the

Captaincy-general of Guatemala (present-day Honduras). Around 1785, he moved from

Comayagua to Valladolid, Michoacán (present-day, , Michoacán, Mexico), where he

101

worked under the bishop Antonio de San Miguel Iglesias. Upon the bishop’s request, Abad y

Queipo drafted the “Representación sobre la inmunidad personal del clero” (Presentation about

the personal immunity of the clergy, 1799). In defending the clergy’s immunity, he proposed

several measures to bridge the social gap between the indigenous and peoples on one

hand, and Creoles and Spaniards on the other. By 1805, Abad y Queipo had also brought

vaccine to Valladolid and written the “Representación a nombre de los labradores y

comerciantes de Valladolid de Michoacán” (Presentation on behalf of the farmworkers and

business people in Valladolid de Michoacán), his well-reported opinion against the Cédula de

Consolidación de Vales Reales (Decree about the consolidation of royal vouchers) of December

24, 1804. To have access to higher ecclesiastical positions, Abad y Queipo had to travel to Spain

in 1807 to explain his illegitimacy and defend his credibility. While in Spain, he wrote an essay against Napoleon’s (1769–1821) rule in Europe titled “Proclama a los Franceces…”

(Proclamation to the French), first published in Valencia in 1808. Upon his return to New Spain,

Abad y Queipo was elected Bishop of Valladolid, a position he assumed on , 1810.

Because papal confirmation remained pending, he continued to fight for the bishopric of

Valladolid until Ferdinand VII (1784–1833) appointed him Bishop of Tortosa (Spain) in 1820. In

“Representación a la Primera Regencia” (Presentation to the First Regency) from May 30, 1810,

Abad y Queipo warned Spain about the independence movements in the Americas. He pointed to

the backward-looking policies of the then-viceroy and archbishop of New Spain and gave

recommendations on how to prevent the imminent revolution. In 1810, he also excommunicated

his long-time friend Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753–1811), the father of the Mexican

independence movement. Upon his return to Spain in 1815, Abad y Queipo was appointed and

removed as Minister of Grace and Justice (or attorney-general), prosecuted by the Inquisition in

102

Mexico and Spain for disloyalty, arrested for questioning the authority of the Inquisition, and

finally exonerated. In addition to the multiple opinion pieces (the Representaciones), pastoral

letters, reports, and episcopal edicts, Abad y Queipo published a collection of what he deemed

his most important works the title Colección de los escritos más importantes (1813). Humboldt

knew Abad y Queipo and used notes he had received from him, both in New Spain in 1803 and

in 1808, when the latter was in Paris.

I.102. José Vicente DE ANZA (d. c. 1814) was an important mine owner in in the state of

Guerrero (Mexico). In addition to the Taxco mines, Anza owned mines and mining mills in

Sombrerete, Zacatecas, and Fresnillo. Having inherited from his uncle Pedro de Anza shares in the Compañía de Socavonistas—a mining company in Taxco founded in 1779—José Vicente

became its sole owner. An heir and a member of powerful mining in New Spain, Anza

was certified as an expert for mercury detection by the Royal Mining Board and served as a

consultant to it in 1795. Anza lost most of his capital during the Mexican war of independence.

I.102. A wealthy mine owner born in Guanajuato, Antonio Obregón y ALCOCER (1722–1786)

was granted the title of Count of Valenciana in 1780 after having struck the vein of silver that

turned Guanajuato into the richest mining city in the Americas. Architect and owner of the

greatest single fortune in eighteenth-century New Spain, he made his fortune by investing in

silver production, notably in the mine La Valenciana, which produced more silver than the mines

of Peru and Bolivia together. His son, Antonio Francisco Obregón y Barrera (1773–1833),

succeeded him with the title of Second Count of Valenciana.

103

I.103n. Antoine François TARDIEU (1757–1822) was a prominent French cartographer and engraver. Among others, he corresponded with Thomas Jefferson concerning a map of

Louisiana.

I.103n. Humboldt had been candid in his December 20, 1811, letter to Thomas Jefferson, stating that “Mr. Arrowsmith in London has stolen my large map of Mexico, and Mr. [Zebulon]

Pike has taken, rather ungraciously, my report which he undoubtedly obtained in Washington with the copy of this map, and besides, he also extracted from it all the names. I am sorry over my cause for complaint about a citizen of the United States who otherwise showed such fine courage. I don’t find my name in his book and a quick glance at Mr. Pike’s map may prove to you from where he got it” (http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-04-02-0270). In his reply to Humboldt from December 6, 1813, Jefferson wrote, “[t]hat their [the British’s]

Arrowsmith should have stolen your map of Mexico, was in the piratal spirit of his country. But I should be sincerely sorry if our Pike has made an ungenerous use of your candid communication here; and the more so as he died in the arms of victory gained over the enemies of this country.

Whatever he did was on a principle of enlarging kno[w]ledge and not for filthy shillings and pence of which he made none from that book. If what he borrowed has any effect, it will be to excite an appeal in his readers from his defective information to the copious volumes of it with which you have enriched the world. I am sorry he omitted even to ackno[w]ledge the source of his information. It has been an oversight, and not at all in the spirit of his generous nature. Let me solicit your forgiveness then of a declared hero, of an honest and zealous patriot, who lived and died for his country” (http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0011).

104

I.103n. The first hydrographer to the British admiralty, Scottish geographer Alexander

DALRYMPLE (1737–1808) prepared charts for William Vincent’s (1739–1815) The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea (1800 and 1805) and The Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the

Indian Ocean (1807).

I.103n. Louis Stanislas d’Arcy de LA ROCHETTE (also Delarochette, 1731-–1802) was a prominent British engraver and mapmaker. Humboldt’s reference point here is likely the map of

North America and the Antilles that de la Rochette engraved for Robert Wilkinson (d. c. 1825) in

1781: A Map of North America and the West Indies.

I.104. Jean Baptiste POIRSON (1760–1831) was a French geographer, engineer, and globemaker.

The map to which Humboldt refers here is the Carte du Mexique et des pays limitrophes situés

au nord et à l'est (Map of Mexico and adjoining countries to the north and east) from 1811.

I.107. The Revillagigedo Archipelago is a group of four small volcanic islands in the Pacific

Ocean southwest of the southern tip of the Lower California Peninsula. (1753–

1806) surveyed the uninhabited islands, which had first been discovered by Hernando de

Grijalva in 1533, during his 1793–94 expedition to Chile and Lower California to identify ports

suitable for British whalers. Colnett’s narrative of this expedition, A Voyage to the South Atlantic

and round Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean (1798), was instrumental in opening up the south

Pacific sperm whale fishery and related branches of trade. Charles (1809–82) is said to

have carried a copy of the book with him on the HMS Beagle. Earlier in his career, Colnett had

been midshipman for James Cook. He also undertook trade voyages to mainland China to the

Northwest coast of America, where he became embroiled in the Spanish–British Nootka Sound

Dispute in 1789/90.

105

I.107. Ruy LÓPEZ de Villalobos (1500–1546) was the commander of a Spanish expedition to the

Pacific Ocean from 1542 to 1546. A lawyer educated in Spain, he arrived in New Spain in 1540.

Antonio Pacheco de Mendoza, the first viceroy of New Spain, ordered Villalobos, his nephew,

to travel to the Islas del Poniente (Western Islands) of the Mar del Sur, the South Sea (as the

Pacific Ocean was then known). In 1542, Villalobos departed on six vessels (the Santiago, San

Antonio, San Cristobal, San Martin, San Jorge, and San Juan de Letran) to the present-day

Philippines, which (1480–1521) had called the San Lazaro Islands. The expedition crossed the Pacific Ocean in three months. In 1542, Villalobos reached the Islas del

Poniente, naming today’s Samar and Leyte Islands (the Visayas, Philippines) Filipina after the

Crown Prince of Spain who later became Philip II; the name later applied to the entire archipelago. The Villalobos expedition was unable to return to New Spain across the Pacific; on two occasions he attempted in vain to send reports of the voyage to viceroy Pacheco de Mendoza

(1495–1552).

I.107. The first attempt was in 1543 on the San Juan de Letran with Bernardo de la Torre (d.

1546), as commander and Juan GAËTAN as pilot; De la Torre completed the first

circumnavigation of Mindanao (Philippines). The second attempt to reach New Spain was

launched at Island (Indonesia) in 1545, with Yñigo Ortiz de Retes (fl. 1545) as

commander of the San Juan. Ortiz de Retes sailed along the northern coast of New Guinea,

claimed the island for the King of Spain, and so named it in June 1545. Due to Portuguese

presence in the area and a general lack of supplies, Ortiz de Retes was forced to negotiate with

the Portuguese to return to Spain. At Tidore Island, Villalobos surrendered to Fernão de Sousa de

Tavora (fl. 1625), commander of the Portuguese fleet, and signed a treaty with him on November

4, 1545. The fleet departed Tidore in January 1546; Villalobos died shortly thereafter. Some of

106

the members of the expedition survived and returned to Spain (not New Spain) after their

commander’s death. There are at least four accounts of the expedition: the reports by Juan

Gaëtan, García de Escalante Álvarado, Gerónimo de Santiesteban, and an anonymous report

published by Consuelo Varela in El viage de Don Ruy López de Villalobos a las islas del

poniente in 1983. Escalante Álvarado’s report (1548) and Santiesteban’s summary (1547) were published in Colección de documentos inéditos de Ultramar in 1886 (Escalante: vol. 5, pp. 117–

209; Santiesteban: vol. 14, pp. 151–65).

I.107. José CAMACHO y Brenes (d. 1795) was a senior pilot in the 1779 expedition to survey the

Pacific Northwest Coast under Ignacio de Arteaga. During the return leg of that expedition,

Camacho drew a map of San Francisco Bay, adding significantly to chartographic knowledge of

that region. Camacho began his career in the Spanish navy around 1755; he worked as a pilot in

Cádiz before being transfered to San Blas under José de Gálvez y Gallardo’s orders. An

experienced sea pilot, Camacho served on missions to Monterey, San Francisco, San Diego,

Peru, and the Philippines. In addition to the chart of San Francisco Bay, he drew a map of the

bay and the port of Bucareli (1780) and a chart of the Port of Santiago (1780).

I.108. Spanish naval officer ALONSO DE TORRES y Guerra (fl. 1782–1793) was born at Seville. In

1782, Torres reached the rank of commander; his first command was the Ardilla in 1788.

Promoted post-captain in 1792, he served under Bodega y Quadra for the 1792 border

expedition to the Pacific Northwest. He commanded the Santa Gertrudis sent from Callao to San

Blas in 1791 to reinforce the Spanish fleet in the Pacific Northwest. On the return trip to San

Blas, he left Nootka on July 1792 and stopped at Neah Bay (now on the Reservation in

Clallam County, Washington) to determine the suitability of the land for Spanish settlement.

107

Torres also charted part of the Galapagos Islands. His “Carta esférica” is housed at the Library of

Congress.

I.109. British Captain John (1786–1847) was a renowned Arctic explorer. The

purpose of his first significant sea voyage under Captain Matthew Flinders (1774–1814) was to

explore Australia (then New Holland); it ended with a famous shipwreck in 1803. Franklin was

eventually able to return to England via Canton. As the Napoleonic Wars drew to a close in

1815, Franklin’s military career began to founder. It was saved by the Royal Navy’s growing

interest in exploring the Artic, largely thanks to John . Two British expeditions left

England in 1818, one to find the Northwest Passage, the other to cross the Arctic Ocean from

Spitzbergen. Franklin commanded one of the ships of the latter expedition, which proved

fruitless. Barrow, however, was undeterred and proposed two more expeditions, the first one

headed by William Edward Parry, the second by Franklin who was to set out overland from

Hudson Bay to explore and chart the north coast of the American continent. This was an

exceedingly difficult assignment. Little was known about the area; the climate was inclement

during the long winters; and shortage of provisions was a constant problem. When the voyagers

changed from canoe to walking, nine crew members died of starvation. Franklin himself barely

survived. Upon his return to England in 1822, he was celebrated as a hero and was elected fellow

of the Royal Society. The following year, Franklin proposed to the Admiralty another overland

voyage, this time one prepared carefully in advance. This expedition (1826–27) proved successful in charting the unexplored coastline. In the , the navy showed little interest in further Artic explorations. But in 1845, Franklin was once again given the command of an Artic expedition with two ships, over one hundred men, and provisions for three years. Whalers last

108

saw him in northern Baffin Bay in July of that year. Despite an extensive search, no trace of his

expedition was found for five years.

I.109. Unlike Franklin, Scottish fur trader Alexander MACKENZIE (1763–1820) was a paragon of

physical strength and stamina. He emigrated to New York in 1774. After moving to Canada in

1779, he joined a fur-trading company that was later part of the North West Company (1787). A

successful trader and zealous explorer, he became a partner in the company in 1785 and

established Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca (Canada) in 1788 as a base of future northwestern exploration. A year later, Mackenzie embarked on an expedition attempting to reach the Pacific Ocean and open a trade route through the northwest. His company left Fort

Chipewyan in June 1789, traveled north to the Great Slave Lake, then west to the mouth of the

Mackenzie River (Northwest Territories, Canada), and continued north past the Great Bear River until reaching the Arctic. After his failed attempt at reaching the Pacific and securing more shares in the North West Company, Mackenzie returned to England. In 1792, however, he was back at Fort Chipewyan from where he left in October for a second attempt at reaching the

Pacific. He traveled west and south on rivers (Peace, Parsnip River, McGregor, and Fraser) until crossing much of present-day British Columbia, reaching Fort and finally the Pacific

Ocean via the Dean River in July 1793. By August of that year, he had returned to Fort

Chipewyan, where he stayed until deciding to settle in Montreal in 1794. In 1799, after finding out that he was no longer a partner in the North West Company, he returned to England where he worked on publishing the accounts of his explorations. He was knighted in 1802, became an elected politician in the legislative assembly of Lower Canada (1804–1808), and retired to

Scotland in 1812. He published his travel accounts as Voyages from Montreal on the River St.

109

Laurence, through the continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans in the years

1789 and 1793 in 1801.

I.109. In the early 1770s, the explorer and fur trader Samuel HEARNE (1745–1792) led expeditions in the part of North America that is today’s Canada; he was the first to see and cross the Great Slave Lake. His travel account was published posthumously in 1795 and translated into five languages.

I.110. This may be Barthélemy LAFON (1769–1820), an architect, engineer, and cartographer from New Orleans. As far as we can tell, the map in question is lost.

I.110. Mechanic, inventor, and astronomer RITTENHOUSE (1732–1796), an autodidactic mathematician, was built several high-prized astronomical instruments, including transit and equal altitude instruments, zenith sectors, telescopes, barometers, metallic thermometers, hygrometers, and orreries. The owner of an instrument-making shop, he designed and built sought-after surveying instruments by 1770. Rittenhouse is credited as the inventor of the vernier surveying compass that compensates for the angular difference between the true north and magnetic north. As city surveyor of Philadelphia (1774), he served on commissions to demarcate

the borders of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. A skilled astronomical observationist, he also helped survey a ninety-mile westward extension of the Mason–Dixon Line (1784). Rittenhouse was a member of the American Philosophical

Society (1768) and served as its librarian, curator, secretary, vice president, and president. He was also a professor of astronomy of the University of Pennsylvania (1780–81) and was appointed a foreign member of the Royal Society of London in 1795. Rittenhouse served as the first director of the USAmerican Mint (1792–95). In addition to calculating ephemerides for

110

USAmerican almanacs, Rittenhouse published an essay, “An Easy Method for Deducing the

True Time of the Sun’s Passing the Meridian” (1771) that was reprinted in Franz Xaver von

Zach’s Tabulae Motuum Solis (1792).

I.110. USAmerican surveyor Andrew ELLICOTT (1754–1820) began his career as a surveyor commissioned to establish the Virginia–Pennsylvania border in 1784. He later surveyed

Pennsylvania’s western and northern boundary (1787) and found employment as a surveyor for

the federal government (1789–91). Initially the manager of the family business (mills and

clockmaking) who supplemented his income by building mathematical instruments and

calculating ephemerides for The United States Almanack, Ellicott became a mathematics and

astronomy professor at the Baltimore Academy in 1785. In 1791, President George Washington

(1732–1799) commissioned him to survey the ten-mile square territory that would serve as the

national capital; Ellicott’s report appeared in the Transactions of the American Philosophical

Society 4 (1799): 49–51. A member of the American Philosophical Society since 1786, he

undertook other important surveys, including those of the boundary between United States and

Spanish territory in Florida (report published in 1803), the northern boundary between Georgia

and South Carolina (1811), and the astronomical observations to determine the 45th parallel of

latitude for the boundary between Canada and the United States (1817, 1819). Ellicott died while

serving as a professor of mathematics at the USAmerican Military Academy at West Point.

Ellicott City in Maryland is named after him.

I.112. In 1751, French astronomer Joseph-Jérôme Lefrançais de LALANDE (1732–1807)

accurately measured the Earth’s distance to the Moon, simultaneously with Nicolas Louis de

Lacaille. Having succeeded his former professor, Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, at the Collège de

111

France in 1761, Lalande helped organize expeditions to observe the transit of Venus (in 1761 and

1769), using their results to calculate the solar parallax, that is, the angular width of the Earth’s

equatorial radius at the center of the sun at the mean distance between the earth and the sun. His

Historie céleste française (Celestial ) from 1801 catalogued over 47,000 stars.

One of them was the planet Neptune, which Lalande recorded in 1795, fifty-one years before the

German astronomer Johann Gottfried (1812–1910) located it. Also part of the catalogue is the

fourth-closest star to the sun, named Lalande 21185. Among other works on astronomy and

narratives about his travels to Italy and England, Lalande also published the books Astronomie

(1764) and Bibliographie astronomique (1803). He established the Lalande Prize for outstanding

contributions to astronomy with the French Academy of Science (1802–1970).

I.112. Due to his precarious health, German astronomer Johann Friedrich WURM (1760–1833),

who was a trained vicar and a high school teacher of classical languages and mathematics in

Blaubeuren and Stuttgart from 1800 to 1824, had little opportunity to do his own field research.

Instead, he devoted himself to astronomic calculations and often corrected the work of other

astronomers. His name appeared regularly in such scientific journals as Zeitschrift für

Astronomie und verwandte Wissenschaften (Journal for astronomy and related sciences) and

Zach’s Monatliche Correspondenz zur Beförderung der Erd- und Himmels-Kunde (Monthly

correspondence for the furtherance of geography and astronomy). Among Wurm’s early

publications are also the books Geschichte des neuen Planeten (History of the new planet Uranus, 1791) and Praktische Anleitung zur Parallaxenberechnung (Practical guide to parallax calculation, 1804). Since he had an excellent command of classical languages, he was also able to do important historical work on Arabic, Greek, and Roman astronomy.

112

I.112. Hamburg-born Christoph Daniel EBELING (1741–1817) studied theology, philology,

geography, and history at the University of Göttingen, where he developed an interest in North

America. In addition to his work as a scholar of music and literature, he created a private

America collection of more than 3,000 books and 10,000 maps, which was given to Harvard

College after his death. His magnum opus was the seven-volume Erdbeschreibung und

Geschichte von America (Geography and history of America, 1796–1816). Ebeling’s work may

be seen as a continuation of Anton Friedrich Büsching’s (1724–1793) monumental geographical

text, Neue Erdbeschreibung (1754–1757), which Patrick Murdoch translated into English as A

New System of Geography (1762).

I.112. Constantin François de Chassebœuf, Count DE VOLNEY (1757–1820) was a French

philosopher, historian, orientalist, and politician. In 1795, he undertook a journey to the West

Indies and to the United States, where John Adams’s (1735–1826) administrations accused him

of being a French spy sent to prepare for the reoccupation of Louisiana by France. The results of

his travels took form in his Tableau du climat et du sol des États-Unis (Tableau of the climate

and the of the United States, 1803).

I.112n. Amateur astronomer WILLIAM LAMBERT (d. 1834), a clerk at the Department of State

(1790–93) and the War Office’s Pension Fund (1793–1821), attempted to determine the longitude of the USAmerican capitol from Greenwich Observatory. Lambert had built a small

private observatory on Capitol Hill, in which he made astronomical observations to be forwarded

to Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826). To avoid depending on the calculations of foreigners,

Lambert, in 1809, proposed a new prime meridian running through the center of the Capitol in

Washington, D.C., and advocated for his cause until 1824. Although a permanent astronomical

113

observatory was never established, some cartographers in the United States employed the

proposed new USAmerican meridian until Greenwich was adopted as an international standard

in 1884. Lambert published Calculations for ascertaining the Latitude North of the Equator and

the Longitude West of Greenwhich Observatory, in England, of the Capitol, at the City of

Washington, in the United States of America in 1805. His final report on the subject was

published as Message from the President of the United States in 1824.

I.113. Heinrich Friedrich von STORCH (aka Andrej Karlowitsch Schtorch, 1766–1835) was a

Russian economist of German descent. He became known in 1790 with Skizzen, Scenen und

Bemerkungen, auf einer Reise durch Frankreich gesammelt (Sketchen, scenes, and comments

collected during travels across France). In 1789, he was appointed professor of Fine Arts at the

Military Academy in St. Petersburg. His first important statistical work shows the influence of

Adam Smith (1723–90), Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832), Jean-Charles-Léonard Simonde de

Sismondi, and Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832): Gemälde von St. Petersburg (The Picture of St.

Petersburg, 1801), saw print in Riga in 1794 and was quickly translated into a host of other languages. Of particular interest about Storch’s economic theories are the connections he establishes between economic and cultural development (what Pierre Bourdieu calls “cultural capital” would not have been a foreign concept to Storch). Gemälde set a standard for European accounts of the city and is still frequently quoted. In 1804 and 1808, Storch was inducted into the

St. Petersburg and Bavarian Academies of Sciences. Storch’s Rußland unter Alexander I, to which Humboldt refers here, appeared between 1803 and 1811.

I.115. Tomás LÓPEZ DE VARGAS Machuca (1730–1802) was one of Spain’s most important

geographers and cartographers in the eighteenth century. After studying grammar, , and

114

painting in Madrid, he began his career as a geographer in 1752, when he went to Paris with a

group of other geographers, including Antonio de Ulloa, to study map engraving. In Paris, he

studied with D’Anville and in 1755 collaborated with Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla on a

nautical map of Mexico and the Antilles (Mapa marítimo del Golfo de México e islas de América and Mapa de la América Septentrional). In 1758, he published the Atlas geográphico de la

América Septentrional y Meridional (Geographical atlas of northern and southern America).

Upon returning to Spain after an eight-year residency in Paris (1752–1760), López was put in charge of the newly created Cabinet of Geography and thus of making maps of the entirety of

Spain. A member of the Royal Academy of History since 1776 and the King’s Geographer,

López created about two hundred maps, including a complete series of maps of the provinces of

Spain and maps of America. His sons, notably Juan López (1765–1830), were map-making apprentices and carried on the trade. Juan López collaborated with his father on several projects, including drawing the maps of America. The Royal Academy of History has a collection of forty maps of the Americas by Tomás, Juan, and other authors (twenty-three for North America including Central America and the Caribbean and seventeen for South America). These maps are reproduced in Antonio López Gómez and Carmen Manso Porto’s Cartografía del Siglo XVIII

(Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 2006). Most of the printed maps of America were done by or with the collaboration of Juan López. By recommendation of his father, Juan became a member of the Royal Academy of History in 1796. He was also in charge of the Cabinet of

Geography in his father’s absence. Juan also worked on into Spanish and published his Disertación ó memoria geográfico-histórica sobre la Bastitania y Contestania about the old kingdom of Murcia (Spain) in 1795.

115

I.117. Architect Luis MARTÍN (1772–c. 1808) was born in Almaluez (Spain). He arrived in New

Spain in 1786 to attend the Academia de San Carlos, where he earned prizes in geometry and

architecture. In 1788, Miguel Costanzó employed him as a draftsman. After graduating from the

Academy in 1791, Martín designed the neoclassical church of Santiago Zapatitlán at Tlapa in the present-day state of Guerrero (Mexico). In 1798, he designed and oversaw the construction of a bridge in Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo. The following year, he was transferred to Oaxaca as an architect.

During his time at Oaxaca, Martín and Pedro de Laguna drew the first images of Mitla that

Humboldt reproduced as plates XLIX and XL in Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the

Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. Humboldt thought very highly of Martín. Having been investigated by the Inquisition since 1789, Martín was excommunicated in 1803, but the

Inquisition absolved him of any charges in 1805. He died before 1816, possibly around 1808.

I.118. British mapmaker and engraver Emanuel (c. 1693–1767) began his career as an

apprentice engraver in 1709. In addition to etching and selling prints, he engraved maps for

George Willdey’s (c. 1676–1737) Atlas of the World (c. 1717) and John Owen’s Britannia

Depicta or Ogilby Improved (1720). In 1729, Bowen conducted a survey and engraved a six- sheet map of South Wales (“A new and accurate map of South Wales”). He continued to make maps of British counties, took apprentices, and became a master engraver and mapmaker. By

1750, Bowen had become a top engraver. He published seventy-six maps, British and foreign, in the General Magazine of Arts and Sciences, Philosophical, Philological, Mathematical, and

Mechanical (1755–1765), and others in periodicals such as The Universal Magazine of

Knowledge and Pleasure (1747–1803). In addition to producing numerous maps for other’s atlases, Bowen published the Complete System of Geography (1744–1747) and the Complete

Atlas or Distinct View of the Known World (1752). With his protégé and son-in-law Thomas

116

Kitchin (1719–1784), he also completed The Large English Atlas or A new set of maps of all the

countries in England and Wales (1760) and The Royal English Atlas: Being a New and Accurate

Set of Maps of all the Counties of South Britain (c. 1763). Near the time of his death, Bowen

collaborated with his son, Thomas Bowen (c. 1732–1790), on the Atlas Anglicanus or a

Complete Set of Maps of the Counties of South Britain (1767–1768). Humboldt refers here to one of Bowen’s most reproduced maps, “An accurate map of North America describing and distinguishing the British, Spanish and French dominions” (1763), which is at the Bibliothèque

Nationale de France.

I.119. Miner, businessman, and government representative JOSÉ MARÍA FAGOAGA Liyzaur

(1764–1837) was born in Oiartzun (Gipuzkoa, Spain). A member of a powerful, wealthy, and

well-connected family of miners of Basque-descent that lived in Mexico City, he made a fortune

from his silver mines in Sombrerete and Zacatecas. He studied at the School of San Ildefonso,

was active on the Royal Mining Board, and held numerous administrative and political positions in New Spain. In 1815, Fagoaga was arrested and exiled to Spain for supporting the Mexican

independence movement. He returned to New Spain in 1820 and was elected representative of

the province of Mexico to the Courts. A member of the Mexican Provisional Government Board,

he was among the representatives that signed the Declaration of Independence of Mexico. A

supporter of British investment in Mexico, he was also a member of the Constitutional Congress

of Mexico.

I.119. The FAGOAGA family was one the most important mining dynasties in eighteenth-century

New Spain. For three generations, the family’s properties (silver mines) gave it power and

influence. The patriarch of the family was the Basque merchant and banker Francisco Fagoaga

117

Iragorri (1678–1736), who established the foundations of the family enterprise in 1607 through a

gold and silver exchange and mintage business. Upon Francisco’s death, his wife and business

partner, Josefa de Arozqueta (d. 1772), administrated the business with the help of their son-in-

law, Manuel de Aldaco (d. 1770). Arozqueta then bequeathed her fortune to her surviving

children, Colonel Francisco Manuel (c. 1725–1799), Marquis del Apartado, and Juan Bautista (c.

1728–1805). The heirs decided to not divide the bequest and expanded the family business by

acquiring agricultural and mining real estate; they also acted as money lenders. The brothers united their interests by marrying Josefa María, daughter of Francisco Manuel, to one of Juan

Bautista’s sons, José María Fagoaga.

I.122. French geologist and botanist Louis-François Elisabeth RAMOND (1755–1827), Baron de

Carbonnières, was the first explorer of the Pyrenees. Starting in 1787, his expeditions led him to

climb many peaks and passes. In 1802, Ramond became the driving force behind the first ascent

of the Pyrenees’ Monte Perdido (11,007 ft) next to the enormous glacial valley of Ordesa in

today’s Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park. Ramond wrote extensively about this experience

in his 1801 travelogue, Voyages au Mont-Perdu et dans la Partie adjacente des Hautes-Pyrénées

(Travels to Mont-Perdu and in the neighboring parts of the High-Pyrenees). Indebted to German

Romanticism, Ramond’s works on landscape description, in which he fused science with poetry

by focusing on the act of perception, became an important inspiration for European naturalists

and explorers at the turn of the century. Humboldt’s own Views of Nature is an example of this

.

I.122. An accomplished poet and dramatist, Antonio de SOLÍS y Rivadeneyra (1610–1686) was

appointed Spain’s Chief Chronicler in 1661, an office in which he succeeded Antonio de León

118

Pinelo (c. 1590–1660). A native of Alcalá, where he studied , philosophy, and laws, Solís

authored the Historia de la conquista de México (History of the Conquest of Mexico, 1684), in

which he defended Spain’s conquest of the Mexica empire to improve his country’s image in the international community. To that same end, Solís corrected earlier accounts of the conquest and argued against what he believed to be other historians’ biases. Although he spent twenty years preparing the manuscript for the Historia, a literary elaboration of known historical events written in epic style, Solís completed only the first part, which covers the Conquest through the fall of Tenochtitlán in 1521. The most popular chronicle of the late seventeenth century, the

Historia was translated into all the major European languages. It served as the reference book on

Cortés and the Conquest until the nineteenth century.

I.122. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, William ROBERTSON (1721–1793) was a

historian and minister of the Church of Scotland. Robertson’s History of America, first published

in 1777, proved so popular that it saw nine editions until 1780 alone. Robertson had started the

History in 1769 upon completion of his biography of Charles V, a book that had sealed his

reputation as one of Europe’s leading historians. But the book had also made him realize that the

history of sixteenth-century Europe would be incomplete without an account of the colonization of the . The History was considered his masterpiece, although it does suffer from certain limitations, such as an unsurprisingly Eurocentric worldview. Robertson also published works on Scotland (1759) and India (1784).

I.122. Dutch-born philosopher and historian Cornelius DE PAUW (1739–1799) was a disciple of

Georges-Louis Leclerc, the famous Comte de , author of the monumental anti-

Americanist (Natural history, 1749–88). Humboldt’s refusal of the “systematic

119

ideas” of such authorities on the European Enlightenment as de Pauw, Raynal, and Robertson in his discussion of the mythological characteristics and cultural specifics of the

Stone is no accident. In his very popular Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains

(Philosophical researches on the Americas, 1768–1769), De Pauw had advanced his degeneracy thesis about the indigenous American cultures: according to him, it was inevitable that plants, animals, humans, and, by extension, human institutions, whether indigenous or transplanted from

Europe, would eventually degenerate in the unfavorable American environment. The “natural people” of the Americas were, therefore, to be seen as naïve children obeying only the impulses of their instincts; they were incurably lazy and incapable of any mental progress. Instead of just reading travel accounts like de Pauw did, Humboldt had actual travel experiences and extensive studies to back up his counterarguments.

I.124. Spanish naval officer Fernando María NOGUERA (b. 1761, fl. 1792–1797) was a member

of Joaquín Francisco Fidalgo’s hydrographic expedition (from 1792 to 1797) to the coast of

the viceroyalty of New Granada in 1792. This expedition was part of a larger endeavor by the

Spanish Royal Navy to chart the Gulf of Mexico and the Antilles between 1792 and 1805.

Having entered the navy in 1778, Noguera departed Cádiz with the Fidalgo expedition on July 4,

1792. On the ship San Servando (also known as Empresa) Noguera, who held the rank of senior

lieutenant, helped chart the southern Caribbean Sea between Trinidad and the southern coast of

Cartagena.

I.124. Spanish naval officer and mathematician Gabriel de CISCAR y Ciscar (1759–1829) studied

at the University of Valencia. In 1777, he entered the Naval Academy at Cartagena, where he

later became professor of mathematics (1788). Ciscar was also the Spanish representative to the

120

French National Institute for the establishment of the metric system (1798). His Memoria

elemental sobre los nuevos pesos y medidas decimales fundados en la naturaleza (Basic account

of the new pesos and the decimal measurements founded in nature) from 1800 was among the

first publications arguing in favor of the metric system.

I.124. Spanish cartographer, painter, and engraver Juan de LA CRUZ Cano y Olmedilla (1734–

1790) published a landmark map of South America, the Mapa Geográfico de América

Meridional (Geographical map of South America, 1775), which Humboldt owned. The Mapa

Geográfico, a modern, very detailed map drawn on the basis of the results of maritime explorations and astronomical observations, was engraved by Hipólito Ricarte (fl. 1750–1794).

Because of the potential territorial conflicts it might cause, the map’s sale was prohibited in

Spain until 1802. Together with Tomás López, Cruz trained in engraving and cartography with d’Anville in Paris for eight years (1752–1760). In 1764, Cruz was admitted to the Royal Arts

Academy of San Fernando on the basis of academic merit. In addition to creating cartographic works, Cruz published a set of engravings titled Colección de Trajes de España (Collection of dresses from Spain, 1777–1778). Juan’s brother, Ramón de la Cruz (1731–1794), was a Spanish poet and dramatist.

I.126. In 1800, Basque pilot Joaquín de GOYENECHE lived in the city of Quibdó in the province

of Chocó (now Colombia). He supported the idea of opening an interoceanic canal there.

I.134. In 1820, Edwin JAMES (1797–1861) was appointed to Major Stephen Harriman Long’s government-supported expedition from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains (1819–20) as

surgeon, botanist, and geologist. Long was charged with mapping the Missouri River and its

tributaries and with documenting the plants, animals, and indigenous peoples encountered along

121

the way. One of the first scientists to explore the Rocky Mountains and the surrounding area,

James lead the first ascent of Pikes Peak. He also compiled the expedition’s findings in Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains (1822–1823). The account was based on notebooks, recollections, and additional information that other members of the party, including Long himself, supplied. Later on, James served as an Indian agent and learned the

Ojibwe language. In 1830, he edited the Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John

Tanner.

I.134. Captain Henry Miller SHREVE (1785–1851) was the American steamboat captain who

built a thriving transportation business and invented a special snagboat with which to clear rivers

of dead wood and other obstructions. He is best known for clearing the so-called Great Raft of

the Red River, a massive logjam 160 miles long that had made westward expansion from

Natchitoches in northwest Louisiana to Arkansas virtually impossible. In 1826, Shreve became

an employee of the USAmerican Army Corps of Engineers and superintendent of navigation for

the tributaries of the Mississippi River. By 1832, he had cleared all blockages on the Ohio,

Arkansas, and Mississippi Rivers. In doing so, he had mounted an unintended legal challenge to

the Fulton–Livingston monopoly on government contracts for shipping on the lower Mississippi.

In the spring of 1833, Shreve began the five-year task of opening up the Red River. Three years

later, he and his partners founded a settlement called Shreve Town, which overlooked the final

section of the raft to be cleared. By the time the job was completed in 1839, the town was known

as Shreveport. Captain Shreve’s older brother was John Shreve.

122

I.135. The PLATTE RIVER in empties into the Missouri. It is the confluence of the South and the North Platte Rivers. The South Platte River was known as PADOUCA FORK even after

1800. Padouca (or Paducah) is another name for the Comanches.

I.138. Humboldt portrayed his isothermal work as a continuation of a project sketched by the

German astronomer and cosmographer Johann TOBIAS MAYER (1723–1762) to the Göttingen

Academy of Sciences in 1755 and published by Georg Lichtenberg (1742–1799) in 1775. Mayer developed a theory of heat distribution on the Earth’s surface in terms of trigonometrical equations with indeterminate coefficients. Humboldt held up Mayer’s astronomical method as exemplary for his own enterprise, not because it enshrined gravitational equilibration as a universal heuristic but because it placed precise measurement at the center of any attempt to reveal the laws of temperature or magnetism.

I.139. Naval officer Bernardo de ORTA (fl. 1788–1806) was commander at the port of Veracruz in 1788. In addition to drawing a map of the Port of Veracruz published by the Depósito

Hidográfico of Madrid, Orta gathered data about Veracruz between 1789 and 1803. Humboldt analyzed this data. On the basis of his barometric observations, Orta wrote the “Noticia sobre estaciones del Seno Mexicano” (About the seasons in the Seno Mexicano, 1795).

I.140n. Pierre-Antoine CLERC (1770–1843) was a French military engineer. In 1811, he created a large map of the Gulf of La Spezia in the Liguria region of Northern Italy. This was the first map with contour lines in the . It marked an important step forward in cartographical technique and representation. As professor for topography of the French École

Polytechnique, Clerc set up various research groups to develop better methods for assembling such large maps for military and scientific purposes. With his three-volume Essai sur les

123

éléments de la pratique des levers topographiques et de son enseignement (Essay concerning the

practice and teaching of topographical leveling, 1839–1843), Clerc set the methodological

foundations for modern topography.

I.141n. Louis-Joseph-Alexandre de LABORDE (1773–1842) was a French politician and man of letters. Sent into exile in Vienna after the guillotining of his father, he joined the Austrian army.

From 1800 to 1801, he was an attaché at the French embassy in Madrid under Lucien Bonaparte

(1775–1840) who, unlike his brother Napoleon (1769–1821), seems to have held genuinely

revolutionary ideas. Upon his return to France, Laborde assembled a team of artists and writers

to help complete two voluminous works on Spain: the Itinéraire descriptif de l'Espagne

(Descriptive travels in Spain, 5 vols. plus an atlas, 1809) and the Voyage pittoresque et historique en Espagne (Picturesque and historical voyage in Spain, four folio vols., 1807–1818).

The latter contained over nine hundred views of Madrid, Seville, Córdoba, and other antiquities in Spain engraved on copper plate. It was an expensive project that seriously drained Laborde’s resources. His Itinéraire would prove unexpectedly, and unwittingly, useful during the

Napoleonic invasion of Spain. Laborde was named to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-

lettres in 1816.

I.141n. In 1805, French politician Jean-Marie POYFÉRRÉ, BARON DE CÈRE (1768–1758) received

a prize from the Society for the Improvement of French Wool for his work with merino sheep

(he had founded a model sheep farm in Cère). Later on, he was honored by the Agricultural

Society of La Seine for having brought to France a herd of 1,200 merino sheep during the

Spanish War of Independence, crossing rebellious provinces at the risk of his life.

124

I.142–43. What is the alternative to descriptive text in our attempt to best condense the

complexity of scientific data so that the reader gets it all in one glance? This might just be one of

the core concerns of Humboldtian Science and of Humboldt’s Essai de Pasigraphie (Essay on

Pasigraphy, 1803/1804, not published until 1958). The Essai is one of the first related conceptual outlines in the field of abstract visualization in the sciences and marks an early attempt at what we today know as statistical data design. Since his research on Versuche über die gereizte

Muskel- und Nervenfaser (Experiments on galvanized muscle and nerve fiber, 2 vols., 1797),

Humboldt had eagerly explored the semiotic and symbolic possibilities of data display. It is during his time at Mexico City’s School of Mines that his pasigraphical ideas become part of a seminar reader Humboldt had assembled for the school’s students; it was translated from the

French manuscript to Spanish as part of Andrés Manuel del Río’s Elementos de orictognosía

(Elements of orictognosis, 1805). The goal was to establish a sort of universal scripture of signs, a concept first discussed by the German philosopher and naturalist Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

(1646–1716), one of the key figures of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century science. The pasigraphy (from the Greek, meaning “scripture to everyone”) Humboldt had in mind was meant to solve the problem of the often imprecise description of the geognostical surveys of his time.

Only a new method of graphic and symbolic representation would be capable of presenting all at once: the Earth’s layers; its components and density; and the surface altitude, including its outcrops and mountain peaks. Always caring more about the general outline than about the singular phenomenon, Humboldt’s Essai den Pasigraphie explains two things: one, how to apply a newly designed set of symbols for eighteen core geological traits, and two, how to combine graphically the horizontal and vertical projections of the Earth’s geological profiles in order to obtain more complex, yet economical, “cut-through” illustrations that could function either as

125

“altitude maps” (like Humboldt’s iconic 1805 Tableau physique des Andes et Pays voisins

(Physical tableau of the Andes and neighboring countries) or “rock formation maps,” the latter placing greater emphasis on the succession of rock layers than on exact spatial scaling.

I.142n. Humboldt refers here to “Nivelación Barométrica desde Cartagena hacia Santa-Fe.”

Drafted on the basis of his voyage on the in the months of April, May, and

June 1801, Humboldt’s map first appeared in print in the periodical Anales de Ciencias

Naturales (Madrid) to illustrate “Nivelación barométrica hecha por el Barón de Humboldt in

1801 desde Cartagena de Indias hasta Santa Fe de ” (1802). Humboldt’s “Carta del curso

del río de la Magdalena desde Honda hasta el Dique de Mahares, formada sobre las

observaciones astronómicas hechas en Abril, Mayo y Junio de 1801” is housed at the Biblioteca

Luis Angel Arango (Bogotá, Colombia) in the section of Rare Books and Manuscripts (H3).

I.146 Jean-Louis DUPAIN-TRIEL (1722–1805) was a geographical engineer and mapmaker who

eventually became Royal Geographer of France. Humboldt’s reference is to Dupain-Triel’s

experimental map of France from 1789/99 (see his Carte de la France in Humboldt’s Library).

I.157. Rafael DÁVALOS (b. 1782/86–1810) was a member of a family in the mining business in

New Spain. Trained at the Mining School in Mexico City (1800–1805), he was commissioned in

1805 to do the practical aspect of his training in the mine of Morán of Real del Monte (present-

day Hidalgo), together with Juan José Rodríguez. Dávalos was transferred to Guanajuato in

1806. Interim professor of mathematics at the Colegio de la Purísima Concepción de Guanajuato,

126

he was a teacher of Lucas Alamán’s. Because of his support for Hidalgo during the Mexican

war of independence, Dávalos was executed by a firing squad in 1810.

I.157n. A native of Real San José del Parral (present-day Chihuahua), then a mining town in

Nueva Vizcaya, Juan José RODRÍGUEZ (fl. 1800–1805) entered the School of Mines in 1800. In

1804, he passed Andrés del Río’s exams on mine work and structural geology. A year later,

Rodríguez was assigned to the mine of Jesús in Real del Monte.

I.158. Basque-descended Novo–Spaniard IGNACIO DE CASTERA (1777–1811) was trained by his

father in geometry, mathematics, and the use of instruments for architecture and land

measurement. Licensed as a land surveyor and architect in 1777, Castera worked as a land

surveyor (or agrimensor) and took on the task of making six plans of the city between 1776 and

1794. Castera worked as inspector of architecture (1786), was appointed construction manager of

the city (1781–1811), the famous Real Desagüe del Valle de México, the city’s drainage system

(1783–1811), and the Royal (1794–1806). In addition to holding administrative positions,

Castera was a professor of architecture at the Royal Academy of San Carlos, starting in 1791.

I.160. Hamburg-born mathematician, printer, and engineer ENRICO MARTÍNEZ (c. 1555–1632,

also Henrico, Enrique, or Henrico, and Heinrich Martin) moved to Seville (Spain) at an early

age, traveled Europe as a young man, and studied mathematics in France. He arrived in New

Spain in 1589 and worked as an interpreter of Flemish and German for the Inquisition.

Appointed Royal Cosmographer (official consultant in meteorology and cartography) in 1603,

Martínez copied the cartographic results of the Vizcaíno expedition to the Pacific (thirty-two maps). He also worked on a sketch of New Mexico, probably in 1600, titled “Rasguño de las provincias de la Nueva México.” Appointed chief engineer for the Desagüe del Valle de México,

127

the drainage system of the Valley of Mexico in 1607, he completed the principal canal in 1608

and maintained it until 1623. The drainage system consisted of an 8.2-mile long all-valley canal

and four-mile tunnel to drain out recurrent floodwaters. Blocked with derbis and soil, the trench

did not work during the Great Flood of Mexico City in 1629. Martínez was blamed and promptly

imprisoned for the failure. Although he worked on a solution to drain the flooded city, he died

before seeing the waters recede in 1634. The owner of a press and a printer, Martínez authored the Reportorio de los Tiempos y Historia Natural Desta Nueva España (Collection of the times and natural history of New Spain, 1606).

I.160. Prussian-born physician Johann Gottfried EBEL (1764–1830) first visited Switzerland in

1790 and ended up spending three years exploring the country. He became a Swiss citizen in

1801. The result of his early travels was the first real guidebook to traveling in Switzerland:

Anleitung, auf die nützlichste und genussvollste Art in der Schweitz zu reisen (Instructions for

traveling in Switzerland in the most useful and pleasurable way, 1793). The book included

drawings and an atlas.

I.160. Georg Rudolf Daniel OSTERWALD (1803–1884) was a German painter, illustrator, and

engraver who did his major work in the 1830s to 1850s. It is unclear how and where Humboldt

would have come in contact with his landscape paintings prior to 1830.

I.162. Spanish-born clergyman Francisco Antonio de LORENZANA y Buitrón (1722–1804)

became a priest in 1734, was trained in canonical law, and quickly rose to the highest rank of the

Catholic Church. After being appointed Bishop of Plasencia in 1765, he was named archbishop

of Mexico (1766–1772). Presiding over the fourth Mexican provincial council in 1771,

Lorenzana published the documentary result of the previous three councils (1555, 1565, and

128

1585) in Concilios Provinciales (1769–1770). A learned clergyman, he is famous for editing and

annotating Historia de Nueva España escrita por su esclarecido conquistador Hernán Cortés

(History of New Spain written by its enlightened conquistador Hernán Cortés, 1770) and for

publishing Cartas pastorales y edictos (Pastoral letters and edicts, 1770). Appointed cardinal in

1789, Lorenzana served as the Spanish representative to the in 1797. The resolutions of

the IV Provincial Council of Mexico, which were never approved by the monarch or the ,

were first published as Concilio IV Provincial Mexicano, celebrado en el año 1771 in 1898.

I.163. Wilhelm Friedrich GMELIN (1745–1821) was an engraver and painter from Germany who studied under Christian von Mechel (1737–1817) in Basel, Switzerland. His best works were inspired by Claude Lorrain (c. 1605–1682) and Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665). Gmelin moved to

Rome in 1788, where he worked until his death. Louis Bouquet (fl. 1800–1817) was an engraver

who focused on landscapes. He and Gmelin collaborated in the production of Humboldt’s plates

for Views of the Cordilleras.

I.163n. Historian Antonio de REMESAL (1570–1619) arrived in the Americas in 1614 to conduct

missionary work in Comayagua (present-day Honduras). Remesal studied in the University of

Salamanca and entered the Dominican Order in 1592. In 1615, he began working on his

monumental Historia de la provincia de San Vicente de Chiapas y Guatemala (History of the

province of San Vicente de Chiapas and Guatemala, 1619). Divided into eleven books, this

extensive and important chronicle contains information about Central America, including

Guatemala, Chiapas, and Oaxaca, as well as the Philippines and Peru. Remesal also recounts the

work of the Dominicans in Central America, including that of Bartolomé de Las Casas, and the

abuses of the indigenous population. Recording data from civil and ecclesiastical regulations

129

between 1529 and 1619, as well as information about local history, Remesal remarks on the

beginnings of Mercedarian missionary work in Chiapas and Guatemala.

I.163n. The priest Juan Domingo JUARROS y Montúfar (1753–1821) was one of the first

Guatemalan historians. The first volume of his Compendio de la historia de la ciudad de

Guatemala (Compilation of the history of the city of Guatemala) was published in 1808. The

entire Compendio de la Historia del Reino de Guatemala (Chiapas, Guatemala, San Salvador,

Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica 1500–1800) saw print in 1856/57.

I.164. Spanish conquistador Diego de ORDAZ (also Ordás and Ordax, 1480–1532) was among

those who conquered Cuba in 1511. Following Cortés in 1519, Ordaz also participated in the

conquest of Tenochtitlán and in the military campaigns in Honduras. A resident of Mexico City,

he held the office of mayor from 1525 to 1526. In 1531, Ordaz was appointed governor of

Cumaná (Venezuela); he died on his way there. Ordaz is one of the main characters in a

historical novel about the Conquest: Titled Jicoténcal (1826) and attributed to Félix Varela

(1788–1853), this text was translated into English by Guillermo Castillo-Feliú as Xicoténcatl

(1999).

I.164. Spanish conquistador FRANCISCO MONTAÑO (fl. 1520–50) also participated in the siege

and capture of Tenochtitlán and settled in Mexico City. Among the first foreigners to enter

Michoacán, he also took part in the conquest of Pánuco, Honduras, Guazacualco, and Guatemala.

Montaño received a coat of arms in August 1540, and Cortés awarded him the encomienda of

Tecali (90 miles from Mexico City) in 1548. He also held half of the encomienda of Zapotitlán

(125 miles from Mexico City) in 1570.

130

I.166. Botanist and physician Aimé Goujaud BONPLAND (1773–1858) accompanied Humboldt

on his entire American journey. Although not much of a writer, Bonpland, who much preferred

fieldwork to desk work, is named as coauthor of Humboldt’s thirty-volume Voyage aux régions

équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent fait en 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804, or Travels to

the equinoctial regions of the New Continent during the years 1799–1804, in Helen Maria

Williams’s (1759–1827) translation. After returning to Europe, Bonpland was named Chief

Gardener of Malmaison, Napoleon’s (1769–1821) residence near Paris. In 1816, after

Napoleon’s fall, Bonpland emigrated to South America, where he died, alone and forgotten, in

what is now Santa Ana, Argentina.

I.166n. Ennio Quirino VISCONTI (1751–1818) was an Italian art historian, archeologist, and

antiquarian. In 1782, he assisted his father, the papal antiquarian Giovanni Battista Visconti

(1722–84), in compiling the first volume of the illustrated and annotated catalogue of the

Vatican’s Museo Pio-Clementino and prepared volumes 2 through 6 in subsequent years. After

having earned a reputation as a scholar of rare books, Visconti became conservator of the

Capitoline Museum. An advocate of the French Revolution, he also served as the director of the

Paris Musée Napoléon (now the Louvre). Visconti’s letter to Humboldt from December 12,

1812, is reprinted in Views of the Cordilleras.

I.167. Italian astronomer Barnaba ORIANI (1752–1832) was educated by the Barnabites, a Roman

Catholic order associated with the Counter-, at the College of San Alessandro,

Milan. He studied the physical and mathematical sciences, philosophy, and theology. In 1776,

Oriani was appointed to the staff of the Observatory of Brera in , where he advanced to

assistant astronomer in 1778 and director in 1802. In 1778, he began to publish the dissertations

131

on astronomical subjects that would form an important part of the Effemeridi astronomiche di

Milano (Astronomical ephemerides of Milan) to which he contributed regularly and which he edited for many years. Oriani’s early work soon attracted attention, and in 1785, an account of his calculation of the orbit of Uranus and a table of elements for that planet won for him an international reputation. He was elected to membership in several learned societies and traveled throughout Europe to visit the major observatories. He was in contact with all the major astronomers of his time. When Napoleon (1769–1821) set up the republic in , Oriani became president of the commission appointed to regulate the new system of weights and measures. When the republic was transformed into a Napoleonic kingdom, Oriani received various honors and was tasked with measuring the arc of the meridian between the zeniths of

Rimini and Rome. Later in life, Oriani published a series of important papers on spherical trigonometry. Humboldt might be referring to Oriani’s journal, Un viaggio in Europa nel 1786

(A voyage across Europe in 1786).

I.167. Johann Georg TRALLES (1763–1822) was a German physicist and mathematician whom

Humboldt respected highly and visited in Berne in 1795 on his travels through Switzerland.

Responsible for the first astronomical observatory in Berne, Tralles was a prominent

representative of modern science with whom Humboldt discussed galvanic experiments and

geomorphological measurements.

I.167. Franz Xaver Freiherr von ZACH (1754–1832) was a German-Hungarian astronomer under the patronage of Ernst II (1745–1804), Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Zach built an observatory on the Seeberg near Gotha and directed the observatory—one of the most important of the time—from 1791, when it was completed, until 1806. During this period, Zach enlisted

132

twenty-four astronomers from across Europe in a systematic search for new comets and for the

planet between Mars and Saturn, expected on the basis of Johann Elert Bode’s (1747–1826) law

(the so-called Titius–Bode law). The main result of this effort was the discovery of several minor

planets (commonly called asteroids). Zach left his most lasting imprint as editor of three major

scientific journals between 1798 and 1826.

I.167. Johann Friedrich (1780–1809) was a German engraver who worked frequently with Humboldt.

I.167n. John PURDY (1773–1843), of Laurie & Whittle in London, was the foremost

hydrographic authority of his time. Although he himself did not participate in any hydrographic

expeditions, he compiled charts and wrote navigational aids based on others’ reports. Purdy

began to publish the Columbian Navigator in 1817.

I.172n. Antoine-Marie HÉRON DE VILLEFOSSE (1774–1852) was a French mining engineer and

geographer with an interest in the archaeological work of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–

1840). In 1803, during the Napoleonic occupation of Germany, Villefosse was put in charge of

the Harz Mountains, a small but significant mining region. In 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–

1821) promoted him to inspector-general of the mines between the and the Weichsel

River. After the Napoleonic wars had ended, Villefosse returned to Paris and assumed a cabinet

post under Louis XVII (1785–1795). His major work is De la richesse minérale (Of mineral

wealth) and its accompanying atlas (1810–1819).

I.173. British political economist William PLAYFAIR (1759–1823) was the inventor of statistical graphs to display empirical data. In 1786 and 1801, he invented three basic styles of graphs, the

133

time-series line graph, the bar chart, and the pie chart. Trained as an engineer (1774–1781),

Playfair obtained four patents for working metals in 1781. After a failed attempt at starting a

silver and plate-making business, Playfair engaged in the study of political economy. In 1785, he

wrote Regulations for the Interest of Money and published an early critical edition of Adam

Smith’s (1723–90) Wealth of Nations (1776) in An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the

Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations (1805). In 1786, Playfair published statistical

charts to examine the English trade during the eighteenth century as The Commercial and

Political Atlas, of which several editions appeared. Among his other significant statistical

publications was The Statistical Breviary (1801).

I.186. Pierre-Simon de LAPLACE (1749–1827) was one of the most influential and controversial

mathematicians and astronomers of his time. Humboldt had met and worked closely with

Laplace during his years in Paris. Among Laplace’s most important works are the Exposition du

système du monde (System of the world, 1795) and his more ambitious five-volume Traité de

Mécanique Céleste (Treatise on celestial mechanics, 1798–1825). The first volume of the Traité

was sent to Lima right after its publication, where Humboldt received it in 1802 while working

on the notes to his astronomical, magnetical, and barometrical observations. These notes were

published in Paris between 1808 and 1811 under the coauthorship of Jabbo Oltmanns (1783–

1833) as Recueil d’observations astronomiques (Compendium of astronomical observations).

Contemporary scholarship has pointed out Humboldt’s detailed knowledge of Laplace’s works

and the resemblances in scientific approach and structural design between Laplace’s Exposition

du système du monde and Humboldt’s Kosmos. In mathematics, LAPLACE’S FORMULA is known

as the Laplace operator or, simply, the Laplacian.

134

I.187. Together with his brother Cristóbal (d. 1764), Felipe de Zúñiga y ONTIVEROS (c. 1717–93)

opened a successful printing shop in Mexico City in 1761. By 1781, their press was so successful

that Zúñiga y Ontiveros had to move the shop into a larger space. The press published several

seminar periodicals, including Efemérides calculadas y pronosticadas según el meridiano de

México con la noticia y explicación de los eclipses y otros meteoros (Ephemerides calculated and forecast about the meridian of Mexico City, with information about and explanations of eclipses and other meteors, 1752–1780), Explicación del Pronóstico de México (1755), and Calendario

Manual para el año del Señor de… (1761–1792). In addition to running the press, Felipe was employed as a land surveyor, printed eleven maps used in land disputes (1754–74), and surveyed the land the Jesuits had left behind after their expulsion. He also authored a pamphlet titled

Bomba hidráulica (Hydraulic pump, 1770). After Felipe’s death, his son, Mariano José (1745–

1825), who inherited the printing shop (which closed in 1832) and the rights to edit and print the

Guía de Forasteros (Guide for foreigners), continued with the family business until 1832. He regularly printed the Calendario Manual y Guía de Forasteros en México (1792–1825),

Pronóstico de temporales (1809–16), and the Diario de México (1812–15).

I.190. The so-called Battle of El Toro, between Chilean patriots and Spanish royalist forces, was fought near MAULLÍN, Chile, on March 6, 1820. The remnants of the royalist garrisons gathered

at Fort CARELMAPU after having been defeated at Valdivia and Osorno. Although Chile had

already issued its official declaration of independence in 1818, the Spanish were not expelled

from mainland Chile until 1821 and 1826, when the island of CHILOÉ became part of Chile as

well. Clearly, Humboldt would have not been able to know this when he wrote the first edition of

this text. By 1825, however, these “mere” geographical reference points would have assumed

historical significance.

135

I.190. The island of Cailín (old spelling Caylin) is located to the southeast of the CHILOÉ

Archipelago in present-day Chile. In 1764, the Jesuits founded a permanent mission at Cailín; it was the southernmost mission of their system and served as the base for annual excursions into

then-unexplored territories. The church buildings in Cailín, built by order of the Jesuits who

administered the mission until their explusion, follows the architectural prototype Chilota School

of Wooden Religious Architecture. Jesuit priest José García Martí led an expedition that

departed from Cailín in October 1766 to explore the Strait of Magellan; after reaching 48º5′

southern latitude, he returned to the island in January 1767. García’s travel journal was first

published in 1809–11.

I.191. The Spanish jurist José Moñino y Redondo, COUNT OF FLORIDABLANCA (1728–1808) was the reformist chief minister of King Charles III of Spain; he also served briefly under Charles

IV. Because he defended of the expulsion of the Jesuits, some regarded the count as Spain’s most effective statesman in the eighteenth century. Influenced by the French philosophers and economists, he established the commercial freedom of the Spanish colonies in America in the late 1770s. He died trying to defend Spain against Napoleon (1769–1821).

I.195. Diego Velázquez’s nephew, the Spanish explorer Juan de GRIJALVA (or Grijalba, c. 1480–

1527) commanded the second expedition to Yucatán in 1518. Departing Cuba in April 1518, he

circumnavigated the Yucatán, initially landing in Cozumel Island, and reached the Río Pánuco.

On his return trip to Cuba, Grijalva engaged in battle with the Campeche population to avenge

Hernández de Córdoba’s death and was wounded. During his travels, he amassed considerable

wealth, preparing the path for the conquest of Mexico under Cortés. Grijalva was killed during

an Indian rebellion in Nicaragua.

136

I.195. CHARLES V was (1519–1556), King of Spain (as Charles I, 1516–

1556), and Archduke of Austria (as Charles I, 1519–1521). The Spanish and Habsburg Empire he inherited comprised large parts of Europe (Spain and the Netherlands, Austria and the

Kingdom of ) and the Spanish colonies overseas.

I.196. Jesuit Francisco Javier CLAVIJERO (also known as Francesco Saverio

Clavigero, 1731–87) was a scholar and historian from the viceroyalty of New Spain (which

included modern-day Mexico). He focused on studying pre-Conquest Mexican history. A polyglot who knew Náhuatl, , Mixteca, Latin, and ancient Greek, among other languages, he analyzed documents on Aztec history and early Conquest narratives that Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora had donated to the Colegio Máximo de San Pedro y San Pablo (1576–1767) in

Mexico City. Exiled to Italy after Spain expelled the Jesuits in 1767, Clavijero wrote in Spanish and published in Italian the four-volume Storia antica del Messico (Early ,

1780–81), in which he refutes claims that Cornelius de Pauw, Georges-Louis Leclerc, the

Count of Buffon, Abbot Guillaume Raynal, and William Robertson made about Europeans’

superiority to Native Americans and Creoles, that is, Americans of European descent. Shortly

after its Italian publication, the book was translated into English (1787), German (1789–1790),

and Spanish (1826). Clavijero’s Spanish manuscript was published in Mexico in 1945. In

addition to numerous essays and letters, Clavijero is also the author of the Historia de antigüa

Baja California (Early history of Lower California, 1852).

I.198. The CESSION OF LOUISIANA refers to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The state of

Louisiana joined the USAmerican Union in 1812.

137

I.199n. Fernando NAVARRO y Noriega (d. 1826), inspector-general for New Spain, was highly

regarded, among others by historian Hubert Howe (1832–1918), who claimed that

Navarro’s “sources could not have been well surpassed by any contemporary.” Navarro is the author of Memoria sobre la población del Reino de la Nueva España (Report on the population of the kingdom of New Spain, 1820) and the Catálogo de los curatos y misiones que tiene la

Nueva España en cada una de sus Diocesis (Index of the parishes and missions New Spain has in each of its bishoprics, 1813).

I.205. British fur trader, surveyor, and cartographer Peter FIDLER (1769–1822) was chosen by

Philip Turnor (c. 1750–c. 1800), a land surveyor and mapmaker working for the Hudson Bay

Company, as assistant surveyor of an exploring and mapping expedition into Canada’s

Athabasca country (1789–92). Fidler had joined the Hudson Bay Company in 1787. Trained by

Turnor in field sketching, surveying, and cartography, Fidler worked as the company’s chief surveyor until 1821. Between 1790 and 1820, he drew nearly eighty separate maps and more

than 370 sketch maps.

I.206. British naval officer William Robert BROUGHTON (1762–1821) was commander of the

Chatham, which accompanied George Vancouver on his sea voyage to the Northwest Coast of

America. Admitted to the Royal Navy in 1774, Broughton first served as a midshipman on the

coast of North America and then in the East Indies. On his way to the Americas via the Cape of

Good Hope, Broughton “discovered” Chatham Island in 1791. A year later, he explored the

Columbia River for one hundred miles upstream. In 1793, Broughton crossed New Spain from

San Blas to Veracruz on his way to England, where he was promoted to commander of the

Providence and sailed for the northwest coast of America. He then surveyed the coast of Asia

138

from 35° to 52° northern latitude. Once back in England, Broughton published the story of his

voyage and its geographical results as Voyage of discovery to the North Pacific Ocean in 1804.

I.207. Conrad MALTE-BRUN (born Malte Conrad Bruun, 1775–1826) was the founder of the first

modern geographical society. He was exiled from Denmark for his verse and his pamphlets in

support of the French Revolution and moved to Paris. Among his works are the first six volumes

of the Précis de la géographie universelle (Universal Geography, 1810–26).

I.207. Next to Alexander von Humboldt himself, (1779–1859) is considered one of

the founding fathers of modern geography. As professor of geography and history and member

of the Royal Academy of Science in Berlin, Ritter delivered public lectures that became the talk

of the town, much like Humboldt’s famous Kosmos lectures did in 1827–28. In his publications,

Ritter, again much like Humboldt, pursued conceptual challenges that at times exceeded his capacities. After some preliminary publications on the methodology and pedagogy of geography,

Ritter published the first two volumes of his General and Comparatative Geography in 1817–18.

Although initially imagined as twelve volumes, this already ambitious compilation grew to a total of nineteen volumes with over 20,000 pages in a second edition published (1822–59). Even so, this massive work on geographical world literature remained a fragment, covering only

Africa and Asia. Ritter became a corresponding member of the Société Asiatique de Paris in

1824 and founded the Berlin Geographical Society in 1828. Three years before his death, he was appointed curator of the Royal Cartographic Institute of . Ever since they first met in

1807, the relationship between Humboldt and Ritter had been one of mutual admiration. Yet, it was not until Humboldt’s return from Paris to Berlin in 1827 that their ongoing conversation about historical geography and other matters, including slavery and racism, was to take off. Their

139 correspondence is estimated to have consisted of several hundred letters, of which 179 are published.

I.207n. Founded by German-American businessman John Jacob Astor (1763–1848) in 1811, the fur-trading post ASTORIA (Oregon) was apparently the oldest white settlement in the Pacific

Northwest. See also ’s (1753–89) Astoria (1836).

I.208. Captain (1774–1809) was a USAmerican explorer best known for leading, with William (1770–1838), the discovery voyage that became known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–06). Their mission was to explore the territory of the Louisiana

Purchase, establish trade with and sovereignty over indigenous populations near the Missouri

River, and claim the Pacific Northwest and Oregon territories for the United States. The Corps of

Discovery departed Camp Dubois, , on May 14, 1804, meeting up with Lewis in St.

Charles, Missouri, shortly thereafter. The expedition’s route followed the Missouri River westward to its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains and then passed over the Continental Divide.

They descended the mountains in canoes before reaching the Pacific Coast at the point where the

Willamette and Columbia Rivers meet (just past present-day Portland, Oregon). Along the way, the expedition established contact with over two dozen indigenous nations, without whose help the travelers would have likely either starved to death or become lost. During the expedition,

Lewis and Clark surveyed the land, documented more than 200 plants and animals previously unknown to Euro-Americans, noted seventy-two indigenous populations, and drew about 140 maps. The two-year exploration was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast by the United States.

140

I.212. William DAVIS ROBINSON (b. 1774) was a USAmerican merchant who had traded with the

Spanish authorities in Venezuela since 1799. During the Mexican Revolution he grew openly

critical of Spain and eventually made the acquaintance of insurgents. In 1816, he went to New

Spain with a passport issued by then-Secretary of State James Monroe (1748–1831). Robinson

was eventually captured and imprisoned in Oaxaca but escaped in 1819. Upon his return, he

wrote his Memoirs of the Mexican Revolution (1820).

I.212n. Martin de la BASTIDE was the secretary of the French soldier and diplomat Charles-

François de Broglie, Marquis de Ruffec (1719–1781).

I.213. (1651–1715) was a British pirate and a pioneer in scientific exploration.

An orphan at age sixteen, he sailed to Newfoundland, the East Indies, and the Gulf of Mexico.

From 1678 to 1691, he engaged in . In 1699, he traveled to Australia as an explorer for the

British Admiralty, but his ship, the Roebuck, sprung a dangerous leak and had to be abandoned.

The crew was stuck on a South Atlantic island but was eventually rescued by homeward-bound

warships. Dampier returned to pirating after that. His New Voyage Round the World (1697)

proved immensely popular. Lionel Wafer sailed with Dampier for some time, and Wafer’s

travel account was attached to Dampier’s (volume II).

I.215n. DIEGO LÓPEZ DE SALCEDO Y RODRÍGUEZ (d. 1547) was governor of Honduras from 1526

to 1530 and governor of Nicaragua from 1526 to 1527. The Río San Juan or Desagüadero is an

outlet of Lake Nicaragua, which flows from the lake’s southeastern end at San Carlos north to

the border of Nicaragua with Costa Rica and into the Caribbean Sea at San Juan del Norte. The

river has been the cause of many a dispute between the two countries regarding rights of use.

Migration within the United States from the East Coast to California between 1850 and 1870

141

went by way of San Juan del Norte and across Lake Nicaragua. It is of little surprise, then, that

the shipping and railroad tycoon “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877) became

interested in Nicaraguan opportunities. The possibility of a transoceanic canal in Nicaragua,

which Humboldt discusses here, also played a role.

I.217. Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de (c. 1475–1519) was the first European to

see the Pacific Ocean. In 1501, he arrived in where he settled, became a famer, and went bankrupt. To escape his creditors, he traveled as a stowaway to what is now Colombia in

1510. When he reached land, Núñez de Balboa mutinied and took command of the ship, steered

it to the Isthmus of Panama, and founded Santa María de la Antigua del Darién. In 1511, he was named the colony’s interim governor and captain-general. In 1513, he headed an expedition to explore the isthmus in search of a much-rumored great ocean. On September 25, the expedition first encountered the Pacific Ocean. Several days later, on September 29, 1513, Núñez de Balboa

made landfall, took possession of the territory for the Spanish Crown, and named it Mar del Sur

(South Sea). On January 18, 1514, he returned after exploring the Pearl Archipelago. As a reward for his successful expedition, he was named del Mar del Sur (admiral of the

South Sea) and was appointed governor of Panama and Coiba Island. He then carried out a

second expedition, this time to explore the Pacific Ocean. Before returning to Acla upon the

request of Pedro Arias Dávila, the governor of Darién since 1514 and his rival, Núñez de

Balboa explored the Gulf of San Miguel (1517–18), parts of the Gulf of Panama, and took possession of the Pearl Islands. Upon his return to Acla, Dávila had him tried for treason and

executed in the public square.

142

I.218. Don José Antonio (de) Tiscar was a Spanish general and governor of province in

Venezuela around 1813. In 1819, Ferdinand VII (1784–1833) sent troops from Spain in support

of the viceroy of Peru; Tiscar was among them. He left Cádiz for Lima on the vessel Alexandro 1

together with a number of other ships, at least one of them bound for Antarctica. Tiscar’s ship

sprang a leak and had to return to Spain.

I.218. At the time of Humboldt’s voyage, Venezuela was one of the seven provinces of the

Captaincy-general of , known then commonly as TIERRA FIRME.

I.218. Spanish naval officer José Ignacio de COLMENARES (1761–1833) began his career in the

Spanish navy in 1776. In 1783, he served in the viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata. In 1792,

Colmenares was stationed in Lima and appointed assistant to the viceroy. Ten years later, he was

commander of Peruano. Together with Mariano Isasbirivil (on the Estremeña), he carried out a

hydrographic expedition from 1803 to 1804. Surveying the southwest coast of the Pacific,

especially of the Chiloé Archipelago, he drafted a report of the expedition titled Derrotero

General del Callao a los puertos e islas de las costas de Chile hasta Chiloé y regreso (General

route from Callao to the ports and islands of the coasts of Chile up to Chiloé and back). Between

1809 and 1811, Colmanares was commander of the San Fernando for trips to Manila. During the

war of independence, he fought for the Royalists.

I.218. Spanish naval officer Antonio QUARTARA y Guerrini (fl. 1800–1821) was stationed in

Lima in 1801. Holding the rank of junior lieutenant, Quartara set out to make detailed surveys of

the coast of Peru and Central America in 1802. The expedition, under Moraleda, was to follow

up the work carried out by the Malaspina Expedition. After finishing his work in Peru, Quartara

sailed from Callao to San Blas in New Spain. He had been appointed to the Naval Department at

143

San Blas in 1801 but could not assume his new position until nine years later. In 1817, Quartara was appointed commander of the Naval Department at San Blas; he was the last Spaniard to hold that position. Having rejected the Plan of Iguala (1821) and sided with the Royalists during the independence wars, Quartara left for the Philippines when San Blas was taken by the revolutionaries. Quartara knew Humboldt and kept in contact with him.

I.220. British surgeon and Lionel WAFER (c. 1640–1705) traveled to Borneo (1677–

1679) on ships and to Jamaica (1679). In the Caribbean, he met William

Dampier, together with whom he joined a squadron of in a successful raid of

Panama (1680). After defecting in April 1681, Wafer lived with the Cuna peoples of Darien. He also traveled to Chesapeake Bay (1683), the Galápagos Island (1684), and Virginia (1688). At

Chesapeake Bay, he was arrested on the charges of piracy in June 1688, was released in

September 1689, and returned to England where he became an authority on the isthmus of

Darien. He published A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America in 1699, in which he argued for an English settlement in Panama. Wafer’s A New Voyage contains one of the best accounts of the indigenous peoples of the Isthmus of Panama.

I.224n. The later Greek historian DIODORUS SICULUS (of Sicily), or Diodorus of Agyrium in

Sicily (first century BCE), is best known for his forty-volume Bibliotheca Historica, a compendium of universal history ranging from prehistorical mythologies to the reign of Gaius

Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE). Aimed at a wider audience, Diodorus’s monumental compilation has a tone and methodology very different from Hellenistic historiography in the tradition of

Herodotus. Yet, Diodorus Siculus provides the only surviving continuous narrative of events for long stretches of Greek history in the classical period. A complete set of Diodorus’s Bibliotheca

144

still existed in the imperial palace in Constantinople at the start of the Renaissance in the

fifteenth century but most it was destroyed when the city was sacked in 1453. Today, only fifteen books survive: books 1–5 and 11–20.

I.224n. Natural philosopher and writer (1706–90) was the oldest signer of

the USAmerican Declaration of Independence (1776). In collaboration with his grandnephew

and private secretary Jonathan Williams (1750–1815), Franklin carried out experiments to

measure the temperature of the Atlantic’s currents. The result of these experiments and his

consultations with whalers is the first chart depicting the Gulf Stream. It was published in the

Transactions of the American Philosophical Society to accompany Franklin’s “Letter Containing

Sundry Maritime Observations” in 1786. Williams kept a journal during the experiments.

Published in book form in 1799, this journal first appeared as “A Thermometrical Journal of the

temperature of the atmosphere and Sea, on a voyage to and from Oporto, with explanatory

observations thereon” in the Transactions in 1793. A merchant and lay-scientist, Williams

became the first superintendent of the USAmerican Military Academy at West Point. After his

elementary education in , Williams traveled to London in 1770 and six years later joined

Franklin in France. He returned to the USA with Franklin in 1785. On their return voyage to

Philadelphia, he helped Franklin carry out ocean temperature measurement experiments. Under

Franklin’s sponsorship, he served at different times as secretary, councilor, and vice president of

the American Philosophical Society. In 1796, Williams became associate judge in the Court of

Common Pleas in Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson appointed him to inspector of fortifications

and superintendent at West Point (1801–03). Reappointed with the rank of lieutenant colonel of

engineers in 1805, Williams planned and supervised the construction of forts around New York

City. He was elected to Congress in 1814 but died before taking office.

145

I.227n. French engineer Jean-Baptiste LEPÈRE (1761–1844), father-in-law of the architect

Jacques-Ignace Hittorff (1792–1867), was the creator of Saint Vincent de Paul Church in Paris.

He was also one of the architects who worked on raising the colonne Vendôme. LePère was part of the Commission of Sciences and the Arts that Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) took with him on his Egyptian campaign. Part of Bonaparte’s interest was to see whether LePère’s planned project of linking the with the Red Sea across the Nile delta could be realized, and whether the difference in sea levels between the two was sufficiently small to make such a canal feasible. While in Egypt, LePère also produced drawings of ancient temples and other relics, which can be found in the Commission’s monumental multivolume publication,

Description de l'Égypte.

I.230. The CAMEL family appeared about 40–45 million years ago in North America. From there,

camels dispersed to Asia and South America at about 2–3 million years ago. A large herbivorous

mammal that thrived in arid habitats, the camel evolved to cope with life in near-desert and

desert conditions. The one-humped dromedary (about 12.6 million worldwide) was first

domesticated in central or southern Arabia and then spread to North and East Africa and India.

The two-humped Bactrian camel (about 1.4 million) was domesticated probably before 2,500

BCE in northern Iran and southwestern Turkestan and spread to Iraq, India, and China. This

camel population has shrunk; most remain in Afghanistan, China, Iran, Mongolia, Turkey, and

Russia. The South American camelids, which have a population of about 7.7 million (llama,

alpaca, wild guanaco, and vicuña), adapted to arid and steppe environments with altitudes of up

to 15,100 feet. South American camelid domestication might have occurred in the Lake Titicaca

region or on the Junin Plateau about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. The camma, a cross between a

146

camel and a llama, was a hybrid breed. On the history of the camel on the Spanish islands and

Spain’s dominions, see also Humboldt, Voyage I: 91, I: 123–24, and 3:133–35.

I.230. A wealthy landowner and supporter of the South American independence movements,

Caracas Creole Francisco Rodríguez del TORO e Ibarra (1761–1851) was a lieutenant-colonel of the Spanish army and brigadier and commander of the newly constituted independent army in what includes present-day Venezuela. He became the fourth MARQUIS DEL TORO and inherited the

family fortune upon his father’s death in 1787. By 1790, Toro had also received the seat of

regent of the Council of Caracas, a prestigious governmental position awarded mainly to the

local nobility (matuanos). For his participation in the so-called Mantuanos Conspiracy (1808), he

was arrested on charges of advocating for independence. After reassuring the Junta Central de

España of the mantuanos’ loyalty to the Spanish monarchy, Toro was released in April 1809.

After the reconfiguration of the provincial government of the Capitancy-general of Venezuela on

April 19, 1810, Toro was promoted to the rank of brigadier. Because the province of Coro refused to accept the authority of the newly created Suprema Junta de Caracas, Toro was appointed commander of the Western Army (1809–11). A representative in the first Congress of

Venezuela in 1811 and supporter of a declaration of independence from the Spanish monarchy,

Toro was among those who signed the Act of Independence and the Constitution in 1811. In

1812, however, Toro abandoned the independence cause until 1822 when Simón Bolívar (1783–

1830) became president of the Republic of . A year after his return to Venezuela,

Toro was appointed intendant of Venezuela (1823–24), the highest governmental position in the region. Del Toro was a cousin of Bolívar’s wife, María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alayza

(1781–1803) and the uncle of diplomat, statesman, and writer Fermín del Toro y Blanco (1806–

1865). Humboldt stayed at the Marquis del Toro’s house in Guacara (Venezuela) and visited

147

Mucundo, that family’s sugar plantation. He approved of the Marquis’s introduction of camels

from Lanzarote (Canary Islands) to Venezuela.

I.231n. Historian and statesman Lucas ALAMÁN (1792–1853), one of the foremost conservative intellectuals of nineteenth-century New Spain and independent Mexico, held various political

appointments and wrote several works on the history of Mexico. Alamán was born and raised in

Guanajuato, where he met Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753–1811). A member of a family of

mine owners, Alamán moved to Mexico City to study at the mining school when he was eighteen and later trained in Freiberg and Göttingen (in Germany) and in Paris. Elected representative of

New Spain to the Spanish Court, he held his first administrative position, that of Secretario de

Junta of Guanajuato (1820). After independence, Alamán was first appointed diplomat to France,

then Minister of Interior and Foreign Affairs, and finally Minister of Industry (1831–1835). As

Minister of Foreign Affairs (1823–1825, 1830–1832, and 1853), he shaped Mexican foreign

policy and worked ardently to protect Mexico’s Interior Provinces from USAmerican expansion.

He also worked to establish Mexico’s first national bank, the Banco de Avío in 1830 and was a

driving force to establish the United Mexican Mining Company in 1825. Having organized the

Conservative Party (1849), he was elected party representative for Jalisco in 1851 and became a

senator a year later. Alamán is the founder of the Archivo General de la Nación, the Museo de

Antigüedades e Historia Natural, and the Dirección General de Instrucción Pública. In addition

to publishing several essays in periodicals such as El Diario de México and El Universal,

Alamán’s most famous publications are Disertaciones sobre la histoira de la República

Mexicana desde la época de la Conquista… hasta la independencia (Dissertations about the

history of the Mexican Republic from the conquest to Independence, 1844–1849) and Histoira

de Méjico desde los primeros movimientos que prepararon su independencia en el año 1808

148

hasta la época presente (History of Mexico from the first movements that prepared its

Independence in 1808 to the present, 1849–1852). Rafael Aguayo Spencer (b. 1914) compiled

Alamán’s unpublished works in Documentos diversos (inéditos y muy raros) (1945–47). Some of

Alamán’s papers are currently at the Benson Latin American Collection of the University of

Texas at Austin (Lucas Alamán Papers, 1598–1853).

I.232n. Born in Popayán near Cartagena de Indias, José Ignacio POMBO (1761–c. 1815) was a

philanthropist and supporter of progress, educational causes, and, above all, scientific

experimentation. A friend and avid correspondent of José Celestino Mutis’s, Pombo was

particularly known as a generous supporter of Francisco José de Caldas, giving him books and

instruments, paying for his scientific excursions, and contributing to his journal. An unflagging

patriot, Pombo used the entirety of his considerable fortune to aid the struggle for independence,

in which two of his sons fought and perished. Humboldt, who met Pombo in New Granada, was also interested in the latter’s studies of interoceanic navigation in connection with the Atrato

River.

I.232n. VICENTE TALLEDO y Rivera (b. 1760) was deputy colonel of the Royal Corps of

Engineers in New Granada around 1800. He drew a map of New Granada—the Mapa corográfico del Nuevo Reino de Granada—and corrected Humboldt’s map of the Río Magdalena on orders of the viceroy.

I.232n. A naturalist, lawyer, politician, and historian of Colombian independence, José Manuel

RESTREPO (1781–1863) was forced into exile from 1816–19. He was a member of the

commission to draft the Colombian Constitution and a minister of the interior under Simón

149

Bolívar (1783–1830). A disciple of Caldas, Restrepo surveyed his native province of Antioquia

in 1807, drawing a map and writing an account in 1809. See also Zea and Mutis.

I.238n. A native of Aragón, Spain, Father Manuel SOBREVIELA (d. 1803) was elected guardian of the Franciscan Missionary College of St. Rose in Ocopa, Peru, in 1787. A year after he had sailed from Cádiz, he embarked upon a two-year voyage to explore the Mairo River in central

Peru and made several trips into the province of Tarma. In 1790, he also explored the River

Huallaga. Sobreviela described his voyages in three diaries and one report that were initially published in the Mercurio Peruano (1791–95), a journal of which Sobreviela had been one of the founders, along with Unanué and Taboada de Lemos, among others. The mercenary and translator Captain Joseph SKINNER (c. 1715–1756) published a very successful abridged version

of Sobreviela’s writings under the title The Present State of Peru in 1805.

I.239. The preliminary PEACE treaty signed in London on October 1, 1801, temporarily resolved

the conflict between Britain and France and paved the way for the (1802). The

terms of the London treaty were for Britain to return all colonies it had captured from France,

and to withdraw from Malta and the other Mediterranean ports. France, in return, would restore

Egypt, withdraw from Naples and Switzerland, and guarantee Portugal.

I.240. Galician naval officer Francisco Gil de Taboada y LEMOS (1736–1810) was viceroy of

New Granada and of Peru (1790–1796). Known as one of the most progressive viceroys of Peru,

Lemos supported maritime explorations, including that of José de Moraleda to the south

Atlantic coast of Chile and the western coast of Patagonia in 1795. Lemos entered the Naval

Academy and the Order of Malta in 1752. Promoted to post-captain in 1776, he served as captain and commander in the Naval Department at Ferrol from 1779 to 1788. A rear admiral in 1782, he

150 was appointed viceroy of New Granada and president of the Audiencia of Santa Fé in 1788;

Lemos arrived in America to take office in 1789. After a brief seven-month term, he was named viceroy of Peru and president of the Audiencia of Lima with the rank of vice admiral in 1789. In

Peru, Lemos instituted the Bourbon administrative reforms. He also supported the creation of scientific periodicals such as El Mercurio Peruano (1791–1795), Semanario Crítico (1791), and

Gazeta de Lima (1793–1795), and backed the Malaspina Expedition. In June 1796, Lemos returned to Spain where he was promoted to admiral in 1805 and minister of the navy the following year. After Ferdinand VII (1784–1833) stepped down, Lemos served in the ruling government juntas.

I.240. Trained at the naval academy of Cádiz, Spain (1760–1764), José Manuel Nicolás de

MORALEDA y Montero Espinoza (1747–1810) made several journeys to the Caribbean and the

East Indies before embarking on his first government-commissioned scientific exploration of the

Chiloé archipelago in 1787. Moraleda was well respected as a pilot and a mapmaker. His work on Chiloé can still be considered the most complete account of the region. One of the canals in the Ayssen province is named after him. In December 1802, he was at the helm of the war corvette Castor that ferried Humboldt and Bonpland from Lima to Guayaquil and on to

Acapulco.

I.240. Accompanied by five Spaniards and thirty-four Chonos, the Spanish Jesuit JOSÉ GARCÍA

Martí (or Alsué, 1709–c. 1783) led the Cailín mission in 1766–1767. His journal, first published in 1871, is one of the most important early sources on the culture of the Alacalufes and the

Chonos, an indigenous people of the Chiloé Archipelago in Chile, who went extinct in the late nineteenth century.

151

I.240. JUAN VICUÑA (d. 1768), another Jesuit, traveled to the Guayaneco Archipelago in southern

Chile in 1768 with the intent to convert the local population there. He died in a shipwreck on his

return voyage.

I.241. Spaniards of French descent, the engineers Francisco LEMAUR y de la Muraire (1770–

1841) and Félix Lemaur y de la Muraire (1767–1841) were two of the four sons of Carlos

Lemaur y Burriel (c. 1720–1785), who designed the Guadarrama-Rozas canal in Spain in 1785.

He committed suicide later that year, and his sons completed this project. They were also the unsuccessful planners of the old Güines canal in Cuba and technical advisors to the Railroad

Commission that was formed on the island in 1830. They carried out two geodetical triangulations of Cuba, in 1800 and 1820. Francisco Lemaur is also the author of a Spanish translation of Aryan Higgins’s Observations and Advices on ther manufacturing of sugar and rum (Jamaica, 1797–1803).

241n. British captain of the Royal Navy, Charles Stuart COCHRANE (fl. 1822–1825, d. 1834)

arrived in the port of La Guaira, Venezuela, in 1822. From there, he traveled to Caracas and the

interior of Colombia, including Cauca, Tolima, Antioquia, and Chocó. Illustrated with maps and

color plates, his Journal of a Residence and Travels in Columbia during the years 1823 and

1824 (1825) describes, among other things, Colombian society after independence.

I.243. Jean-Rodolphe PERRONET (1708–1794) was a French engineer best known for his stone-

arch bridges. In 1747, he founded the world’s first engineering school, the École Nationale des

Ponts et Chaussées (National School of Bridges and Highways) and was appointed its director.

(One of his successors would be Baron Riche de Prony.) In 1791, in spite of the French

Revolution, he finished work on the bridge Pont de la Concorde, which was originally called

152

Pont Louis XV. Perronet was also involved in the construction of the Burgundy Canal, a project

that lasted—with interruptions—from 1765 until 1832. The canal has a tunnel at its summit,

through which one barge can pass at a time. Perronet joined the French Academy of Sciences in

1765.

I.252. Baron Christian Leopold von (1774–1853) was a Prussian geologist and geographer who studied under Abraham Gottlob Werner at the Freiberg School of Mines in Saxony from

1790 to 1793, where he must have met Humboldt. Starting in 1797, Buch investigated the Alps, moved on to Italy, and visited the Auvergne Mountains. His volcanic theories contributed to revising Werner’s own theories. Buch also visited Scandinavia and the Canary Islands. His extensive wanderings and writings significantly influenced the development of geology.

Humboldt expressed his high regard for Buch in Kosmos and in his letters to Karl August

Varnhagen von Ense (1785–1858). At the point of his death, Humboldt had in his possession nearly forty items authored by Buch.

I.252. Francisco ESCOLAR (d. 1826) kept a register in Santa Cruz, , from 1808 to 1810,

on which Buch commented in his Physicalische Beschreibung der Canarischen Inseln (Physical

description of the Canary Islands). Apparently, Escolar, who had studied law in Spain in the

1790s and chemistry and botany at Göttingen University, prepared statistics on the Canary

Islands between 1793 and 1806. He also translated the 1801 Nicolas François Canard’s (1754–

1833) Principes d’économie politique (Principles of political economy).

I.252. In 1808, the British officers Felix V. Raper (b. 1778) and William Spencer WEBB (b.

1785) of the Tenth Bengal Native Infantry set out from Delhi, India, on a famous expedition to

find the sources of the River Ganges. With them was also the Anglo-Indian mercenary Hyder

153

Jung (or Young) Hearsey (1782–1840). In 1806, Webb had become the assistant of renowned

British orientalist Henry Thomas Colebrooke. Colebrooke, who had succeeded Major James

Rennell as surveyor-general of Bengal, had fallen ill of malaria and thus did not take part in

what would become a famous expedition to the Himalayas. Webb was the first European to

behold the entire Garhwal Himalaya, but the party had to turn back forty miles short of their

goal. Webb later fought in the Anglo-Nepalese war of 1814–1816 and was appointed surveyor of

Kumaon thereafter. Extracts from Webb’s letters, often communicated by Colebrooke, were

published in London journals such as The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and Art,

Annals of Oriental Literature, and Asiatick Researches in 1819 and 1820. Raper’s journal, which

was recovered from Colebrooke’s effects after the latter’s untimely demise, was published in

Asiatick Researches in 1812. Webb continued Colebrooke’s work.

I.252n. Scottish traveler and travel writer James (1730–1794) spent more than a dozen years in North African and Ethiopia, tracing the origins of the Blue Nile. Intent on verifying his hypothesis that the source of the Nile was located in Ethiopia, Bruce arrived in Alexandria in

June 1768. From there he traveled to Cairo where he gained the support of the Mamluk ruler Ali

Bey al-Kabir (1728–1783) before heading south across the desert to Kosseir. After reaching

Kosseir, Bruce donned the dress of a Turkish sailor and crossed the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia, reaching Jidda in May 1769. After a brief stay in Arabia, he recrossed the Red Sea and arrived in

Massawa, Eritrea (then in possession of the Turks) on September 19, 1769. He reached Gondar, then capital of Ethiopia, on February 14, 1770. After recovering from malaria, Bruce continued his quest, setting out again in October 1770 with a small party of men. The final march was made in November 1770, and after climbing more than 9,500 feet, Bruce and his party reached the

Gish Abay (the source of the Lesser Abay) on November 14, 1770. Bruce declared that they had

154 reached the source of the Blue Nile. He stayed in Ethiopia for two years, where his knowledge of

Ge’ez gained him favor among locals and allowed him to gain a fair understanding of Ethiopian life. Bruce’s story of his travels was met with some incredulity upon his return to London in

1774, which caused him to retire to his home in Kinnaird. An account of his travels was not published until 1790, when it appeared under the title Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile,

In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773. Other travelers continued to question the report’s authenticity. Its substantial accuracy has, however, been verified since, and Bruce’s accounts are now considered a significant contribution to geographical knowledge of the region.

I.253. In the mid-, the French Jesuit Jean Baptiste DU HALDE (1674–1743) wrote a description of the Chinese Empire that featured fifty plates of provinces, cities, and territories.

The Paris-based Du Halde had never traveled to China himself but collected and edited others’ materials.

I.253. Scottish-descended Dutch explorer, naturalist, and linguist Robert Jacob GORDON (1743–

95) was an early, though neglected, explorer of South Africa. Having joined the Dutch East India

Company, he rose to the rank of colonel and commanded the Cape garrison between 1780 and

1795. Of the six journeys he undertook in South Africa, only four (between 1777 and 1786) are covered in journals discovered in 1964. Gordon drew, or had drawn, 456 sketches in full color, which were meant to accompany his journal. Of these, 157 have appeared in various forms. The full Gordon Atlas is owned by the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and available online from the

University of Cape Town at https://digitalcollections.lib.uct.ac.za/robert-jacob-gordon-journal- archive.

155

I.253. French sketcher, naturalist, and collector Jacques-Julien Houtou de LABILLARDIÈRE (also

La Billadière, 1755–1834) is best known for his contributions to the study of Australian flora and fauna. After completing his studies of botany and medicine at Montpellier, France, he graduated

as a doctor of medicine in Paris around 1780. Labillardière worked at the Jardin du Roi with his friend René Louiche Desfontaines and their patron Louis Guillaume Le Monnier, and, in

1782, was sent to England for two years to study the plant collections in Kew Gardens. There, he met Sir . Labillardière was part of Admiral Antoine Bruni d’Entrecasteaux’s

(1737–93) voyage to the Pacific in 1791–94 in search of the lost explorer La Pérouse. During the voyage, Labillardière collected more than 4,000 plants, as well as animals, fish, and birds.

When he returned to France after two years’ confinement in Java (1793–95), he discovered to his dismay that his plant collections had been sent to England as a prize of war. They were returned after Banks interceded, and Labillardière set to work on two publications in connection with the voyage: first, the two volumes of his unofficial version of the expedition, Relation du Voyage à la Recherche de la Pérouse (Voyage in search of La Pérouse, 1799), which proved very popular

and went through four English editions; second, his Prodromus Novae Hollandiae Plantarum

Specimen (Introduction to New Hollands plant specimens, 1804, 1806), which contains 265 full-

page plates of Australian plants said to have been engraved after Labillardière’s own drawings.

This book has been hailed as the first general account of Australian flora. The English naturalist

Robert (1773–1858) honored his French colleague by naming an Australian shrub

Billardiera. A corresponding member of French Académie Royale des Sciences since 1792,

Labillardière was elected a full member in 1800.

I.253. Martin Hinrich Carl LICHTENSTEIN (1780–1857) was German physician and zoologist.

After studying medicine at the Universities of and Helmstedt, he traveled to South Africa

156

and became personal physician to the governor of the Cape of Good Hope (1802–06). In 1810,

Lichtenstein founded the Zoological Museum in Berlin, whose director he became three years

later. In 1811, the same year he was appointed the first professor of zoologie at the University of

Berlin, he published the first volume of his Reisen im südlichen Africa (Travels in South Africa).

Lichtenstein was instrumental in the founding of the famous Berlin Zoo. In 1840, he wrote a

memorandum to Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia (1795–1861) to request a loan and part of the

area in which the king kept his pheasants. It appears that Humboldt made sure that the king

received this request, and Friedrich Wilhelm promptly ordered the founding of the zoo in 1841.

Lichtenstein was a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences from 1813 to 1857 and

also belonged to the German Academy of Naturalists. In addition to his work in zoology,

Lichtenstein also pursued his interest in music.

I.253n. Sir John BARROW (1764–1848) traveled with Lord Macartney first to China and then to

the Cape of Good Hope. Macartney sent him to reconcile the Kaffirs with the Boers and to obtain

more accurate topographical knowledge of the then-unmapped colony. In pursuit of these

objectives, Barrow went on a journey of more than a thousand miles, traversing on horseback

and on foot virtually every part of the colony. In 1800, Barrow married and made plans to settle

in South Africa, but these plans were frustrated by continued unrest in the colony. After the

treaty of Amiens was signed in 1802, forcing the British to relinquish the Cape colony, Barrow

returned to England. In 1804, Henry Dundas, or Lord (1742–1811), the First Lord of the

Admiralty under William Pitt, appointed Barrow second secretary of the Admiralty, a post he occupied for the next forty years. Barrow published almost 200 articles in the Quarterly Review and the Encyclopædia Britannica; among the most interesting are his observations on Arctic and

Chinese subjects. His Account of Travels into the Interior of southern Africa, in the Years 1797

157

and 1798 appeared between 1801 and 1804, followed in short order by Travels in China (1804)

and A Voyage to Cochinchina (1806). In addition to these works and to his own autobiography,

published posthumously in 1852, Barrow edited countless manuscripts of travelers in all parts of the globe, including Some Account of the Public Life and a Selection of the Unpublished

Writings of the Earl Macartney (1807). His abiding interest in Arctic exploration led to A

Chronological History of Arctic Voyages (1818) and Voyages of Discovery and Research within the Arctic Regions (1846). See also John Franklin.

I.265n. One of New Spain’s greatest linguists, ALONSO DE MOLINA (c. 1513–1579) was raised by

Franciscan friars in New Spain and learned to speak Nahuatl playing with children. His

Vocabulario en la lengua castellana y mexicana (1555) is one of the most extensive and accurate works on Nahuatl lexicography. Molina helped the produce more than eighty

grammars, dictionaries, catechisms, breviaries, and scriptural translations into Nahuatl between

1546 and 1578. In addition to the Vocabulario, eleven of Molina’s publications are extant,

among them Arte de la lengua Mexicana (1571, 1576), Doctrina breve en lengua mexiana

(1571), and Doctrina christiana en lengua Mexicana (1578).

I.269n. Captain John Anthony HODGSON (1777–1848) went to India as a mere cadet in 1799.

Near the end of the Anglo-Nepal War (1814–1816), governor-general of India Warren Hastings

(1732–1818) appointed Hodgson and James Dowling HERBERT (1791–1833) to survey the

mountainous areas between the Sutlej River and the Ganges, with Tibet as a northern boundary.

They also surveyed Gurwhal. Hodgson was known for using his own instruments and books

when surveying. Hodgson served as surveyor-general of India from 1821 to 1823 and 1826 to

1827. In the intervening time, he was tax inspector-general of Bengal with a residence in

158

Kathmandu. In 1828, the Himalaya survey project was abandoned for financial reasons. After spending time in England, he returned to India in 1845 as major-general of the Rohilkhand

Division of Uttar Pradesh.

I.269n. Deputy surveyor-general Lieutenant HERBERT played a major role in the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Notably, he edited and financed the journal Gleanings in Science which, unlike

Asiatic Researches, did not admit short contributions. Gleanings became a regular outlet for the

Society’s monthly proceedings and scientific notices. In 1832, Herbert was selected as astronomer to the second king of Oudh, the Nawab Nasiruddin Haider (1803–1837). Though often ridiculed as an incurable Anglophile, Nasiruddin Haider wanted to establish a Royal

Observatory at Lucknow, in part for the astronomical training of young courtiers. Herbert was to supervise the construction and order instruments from England. After his sudden death, Herbert was replaced by Major Richard Wilcox (1802–1848). After Wilcox’s death, the observatory was closed and finally destroyed in the Indian War of Independence in 1857.

I.275. Arthur YOUNG (1741–1820) was an Englishman who wrote around twenty-five books and pamphlets on agriculture and fifteen on political economy, as well as many articles. In 1762,

Young took over a farm in Essex, where he engaged in various experiments, describing the

results in A Course of Experimental Agriculture (1770). He had already begun a series of

journeys through England and Wales and gave an account of his observations in books that

appeared between 1768 and 1770: A Six Weeks’ Tour through the Southern Counties of England

and Wales, A Six Months’ Tour through the North of England, and the Farmer’s Tour through

the East of England. These and other books of his were received favorably and translated into

most European languages. In 1784, Young began publishing the Annals of Agriculture, which

159

was continued for forty-five volumes. He first visited France in 1787 and published his

observations about public affairs and the condition of the people during the early years of the

French Revolution in two volumes titled Travels in France (1792). Upon his return to England

the following year, he was appointed secretary of the Board of Agriculture and assisted in the

collection and preparation of agricultural surveys of English counties until his eyesight failed

him around 1811. Upon his death in 1820, he left an autobiography in manuscript, which was

edited in 1898 by Matilda Betham-Edwards (1836–1919). He also left the materials for a great work on the Elements and practice of agriculture.

I.275. Augustin Pyramus (or Pyrame) DE CANDOLLE (1778–1841) was a Swiss botanist who documented hundreds of plant families and created a new natural plant classification system.

Although Candolle primarily worked in botany, he also contributed to the related fields of

, agronomy, and paleontology. Candolle’s career in botany began after moving

to Paris, where French botanist René Louiche Desfontaines recommended him for work in the

herbarium of fellow French botanist Charles Louis L’Héritier de Brutelle (1746–1800) in 1798.

Candolle’s first publications, Plantarum historia succulentarum (History of succulents, 4 vols.,

1799) and Astragalogia (1802), brought him to the attention of Georges and Jean-

Baptiste Lamarck. With Cuvier’s approval, Candolle became deputy at the Collège de France in 1802, and Lamarck entrusted him with the publication of the third edition of the Flore française (1803–1815). In 1804, Candolle published his Essai sur les propriétés médicales des plantes and was granted a doctoral degree by the medical faculty of Paris. Two years later, he

published Synopsis plantarum in flora Gallica descriptarum. Candolle then spent the next six

summers on a botanical and agricultural survey of France at the request of the French

government, which was published in 1813. In 1807, he was appointed professor of botany at the

160

University of Montpellier, where he would later become the first chair of botany in 1810.While in Montpellier, Candolle published his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique (Elementary theory of botany, 1813), which introduced a new classification system. Candolle moved back to Geneva in 1816 and was invited by the government of the Canton of Geneva to fill the newly created chair of natural history the following year. He spent the rest of his life attempting to complete his natural system of botanical classification. He published initial work in his Regni vegetabillis systema naturale but realized after two volumes that he could not complete the project on such a large scale. He thus began his less extensive Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis in

1824, of which he was only able to finish seven volumes. Although he completed only two-thirds of the Prodromus, Candolle was able to categorize over one hundred families of plants, which helped lay the empirical basis of general botany. Candolle also originated the idea of “Nature’s war,” which influenced (1809–1882) and his theory of natural selection. During his work with plants, Candolle discovered that plant leaf movements follow a near-24-hour cycle in constant light, suggesting an internal biological clock. While many doubted Candolle’s findings, experiments conducted over a century later demonstrated that the internal biological clock does indeed exist.

I.276. Botanist and physician (1766–1815) is the author of the first botany published in the USA. His Elements of Botany; or, Outlines of the Natural History of

Vegetables (1803) was intended as an illustrated textbook for medical students. Having been trained in medicine since 1781, Barton continued his studies at the University of Edinburgh

(1786–1788), where he became president of the Royal Medical Society and a member of the

Speculative Society and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. In 1789, Barton was appointed professor of botany, natural history, and medicine at the College of Philadelphia, which became

161

the University of Pennsylvania in 1791. Humboldt met him during his visit to Philadelphia in

1804. Interested also in Native American ethnology and , Barton published New Views

of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America in 1797. A member and president of the

Linnean Society of London (1806), president of the Philadelphia Medical Society (1808–1812),

and vice president of the American Philosophical Society (1802–1815), Barton published and edited the Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal from 1804 to 1809.

I.278. Well known for his twelve years of studying the plants of North America, the French botanist André MICHAUX (1746–1802) traveled widely on orders of the French government. On

his return trip to Paris in 1797, he lost most of his collected specimens in a shipwreck. Prior to

his time in Canada, Nova Scotia, and the United States, Michaux had traveled in Egypt and to

Persia to collect plants and grains (1782–1785). Besides bringing mimosa, gingko, and camellia

from Persia, he also compiled a French–Persian dictionary. Some of Michaux’s observations in

North America were published by his son François André Michaux (1770–1855) in Histoire des

chênes de l’Amérique: ou, Descriptions et figures de toutes les espèces et variétés de chênes de

l’Amérique Septentrionale, considérées sous les rapports de la botanique, de leur culture et de

leur usage (History of the oak trees of America, or, descriptions and drawings of all the species

and varieties of oak trees in North America, considered under their botanical aspects and their

cultivation and use) in 1801 and Flora Boreali-Americana in 1803. Between trips, Michaux was

introduced to Thomas Jefferson, who asked him to organize an expedition to the west. Michaux

only got as far as St. Louis, when Jefferson recalled the expedition for political reasons.

I.296. In his dramatic and colorful Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España,

BERNAL DÍAZ del Castillo (1492–1585) countered Gómara’s version of the Spanish conquests,

162

especially his reports on Hernán Cortés’s invasion of Mexico (1519–1521) in Historia de la

conquista de México (1522). Diaz’s Historia verdadera narrates Cortés’s invasion from the

perspective of an ordinary soldier, who—unlike Gómara and many other chroniclers of the

time—had actually been in the New World and participated in the conquest. Parts of the Historia

verdadera were published in 1632; the complete text was not recovered until 1904.

I.298. Spanish missionary Jerónimo de LOAYSA (also Loaisa or Loaysa, 1498–1575) was the first bishop of Lima and the first archbishop of Peru. After entering the Dominican Order, he arrived in America in 1528 to take charge of the bishopric of Cartagena de Indias (Colombia). Appointed bishop of Lima in 1541, he took office in 1543; two years later, he became the first archbishop of

Peru, a position he held for thirty years.

I.298. A Jeronymite priest from the monastery at who had arrived in Lima in 1773,

Diego CISNEROS (c. 1740–1812) was a strong supporter of the Peruvian Enlightenment. A

member of the Sociedad de los Amantes del País (Patriotic Society), he contributed to the

Mercurio Peruano under the pseudonym “Archidamo.” Once in Lima, he opened a library and

circulated banned works by such authors as Voltaire, Rousseau, , d’Alembert, and

Montesquieu, to which his political connections with the Spanish monarchy gave him access.

Cisneros’s clandestinely introduced works were readily cited in the Mercurio Peruano, the

twelfth and last volume of which he personally financed. In 1796, the Inquisition opened a

fruitless trial against Cisneros for possessing prohibited books and upholding heretical ideas. A

letter criticizing the Inquisition, allegedly by Cisneros, was published in the newspaper El

Investigador (1813–1814) after the abolition of this tribunal in 1812.

163

I.299. Miguel FEYJÓO de Sosa (also Feijoo, 1718–1791) was born in Arequipa (Peru), studied at

the Jesuit school of St. Martin’s College (1733), and graduated from and lectured at the

University of San Marcos in 1755. The governor of Quispicanchi since 1744 and chief

accountant for Lima’s royal treasury court since 1744 by way of marriage, he was appointed

governor of Trujillo in 1757. In the 1760s, Feyjóo became comptroller and then director of the

royal tobacco monopoly. In 1769, he headed up a commission to privatize the possessions of the

recently expelled Jesuits. Feyjóo resigned from his position as chief accountant for the royal

treasury court in 1773. In addition to writing Relación descriptiva de la ciudad y provincia de

Trujillo del Perú (Descriptive account of the city and province of Trujillo in Peru, 1763),

Feyjoo’s authored Nuevo gazofilacio real del Perú (New royal treasury of Peru, 1771). The latter

is housed at the Archivo General de Indias at Seville (Lima 1068).

I.299. Captain James WILSON (1760–1814) was a British explorer who brought the first British missionaries from the London Missionary Society to Tahiti aboard the Duff in 1797. While captaining the Duff, Wilson visited many islands in the Pacific, some of which had no recorded visits by prior European explorers. His A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean was published in 1799.

I.299. Enterprising British naval officer, merchant captain, and fur trader John TURNBULL (fl.

1799–1813) served as second mate on the Barwell on her voyage to China in 1799. After

returning from his travels, Turnbull partnered with John Buyer, the first officer, in a business

venture that involved the lucrative on the northwest coast of the Americas. The ship

Margaret was bought and fitted out for the venture, with Buyers placed in command of the ship

and Turnbull entrusted with business arrangements and appointed historian of the voyage. The

164

Margaret left England on July 2, 1800, and sailing by way of the Cape of Good Hope, stopped in

Sydney, Australia, in February 1801 and at the Society Islands in September 1802 before continuing on to the Hawaiian Islands, which they reached in mid-December 1802. Turnbull and

Buyers then headed south and sailed among the Tuamotuan atolls and Nukutipipi before heading to Tahiti. After landing at Tahiti, Turnbull and Buyer attempted a few business ventures that all ended in failure before ultimately returning to England by way of Sydney and the Cape of Good

Hope. Though a consummate financial failure, Turnbull’s voyage yielded useful, though biased and dated, information about Tahiti and the Hawaiian and Society Islands and led to the English discovery of a handful of new islands, including Margaret, Phillips, and Holt in the Tuamotu

Archipelago. His was published in 1805.

I.300. Born in Asturias (Spain), Pedro Rodríguez, Count of CAMPOMANES (1723–1802) graduated as a lawyer in 1745 and began his government career a decade later. In 1756,

Campomanes became a member of the Royal Academy of Spain. Three years later, during the reign of Charles III (1759–1788), he became a highly influential political economist who advocated for commercial and agrarian reform, the liberation of international trade, and the establishment of many regional economic societies (especially the Economic Society of Madrid).

Public prosecutor, governor of the Council of Castile, and the president of the Royal Academy of

History, Campomanes was most notoriously the political architect of the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from the Spanish territories. Under orders from Charles III, he authored the Dictamen fiscal de expulsion de los jesuitas de España (Fiscal rule on the Jesuits’ expulsion from Spain,

1766–67). In it, Campomanes reviewed the wealth and actions of the Jesuits in Europe and the

Americas (especially Paraguay) to argue that the Jesuit Order has defrauded the Catholic Church and the State by evading taxes. He also accused the Jesuits of being spiritual and regal

165

insubordinates. In 1766, Campomanes had written the Tratado de la regalía de Amortización

(Treatise on the privilege of amortization, 1765), limiting the wealth of the Catholic Church,

especially its freedom to own, buy, and inherit land. In his Tratado, he argued that the Church’s

wealth was mainly to blaime for the impoverishment of the country and depopulation of cities. In

Campomanes’s other influential essay, Discurso sobre el Fomento de la Industria Popular

(Discourse on the development of working-class industry, 1774), he adapted British and French

liberal theories for the betterment of agricultural economies. He wrote countless government

reports, several other treatises, and collaborated with Miguel Casiri (1710–1791), a librarian of

El Escorial, in translating Abu Zachariah’s treatise on agriculture. It was published in Spanish as

Tratado del cultivo de las tierras (Treatise on cultivating the land, 1751). Campomanes’s

influence waned during the reign of Charles IV (r. 1788–1808).

I.301. Spanish diplomat PEDRO CEBRIÁN y Agustín, Count of Fuenclara (1687–1752), was

viceroy of New Spain from 1742 to 1746. After receiving a royal order requesting information

about the state of the viceroyalty, Fuenclara ordered José Antonio Villaseñor y Sánchez to

gather statistical information about the population of New Spain. Fuenclara was responsible for

arresting Boturini and confiscating his famous collection. Before arriving in New Spain,

Fuenclara was ambassador of Spain in (1734–36), Vienna (1736–38), (1738),

and Naples (1738–40). As ambassador in Vienna, he arranged the wedding of Charles III of

Spain and María Amalia of Saxony.

I.301. A native of San Luis Potosí, statistician and mapmaker José Antonio VILLASEÑOR y

Sánchez (1703–1759) studied at the Real Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City from 1720 to

1726 and began an administrative career. Appointed royal cosmographer of New Spain, he was

166

commissioned by the viceroy Fuenclara to compile a report about the condition of the provinces

of New Spain in 1743. His report, titled Theatro Americano (1746–48), contains geographic,

economic, and demographic information about mid-eighteenth-century New Spain. Published in

two volumes, the Theatro includes descriptions of the bishoprics of Mexico, Puebla, Michoacán,

Oaxaca, Guadalajara, and Durango. Written with the goal to present population data from the

1742–45 census, it includes information about New Spain, New Galicia, Nueva Vizcaya, and the

Interior Provinces. A prolific writer and cartographer, Villaseñor also updated and expanded the

Theatro by adding a description of Mexico City.

I.304. The ENCOMIENDA was a special form of , originally an allotment of lands

either won or yet to be won. The colonial encomienda system, however, included no allocation

of either land or rents, as it originally had when used on the Spanish Peninsula. It was purely a

forced labor system, in which the state temporarily assigned Indians to individual Spaniards who,

in turn, agreed to take care of them. The encomienda system was a common practice among

Spanish conquerors until 1542, when it was prohibited by Spanish law.

I.305n. Spanish clergyman Francisco Javier de Lizana y (1750–1815) was

ARCHBISHOP of Mexico (1803–11) and viceroy of New Spain (1809–10). Trained in civil and

canonical law, he studied at Calatayud and the University of and had previously been bishop in Teruel (Spain). After viceroy Iturrigaray was deposed, Lizana provisionally took over the viceregal office; he was the last to hold the dual post of archbishop and viceroy. Lizana ratified ’s decree of excommunicating the insurgent Hidalgo and his followers during the Mexican war of independence.

167

I.306n. Pedro José DE FONTE y Hernández Miravete (1777–1839) was archbishop of Mexico City

from 1815 to 1837, the last Spaniard to occupy that seat in the Mexican capital. His opposition to

the independence movements forced him to flee to Spain in 1821. When asked to return to his

office, de Fonte decided instead to retire from his position.

I.311. The career of Jacques PEUCHET (1758–1830) led from literature to medicine, medicine to

law, and from law to administration to the police. In 1799–1800, he published a five-volume

dictionary of commercial geography, the Géographie commerçante, which made Bonaparte appoint him to the Council of Trade and the Arts. The best known of his many works, which were mostly on economic subjects, is his topographical and statistical description of France,

Statistique élémentaire de la France, from 1805. For a time, he edited the Gazette de France and even took over the royalist Mercure. A supporter of the French Revolution for only a short time,

Peuchet soon turned to the royalist party. At the restoration of the Bourbons, Peuchet was given the post of keeper of archives in the Paris police prefecture, a position he held until 1827.

I.311. Born into a peasant family in Södermanland, , mathematician and astronomer

Henrik NICANDER (1744–1815) became famous for his work as a demographer who followed, in

this respect at least, in the footsteps of his mentor Pehr Wargentin. Nicander became

Wargentin’s astronomical assistant in 1776 at Uppsala University. After the latter’s death in

1783, it was assumed that Nicander would succeed him as secretary-general of the Royal

Swedish Academy of Sciences. There was, however, a strong opposition to Nicander’s candidacy in the Academy because of his weak scientific credentials. Finally, the difference was split between Nicander and the other candidate, the physicist Johan Carl Wilcke (1732–96).

Wilcke became first secretary and took over most of Wargentin’s functions. Nicander became

168

second secretary in charge of astronomical observations and almanac publishing. Nicander’s

research as an astronomer was fairly insignificant, and he turned to Swedish population statistics

instead, putting the Academy’s Tabellkomission (statistical commission) back on its feet.

I.313n. The English political economist and demographer Thomas MALTHUS (1766–1834), who

visited Norway, Sweden, and Russia in 1799, met Nicander in Stockholm and had the benefit of

a first look at his statistics before they were published. Malthus was able to use Nicander’s

unique work to demonstrate the correlation between mortality rates and good or bad harvests.

I.314. First a military officer and merchant, economist and architect Samuel BLODGET (1757–

1814) was one of the earliest USAmerican writers on political economy. He was among the

founders of the Union Bank and the Insurance Company of North America (both in 1792), the

latter of which underwrote merchants’ ships at sea, and the Bank of Columbia, the first private

bank in Washington, D.C. Designing an unapproved plan for the USAmerican Capitol and

appointed superintendent of buildings for the District of Columbia in 1793, he designed the Bank

of the United States in Philadelphia in 1795. Blodget’s first publication was Thoughts on the

Increasing Wealth and National Economy of the United States of America (1801). His main work, Economica: A Statistical Manual for the United States (1806), includes notes on agriculture, commerce, banking, and a description of a project for a national university.

I.316. From 1801 to 1804, French physician and researcher Louis-René VILLERMÉ (1782–1863)

studied surgery with anatomy professor Guillaume Dupuytren in Paris. After serving in the

army for a decade, Villermé practiced as a physician until 1818 and later worked full time in medical research. He also served as the secretary-general of the Société Médicale d’Emulation

(1818), was elected to the Académie de Médecine (1823), entered the Conseil de Salubrité de

169

Paris (1831), and was elected to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (1832). In

addition to cofounding the Annales d’Hygiène Publique et de Médecine Légale (Annals of public

hygiene and lawful medicine, 1829), he was the rapporteur for the Statistical Commission of the

Académie de Médecine. Commissioned by the Academy to research the impact of industrialization on society in 1834, he produced the Tableau de l'état physique et moral dans ouvriers employés dans les manufactures de coton, de laine et de soie (Tableau of the physical and moral state of the workers employed in cotton, wool, and silk manufacturing, 1840) to describe working conditions, lifestyle, and life expectancy. The Tableau led to the first child labor laws in France. Pioneering the analysis of data to challenge medical hypotheses, Villermé’s writings on mortality rates and prison conditions made him a forerunner of the field of social epidemiology.

I.328. A former naval officer, Juan Antonio de RIAÑO y de la Bárcena (c. 1757–1810) was a

Spanish colonial administrator for the better part of a quarter of a century. He was mayor of

Valladolid de Michoacán and the first intendant of the province (1786–91), and he was appointed intendant of Santa Fé de Guanajuato in mid-1791, a post he held for eighteen years. In

Guanajuato, Riaño also established a chair of French and Mathematics at the Royal College of the Immaculate Conception (currently the University of Guanajuato). Riaño died during the

Mexican War of Independence in the Alhóndiga de Granaditas (Guanajuato, Mexico), a granary built by his own orders.

I.329. Of Irish and Spanish descent, the brothers Mateo Lorenzo (b. 1777), Juan (b. 1767), and

Tomás MURPHY Porro (also Morfi, b. 1768) were among the most important merchants in the

port of Veracruz in the 1790s and early 1800s. They were the sons of Bárbara Porro Reynado of

170

Gibraltar (b. 1738) and Juan Murphy y Eliot (b. 1748). Tomás and his older brother Juan came to

Veracruz in 1791 to work as apprentice merchants in the trading house of their uncle, Bernardo

Porro. In 1795, Tomás became a partner in the firm of Porro & Murphy. A year later, when both

Mateo and Tomás became members of the Veracruz merchant guild, Tomás formed another partnership, this time with the London merchant William Duff Gordon (1772–1823). (Gordon &

Murphy exported mainly dyes and bullion to Spain.) Tomás Murphy’s manifold commercial interests and the resulting flexibility served him well throughout his career, helping him build up a network of trading partners in various European, Caribbean, and USAmerican ports. In addition to profiting handsomely from the sugar boom (1800–04), Gordon & Murphy, which had a number of subsidiaries, received so-called neutral shipping contracts from the Spanish Crown during the Anglo-Spanish War and retained them even after Spain revoked most of these licenses after 1799. Receiving these profitable permits was the result of Tomás’s excellent political connections, notably with the Spanish Prime Minister Manuel Godoy. Tomás Murphy Porro also served as an advisor to viceroy Revillagigedo and other colonial administrators.

I.329. Spanish military physician Francisco Javier de BALMIS Y BERENGUER (1753–1819) led the

Spanish smallpox vaccination expedition, also known as the Balmis Expedition (1803–06).

Trained in the Military Hospital of Alicante (1770–75), he was admitted to the military health

unit in 1778. An army surgeon in 1781, he practiced in New Spain before becoming physician to

Charles IV. In Spain, he envisioned, planned, and advocated for a global expedition to spread

the new smallpox vaccine in Spain’s oversees dominions. The health care mission sailed from La

Coruña (Spain) in 1803 on the María Pita. Balmis visited Puerto Rico, La Guaira, Havana, and

New Spain. In New Spain, the vaccine reached the Interior Provinces as far north as Texas. In

1805, Balmis traveled to Manila from Acapulco. After dispensing the vaccine in the Philippines,

171

he left for Macao and Canton. Successful in introducing the vaccine beyond the into British-controlled territories in Asia, he arrived back in Spain in 1806. In addition to translating into Spanish Jacques Louis Moreau de la Sarthe’s (1771–1826) Traité historique et pratique de la vaccine (Historical and practical treatise on the vaccine, 1803), he published

Demostración de las eficaces virtudes nuevamente descubiertas en las raíces de dos plantas de

Nueva España (Demonstration of the effective benefits newly discovered in the roots of two plants in New Spain, 1794).

I.331. Edward Anthony JENNER (1749–1823) was an English physician and scientist from

Berkeley, Gloucestershire, whose pioneering work in immunology led to the advancement of

vaccination as a medical practice. Jenner’s interest in developing a smallpox vaccine began when

he noticed that milkmaids were generally immune to the disease. Jenner hypothesized that the

milkmaids’ exposure to pus from cowpox (an illness similar to smallpox but much less virulent)

accounted for their immunity. He tested his hypothesis on May 14, 1796, by inoculating his

gardener’s eight-year-old son, James Phipps, in both arms with pus scraped from the cowpox

blisters on the hands of milkmaid Sarah Nelmes. Even after subsequent injections of variolous material, Phipps failed to develop any signs of infection. Jenner successfully tested his hypothesis on twenty-three cases before reporting his results to the Royal Society, which eventually published his report. Previous to Jenner’s discovery, vaccination had been conducted by using variolous material that carried much higher rates of risk and infection. Jenner’s discovery revolutionized vaccination practices and many consider him the father of immunology.

I.331. José Hipólito UNANUÉ y Pavón (1755–1833) edited the Mercurio Peruano (1791–95) and

contributed to the Sociedad de Amantes del País (Patriotic society). A year after publishing

172

Observaciones sobre el clima de Lima (1806), in which he discussed endemic, epidemic, and

sporadic diseases in relation to the region’s and natural history, Unanué was

named the colony’s chief medical officer. An intellectual during the transition period from the

colonial to the independence era, he acted as advisor to several viceroys; after independence, he

was appointed Peru’s first minister of finance. He became president of Peru in 1825.

I.332. Lawyer José Agustín Pardo de Figueroa y Acuña, MARQUIS OF VALLEUMBROSO (c. 1695–

1747), came from an affluent, aristocratic family of Lima. One of the most famous Limeños of

the eighteenth century, he began his studies at the Colegio de San Martin (1708) and was trained

in law at the University of San Marcos. After practicing law for a few years, he traveled to Spain

(1720), and then to New Spain with his great-uncle, the newly appointed viceroy Marquis de

Casa Fuerte. After five years, he returned to Spain where he traveled and met with European

scholars and intellectuals. In Spain, he supported the inclusion of two Spaniards in the French

Academy’s expedition to the then-province of Quito to determine the shape of the Earth. Writing

from Cuzco, where he held the office of governor of the province (1742–44), the Marquis

became a close correspondent and friend of La Condamine, with whom he shared a wealth of

information about exploring the Amazon. After his term as governor of Abancay (1735) and

Cuzco, Valleumbroso retired to a country estate.

I.333n. British physician RICHARD VINES (1585–1651) was an early explorer of northern New

England who became deputy governor of the Province of . Humboldt (via Morse and

Parish’s Compendious History of New-England) refers here to Vines’s explorations in Maine

during 1616–17, when he had traded with the local Indians. After leaving the employ of Sir

173

Ferdinand Gorges (1565–1647), Vines established himself in Barbados. By 1648, he owned two cotton plantations. He also practiced medicine.

I.333. Jedidiah MORSE (1761–1826) was a USAmerican Congregational minister and

geographer, who authored the first textbook on American geography, Geography Made Easy

(1784). He had the encouragement of, among others, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison

(1751–1836). Morse published his first geographical dictionary, The American Gazetteer, in

1797. Noah Webster (1758–1843), who would later work on his own dictionary, had initially offered his assistance but had to withdraw.

I.333. In 1804, Morse, together with Elijah PARISH (1762–1825), published the first edition of A

Compendious History of New England (1804), a history text of the colonial period. Parish, a

reverend of Byfield (Massachusetts), was also the coauthor, with Morse, of A New Gazetteer of the Eastern Continent (1802).

I.334. Father TORIBIO was better known by the Nahuatl name MOTOLINIA (“the poor one”).

Toribio Paredes (also Toribio de Benavente, c. 1490–1569) was one of the legendary first twelve

Franciscan missionaries in New Spain. He arrived in Tenochtitlán in 1524. Having been asked to write about the indigenous peoples’ beliefs system before the conquest, Motolinia studied and documented their religions and customs along with the Franciscans’ missionary efforts from

1524 to 1540. The extant part of this work is known as Historia de los Indios de la Nueva

España (History of New Spain’s Indians), which he completed around 1541 (it was published in

1858). Based on oral accounts and pictorial codices, Motolinia’s Historia includes an introductory letter about indigenous history and is divided into three treatises. In the introductory letter, Motolinia mentions as his sources five different kinds of books—tonalamatls (from

174

tonally, day, and amatl, book)—which indigenous peoples used to record history and beliefs.

These included the annals of history describing conquests, succession of rulers, and other important events; the book of days and feasts; the book of dreams, illusions, superstitions, and omens; the book of baptism and the naming of infants; and the book of marriage rites and ceremonies. Other now lost writings by Motolinia, which go into more detail, were published as

Memoriales in 1903. Today, scholars believe that he had actually completed a larger work on indigenous subjects, of which the Historia is merely an extract, and that the Memoriales are parts

of earlier drafts. The title of this longer work was supposedly De moribus indorum (Of the

customs of the Indians), Libro de los ritos, costumbres y conversión de los indios (Book of rites,

customs, and the conversion of the Indians), or Relación de las cosas, idolatrías, ritos y

ceremonias de la Nueva España (Account of the things, idolatries, rites, and ceremonies of New

Spain). In addition to his writings about the religious conquest, Motolinia also authored a now lost account of the military overthrow. Famous is his letter to Charles V, dated January 2, 1555, in which Motolinia attacks the Dominican Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, bishop of Chiapas, and supports Cortés. Before his death, Motolinia had traveled as far south as Nicaragua and

Guatemala.

I.334. Pánfilo de NARVÁEZ (1470–1528) was a Spanish conquistador and lieutenant under

Cuba’s first governor, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar. His slave was called Estebanico (also

Mustafa Zemmori, 1500–1539); the Moor, as he was also known, he is supposed to be the first

African to reach American shores. With a special authorization by the Spanish King to found

new colonies and begin trade, Velázquez saw an opportunity to prevent his rival, Fernando

Cortés, from conquering the Mexican mainland; he sent out Pánfilo de Narváez to stop Cortés’s

expedition and arrest him. Together with the Spanish captain Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca,

175

Narváez undertook, in 1528, an expedition through the Gulf of Mexico from Tampa Bay to

Galveston, which took a disastrous turn. After landing in Tampa Bay, Narváez had decided to

split up his troops of 400 men and eighty horses into two expeditions, one to sail north along the

western coast, the other to follow the same route on land. But the tropical jungles of the Florida

peninsula and the steady attacks by Apalachees obstructed the land route, and the two

expeditions never saw each other again. Two years and several shipwrecks later, few

expeditioners were still alive, among them Cabeza de Vaca, who continued his odyssey in search

of Spanish settlements along the Texan Coast and the Rio Grande toward the heartland of New

Spain until 1536. We know of these first European travelers to the west from Cabeza de Vacas’s

famous Naufrágios y Comentarios (Shipwrecks and comments). The most complete English version is of this narrative is the three-volume Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His

Life, and the Expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez by Rolena Adorno and Patrick Pautz (1999). For a fictional treatment, see Laila Lalami’s novel The Moor’s Account (2014).

I.334. Born in Spain, Franciscan friar and historian Juan de TORQUEMADA (c. 1564–1624) moved

as a child to Mexico City, where he learned Nahuatl from the indigenous scholar and poet

Antonio Valeriano (1531–1605). After being named chronicler of the Franciscan order in 1609,

Torquemada completed Monarquía Indiana (Indian monarchy) in 1612 (it was published in

1615). This work, which portrays pre-Hispanic Mexico as an advanced civilization, is an

invaluable documentary source on preconquest and early colonial Mexico. For Torquemada,

New Spain succeeded the Mexica empire (founded in 1325, not 1521). Since many of the book’s

chapters are translations of the then-unpublished Historia eclesiástica indiana (Ecclesiastic

Indian history, 1596) by Gerónimo de Mendieta (c. 1528–1604), Torquemada has been

denounced as plagiarist. His work served as a basis for other historians, notably for Clavijero.

176

Torquemada also wrote several other works, including Vida y Milagros del Santo Confesor de

Cristo Fray Sebastián de Aparicio (Life and miracles of the holy confessor of Christ, Friar

Sebastian de Aparicio, 1602).

I.334. Spanish politician Martín Enríquez de ALMANSA (also Almanza, c. 1510–c. 1583) was the fourth viceroy of New Spain and the sixth viceroy of Peru. Upon his arrival in New Spain in

1568, Almanza assumed the role of peacemaker between the secular clergy and the Franciscan order. His twelve-year viceregal rule in New Spain marked a period of political stability and increased attention to the protection of the country’s silver highways. During his term, the

Inquisition was formally established (1571), the Jesuits arrived in New Spain (1572), and the construction of the Cathedral of Mexico began (1573). Three years later, in 1576, an epidemic afflicted thousands of people; especially vulnerable were the indigenous peoples. Almanza also strove to uphold and enforce laws that protected New Spain’s population from the Huachichiles, indigenous people whom the Spanish considered “barbaric.” These laws sought to pacify the

Huachichiles and the Chichimecs through violence and enslavement in what was known as the guerra a fuego y a sangre (war by fire and blood). Part of these measures, for which Almanza had the backing of leading intellectuals and theologians of his time, was the founding of the San

Felipe prison in Guanajuato. Almanza left New Spain when he was appointed viceroy of Peru

(1581–83).

I.334. Among many other things, the Philadelphia lawyer Richard RUSH (1780–1859) was

Minister to Britain and to France.

I.338. The MITA (from the Quechua word mit’a, turn or period of service) was an extensive

system of rotational forced labor used since preconquest times and in Peru and Bolivia until

177

1825. The Hispanicized version of the mita was consolidated in 1573. It was a form of

repartimiento (as known in New Spain) that served to assign unskilled indigenous labor to

private colonial entrepreneurs, especially for mining and textile production. The system was

abolished by Simon Bolívar.

I. 343. Abraham Alfonse GALLATIN (1761–1849) was a Swiss-American ethnologist,

linguist, politician, diplomat, congressman, and the longest-serving secretary of the USAmerican

treasury. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Gallatin immigrated to the United States in the 1780s. He

was politically active in opposition to the Federalist Party’s program. Though elected to the

USAmerican Senate in 1793, he was removed from office by a 14 to 12 party-line vote after opponents protested that he had fewer than the required nine years of citizenship. In 1795,

Gallatin was elected to the House of Representatives and served in the fourth through sixth

Congresses, becoming House Majority Leader. He was an important leader of the new

Democratic-Republican Party, its chief spokesman on financial matters, and led the opposition to many of the policy proposals of treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804).

Gallatin’s services to his country were honored in 1805 when Meriwether Lewis named one of the three headwaters of the Missouri River after him. Gallatin ultimately settled in New York, where he founded New York University in 1831. Throughout his life, he had cultivated an interest in the Native American cultures and languages of both North and South America.

Gallatin’s work in Native American studies has led many to call him the father of American

ethnology. After they met in 1804, he became a trusted friend and regular correspondent of

Humboldt’s.

178

I.343. Pierre François PAGE (1764–1805) wrote about Saint-Domingue, where he had bought

plantations and various tracts of land in early 1790. In 1795, he appeared in court in Paris on

behalf of other colonists, who were accusing two individuals of having devastated the French

part of the island.

I.348n. An expert navigator and successful merchant, naval officer, and fur trader George DIXON

(1776–1791) sailed on Captain James Cook’s third voyage (1776–79), one of many attempts to

discover the Northwest Passage. The voyage must have fired in Dixon an interest in discovery.

In August 1784, he wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, the influential president of the Royal Society of

London, to suggest an overland expedition to cross North America via and the Great

Lakes, with himself as “astronomer.” After 1788, Dixon devoted himself to editing. He

published the compilation, A Voyage Round the World in 1789. See also Meares, John; Portlock,

Nathaniel; Martínez, José Esteban.

I. 349. German-born Georg HORN (or Hornius, 1620–1670) studied medicine and theology at

Nuremberg, and theology at Groningen and Leiden, Holland, where he attained a doctorate in

1648. His first teaching post was at the University of Harderwijk in Gelderland, where he held a chair in history, politics, and geography. In 1652, he was appointed professor of history at the

University of Leiden. His writings focused on universal history, chronology, history of religion,

and historical geography. Having converted to Presbyterianism while living in England (1648–

50), he became one of the prominent seventeenth-century doubters of the Nestorian Stele, a

Chinese monument erected in 781 CE to document 150 years of history of early Christianity in

China, which he deemed a “Jesuit fraud.”

179

I.349. A professor of Syriac at the Collège Royale in 1757, Joseph de GUIGNES (1721–1800)

later served as royal censor and keeper of antiquities at the Louvre. He was a fellow of the

London Royal Society and a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Letters in Paris.

Besides writing a history of the Huns—Histoire générale des Huns (1756)—de Guignes also

tried to prove that China had been a colony of Egypt.

I.349. After studying at several universities in Europe, Strasbourg-born jurist, diplomat,

historian, geographer, and economist Jean-Benoît (or Johann ) SCHÉRER (also Scherer,

1741–1824) served as attaché in the French embassy in St. Petersburg, Russia, and participated

in diplomatic missions in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Berlin. Known as a Russia specialist, he

was also a prolific translator. In 1788, he published one of the earliest works in western Europe

on Ukrainian history and geography. Humboldt refers here to Schérer’s Recherches historiques

et géographiques sur le Nouveau-monde (Historical and geographical research about the New

World) from 1777. In 1808, Schérer settled in Germany and taught French literature and Russian

history at the University of Tübingen.

I.350. The German theologian and philologist Johann Severin VATER (1771–1826) is best remembered for the fact that he edited volumes 2–4 of Johann Christoph Adelung’s

Mithridates after Adelung’s death in 1806. Vater was on the theological faculty of the

universities in , Jena, and Königsberg (Kaliningrad), where he also taught Oriental

languages. The Mithridates assembled samples from all languages that were then known, organizing them geographically. Alexander’s brother (1767–1835) contributed to the fourth volume additions concerning the Basque language.

180

I.350. In 1791, when the Botanical Expedition in New Granada headed by José Celestino Mutis

settled in Bogotá, Francisco Antonio ZEA (1770–1822) joined them as a scientific associate. Zea worked under Mutis until 1795, when Zea’s name came up in a scandal and he was sent to prison in Spain; he was eventually declared innocent. His involuntary journey to Europe proved felicitous, giving him the opportunity to study chemistry in Paris. Until 1804, he served as assistant director of the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid. Zea also enjoyed a political career. In

1819, he became Simón Bolívar’s (1783–1830) vice president of the new Republic of Gran

Colombia, which comprised the Captaincy-general of Venezuela, the Kingdom of New Granada, and the Audiencia of Quito. Shortly after Zea’s death in England, a publication titled Colombia from Humboldt and Other Recent Authorities appeared in Spanish, according to Humboldt written under Zea’s auspices. Its authors were Robert Madie Neele and Frank Howard.

I.353. The number of languages listed for the United States of Mexico today is 295. Of those,

288 are living languages and seven extinct.

I.358. Italian doctor Marcello MALPHIGI (1628–1694), who had studied philosophy and anatomy at the University of , is known as the founder of comparative physiology. Late in life, he

became papal physician.

I.360. Editor of the -based Asiatisches Magazin (Asiatic journal), Julius Heinrich von

KLAPROTH (1783–1835) knew several Oriental languages and engaged in comparative linguistics

and philology. He was also interested in geography, ethnography, and Asian history. Klaproth

traveled to China in 1805–06 and 1806–07. In 1821, he became a foreign associate of the new

Asiatic Society in Paris, where he had resided since 1815. Humboldt’s association with Klaproth

dated back to the former’s frustrated plans to visit Asia in the .

181

I.361n. Florentine merchant, navigator, and explorer (1451–1512) made

several transatlantic voyages to America. On his first documented voyage (1499–1500) under

Alonso de Ojeda (also Hojeda, c. 1470–c. 1515), Vespucci traveled to the coast of Venezuela

and was among the first Europeans known to have reached the mouth of the Amazon. During

another voyage (1501–02), he claims to have sailed to the “new” continent under the auspices of

King (1469–1521) and explored Brazil’s coast. During a third (possibly

fourth) voyage to the Americas (1503–04), under the Portuguese flag, Vespucci went as far as

Bahia (Brazil) and built a fort there before returning to . Granted Spanish citizenship

(1505) and appointed chief navigator in Seville in 1508, he died there in 1522. Although

Vespucci’s travel journals have not survived, four of his letters are extant and have been published and translated numerous times. Possibly the first European to realize that America was a “new” continent, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller (Hylacomylus in Latin, 1470–

1518) named it after Vespucci in Cosmographiae introductio (1507).

I.361n. Martin DOBRIZHOFFER (1717–91) was an Austrian Roman Catholic missionary who lived in Paraguay (1748–67), first among the Guaranis and then among the Abipones in the Gran

Chaco region (a plain extending from southern Bolivia through Paraguay to northern Argentina).

Returning to Europe upon the expulsion of the Jesuits from South America, he settled in Vienna

and gained the friendship of the Hapsburg ruler (1717-1780). Having survived the

suppression of his order, he wrote the history of his mission.

I.362. Having entered the merchant marine in 1783, fur trader (c. 1756–1809)

sailed from China to the northwest coast of America in 1786 and 1788. Stranded in Prince

William’s Sound on his first voyage, the unlicensed interloper Meares was aided and captured by

182 captains Nathaniel Portlock and George Dixon, traders for the rival King George’s Sound

Company. By arrangement with the East India and South Sea companies, the King George’s

Sound Company claimed the monopoly of British trade between the Cape of Good Hope and

Cape Horn. Meares was released on the understanding that he would depart for Macao and not return to the Pacific Northwest. He blithely disregarded that arrangement, sailing to Nootka

Sound under Portuguese flag in 1788. During the winter of 1788–89, Meares, while in Canton,

China, formed a partnership with the King George’s Sound Company. The representative Meares selected for the new partnership, named the Associated Merchants Trading to the Northwest

Coast of America, was James Colnett who clashed with Esteban José Martínez whom Spain had dispatched to Nootka Sound in early 1789 to protect Spanish claims to the area by establishing a post. British rights to the trade at Nootka and in the Pacific were eventually acknowledged in the Nootka Convention (1790). Pervasive interest in the and the coastline of the Pacific Northwest led Meares in 1790 to publish his Voyages made in the years 1788 and 1789, from China to the North West Coast of America. This work magnified the author’s accomplishments at the expense of others, notably Dixon, who called it a “pompous publication” and retaliated immediately with a broadside on the veracity of Meares’s account in his Remarks on the Voyages of John Meares. In Further remarks on the Voyages of John

Meares, published later that year after a feeble response from Meares, Charles Duncan joined

Dixon in a conclusive discrediting of the original claims.

I.366n. German naturalist Johann Christian Daniel von SCHREBER (1739–1810) studied medicine, natural sciences, and theology at the University of Halle. He later transferred to the

University of Uppsala to study with Carl von Linné (1707–87). In 1769–70, Schreber accepted an appointment as professor of botany, natural history, economics, and politics at University of

183

Erlangen and, in 1773, became director of the university’s botanical garden. In addition to his scholarship, notably the volumes of Die Säugethiere (The mammals) that he began in 1774,

Schreber also started to translate the complete works of Linné into German. What added to the importance of Die Säugethiere was that Schreber was the first to give scientific names to many of the animals included. Unsurprisingly, he followed the classification system that Linné had established in 1758. Schreber was a member of several Academies of Science: in London, Russia

(St. Petersburg), and Bavaria. See also Löfling, Pehr.

I.366n. In 1796, at age twenty-two, MARTIN SALMERÓN y Ojeda (1774–1813), the “giant,” was presented to viceroy Branciforte. At the time, Salmerón weighed 270 pounds and stood to the then prodigious height of seven to seven and a half feet. The viceroy approved the man’s request to exhibit himself for money.

I.368n. Georges Baron de CUVIER (1769–1832) was the leading French zoologist and anatomist of his time. Humboldt for a time endorsed his theories on global catastrophe, formulated as a corrective to the concept of evolution, which Cuvier vehemently rejected, believing that species remained unchanged once created. Cuvier’s bone comparisons made him one of the founders of modern paleontology. As permanent secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, Cuvier was essential to the Academy’s international reputation. After Cuvier’s death, François Arago was appointed as his successor.

I.369. Franz Joseph GALL (1758–1828) was a medical doctor and brain researcher. He developed a theory, later called phrenology, which identified the twenty-seven “organs” of the human brain.

Gall argued that these so-called organs and the faculties they represented, such as the “faculty of sexual reproduction” or the “faculty of music,” shaped the exterior of the skull and could thus be

184

examined by sight or touch of the head. Born in the German region of Baden, Gall lived and

worked in Vienna. The lectures on his “Schädellehre” (theory of the skull) and his extensive

collection of skulls made him a well-known personality in late eighteenth-century Vienna. In

1801, however, the Austrian emperor Franz II (1768–1835) prohibited Gall’s lectures and any

publications, as a result of which Gall left Vienna and went on a lecture tour through Europe

between 1805 and 1807. He became increasingly popular particularly in Germany, where

important intellectuals such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) supported his theory.

In 1807, Gall settled in Paris, where he published an extensive account of his theory On the

Functions of the Brain and of each of its Parts (1810–19). Even though today Gall’s idea that the

human personality can be deduced by studying the shape of a head is repudiated, Gall remains

important for his approach to the brain functions and for his identification of the grey and white

matter of the brain.

I.371. Alexis Claude CLAIRAUT (1713–1765) was a renowned French mathematician. Taught by

his father, he studied mathematics from an early age and delivered his first paper to the

Académie des Sciences in Paris at thirteen. His work on “double-curvature curves” was admitted to the Académie in 1731. There, Clairaut joined a group of scientists, including Pierre-Louis

Maupertuis (1698–1759), who supported Isaac Newton’s (1643–1727) theory of gravitation,

which was regarded with skepticism in France at that time. Together with Maupertuis, Clairaut

studied under Johann (1667–1748) in 1734. From 1736–37, Clairaut accompanied

Maupertuis on an expedition to Lapland, where they measured a degree of longitude. These

measurements confirmed Newton’s hypothesis that the shape of the Earth is flattened at the

poles, thus contradicting Jacques Cassini (1677–1756). In his “Théorie de la figure de la Terre”

(Theory of the shape of the earth) from 1743, Clairaut mustered theoretical support for the

185

experimental data he had gathered in Lapland. In subsequent writings, Clairaut engaged with

Newton’s theories more closely. Not only did he help the Marquise du Châtelet (1706–1749)

with the translation of Newton’s Principia, but he also wrote about the moon’s orbit in Newton’s

system. He also used the moon as an example for a three-body problem in celestial mechanics

(1752). Later, Clairaut transferred this problem to a larger scale and occupied himself with the

movement of comets by computing the orbit of Halley’s Comet. He was praised for predicting

the precise date of the appearance of this comet within a month: the comet appeared on March 13

instead of on the predicted April 15, 1759. Clairaut also wrote two textbooks, Élémens de

géométrie (Elements of geometry, 1741) and Élémens d’algèbre (Elements of algebra, 1746).

I.372n. AL-MA’MŪN, whose full name is Abū Al-‘abbās ‘abd Allāh Al-ma’mūn Ibn Ar-rashīd

(786–833), was a caliph during the ‘Abbāsid Dynasty (813–833), an Islamic dynasty that founded Baghdad and ruled in Iraq between 749 and 1258. Al-Ma’mūn was a philosopher and astronomer known for his efforts to end sectarian rivalries in Islam and impose a rationalist

Muslim creed. Al-Ma’mūn encouraged the translation of Greek philosophical and scientific thought and imported unknown manuscripts from Byzantium. In 830, he founded a translation academy and research center called Bayt al-Hikmah (House of Wisdom) in Baghdad, which survived until the thirteenth century. Al-Ma’mūn also established observatories at which Muslim scholars could verify astronomical knowledge handed down from antiquity.

I.373n. is the founder–hero in the mythology of the Chibcha () peoples, one of

the most advanced pre-Columbian civilizations in South America. Bochica, possibly also known

as Idacanzas, arrived from the east as a bearded man, instructed the Chibcha ancestors in moral

186

laws and crafts, and disappeared in the west. See also Humboldt’s Views of the Cordilleras and

Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.

I.374. See Diego Muñoz Camargo..

I.382. Mexican pharmacist of Spanish origin Vicente (1758–1829) had originally

been sent to New Spain as part of the Real Expedición Botánica (Royal botanical expedition) to

help inventory the country’s flora. He traveled to New Spain in 1787 to assist Martin de Sessé,

the expedition’s head, in founding the Botanical Garden of Mexico City, which opened in 1788.

Sessé was director of the botanical garden while Cervantes held the chair in botany. He later

succeeded Sessé. Cervantes’s work, like that of the entire botanical expedition, met initial

skepticism from Mexican scientists. A good example of developing tensions was the conflict

between Cervantes and José de Alzate y Ramírez about the introduction of the Linnean system

of classification to New Spain, which Alzate refused. They eventually put aside their

disagreements and collaborated. Cervantes also tried to disseminate other European ideas, for

instance, by translating Lavoisier’s Traité élémentaire de chimie (Basic treatise on chemistry)

into Spanish. Cervantes’s achievements were many. In addition to being the first to describe

about 300 newly discovered plants, he published fifteen substantial works, among them the

Ensayo a la Materia médica vegetal de México (Essay on the medical properties of plants in

Mexico), as well as his contributions to Plantae Novae Hispaniae (Plants of New Spain) and

Flora Mexicana, both of which summarize the results of the botanical expedition. Cervantes, in

short, fostered what recent scholars, among them Antonio Lafuente and Leoncio López-Ocón,

have called “the vigor of scientific Creolization in New Spain.” See also Martín de Sessé y

Lacasta.

187

I.384n. In 1755, Francis I (1708–1765), the founder of the Hapsburg Dynasty, dispatched the

Dutch physician, botanist, and chemist Nikolaus Joseph Freiherr von JACQUIN (1727–1817) to

the West Indies to collect plants for the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. Four years later, Jacquin,

who had also visited Carthagena, returned with a substantial collection of animal, plant, and

mineral specimens. Among many other botanical works, all beautifully illustrated, Jacquin

published the Selectarum stirpium americanarum historia (Select history of American roots,

1763), a select catalogue of plants from the Americas classified according to Carl von Linné’s

(1707–87) system. In 1763, Jacquin was appointed professor of chemistry at the Mining

Academy in Schemnitz (Hungary, now ). In 1768, he returned to Vienna as professor of

botany and chemistry and director of the recently established botanical gardens of the University

of Vienna. Of course, he was also in charge of the Schönbrunn gardens. He flourished in his new

positions and proved a prolific writer on botany who was in regular contact with the most famous

botanists of his day.

I.386. MONTEZUMA II (c. 1466–1520), also known as Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin or Montezuma

the Younger—alternate spellings are Motēuczōmah and Moctezuma—is the most widely

described and documented of all Mexica emperors. He was the last (great speaker, by

extension king or great lord) of Tenochtitlán (1502–1520). The nephew of Ahuizotl (r. 1486–

1502), this eighth ruler of the Mexica Empire conquered various towns in Oaxaca and Tlaxcala and suppressed rebellions inside the empire’s borders. Following Mexica political traditions of announcing and establishing the terms of war before attacking, Montezuma welcomed and met with Cortés in 1519. Once inside Tenochtitlán, Cortés promptly captured Montezuma, who died shortly after under historically contested circumstances: Montezuma presumably fled first, spreading smallpox and other infectious diseases among his people.

188

I.389. Under rule of the reformist King CHARLES III of Spain (1716–1788, r. 1759–1788), the

Society of Jesus was expelled from Spain and its colonies in 1767. Charles III implemented a

series of laws and measures known as the , which introduced more vertical

administrative structures and highly centralized government. Applied to Spain and the Spanish

dominions oversees, these reforms were intended to expand imperial rule and increase fiscal

revenues. Under Charles III, José de Gálvez y Gallardo became colonial inspector-general of

New Spain. Charles IV, his son, succeeded him. See also Rodríguez, Pedro, Count of

Campomanes.

I.390. José de GÁLVEZ y Gallardo, Marquis of Sonora (1720–1787), was the brother of and an

uncle to two viceroys of New Spain, Matías de Gálvez and Bernardo de Gálvez, respectively.

After graduating from the University of Salamanca, José Bernardo practiced law in Madrid and,

in 1764, began his civil service career as judge of the superior court of the capital. A year later,

he was appointed royal envoy to New Spain, a position he held for six years, until 1771. Shortly

thereafter, he was selected as honorary member of the Council of the Indies, of which he later

became governor. As inspector-general, he had implemented Charles III’s 1767 order to expel

all Jesuits from Spanish territory. Gálvez and Junípero Serra planned the creation of a chain of

missions in Upper California to secure the western coast against Russian encroachments. In

1776, Gálvez also proposed and implemented the formation of the Provincias Internas (Interior

Provinces) in New Spain: this immense, near-autonomous region included Texas, Coahuila,

Nueva Vizcaya, New Mexico, Sinaloa, Sonora, Alta California, and Baja California. From 1776 to 1787, Gálvez served as Minister of the Indies (or Colonial Secretary). During the first year in this powerful position, he established a new viceroyalty with a capital in Buenos Aires, which covered present-day Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia. He also established the Royal

189

Monopoly on Tobacco to increase Spain’s trade revenues. In 1786, Gálvez put the intendancy

system into effect in New Spain.

I.393n. In 1814, Novo–Spanish colonial administrator Joaquin MANIAU Y TORQUEMADA (d.

1820) advanced from general accountant to director-general in the accountancy office of the

Tobacco Monopoly. Because of his professional expertise, Maniau collaborated with Carlos de

Urrutia and Fabián de Fonseca (d. 1813) in compiling the Libro de la razón general de la Real

Hacienda en Nueva España (1793). A year later, Maniau wrote a summary of the Libro, the

Compendio de la Historia de la Real Hacienda de la Nueva España, which, however, was not published until 1914. The representative for Veracruz to the Spanish Courts at Cádiz since 1810,

Maniau became vice president of the Courts in 1811 and president two years later.

Bilbao-born Diego María de GARDOQUI y Arriquibar (1735–1798) was the Spanish ambassador

to the USA from 1785 to 1795. During the USAmerican Revolutionary War, he had been a

financial intermediary between the two countries while his Basque family’s business helped

supply arms and other military supplies for the Americans. In 1786, Gardoqui and founding

father John Jay (1745–1829) drafted a trade agreement with Spain that would grant the USA

access to free navigation on the Mississippi, which Spain, then still in control of the Louisiana

Territory, had closed to American traffic two years earlier. Congress rejected the treaty.

I.395. French writer and botanist Jacques-Henri BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE (1737–1814) was

the author of Paul and Virginie (1787), a literary romance that was enormously popular in

190

Humboldt’s day. In fact, Humboldt himself read it so many times that he had it virtually

memorized. He still took it with him on his American journey.

I.395n. Humboldt personally knew the Spanish clergyman ANTONIO DE SAN MIGUEL Iglesias y de la Cajiga (1726–1804), the bishop of Michoacán from 1785 to 1804, and admired him.

Admitted to the monastery of Santa Catalina de Montecorbán in 1741, San Miguel entered the

Jeronymite Order in 1805 and became a teacher of arts and theology in schools in the Spanish cities of Ávila, Sigüenza, and Salamanca. In 1768, he became Father-general of his Order and royal envoy for Castile. In 1776, San Miguel was appointed to the Capitancy-general of

Guatemala as bishop of Comayagua. Taking Manuel Abad y Queipo with him, San Miguel arrived in Valladolid on December 1784 to take office as the bishop of Michoacán. Not only is

San Miguel remembered for his confrontations with viceregal authorities over ecclesiastical rights and privileges and for being an advocate for the abolition of caste distinctions and legal inequality in New Spain. He was also responsible for the completion of the great aqueduct in the city of Morelia.

I.398. Spanish jurist Juan de SOLÓRZANO Pereira (1575–1655), one of the most authoritative

commentators of the , was a member of the Council of the Indies from 1629 to

1644. Born in Madrid, he studied law at the University of Salamanca (1589–99), where he also

taught even prior to receiving a doctorate in law in 1608. To better understand and organize the

laws of the Indies, he was appointed judge of the Audiencia of Lima, a position in which he

remained until 1628. During his time in Lima and as governor of Huancavelica (1616–18),

Solórzano completed the first volume of his major work, De Indiarum iure (About Indian law),

in which he recorded the legal status and condition of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in

191

the early seventeenth century. Published in two volumes, De Indiarum iure was immensely influential in Spanish legal thought about the Indies. In 1639, Solórzano began drafting an updated, abridged Spanish edition of the two volumes of De Indiarum iure; it was published in one volume as Política Indiana (Indian politics) in 1648. An illustrated edition of the complete

De Indiarum iure was published by Francisco Ramiro de Valenzuela (d. 1739) as Política

Indiana (1736–39). Francisco María de Vallarna published other writings by Solórzano

posthumously in Obras Varias (6 vols. Madrid: Imprenta Real de la Gazeta, 1776–79).

I.398. Juan Pio Montúfar y FRASO, first Marquis of Selvalegre (alternate spelling Frasso, d.

1761), was the president of the Quito Audiencia from 1753 to 1761 and an honorary member of

the Council of the Indies. His son, Juan Pío Montúfar y Larrea (1758–1818), and his grandson,

Carlos Montúfar (1780–1816), fought during the war of independence. Carlos accompanied

Humboldt and Bonpland during their post-Peru travels.

I.405. Born José Gabriel CONDORCANQUI, Tupac Amaru II (c. 1742–1781) claimed to be a direct

descendant of the Inca of the Vilcabamba State Sayri Tupac (r. 1545–1560) and the last reigning

Inca Tupac Amaru I (d. 1572). The latter had led the resistence against the Spanish conquest in the 1570s. Tupac Amaru II was himself the leader of a widespread Indian revolt in Upper Peru from 1780 to 1783. Educated at the Jesuit School of San Francisco in Cuzco, Tupac Amaru II, cacique (head) of three towns in the district of Tinta (Surimana, Pampamarca, and Tungasuca, south of Cuzco), married the mestiza Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua (c. 1744–81) in 1760. His wife would become his key confidante and an active coordinator of the revolt. Before the rebellion, he had battled in the courts with Diego Felipe Betancur (d. 1778) over the title of

Marquis of Oropesa. Tupac Amaru II’s rebellion movement spread like wildfire through the

192

Andes; it claimed close to 100,000 lives and nearly overthrew the Spanish invasion. Among the

co-conspirator were his relatives Diego Cristóbal (d. 1783) and Andrés Mendigure (d. c. 1784).

Six months into the rebellion, in 1781, Tupac Amaru II, Bastidas, and some of their associates were executed in Cuzco. The rebellion continued until 1783 when the last conspirators were captured and slain.

I.405. King of Spain (Felipe II, r. 1556–1598) and Portugal (Felipe I, r. 1580–1598), PHILLIP II

(1527–1598) inherited the Spanish kingdoms (including the Spanish Empire in the Americas and the Philippines) from his father, Charles V. After marrying his cousin,

(1516–1558) in 1554, Phillip also held the and the dukedom of Milan. A patron of the arts, he supported the Italian painter (c. 1489–1576) and commissioned the construction of the royal palace and the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial.

I.405. In 1572, Phillip II ordered the fifth viceroy of Peru, FRANCISCO DE TOLEDO (1515–1582),

to execute Tupac Amaru I (see above). Before being appointed viceroy (1568–1581), Toledo had

served the Spanish monarchy as a soldier to Phillip’s father. Toledo arrived in Lima in late 1569,

toured the viceroyalty for two years, and established the Inquisition in Peru a year later. See also

Tupac Amaru II.

I.406. Chief magistrate of the Andean province of Tinta in the viceroyalty of Peru, Antonio de

ARRIAGA (d. 1780) was known as an abusive Spanish colonial administrator. In November 1780,

he was captured, tried, and executed in Tungasuca (Peru) by Tupac Amaru II. His killing

marked the opening of the Tupac Amaru II Rebellion against the Spanish Empire. See also

Tupac Amaru II.

193

I.406–7. Humboldt describes the Tupac Amaru II Rebellion, the largest rebellion in Spanish

American colonial history that took place in the Andean region from 1780–83, in his Personal

Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the new Continent (vol. 3, p. 438 in the 1818

translation by Helen Maria Williams).

I.408n. While being detained in France during the Napoleonic Wars from 1802 to 1806, the

British orientalist Alexander HAMILTON (1762–1824) drew up a catalogue of Sanskrit

manuscripts at the Paris library. He was released thanks to the intervention of his colleague

Silvestre de Sacy. Hamilton became the first professor of Hindu literature and the history of

Asia at the future Haileybury College, founded in 1806 by the East India Company. Friedrich

Schlegel’s Über die Sprache und Weiheit der Indier (About the language and wisdom of the

[East] Indians, 1808) grew out of Schlegel’s studies with Hamilton. Hamilton is not to be confused with his namesake, the USAmerican statesman Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804).

I.408. In addition to founding the École des Langues Orientales Vivantes in Paris (School of

Living Oriental Languages) in 1795, Louis Mathieu LANGLÈS (1763–1824) published numerous

editions of travel accounts to which he would add his own notes. Another one of Langlès’s

projects was a translation of Voyage d’Égypte et de Nubie (Voyage to Egypt and Nubia) by

Danish artist Frederik Ludvig Norden (1708–1742).

I.409. Ancient Greek poet (fl. c. 700 BCE) is the principal source of the earliest recorded phase of Greek ideas about the gods. His Theogony gives the fullest account of myths about their

origin. Although often mentioned in one breath with , Hesiod lived in a very different

social and spiritual world.

194

I.409. Spanish historian Francisco LÓPEZ DE GÓMARA (1511–1560) was Cortés’s secretary. With

his Historia de las Indias (History of the Indies), Gómara became one of the prominent

chroniclers of the New World. Gómara’s version of the Spanish conquests, especially his reports

on Cortés’s invasion of Mexico (1519–21) in his Historia de la conquista de México (History of the Mexican conquest, 1522), was contradicted by Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (The True History of the Conquest of New Spain).

I.409. A Dominican missionary, Friar PEDRO DE LOS RÍOS (d. c. 1565) compiled the Codex

Vaticanus A, also known as Codex Ríos or Codex Vaticanus 3738. He also annotated and

purportedly supervised the assemblage of a related codex, the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, a term

Humboldt coined in honor of its first known owner, Charles-Maurice Le Tellier (1642–1710), archbishop of Reims. Combining indigenous with European elements, these codices, which were

of particular importance to Humboldt in his Views of the Cordilleras, focus on ,

ritual, mythology, history, and politics.

I.410n. A prolific writer on theological subjects, Alexandrian theologian ORIGENES Adamantius

(also Origen, c. 185–254) was head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria and one of the

Greek Fathers of the Christian Church. Many of his writings are either lost or survive only as

fragments. One of the two works that survived intact are De principiis (On First Principles) and

Contra Celsium (Against Celus, c. 249), Origines’s response to Greek philosopher Celsus’s

rancorous anti-Christian writings in The True Word (c. 177). Origenes is also known for an early

edition of the Old Testament, titled Hexapla (written between 233 and 244), of which only

fragments endure.

195

I.410n. French scholar and scientist Charles François DUPUIS (1742–1809) authored the highly

influential and beautifully illustrated multivolume Origine de tous les cultes, ou Religión

universelle (The Origin of all Religious Worship, 1795). Dupuis’s Origine regarded the world’s

mythologies and religious traditions as varieties of an original cult of the sun that he traced back to ancient Egypt. An abridged edition of this work, the Abrégé de l’origine de tous les cultes

(Abstract of the origin of all religions, 1797–98) made his comparative theory of past and present

religions more accessible. Trained at the Collègé d’Harcourt in Paris, Dupuis became professor

of Latin at the Collège Royale in Paris. Taught in astronomy by Lalande, he contributed to the

prestigious Journal des Savants and was a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-

Lettres (1788). He is not to be confused with French engraver Charles Dupuis (1685–1742).

I.411n. The German classicist Johann Albert (1668–1736) was best known for his

Bibliotheca Graeca (1705–28), which the German philologist Gottlieb Christoph Harless (or

Harles; 1738–1815) revised and continued between 1790 and 1812. This comprehensive

multivolume study covers Greek literature from pre-homeric times until the fall of

Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453.

I.413. Known as the “the father of modern ethnography,” BERNARDINO DE SAHAGÚN (c. 1499–

1590) is the author of valuable ethnographic and linguistic texts about the indigenous cultures of

the Valley of Mexico and adjacent territories at the time of the Spanish conquest. Sahagún

arrived in New Spain in 1529, only eight years after the initial conquest. He learned Nahuatl in

present-day Mexico City, where he taught the Indian nobility at the Imperial College of Santa

Cruz de . In 1540, while living in the monastery of Huexotzinco (today’s Puebla), he

finished his first book in Nahuatl, Sermonario (Homilies). Around 1558, Sahagún was

196

commissioned to write about the indigenous cultures of his day. For this assignment, he spent

several years interviewing informants from different social classes, gathering information about

their religious practices, history, customs, and knowledge of their surroundings. Between 1563

and 1568, he crafted the Historia universal (general) de las cosas de (la) Nueva España (General

universal history of the state of affairs in New Spain) written in three-column page format in

Nahuatl, Spanish, and Latin. A partial edition was published between 1829 and 1830. In 1569,

Sahagún produced a now-lost copy of the Historia entirely in Nahuatl. There are only two surviving copies of the Historia. The first one is a Spanish-only version known as the

Manuscrito de Tolosa (or Tolosano) which was reportedly at the Franciscan monastery of Tolosa

(Navarra, Spain) in 1732–33 and is now housed at the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid.

The second one is the at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy.

The culmination of Sahagún’s efforts, the Florentine Codex consists of 1,210 leaves with about

1,846 color illustrations, assembled in 1564 under the title Colloquios y doctrina cristiana con que los doze frayles de San Francisco embiados por el papa Adriano sesto y por el emperador

Carlos quinto convirtieron a los Indios de la Nueva España, en lengua mexicana y española

(Conversations and the Christian doctrine with which the twelve friars of San Francisco dispatched by Pope Adrian VI and the Emperor Charles V converted the Indians of New Spain, in the Mexican and the Spanish languages); it is housed in the Vatican. The Colloquios narrate supposed dialogues between surviving Mexica and the first twelve Franciscans from

1524. While Sahagún was preparing a bilingual Spanish/Nahuatl version of his Historia, Philip

II of Spain ordered the Council of the Indies to inspect his work because of a 1577 ban on anything written about the so-called superstitions of the Indios and their former way of life. As a result, at least one manuscript of the Historia was sent to Spain. Around 1585, Sahagún prepared

197

and revised his Kalendario mexicano, latino y castellano (Mexican, Latin, and Castilian

calendar) and the Arte adivinatoria (The art of divination), later copies of which can be found at

the Biblioteca Nacional de México.

I.414. A descendant of the Acolhua kings of Texcoco through his maternal grandmother, the

Novo–Spanish chronicler Fernando de Alva Cortés IXTLILXOCHITL (c. 1580–1650) held several

positions in the viceroyalty’s colonial administration, including that of judicial governor of

Texcoco (1612–13) and of Chalco Tlalmanalco (1616–21). He was also a translator (nahuatlato)

in the court system in Mexico City. The Codex Ixtlilxochitl, three unrelated parts of mixed

Spanish and pictorial text, is named after him. Ixtlilxochitl’s Relaciones (Reports) and his

Historia de la Nación (History of the Chichimec people), his last and most extensive

work on what is now known as the Codex Xolotl—Ixtlilxochitl calls it La crónica de los reyes

(The chronicle of the Chichimex kings)—remained unpublished until the nineteenth

century. Writing in Spanish, Ixtlilxochitl used indigenous pictorial manuscripts, hieroglyphic

texts, and Nahua oral traditions as his main sources of information. In transcribing primary

sources and providing detailed explanations and commentaries, which contemporary

anthropologists have shown to be substantially accurate, he preserved for posterity materials that

were believed lost and might have become unintelligible otherwise. Historia ends abruptly in

mid-sentence in a section that deals with the conquest through the first phase of the final siege of

Tenochtitlán. Preserved in the Mexican Collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the

Codex Xolotl, a historical and genealogical manuscript from the sixteenth century, details the history in the Valley of Mexico from the arrival of the Chichimecs of Xolotl from around 1224 through the Tepanec War of 1427.

198

I.423. The influential SOCIEDAD ECONÓMICA DE AMIGOS DEL PAÍS (Economic Society of the

Friends of the Country) was founded in Havana in 1793, when the governor, Luis de las Casas,

approved a petition from twenty-seven prominent Cubans. Foremost among them was the planter

Francisco de Arango y Parreño (1765–1837), whom Humboldt met in Cuba. Later on, this

society was also known as the Sociedad Patriótica de Amigos del País, which is why Humboldt often refers to it as the Patriotic Society.

I.424. I.424. Bernardo Vicente Apolinar de Gálvez Gallardo y Ortega, COUNT OF GÁLVEZ (1746–

1786) was the eldest son of Martías de Gálvez y Gallardo, viceroy of New Spain from 1783–

1784. The younger Gálvez arrived in New Spain in 1765, the same year his uncle, José de

Gálvez y Gallardo, was appointed inspector-general of New Spain. After serving as commander of Nueva Vizcaya, he returned to Spain with his uncle in 1771. In Europe, Gálvez trained at the

Miliary Academy in Ávila and was promoted to colonel. In 1776, he was appointed interim military governor of Louisiana, an office he held until 1783. A year later, Gálvez became captain-general of Cuba; shortly thereafter, he succeeded his father as viceroy of New Spain and served in this capacity until November 1786. In addition to reconstructing the then-unoccupied

Chapultepec Castle, Gálvez supported the natural science in New Spain, for instance, by sponsoring the expedition of Martín Sessé y Lacasta.

I.425. In 1796, Valencian architect and sculptor Manuel TOLSÁ (1757–1816) constructed the

famous equestrian statue of Charles IV known as El Caballito. He did so under contract for

Miguel de la Grúa Talamanca de Carini y Branciforte, then-viceroy of New Spain. Since

1791, Tolsá had been director of sculpting at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City, where

he made important architectural contributions to the Cathedral and the Royal School of Mines,

199

also known as the Palace of Mines. The statue of the ruler, to which Humboldt alludes here,

features a neoclassical style, giving the Spanish King, who was often characterized as politically

weak, the aspect of a regal commander. In 1803, the completed sculpture was transported to the

Plaza Mayor in Humboldt’s presence. It remained in its original location until 1822, when it was removed due to post-revolutionary grudges against Spanish colonialism and its effigies.

Subsequently stored on the patio of the city’s university, El Caballito was not returned to a

public space until 1852, when President Mariano Arista (1802–1855) came to power. It can still

be admired today in front of the National Museum of Arts in Mexico City.

I.426. As King of Spain from 1788 to 1808), CHARLES IV (1748–1819) had approved an all-

access royal passport for Humboldt and Bonpland’s visit to Spanish territories in the Americas.

Humboldt had managed to obtain this document during his stay in Spain in 1799 with the help of the influential secretary of state, (1768–1817). It was only because of this highly unusual royal permission that the Prussian scientist was able to travel and work without any restraints during his entire stay in the Spanish colonies. He could use all of his scientific instruments, could board any Spanish ship, and had full access to the colonial archives.

Humboldt dedicated this Political Essay to Charles IV with a note of devotion and a personal letter not entirely bereft of irony (see the initial pages of this book). He wrote to Thomas

Jefferson that he had done so as a way of softening the attitude of the Spanish Crown toward certain individuals in New Spain, who had given Humboldt more information than the Court might have liked. Because of the Napoleonic upheavals in Europe, Charles IV was forced to abdicate power to his oldest surviving son Ferdinand VII (1784–1833) on March 18, 1808. The latter was forced to do the same for Napoleon’s brother, Joseph-Napoleon Bonaparte (1768–

1844) as José I of Spain (r. 1808–13), only six weeks later. In this context, the dedication to

200

Charles IV becomes even more significant. It can be understood as a sign of solidarity and gratitude toward the former Spanish King, which was also a way of refusing to pay a tribute to

the new French rulers.

I.426. Spanish botanists Hipólito RUIZ López (1754–1816) and José Antonio PAVÓN y Jiménez

(1754–1840) led a botanical expedition to the Viceroyalty of Peru and Chile from 1777 to 1788.

The team also included Juan Tafalla (1755–1811), French physician Joseph Dombey (1742–

96), and illustrators José Brunete (1746–1787) and Isidro Gálvez (1754–1829). After their return to Spain with thousands of herbarium sheets and an extensive collection, Ruiz and Pavón published Flora peruvianae et chilensis prodromus (Preliminary work on Peruvian and Chilean plants, 1794). After Ruiz’s death, Pavón continued his work but later sold specimens of the collection to supplement his official wage. The archive of the Real Jadrín Botánico in Madrid holds several boxes of documentation generated during the botanical expedition, including about

2,245 botanical drawings, twenty-four zoological drawings, 300 calcographic plates, and numerous engravings. Another part of the results of the expedition, about 400 sheets, are housed at the Institut Botànic de Barcelona (Spain).

I.426. The botanist José Celestino MUTIS y Bosio (1732–1808) headed the royal botanical

expedition in the (that is, the modern countries of Colombia, Panama,

Venezuela, and Ecuador) in 1782. Mutis catalogued new plants, built an astronomical

observatory, trained painters and young natural philosophers, and supported the development of

agriculture, commerce, and culture in the viceroyalty. Humboldt exchanged botanical

information with Mutis when he and Bonpland stayed at Mutis’s house in Bogotá from July to

September 1801.

201

I.426. The Spanish physician and naturalist Martín de SESSÉ y Lacasta (1751–1808) was the

head of a major botanical expedition across New Spain in 1787, and he founded the Botanical

Garden in Mexico City in 1788. The expedition, which Sessé undertook together with Cervantes

and the Creole botanist José Mariano Moziño, lasted until 1803 and resulted in several major

publications, among them Plantae Novae Hispaniae (Plants of New Spain, 1887–90) and Flora

Mexicana (1885).

I.426. The Novo–Spanish botanist and naturalist José Mariano MOZIÑO (also Mosiño, Muciño,

or Mociño, 1757–1820) was a member of the royal botanical expedition of New Spain. Having

been trained in medicine, theology, and botany at the University of Mexico, the Royal Academy

of San Carlos, and the Royal Botanical Garden in Mexico City, Moziño traveled to Nootka

Sound (Vancouver Island) in 1792 as part of Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra’s

Expedición de Límites al Norte de California (Expedition to the northern borders of California).

The expedition was designed to settle the territorial dispute between England and Spain over

Nootka. A result of a five-month residence at Nootka Sound (from April to September 1792),

Moziño produced a comprehensive ethnographic and historical report of the Pacific Northwest

Coast. Noticias de Nutka (News from Nootka, 1803–04) discusses in detail almost every aspect

of the daily life of the people of Nootka at the time of their initial contact with Europeans. In

addition to a catalogue of plants and animals classified according to the Linnaean system with

drawings by Atanasio Echeverría, the report includes a Nootkan–Spanish dictionary. Written in

Spanish around 1793 and published in the twentieth century as Noticias de Nutka (News from

Nootka), the report is a guide to the history and culture of the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples (formerly

called Nootka) who still occupy their traditional lands on Vancouver Island’s northwestern

shore. Until he left for Madrid with Sessé in 1803, Moziño worked for the royal scientific

202

expedition in Mexico, Guatemala, and the West Indies. Under French rule in Spain, Moziño was

appointed director of the Royal Museum of Natural History and professor of zoology at the

Royal Academy of Medicine, appointments that later created political problems for him. In 1812, he was arrested as a traitor to Spain and had to flee to France with the drawings of the botanical expedition. The illustrations (1,800 of 2,000 of which are of botanical subjects) are now at The

Torner Collection of Sessé and Moziño biological illustrations at the Hunt Institute for Botanical

Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University. Moziño returned to Spain in 1817. Under the pen

name José Velázquez de Vice Cotis, he was also a regular contributor to Gazetas de literatura.

I.427. Atanasio ECHEVERRÍA y Godoy (d. c. 1811) was the resident artist of the Expedición de

Límites al Norte de California (Expedition of the northern borders of California). Together with

Moziño and Maldonado, they were chosen to join Bodega y Quadra’s expedition to collect,

classify, and reproduce pictorially all new plant species they encountered. Echeverría was responsible for the botanical, scenic, and zoological plates that would accompany Moziño’s descriptions. After the expedition, Echeverría arrived in Mexico City in 1793 and prepared the manuscript report with Moziño. Echeverría and Moziño also worked together later in 1793, investigating the active volcano of San Andrés de Tuxtla. From Mexico City, Echeverría moved to Cuba, then, in 1802 to Spain. Although appointed second director of painting at the Royal

Academy of San Carlos in Mexico, he never returned to Mexico. During the French invasion of

Spain, he was forced to flee from Madrid to Seville in 1808. The genus Echeverria is named after him.

203

I.427n. Humboldt and Guillaume (or Guillermo) DUPAIX (1750–1819) met in the Mexican

capital, where the Prussian saw Dupaix’s private collection of Mexica sculptures from which the

“Aztec priestess” Views of the Cordilleras (Plates I and II) is taken. Dupaix—whom Humboldt often calls Dupé—was a former French naval captain of Flemish descent and a collector of

Mexican antiquities. Having lived in New Spain for most of his life, Dupaix was sent by the

Spanish king Charles IV on three archeological expeditions (in 1805, 1806, and 1807) in search of relics of pre-Columbian art. Novo–Spanish illustrator José Luciano Castañeda (1774–c. 1840)

accompanied Dupaix, whose observations about Xochicalco, Monte Albán, Mitla, and Palenque

were among the first European efforts to distinguish the various architectural and art styles of

ancient Middle America. A letter from Humboldt to the Louisiana collector François Latour-

Allard (fl. 1827) from July 28, 1826, attested to the accuracy of Castañeda’s drawings, some 177

sketches and paintings, which Latour-Allard sold in England and France. Castañeda’s drawings

and Dupaix’s travel account resulted in a voluminous manuscript that remained unpublished until

it was incorporated into the highly acclaimed Antiquities of Mexico, edited by Edward King,

Lord Kingsborough (1795–1837) in 1831. In 1834, years after Dupaix’s death in 1819, it was

released in Paris as Antiquités mexicaines. Humboldt’s comments, alongside other favorable

reviews of Dupaix’s travelogue, created enormous interest in the Mexica among French archeologists.

I.428. In 1765, Abraham Gottlob WERNER (1750–1817) was mining inspector and instructor at

the Freiberg School of Mines in the German state of Saxony, where he taught the study of rocks

and minerals and geognosy. Werner’s students, among them Fausto Elhuyar, Andrés del Río,

and Humboldt himself, cherished their teacher even as they set about refuting his theories about

204

the Earth’s formation. The Freiberg School of Mines still exists today as the Technische

Universität Bergakademie Freiberg (Freiberg University of Mining and Technology).

I.428. For the scientific instruments of Ramsden, Adams, Lenoir, and Berthoud, see annotations

for I.14 and I.89.

I.428. Together with Claude Berthollet, Antoine-Francois de Fourcroy (1755–1809), and Louis-

Bernard Guyton de Morveau (1737–1816), the French chemist, economist, and lawyer Antoine-

Laurent de LAVOISIER (1743–94) spearheaded a revolution in chemistry between 1785 and 1789.

The four centerpieces of this revolution were the collaborative Methode de nomenclature chimique (Method of chemical nomenclature, 1787), Fourcroy’s Élémens d’histoire naturelle et de chimie (Elements of natural history and of chemistry, 1788), Lavoisier’s own Traité

élémentaire de chimie (Elementary treatise on chemistry, 1789), and the journal Annales de chimie (1789). (Humboldt appears to conflate the titles of Lavoisier’s and Fourcroy’s books.)

Educated at the Collège Mazarin, where he also studied with Lacaille, Lavoisier investigated the composition of water and air, determining that the components of water were and hydrogen, and that air was a mixture of gases, mainly oxygen and nitrogen. Lavoisier’s theory of oxygen enabled him to disprove Georg Ernst Stahl’s (1659–1734) phlogiston theory by experiment (see also D’Arcet, Jean, and Kirwan, Richard). In his Traité elementaire, considered the first modern chemistry textbook, Lavoisier presented an integrated view of new theories of chemistry, clarifying the concept of an element as a substance and presenting his theory of the formation of chemical compounds. Many leading chemists of the time, including Joseph

Priestley (1733–1804), refused to accept Lavoisier’s new ideas. Still, the Traité élémentaire was sufficiently in demand in England to warrant speedy translation. Branded a traitor for having

205

been a tax collector and having interceded on behalf of foreign-born scientists to help them retain

their freedom and their possessions, Lavoisier was tried and guillotined during the Reign of

Terror.

I.432. Spanish naval officer Salvador de MEDINA (d. 1769) traveled to New Spain as a

representative of Spain to observe the transit of Venus across the sun at Baja California in 1769.

A graduate of the Naval Academy at Cádiz, he was promoted from senior lieutenant to

commander for his work as part of the scientific expedition. He is not to be confused with his namesake, Salvador de Medina, governor of Malvinas Islands from 1779 to 1781.

I.435n. Pedro Romero de Terreros (1710–1781), the first COUNT OF REGLA and one of the

wealthiest men in New Spain, owned the amalgamation at Regla. The factory was a mine

with sufficient water for refining silver ore. Privately owned for several generations, the count’s

mines became the property of the Mexican government in 1948. His son, José María Romero de

Terreros (1766–1815), was awarded the title of MARQUIS DE SAN CRISTOBAL in 1777. Having

begun his studies at the Real Seminario de Nobles in Madrid, the younger Terreros graduated

from the school of medicine of the University of Paris. He returned to New Spain just after his

father’s death in 1781. A member of the Société de Medicine Clinique de Paris, he published a

dissertation both in the Journal de Physique (vol. 60, 1805, pp. 205–14) and as a book: De

l'action des différentes préparations d’opium sur des animaux vivants (The action of different

preparations of opium on live a animals, 1804).

I.437. In 1529, Cortés was granted the title of Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca with over 23,000

tributaries. Cortés’s descendants married the DUKES OF MONTELEONE from Italy, who inherited what remained of Cortés’s estate. The seventh marquis del Valle de Oaxaca, Juana de Aragón

206

Carrillo de Mendoza y Cortés (d. 1653), married the fifth Duke of Monteleone; their son, Andrés

Fabricio Pignatelli de Aragón Carillo de Mendoza y Cortés (d. 1691), was the eighth marquis del

Valle de Oaxaca. The twelfth and thirteenth marquis del Valle de Oaxaca (also Dukes of

Monteleone) were Héctor María Pignatelli de Aragón (1742–1800) and Diego María Pignatelli

de Aragón (d. 1818). The marquisate del Valle de Oaxaca originally included the alcaldías

mayores (mayoralties) of Charo Matlatzinco, Coyoacan, Cuatro Villas de Oaxaca, ,

Cotaxtla, Tehuantepec (until 1563), Toluca, and Tuxtla. Some of the Duke of Monteleone’s

properties remained in the family until 1839, when José Pignatelli de Aragón (d. 1859) was the

fourteenth marquis del Valle de Oaxaca.

I.445. The REVOLUTION in the French colony of SAINT-DOMINGUE (1791–1804), the only successful slave rebellion in history, created the second independent state in the Americas and the first republic in the world. The catalyst for this revolution is believed to have been a vodun service performed at Bois Caïman by the Jamaican Dutty (Zamba) Boukman (d. 1791) in

August 1791. Within a few weeks, at least 100,000 slaves joined the revolt, and the violence escalated. Over the next few years, about 100,000 blacks and 24,000 whites were killed, and most sugar plantations were destroyed. In 1801, Toussaint L’Ouverture (c. 1743–1803), a self- educated domestic slave who had emerged as a major revolutionary leader, issued a constitution for an independent country with himself as perpetual head. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) retaliated by sending troops, and, in 1802, Toussaint was betrayed into surrendering. He was shipped off to France as a prisoner and died in the Jura Mountains. After only a few months of

Napoleonic rule in Saint-Domingue, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (c. 1758–1806), a former ally of

Toussaint’s, initiated a rebellion that would lead to the defeat of the French troops in 1803. On

January 1, 1804, Dessalines formally declared the sovereignty of the state he called “Haiti,” after

207

its Arawak name. France recognized Haiti in 1825, the United States not until 1862. The Haitian

Revolution (as we now know it) had probably even more of an impact on Cuba than had the

USAmerican Revolution. Since Saint-Domingue was ruined economically by the early 1790s,

the demand for Cuban sugar soared, as did Cuba’s demand for slaves. The revolution also

instilled profound anxieties and lasting fears about the possibility of another large-scale slave insurrection in Cuba, known as the “Africanization of Cuba” scare. There were indeed several slave conspiracies in Cuba that followed in the wake of the Saint-Domingue Revolution, among them the conspiracy by José Antonio Aponte (c. 1760–1812) in 1812 and the conspiracy of La

Escalera (The Ladder) in 1844. Both were defeated.

I.445n. Robert NORRIS (d. 1791) was a British trader in from the 1750s to the 1780s.

He represented the Liverpool slave traders before governmental investigative committees that

were set up in the 1780s. In 1789, he published Memoirs of the reign of Bossa Ahádee, King of

Dahomy an inland country of Guiney, to which Humboldt seems to refer here without naming

the book. Humboldt often uses this strategy of omission when he culls the work of pro-slavery

authors for statistics and other information; a case in point is William Beckford. By defending

the slave trade in his Memoirs, Norris prevented heavy regulation of the slave trade in the early

1790s.

I.452. In Mexican vernacular, chino does not mean Chinese but refers to persons with wooly or tightly curled hair.

I.458. Except for his enduring work about population statistics in France, the Tableau de la population from 1789, little appears to be known about the life of journalist and counter-

revolutionary Jean-Christophe Sandrier de Mitry, CHEVALIER DES POMMELLES (b. 1776). A

208

lieutenant-colonel of the 5th staff regiment (1788) and colonel of the regiment of the Royal

Grenadiers de l'Orléanais (1790), Mitry was a member of the L'Agence Royaliste de Paris, a

secret organization also known as the Alliance royaliste (Royalist alliance) and the Comité de

Paris (Paris Committee).

I.465. Humboldt’s PRINCE OF TALLEYRAND is the French statesman Charles-Maurice de

Talleyrand-Périgord, first Prince of Bénévent (1754–1838), who is widely known as an

opportunistic and unscrupulous politician. His Essai sur les avantages à retirer de colonies

nouvelles dans les circonstances présentes (Essay about the advantages of withdrawing from the

new colonies under the present circumstances, 1798), which expounds the benefits on judicious

colonization, was written when he was minister of foreign affairs in France.

Volume 2

II.2. British poet, playwright, and historian John PINKERTON (1758–1826) compiled and

published Modern Geography (1802), a book that was well received and translated into French

and Italian. Pinkerton also edited A General Collection of the best and most interesting Voyages

and Travels (1808–14) and A Modern Atlas (1815). Trained as a lawyer, he moved to London in

1781 and began publishing poetry. Under the pseudonym Robert Heron, he published a collection of literary essays titled Letters of Literature (1785), which earned him a reputation for eccentricity and arrogance. His most significant contribution to Scottish literary scholarship was

Ancient Scottish Poems (1786). Under the pseudonym H. Bennet, he also issued a collection of

aphorisms as The Treasury of Wit in the same year. Pinkerton’s list of publications also included

209 historical works, among them the controversial A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the

Scythians or Goths (1787), in which he argued for the congenital inferiority of the Celtic people, and An Enquiry into the History of Scotland (1789).

II.2. Born in Quito, military officer Antonio de ALCEDO y Bexarano (also Bejarano, 1735–1812) was one of the first to prepare a complete encyclopedia of the Spanish possessions in the

Americas. After living in Panama (1742–50) and Madrid (1752), he entered the Royal Spanish

Guards and was trained in language and history at the Colegio Imperial de Madrid. Alcedo held the rank of field marshal by 1800 and became the governor of La Coruña (Spain) in 1802. He was elected a member of the Royal Academy of History in 1787. After two decades of work, he published Diccionario geográfico-histórico de las Indias Occidentales o América (The geographical and historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies, 1786–89). In addition,

Alcedo prepared a compilation of authors in 1791 (revised in 1807), which remained in manuscript form until published with an introduction in Ecuador in the 1960s. In 1812, Alcedo also wrote a “Memoria sobre el mejor medio de continuación de las Décadas de la Historia de las

Indias Occidentales,” of which Humboldt may well have been aware.

II.2n. French government agent at Caracas François Raymond Joseph DE PONS (1751–1812) traveled the Tierra Firme region of South America between 1801 and 1804. He published his travel narrative as Voyage à la partie orientale de la terre-ferme (A Voyage to the Eastern Part of Terra Firma, or the , in South-America) in 1806. English translations by

Washington Irving (1753–89) and others appeared shortly after, and the Voyage was reviewed widely in Europe.

210

II.11. Joseph Louis (1754–1826), a French chemist who held professorships in different

places in Spain but early and late in his career, worked—in the family tradition—as a pharmacist

in France. An analytical chemist, Proust is best known for his law of definite proportions. He

was exclusively concerned with inorganic binary compounds, such as metallic oxides, sulfides,

and sulfates.

II.14. Spanish field marshal Nemesio SALCEDO y Salcedo (1754–c. 1814) was commander-

general of the Interior Provinces of New Spain from 1802 to 1813 and Pedro de Nava’s

successor. Salcedo’s jurisdiction included Sonora, Nueva Vizcaya, New Mexico, and Texas.

Although the Provincias Internas were divided in Western and Eastern Provinces in 1804,

Salcedo remained commander-general and was independent of the viceregal administration in

Mexico City until 1813. During his term in the Interior Provinces, he arrested Zebulon

Montgomery Pike who was on an expedition to determine the extent of the Louisiana Territory and forced him to return to the USA. Salcedo went back to Spain in 1814. His report of the state of the Interior Provinces in 1813 was published by Isidro Vizcaya Canales as Instrucción reservada in 1990. Salcedo’s nephew, Manuel María de Salcedo (1776–1813), was the last

Spanish governor of Texas.

II.14. Spanish military officer Pedro GRIMAREST was appointed commander-general of the eastern part of the Internal Provinces of New Spain in 1804. His jurisdiction included Coahuila,

Nuevo Reino de León, Nuevo Santander, Texas, and Bolsón de Mapimí. Planning to arrive to

Texas in August 1805 to bolster Spanish settlement and make San Antonio (Texas) his headquarters, Grimarest had still not taken office in September 1805. Since Grimarest and his

211

troops remained in Spain and he never assumed the commandancy, Salcedo remained in charge of both the western and eastern Provincias Internas.

II.37n. A friend and collaborator of , André Marie Constant DUMÉRIL (1774–

1860) divided his career between medicine, especially anatomy, physiology, and pathology, and

zoology. After editing the five volumes of Cuvier’s Leçons d'anatomie comparée (Lessons in comparative anatomy, 1800–05), Duméril, who had been a professor of anatomy at the Muséum

National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris since 1801, began to fill in for Lacépède who held the chair of herpetology and ichthyology. Duméril succeeded Lacépède in 1825. A year later,

Duméril published his influential Zoologie analytique, in which he rejected as inapplicable to zoology the botanical precept of Carl von Linné (1707–87) and Fabricius, which assumed that the character of classes, orders, and genera could be drawn from one and the same part of an organism. Instead, Duméril held that studying all the parts of an organism affected its classification; this included observations of animal behavior. In 1834, he began to publish

L’Erpétologie générale, ou Histoire naturelle complète des reptiles (General herpetology, or complete natural history of reptiles, 1834–54), the first comprehensive and systematic work on reptiles and amphibians in which he described almost 1,400 species in great anatomical and physiological detail. Duméril’s was the largest herpetological collection of his time. Together with his son, and later collaborator, Auguste Duméril (1812–1870), he created the first vivarium

for reptiles of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris’ Botanical Garden. His son succeeded him at the

museum in 1857.

II.38 In his famous ten-volume Periegesis of Greece, the Greek geographer and historian

PAUSANIAS (second century) described the period when Greece had fallen peacefully to the

Roman Empire. While fragments from this period abound, Pausanias’s Periegesis is the only

212

fully preserved text of travel writing from this time. It has served scholars as a crucial link

between classical literature and modern archaeology.

II.39. Humboldt frequently refers to the writings of Greek geographer and historian STRABO (c.

64 BCE–c. 23). Strabo’s Geography is the only surviving work to discuss the peoples and

countries known to the Greeks and Romans at his time. It was first published in a Latin

translation in Rome around 1469.

II.39. The temple or Tower of JUPITER BELUS in the Sumerian city of Etemenanki is believed to belong to the Akkadian god Bel, whom Herodotus Hellenized to Zeus Belus. In 440 BCE,

Herodotus described the sacred area as consisting of a “square enclosure two furlongs [402 m]

each way, with gates of solid brass . . . In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid

masonry, a furlong [201 m] in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second tower, and on

that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds

round all the towers” (Rawlinson, The History of Herodotus, vol. 1, book 1).

II.39n. While visiting his brother Wilhelm in Rome in March 1805, Humboldt met and grew acquainted with the Danish archeologist and -general Johann Georg ZOËGA (1755–1809),

who introduced him to the city’s archeological collections. His works on Roman bas-relief and

sculptures made Zoëga one of the founding fathers of European archeology.

II.40. Pedro de GAMBOA (c. 1532–1608), author of Historia Indica (Indian history,

1572), reported that Tupac Yupanqui (r. 1471–1493) had sailed from the Ecuadorian coast to

Avachumbi (Fire Island) and Ninachumbi (outer island) with 20,000 soldiers in balsa-rafts.

213

II.45. Both the French encyclopédie and the dictionnaire best represented the idea that all

knowledge could be contained between the covers of several volumes of a book—a notion of

natural history that Humboldt resisted. The fifteen volumes of the Dictionnaire raisonné

universel d’histoire naturelle (Rational universal dictionary of natural history, 1764–91) by the

French pharmacist and natural history professor Jacques-Christophe VALMONT DE BOMARE

(1731–1807) is one of the earliest examples in the latter category. In the 1750s, the French

ministry of war commissioned the Jesuit-educated Valmont to examine natural history cabinets across Europe. The ministry’s interests were particularly in mining and metallurgy. Shortly after returning from his travels in 1756, Valmont, who did not have academic affiliations at the time, began to give regular public lectures on all branches of natural history. He continued to do so for the better part of thirty years. The lectures proved immensely popular, and Valmont was offered positions in Portugal and Russia, which he declined despite the fact that his own government did not offer him any support except for an unpaid curatorship for the Prince de Condé’s natural history collection. In 1788, Valmont sold his own collection to the Prince, who incorporated it into what was the largest natural history collection in France. It was only in 1796, after the Reign of Terror had brought him hard times, that Valmost received a professorship at a Parisian school and became an adjunct member of the Academy of Sciences. He was widely admired for his ability to make science comprehensive to large lay audiences.

II.47. Hydographer, diplomat, and general of the French empire, Count Antoine François

ANDRÉOSSY (1761–1828) participated in Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign. After his return from

that expedition, Andréossy assisted Napoleon (1769–1821) in the coup d’état of the eighteenth

Brumaire (1799). He subsequently served as ambassador to England, Austria, and the Ottoman

Empire and as military governor of Vienna. After the Battle of Waterloo, Andréossy was one of

214

the commissioners sent to negotiate an armistice with the allied powers. A member of the French

Academy of Sciences, Andréossy authored works on artillery, military history, geography, and

hydrography. In 1818, he published Voyage à l’Embouchure de la Mer Noire (Journey to the

mouth of the Black Sea). The work to which Humboldt refers most, however, is Andréossy’s

much earlier Histoire du Canal de Midi (1799).

II.49n. French naturalist Bénédict de SAUSSURE (1740–1799) invented many of the

scientific instruments of his time, among them the electrometer, the cyanometer, and the hair

hygrometer. In the opening chapter of his own Personal Narrative, Humboldt also acknowledges

the importance of Saussure’s account of his fourteen alpine expeditions, Voyage dans les Alpes

(1769–96), for his own writings. The example Saussure set—he was also one of the first to climb the Montblanc—served Humboldt as a model for a type of narrative that combined the advances in scientific exploration with the traveler’s own emotions and impressions, interweaving meteorological observations with comments on the habits of the local population.

II.52n. Spanish Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy y Álvarez de Faria, Duke of Alcudia (1767–

1851), was given the title PRÍNCIPE DE LA PAZ (the prince of peace) for his role in negotiating the

Peace of Basel (1795). Appointed First Secretary of State (1792–98, 1801–08) by Charles IV of

Spain, Godoy was instrumental in continuing the enlightenment policies of Charles III of

Spain. Infuriated at , who had sought to unseat him as First Secretary,

Godoy ordered his arrest, trial, and imprisonment. In 1795, Godoy also decided to seize and

suspend the publication of any and all documents relating to the Malaspina Expedition.

Following the French invasion of Spain (1808), Godoy lived in exile with the royal family in

Rome for more than a decade. Before Isabella II of Spain (1830–1904; r. 1833–68) returned to

215

him his titles and confiscated estates in 1847, Godoy lived on a modest French royal pension in

Paris, even though the of Spain, María Luisa (1751–1819, r. 1788–1808), had named him sole inheritor in her will. Godoy published a six-volume autobiography, Memorias de

Don Manuel Godoy, Príncipe de la Paz (1839).

II.56. Spanish conquistador Pedro de ALVARADO y Contreras (c. 1485–1541) commanded one of

Cortés’s eleven ships. He helped defeat the Mexica and then invaded Maya territory. While in charge of Tenochtitlán, Alvarado was responsible for the famous Noche Triste (Night of

Sorrows), the retreat of the Spaniards from the city in 1520. As both indigenous and Spanish accounts report, Alvarado had multitudes of unarmed Mexica noblemen massacred during a ceremony for Toxcatl, which resulted in a rebellion, Moctezuma’s death, and the Spaniards’ escape from Tenochtitlán. With indigenous allies, Alvarado was able to conquer the Quiche

kingdom in present-day Guatemala. In 1524, after the surrender of the Quiche capital Utatlan, he

founded the first Guatemala City (now Antigua). He also founded San Pedro Sula (Honduras) in

1536. Charles V appointed Alvarado governor of Guatemala and extended his governorship in

Honduras, despite the fact that Alvarado’s administration was troubled by revolts and illegal slave trading. In 1534, Alvarado led a poaching expedition to the Inca province of Quito, disembarking at Puerto Viejo in modern-day Ecuador. After being intercepted by Francisco

Pizarro’s lieutenant (1475–1538), Alvarado sold his ships and equipment and returned to Guatemala. He was eventually crushed to death by a horse while searching for the chimera of the Seven Cities of Cíbola in northern Mexico. His death is depicted in the Codex

Telleriano-Remensis. Loathed by Mexica and Mayas for his brutality, Alvarado, who was ironically nicknamed Tonatiuh (sun, in Nahuatl), is also mentioned in the surviving texts of the

Quiche Maya.

216

II.56. Cortés sent Spanish conquistador Cristóbal de OLID (1488–1524) to conquer the Bay of

Honduras in 1524. In Honduras, Olid founded the port of Triunfo de la Cruz and declared himself independent of Cortés. Francisco de las Casas (1461–1536) and Gil González Dávila (d.

1526) assassinated Olid before Cortés could travel to Honduras to discipline him.

II.57. Spanish conquistador (1497–1528) was Cortés’s youngest

lieutenant. An able soldier, Sandoval led the vanguard in the Spanish retreat from the Aztecs on

the Noche Triste in 1520, the year after he had arrived in Mexico. Though not highly educated,

he proved an effective administrator who founded a number of cities, including Colima. He fell

mortally ill on the return voyage to Spain.

II.57. Juan de MENDOZA Y LUNA, Marquis de Montesclaros (1571–1628), was viceroy of New

Spain (1603–07). A military officer, he entered the Order of Santiago in 1591 and was appointed

governor of Seville, a position he held until he was appointed viceroy. Because of a major flood

in the Valley of Mexico, he began modernizing Mexico City’s drainage system. As viceroy of

Peru from 1607 to 1615, Mendoza y Luna is remembered as the first poet-viceroy in the

Americas. He returned to Spain in 1616.

II.57. Born in New Spain, Franciscan missionary and historian GERÓNIMO (Jerónimo) DE

ZÁRATE Salmerón was ordained in 1579 at the Convento Grande of Mexico City. Zárate was

assigned to the Chapel of San Joseph at the Convent of Santiago Tlatelolco from 1590 to 1592

together with Torquemada. While serving as a missionary in the area around present-day Santa

Fé, New Mexico (c. 1620–26), Zárate began to draft “Relaciones de Todas las Cosas que en el

Nuevo Mexico se han visto y Sabido” (Account of all the things that I saw and learned in New

217

Mexico, c. 1627), a narrative written to recruit missionaries to the northern provinces. Only portions of “Relaciones” were published before the mid-nineteenth century.

II.58. In 1522, Catholic missionary and educator Pedro de Mura, better known as PEDRO DE

GANTE (1491–1572), left from Gante (Ghent, Belgium) for what became known as America.

Gante had entered the Franciscan Order and studied at the University of Louvain. Among the

first group of missionaries to be dispatched to New Spain, Gante arrived in New Spain in 1523.

He settled first in Texcoco and then in Mexico City, learned Nahuatl, and later served as the first

Nahuatl translator for bishop Juan de Zumárraga (1468–1548). Gante is best remembered for

establishing the first Franciscan community of New Spain in Texcoco, where he introduced a

program of education and conversion of the indigenous peoples (especially the nobility). By the

1530s, Franciscans were teaching a curriculum that included reading, writing, music, tailoring,

shoemaking, carpentry, smithing, stone-cutting, sculpture, and painting. In 1552, Gante wrote a

letter denouncing the Spaniard abuses of the indigenous population.The author of Catecismo

testeriano (Testerian catechism, 1553) and “Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Mexicana” (1553),

Gante is also believed to have written Cartilla para enseñar a leer nuevamente enmendada y

quitadas todas las abreviaturas que antes tenía (1569), a textbook in Nahuatl, Spanish, and

Latin. His death was recorded in the Aubin Codex, a pictorial Nahuatl chronicle that covers from

1168–1591, and 1595–96, with an addendum for 1597–1608.

II.59n. A lawyer by training, Spanish colonial administrator Ciriaco González CARVAJAL (fl.

1800–1812) was a judge of the de Mexico City until 1809. Before this position,

he had been the first Spanish intendant in Manila. He was responsible for drafting the

administrative rules and keeping the finances of the Tobacco Monopoly in the Philippines, which

218 had been established during governor José Basco y Vargas’s (r. 1778–1787) tenure in 1781.

González Carvajal later became member of the Council of the Indies. While in New Spain, he assisted the Malaspina Expedition with all necessary documentation, by arranging instruments for astronomical observations, by making contacts with those versed in natural history, and by assisting officers of the expedition who had fallen ill.

I.66n. An officer in the viceroyalty of New Spain, colonial administrator Antonio BONILLA (fl.

1772–1784) wrote a summary account of the province of Texas in 1772. Commissioned by viceroy Bucareli, Bonilla’s report was finished in fifteen days. Drawing from archival material and official and ecclesiastical accounts of the region, Bonilla wrote Breve Compendio de los sucesos ocurridos en la Provincia de Texas desde su conquista o reducción hasta la fecha (Brief account of the events that have occurred in the procince of Texas fromthe conquest until today), from 1685 to 1772. The report includes his recommendations on how to improve the province’s administrative system. A year later, Bonilla was transferred to the Interior Provinces as assistant inspector and secretary to the commandant-general. In that position, he drafted reports on the state of the defense of the presidios. In addition to reports about Sonora (1774) and Chihuahua

(1774 and 1778), he wrote one for New Mexico, known as “Apuntes Historicos sobre el Nuevo

Mexico,” in 1776. By 1784, Bonilla had reached the rank of secretary of the viceroyalty and drafted reports about each presidio and mission in the province. He was in charge of archiving the material that became the beginning of the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City.

II.69. German theologian and philosopher Samuel Simon WITTE (1738–1802) was professor of natural and what would now be called international law, first at the Friedrichs-Universität

Bützow (1766) and later at the University of Rostock (1789). Witte achieved some notoriety for

219

his fanciful theory that the Egyptian pyramids had not been built by humans. In his 1789 essay,

“Über den Ursprung der Pyramiden in Egypten und der Ruinen von Persepolis und Palmyra”

(About the origin of the pyramids in Egypt and ruins of Persepolis and Palmyra), he explained these ancient monuments as products of an immense volcanic eruptions. Humboldt was not the only one to write against Witte’s thesis, which few embraced.

II.69. The pyramids at , the largest city of pre-Columbian America about 27 miles

(45 kilometers) northeast of Mexico City (zenith c. 150–650), include the famous monumental structures known as the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. With hundreds of other urban temples and compounds, Teotihuacan, a large archeological urban complex covering more than twelve square miles (20 square kilometers), was a sacred center during pre-Columbian

times. Below the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, among the largest structures of the center,

runs a lava tube more than 100 meters that ends in four chambers. The Pyramid of the Sun might

have been the main temple for the deity Tlaloc, the head of the state cult; that of the Pyramid of

the Moon for Chalchiuhtlicue, the water deity.

II.69. An architectural wonder in the Americas, the TEOCALLI OF CHOLULA is located in the

Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley right outside the city of Puebla, Mexico. This structure is one of the largest monuments ever built, with a total volume significantly greater than that of the Great

Pyramid of Giza. Although the pyramid at Giza is more than twice as high as the one in Cholula,

Cholula’s footprint is four times larger. The base of the Cholula pyramid measures 400 meters along its base; it is 66 meters high. Humboldt, who was the first to measure it, arrived at smaller measurements because accumulated layers of soil and vegetation led him to mistake one of the upper layers for the base, which was then underground. According to Eduardo Matos

220

Moctezuma, all four angles of the pyramid correspond to the four cardinal points, with a slight

deviation to the north (about 26°), which is aligned with a position of the setting sun at the

summer solstice. Excavations since the 1930s have revealed that the pyramid was expanded

gradually in four major construction phases during the course of about 1,500 years. The earliest

stage of construction probably occurred toward the end of 1 BCE. Pyramids were constructed in

stages of burial and reconstruction. A pyramid was entombed within earthen and stone fill; a new

facing was then built around these materials. Humboldt also calls this pyramid “monte hecho a

mano” (the handmade mountain), referring to Tlamachihualtepetl in Nahuatl (tla, prefix for

objects; machihua for handmade; and tepetl for mountain).

II.69. A bishop in the Church of Ireland, Richard POCOCKE (1704–1765) toured Europe in the

early 1730s, after which he embarked for the Middle East, where he traveled from 1736 until

1740. He visited Upper Egypt in 1737–38, journeying up the Nile to the Valley of Kings. He

returned to Egypt in 1738/39 after a trip to Palestine. See also Norden, Frederik Ludvig.

II.70n. A philosopher, poet, and literary scholar, Johann Gottfried von HERDER (1744–1803) was

one of the German Enlightenment’s towering and most skeptical figures.The unfinished Ideen

zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man,

1784–91) is often called his greatest work. In it, as elsewhere in his prolific writings, Herder adopted a very critical stance toward the contemporary belief, central to Enlightenment philosophy, that reason by itself was the sole source of progress and toward the political consequences of this belief, which had led to the subjugation of other continents and peoples.

Herder, in many ways like Humboldt, was a proponent of the importance of local differences connected to discrete environments. According to Herder, human individuals and groups were like animals and plants in that they took from their environment what nourished them and

221

rejected the rest. The difference was that human choices were powered by a rational principle

independent of mere passions and desires. Herder’s emphasis on language, a vehicle for culture

that reason enabled humans to invent, links him to the linguist-philosopher Wilhelm von

Humboldt perhaps more so than it does to his younger brother Alexander.

II.70n. German historian Johann Christoph GATTERER (1727–1799) was an avid student of

classical languages, theology, Oriental history, philosophy, and mathematics. Starting in 1759,

he held the chair in history at the University of Göttingen for forty years, where Humboldt would

have first encountered his ideas about universal history and the importance of fields such as

chronologie, diplomacy, genealogy, geography, heraldics, and numismatics. Gatterer’s teaching

and writings contributed much to elevating these auxiliary sciences (as they were known then) to

the status of proper academic disciplines.

II.71. On his China mission, which was far less successful than his earlier activities as an envoy

to Russia had been, Macartney was accompanied by John Barrow and Sir GEORGE Leonard

STAUNTON (1737–1801), a diplomat with a French medical education. The two had first met in

1779, when Staunton had negotiated Macartney’s release (the latter had been taken prisoner by

the French). In 1797, Staunton published a book about their diplomatic mission, Authentic

Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, to which

Humboldt is referring here.

II.74. Novo–Spanish mestizo historian Diego Muñoz CAMARGO (c. 1529–1599) was born in

Tlaxcala (Mexico) soon after its conquest by conquistador Diego Muñoz (fl. 1524–1555). Fully bilingual in Nahuatl and Spanish, Camargo wrote the history of late pre-Conquest and early

colonial Tlaxcala from sources now lost. His Historia de Tlaxcala (written in 1560–1595) covers

222

early migration, dynastic history, natural history, and the role of the people of Tlaxcala during

the conquest. The Historia was used by many colonial chroniclers, including Torquemada.

Partially published as Fragmentos de historia Mexicana pertenecientes en gran parte a la

Provincia de Tlaxcala in 1870, Historia de Tlaxcala has appeared in numerous editions.

Camargo is not to be confused with his son, Diego Muñoz Camargo (fl. 1608–1614).

II.74n. Franciscan friar Andrés DE OLMOS (c. 1491–c. 1571) arrived in New Spain in 1528 as

Juan de Zumárraga’s (1468–1548) aide. One of the primary scholars at the Colegio Imperial de

la Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco since its founding in 1536, Olmos mastered several indigenous

languages: Huastec, , and Nahuatl. His three works on Huastec and two on Totonac are

lost. He authored the first Nahuatl grammar, Arte de la Lengua Mexicana (The art of the

Mexican language), which is dated 1547. To illustrate better the beauty and charm of Nahuatl,

Olmos included in Arte a collection of ceremonial didactic speeches, or huehuetlatolli (meaning ancient words or discourses of wisdom from the elders). Arte was partially published in 1604 by

Juan de Bautista (1555–1615); in 1875, it was printed in French as Grammaire de la langue

nahuatl ou mexicaine by Rémi Siméon (1827–90). In 1533, bishop Sebastián Ramírez de

Fuenleal (c. 1490–1547) commissioned Olmos to write about the pre-Conquest rites and antiquities of Mexico City, Tezcoco, and Tlaxcala. Based on interviews and conversations with the indigenous informants—among them wise men, or tlamatinime—Olmos’s Tratado de antigüedades mexicanas (Treatise on Mexican antiquities) from 1539 was the first systematic study of the rituals, political practices, institutions, and literature of the indigenous peoples’ in

New Spain. At least three copies and one original were sent to Spain but were lost in transit. At the request of Bartolomé de las Casas, Olmos wrote a Summa, an epilogue or summary, of the treatise, parts of which are included in Histoyre du Mechique (History of Mexico) (1905) and the

223

Codex Tudela (1947). Olmos is the author of the earliest missionary play in Nahuatl, El juicio

final (The final judgment), performed for fourteen years (1535–1548) at the Church of San José

de Naturales in Mexico City. Many anonymous works have been attributed to Olmos, among

them Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas (History of the in their paintings),

which was written before 1536 as part of the anonymous sixteenth-century codex, Libro de Oro y

Thesoro Indico (1882) and Costumbres, fiestas, enterramientos y diversas formas de proceder de

los indios de Nueva España (Customs, festivals, funerals, and various practices of the Indians of

New Spain, 1945). Olmos’s work served as an inspiration and source for other missionary

ethnographers, notably Sahagún, Gerónimo de Mendieta (c. 1528–1604), Motolinia, and

Torquemada.

II.74n. A lawyer by training, Spanish historian Alonso de ZURITA (alternate spelling Zorita,

1512–c. 1585) studied at the University of Salamanca and practiced law in the Audiencia of

Granada. In 1548, he arrived in Santo Domingo as judge, a position he also held in New Granada

(1550–52), Los Confines (1553–56), and New Spain (1556–66). Zurita’s Breve y sumaria relación de los señores de la Nueva España, which provided information to the Spanish monarchy about the tax system and government of the indigenous peoples, was initially published in French in 1840. The first adequate edition was published by García Icazbalceta in

1891. In 1556, Zurita returned to live in Granada (Spain).

II.74n. Tezcoco-born Juan de TOVAR (c. 1541–1626) was ordained in 1570. A prebendary of the

Cathedral of Mexico City, he joined the Society of Jesus in 1573. A talented Nahuatl, Otomí, and

Mazahua speaker, he taught at the colleges of Tepozotlan and San Gregorio de Mexico. Upon

request of the then-viceroy Martín Enríquez de Almanza (d. 1583), Tovar authored a history of

224

the indigenous peoples of the Valley of Mexico. After extensive research, he completed this work around 1579. Known as the Codex Ramírez, Tovar’s Relación del origen de los indios que habitan esta Nueva España según sus historias was privately printed by Thomas Phillipps

(1792–1872) as Historia de los indios mexicanos in 1860. Tovar’s analysis of the Aztec calender was published by George Kubler (1912–96) and Charles Gibson (1920–85) as The Tovar

Calendar, an illustrated Mexican manuscript ca.1585 (New Haven, 1951). José de Acosta used

Tovar’s work for his own Historia natural y moral de las Indias.

II.74n. Antonio Pimentel IXTLILXOCHITL was a relative of Fernando Pimentel Ixtlilxochitl and

descendant of , king of Acolhuacan. Antonio Pimentel Ixtlilxochitl gave Juan de

Torquemada a record of expenses and maintenance of the court of Nezahualcoyotl,

Nezahualpilli’s successor. Written in Nahuatl probably around 1545, the record is missing and

survives only through information provided in Torquemada’s Monarquía Indiana. Fernando

Pimentel Ixtlilxochitl recorded genealogical information about the kingdom of Acolhuacan, which served as one of the sources for Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s work.

II.74n. A native of Tlaxcala, TADEO DE NIZA de Santa María was the author of Historia de la

conquista de México. Written about 1548, the Historia recounts the history of the indigenous

peoples of Tlaxcala. Now lost, this work was mentioned by Boturini and survives secondarily in

Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s work.

II.74n. A notary at the Audiencia of Mexico, Tezcocan nobleman GABRIEL DE AYALA owned annals written in Nahuatl covering the activities of the Mexica between 1243 and 1562. A source

for Chimalpahin, Ayala’s annals—deemed lost—were published with a Spanish translation by

225

Librado Silva Galeana as “Apuntes de los sucesos de la nación mexicana desde el año 1243 hasta

el de 1562” in the periodical Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl in 1997.

II.74n. Juan Buenaventura ZAPATA y Mendoza (c. 1600–1689) was a Nahuatl author of the late

seventeenth century. A nobleman, Zapata was governor of Tlaxcala (1651–1674) and a coauthor

of the Historia chronológica de la noble ciudad de Tlaxcala (Chronological history of the noble

city of Tlaxcala). Written in Nahuatl in annals format and completed by Manuel de los Santos y

Salazar (d. 1715), Zapata’s Historia is a significant ethno-historical work rich in detail. Also

known as Chrónica de la muy noble y leal ciudad de Tlaxcala, the work part of the Boturini

collection. The first complete publication of Historia is Luis Reyes García and Andrea Martínez

Baracs’s bilingual edition (Nahuatl/Spanish), Historia cronológica de la noble ciudad de

Tlaxcala (1995).

II.74n. Tlaxcalan clergyman Pedro PONCE de León (c. 1540–1628) was the author of Breve relación de los dioses y ritos de la gentilidad (Brief report on the gods and rites of the pagan world). After studying at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, Ponce gained a degree in theology from the University of Mexico and became a priest at Zumpahuacan (1571–1626).

Written around 1569, Breve relación deals with the indigenous peoples’ socio-religious practices. It is part of the second volume of the manuscript known as Codex Chimalpopoca and was first published by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso (1842–1916) in 1892.

II.74n. A chronicler from the capital of Mexico, CRISTÓBAL DEL CASTILLO (1526–1606) was fluent in Nahuatl and had a prodigious knowledge of astronomy and calendrics. Despite his

Spanish name, Castillo was probably of Tezcocan descent and did not identify with the conquerors; yet, his values were Catholic. To preserve fading indigenous records by using the

226

Latin in writing Nahuatl, Castillo completed an account of Mexica history from their departure from the legendary homeland of Aztlan to the Spanish conquest. His Historia de la venida de los mexicanos y otros pueblos e Historia de la Conquista (History of the arrival of the

Mexica and other peoples and history of the conquest) shows the important role that

Huitzilopochtli played as the guide of the Mexica during their migration. The Historia remained in manuscript at the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris until Francisco del Paso y Troncoso published it as Fragmentos de la obra general sobre historia de los mexicanos (Fragments of the general work about the history of the Mexica) in 1908. Humboldt had access to Castillo’s 1599 manuscript.

II.74n. A grandson of Montezuma II, the Nahua historian Fernando de ALVARADO TEZOZOMOC

(c. 1525–c. 1610) wrote his Crónica Mexicana (Mexica chronicles, 1598) in Spanish. This

chronicle covers the history of the Mexica from their beginnings up to the time of the conquest.

While condemning Mexica beliefs and religious practices, the Christinanized Tezozomoc

provided an indigenous point of view for the accounts of the Mexica’s rise to power in the late

fourteenth century. The second part of his chronicle, now lost, was to cover the years since the arrival of the Spaniards. Before he died, Tezozomoc wrote the Crónica Mexicayotl (1609) in

Nahuatl.

II.74n. A scribe in Tezcoco, Mestizo chronicler Juan Bautista POMAR (c. 1527–1602) wrote a

Relación of Tezcoco in 1582 in response to a 1577 questionnaire for geographical and census

information sent by Philip II. Humboldt had access to this manuscript. To answer the Crown’s

questions, Pomar interviewed the elder members of his society and researched both pictorial and

prose manuscripts in Nahuatl and Spanish. Pomar’s Relación was first published by Joaquín

227

García Icazbalceta (1825–94) in Nueva Colección de Documentos para la Historia de México in

1891 (vol. 3). Pomar is also credited with having compiled a collection of Nahuatl lyric poems that has survived under the title “Romances de los señores de la Nueva España” (Ballads of the

Lords of New Spain). A bilingual edition (Nahuatl/Spanish) of Pomar’s own poetry was published by Angel María Girabay Kintana (1892–1967) as Poesía Náhuatl (1964). A partial copy of the Relación made by Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl in 1615 survives at the Benson

Latin American Collection of the University of Texas at Austin, in addition to the 1577 Spanish

Crown’s questionnaire and a copy of Pomar’s Nahuatl anthology.

II.74n. The later Mexica historian Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón CHIMALPAHIN

Quauhtlehuanitzin (b. 1579) is the author of a manuscript edition of Francisco López de

Gómara’s La conquista de Mexico (The conquest of Mexico), a heroic treatment of the exploits of his patron Cortés. Although the Spanish Crown had banned Gómara’s controversial book, copies were still smuggled into the colonies, which is how Chimalpahin gained access to it. The only known Spanish-language account of the conquest to include extensive critical and corroborative commentary by an indigenous historian, Chimalpahin’s manuscript contains more than forty chapters on Aztec culture that were not included in Leslie Simpson’s abridged

1964 translation of this text, Cortés: The Life of the Conqueror by his Secretary, Francisco

López de Gómara. A more complete translation appeared in 2016. While employed as a fiscal administrator in Mexico City, a position held for thirty years, Chimalpahin also wrote a detailed history of events in Nahuatl. Chimalpahin’s works were largely unknown until the mid- eighteenth century, when his writings appeared in an inventory of the Boturini collection in

Mexico City.

228

II.74n. While visiting the ancient site of Chanchán, the capital of the pre-Inca Chimu Empire,

Humboldt noted in his travel diary that the sixteenth-century Spanish adventurer García

GUTIÉRREZ de Toledo had been able to discover the of the Toledo chamber only because

of the pity that his poor appearance generated in his friend Antonio Chayhuac, a native Indian of

Trujillo and heir of the last cacique of Manische. Chayhuac, who showed Toledo the entrance to

the grave’s golden fortune, had asked the Spaniard to commit himself to a responsible way of life

in spite of the new circumstances. Only then would he show him the way to the even larger

treasure of the legendary el peje grande chamber. Toledo who, according to the municipality

records of Toledo, collected the gold in 1577 and 1578 and managed to spend his entire fortune

in a very short time, returned to Chayhuac, imploring him to reveal his secret; the Indian refused.

Other versions of this story claim that Chayhuac had meant to reveal the secret of the grave’s

location so that part of the proceeds would benefit the local natives. The episode has become a

Peruvian popular tale, known as el peje chico.

II.75. Spanish Conquistador GARCÍ (García) HOLGUÍN took part in the conquest of Cuba and

Tenochtitlán. The captain of a brigantine, he captured Cuauhtemoc (1496–1525), the last

emperor of the Aztec empire. In 1523, Garcí Holguín established the province and city of

Holguín in Cuba, which still bears his name.

II.85. De la richesse territoriale du royaume de France (Of the territorial wealth of the , 1791) has been called Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier’s major work. It was the result of the intense interest he developed in the political and economic situation of France due to his frequent contacts with Enlightenment intellectual circles.

229

II.85. French politican and economist Ambrose Marie ARNOULD (1750–1812) was the chief of the Bureau de la Balance du Commerce from 1791–94. His De la balance du commerce (On the trade balance) from 1791 has been called this short-lived committee’s most significant achievement.

II.86. The BROWNIAN (or Brunonian) system of medical practice was founded by John Brown,

MD (1735–1788), who dismissed any notion of diseases as separate entities and thus rejected

classifications systems for diseases. He believed that pathological anatomy indicated only changeable forms of the disease and not the underlying cause. Brown postulated the fundamental biological principle of excitability, the ability to perceive impressions and respond to them common to all living matter. According to Brown, predisposition to disease is the result either of

too many or too few stimuli, creating either asthenic or an asthetic state. Brown’s system has

several consequences for the practitioner. One is that a physician is responsible for restoring the

equilibrium between excitability and outside stimuli, a second that it is only minimally necessary

to distinguish triggering causes of disease. Only the predisposing factors of a disease are

important. In asthenic diseases, excitement needs to be increased, for instance, by the

consumption of rich foods, liquor, camphor, or opium; hence Humboldt’s reference to wine.

Brown himself suffered from gout, which he treated as an asthenic disease. He became addicted to alcohol and opium as a result of his treatment.

II.93n. Born in Lima, Creole military officer Juan Vázquez DE ACUÑA y Bejarano, Marquis of

Casa Fuerte (1658–1734), became the second criollo to be appointed viceroy of New Spain

(1722–34); the first was the Marquis of Cadereyta. Acuña left for Spain at age thirteen to

pursue a military career; he would become a successful and respected military officer decorated

230

with the Order of Santiago. After being named military commander of Messina (Sicily), ,

and Majorca (Spain), Acuña became viceroy of New Spain. After arriving in Mexico City in

1722, he soon began to work on reorganizing the colonial government. He also finished the construction of major architectural projects and strengthened Spain’s positions in the Provincias

Internas (Acuña commissioned Pedro de Rivera to survey the Interior Provinces). He was the great-uncle of the Limeño intellectual José Agustín Pardo de Figueroa y Acuña, the Marquis of

Valleumbroso.

II.93n. Spanish aristocrat PEDRO NUÑO COLÓN de Portugal y Castro (d. 1673) was viceroy of

New Spain in late 1673. One of the decendants of Colombus’s, he was , Marquis

of Jamaica and Millamizar, and count of Gelves. Appointed viceroy of New Spain in June 1672,

he arrived in Veracruz on September 1673. He entered Mexico City on December 8 and died on

December 13, 1673. Tis tenure was the shortest ever in New Spain.

II.93n. Born in San Roman de Sajamonde (Pontevedra, Spain), JOSÉ SARMIENTO DE

VALLADARES, Count of Moctezuma (1643–1708), was viceroy of New Spain from 1696 to 1701.

He married one of Moctezuma II’s descendants, the heiress Gerónima María de Moctezuma

Loaysa de la Cueva, countess of Moctezuma, who died before he took the viceregal office. After his tenure, Sarmiento returned to Spain, where he was named Grande de España and given the dukedom of Atlixco in 1804.

II.94. Gaspar de la Cerda SANDOVAL Silva y Mendoza, the eighth count of Galve (1653–97), was

a close member of the King’s Court. One of the youngest viceroys of New Spain, the count of

Galve arrived in the Americas in 1688 at age thirty-five. During his term as viceroy (1688–

1696), he ordered a naval expedition to stop French forces from invading the Spanish part of

231

Hispaniola; in January 1691, the Spanish were victorious at . Supporting the

establishment of colonies in Texas and Florida, the viceroy was successful in weakening French

power in the region for several years. Food scarcity caused a riot in Mexico City in 1692. As a

result, the protesters burned the viceroy palace and other government buildings; Galve and his

family sought refuge at the monastery of San Francisco. Together with a group of students,

Sigüenza y Góngora saved the archives housed in the municipal building from the fire. As a

response to the riots, Galve prohibited indigenous persons from entering the city. He ordered that no more than four so-called Indians could walk the streets together and executed several people accused of being rioters. As a consequence of the 1692 riots and their aftermath, the respect

Galve and his administration had earned in defeating the French in the Caribbean waned. At his request, Galve was relieved of duty in September 1695. Galve was patron of both Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Sigüenza y Góngora.

II.95n. Spanish naval officer Francisco Javier ROVIRA (1740–1823) began his military career in

1754. After serving in Havana (Cuba), he was promoted to commander of the artillery. Rovira

taught at the Naval Academy in Cádiz and served as artillery commander in Cartagena. He was the author of Tratado de Artillería (Treatise on artillery, 1773), Compendio de matemáticas

(Compendium of mathematics, 1785–91), and Ejercicios de cañón y mortero (Exercises with and mortar,1787).

II.95n. Spanish colonial administrator Cosme Antonio de MIER Y TRESPALACIOS (1747–1805)

was responsible for hydraulic engineering in Mexico City. As such, he managed the

reconstruction of the Desagüe del Valle de México (1796–98) and later became a judge of the

Audiencia de Mexico (1785–1805). In 1786, he was briefly married to Juana María Práxedes

232

(1759–1787), a daughter of the eighth Marquis of Salinas, Juan Manuel Altamirano de Velasco

(1733–1793). Before being transferred to Mexico in 1775 for a position in the criminal chamber

of the Audiencia of Mexico, Mier y Trespalacios had been the fiscal advocate for the indigenous

peoples at the Audiencia de Lima.

II.95n. An officer of the Secretariat of New Spain in the Council of Indies in Madrid, Spanish colonial administrator JUAN DÍEZ (Díaz) DE LA CALLE (fl. 1645–1648, d. 1662) began his administrative career as an apprentice in this Council. Never having traveled to New Spain (or anywhere else in the Americas), he based his writings on archival and documentary research. His

two-volume Memorial y Noticias Sacras y Reales del Imperio de las Indias Occidentales (1646)

was a statistical manual about the civil and ecclesiastical political structures in Santo Domingo,

Mexico, Guadalajara, Guatemala, and the Philippines. In 1645, he published a list of Spanish

officials in America; with the title Memorial informativo al Rey nuestro Señor, en su Real y

supremo Consejo de las Indias, it is housed at the British Library (MSS 279.h). In addition to

publishing the introduction to an expanded work about all of Spain’s overseas dominions under

the title Memorial y compendio breve del libro intitulado Noticias sacras y reales de los dos

imperios de la Nueva España, el Perú y sus islas de las Indias Occidentales (1648), he left in manuscript form “Noticias sacras y reales de los dos imperios de la Nueva España y el Perú y sus islas de las Indias occidentales,” now at the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid (Spain). Díez de la

Calle kept working on such handbooks until his death.

II.95n. Spanish bishop Juan de PALAFOX y Mendoza (1600–1659) was viceroy of New Spain

(June to November, 1642) and archbishop of Mexico. After studying law at the Universities of

Alcala and Salamanca, he received a doctoral degree from the University-College of San

233

Antonio de Portaceli at Sigüenza (Spain) in 1633. Ordained subdeacon in 1629, he served on the

Council of the Indies from 1629 to 1638. In 1639, Palafox was appointed bishop of Puebla de los

Ángeles in New Spain (1640–48) and royal envoy to the Audiencia of Mexico (1640–47). Acting upon secret instructions from Spain, he deposed then-viceroy Marquis of Villena in 1642 and took over his office temporarily. After handing the viceregal government to García Sarmiento de Sotomayor, Palafox was elected archbishop of Mexico. Because of conflicts with the Society of Jesus, he was ordered back to Spain, where he arrived in 1650. In 1653, Palafox was appointed bishop of the diocese of Osma (Spain), where he died. In 1726, Pope Benedict XIII began to consider requests about the canonization process for Palafox, which officially began in

1760. His canonization was supported by Charles III and opposed by the Jesuits. Palafox’s writings were published posthumously as Obras del Ilustrísimo in 1762.

II.95n. García Sarmiento de Sotomayor, COUNT OF SALVATIERRA and Marquis of Sobroso (d.

1659), was viceroy of New Spain from 1642 to 1648; he took over from Palafox. On the occasion of the 1645 flooding of Mexico City, he ordered the cleaning of the city’s drainage system (Desagüe del Valle de México). He left New Spain for Peru, where he also served as

viceroy (1648–1659).

II.95n. In 1637, Spanish author Fernando de CEPEDA (also Zepeda, fl. 1636–1647) and Novo–

Spanish Creole scribe Fernando Alfonso (d. 1640) published Relación universal,

legitima y verdadera del sito en que esta fundada la muy noble, insigne, y muy leal ciudad de

México (Universal, legitimate, and truthful account of the site where the most noble, famous, and

very loyal city of Mexico was founded). The first publication about the drainage system of the

Valley of Mexico, the Relación universal details the hydrographic work carried out in the Valley

234

of Mexico between 1553 and 1637 to prevent seasonal flooding. Cepeda had arrived in New

Spain in 1636 to take a position of the office of the court reporter at the Audiencia of Mexico, to which he had been appointed in 1625. Imprisoned in 1641 for forging witness testimonies, he

was cleared and released a year later. Back in Spain in 1643, he served as a judge for the

Audiencia of Santo Domingo.

II.95n. Having entered the military academy in 1759, Spanish military officer José Joaquín

Vicente de ITURRIGARAY y Aróstegui (1742–1815) was viceroy of New Spain from 1803 to

1808. In other words, he was viceroy when Humboldt visited New Spain. He entered the Order

of Santiago in 1765 and, after advancing to the ranks of field marshal and lieutenant-general, was

appointed governor of Cádiz in 1795. Appointed viceroy in 1802, Iturrigaray arrived in Veracruz

on December of that year and took office the following month. Because of the Napoleonic wars and the independence movements in New Spain, Iturrigaray was ousted in 1808 and replaced with Father Lizana.

II.99. The second viceroy of New Spain (1550–1564), Spanish colonial military officer and administrator LUIS DE VELASCO y Ruiz de Alarcón (c. 1511–1564) was also known as Velasco I

or Velasco The Elder. He was the father of the Marquis of Salinas, who twice became viceroy

of New Spain and once of Peru. From 1547 to 1549, Velasco served as viceroy of Navarra

(Spain). Knighted by the Order of Santiago in 1549, he was named viceroy of New Spain or Peru

a year later. Once in New Spain, Velasco took office in late 1550. As Velasco I, he founded the

University of Mexico in 1553. He also began New Spain’s expansion by conquering Nueva

Vizcaya and the Philippines and enforced the “” of the Indies of 1542, which

235

restricting the enslavement of the indigenous peoples. As a result of these laws, the Spaniards began importing African slaves from the West Indies.

II.99. The son of Velasco I, Luis de Velasco y Castilla y Mendoza, MARQUIS DE SALINAS del Río

Pisuerga (1539–1617), was involved in the construction of a royal canal in Mexico City. He himself served as viceroy of New Spain from 1590 to 1595 and 1607 to 1611 and as viceroy of

Peru from 1595 to 1604. Philip III granted him the title of Marquis of Salinas in 1609. In 1611, the marquis was recalled to Madrid to become president of the Council of the Indies.

II.99. Spanish inquisitor Rodrigo Pacheco y Osorio de Toledo, MARQUIS OF CERRALVO (d.

1652), was viceroy of New Spain from 1624 to 1635. After a military career, Pacheco y Osorio

was appointed inquisitor of Valladolid. Because of the revolts in Mexico City that threathened

Spanish rule in New Spain, Pacheco was appointed viceroy to secure power. After the Great

Flood of Mexico City (1629–34), he hurriedly ordered the reconstruction of the Desagüe del

Valle de México, the drainage system initially designed and built by Enrico Martínez.

II.99n. Born into a family of landowners in Lyon, the French Abbot François ROZIER (1734–

1793) took an early scientific interest in agriculture, especially viniculture, a field in which he published a treatise before turning to scientific journalism. In 1771, he bought the defunct journal

Observations sur l’histoire naturelle and changed its name to Observations et Mémoires sur le

physique, sur l’histoire naturelle, et sur les Artes (Observations and memoirs about physics, t

natural history, and the arts). This journal made it possible for scientific articles to be published

much faster than before when the main venue for disseminating scientific news had been the

annual reports of the various academies of science. The journal became known as the Journal de

physique, or simply Rozier’s Journal. Among its many contributions was a translation of an

236 article by Giuseppe TOALDO (1719–97), an Italian Catholic priest and physicist interested in atmospheric electricity and meteorology. Toaldo became chair of astronomy at the University of

Padua in 1762.

II.104. Judge of Mexico City from 1574 to 1781, Lorenzo Sánchez de OBREGÓN (fl. 1574–1581), together with Claudio Arciniega, proposed the construction of a drainage system to prevent the city’s recurring flood problems. Although Obregón had been commissioned to study the problem in early 1580, their project was not approved in the end, either because of its costs or lack of viability.

II.104. Spanish architect Claudio ARCINIEGA (c. 1524–1593) worked on the problem of draining the valley of Mexico in 1580. After receiving training as an engraver in the Convent of San

Marcos in Leon (c. 1538), he worked in the Royal Alcázar of Madrid and at the University of

Alcalá de Henares in Spain. In 1554, he migrated to Puebla (then New Spain) where he began his career as an architect of public works and buildings. In Mexico City, he designed and built the

Imperial Catafalque (Túmulo Imperial) to commemorate the death of Charles V. Built inside the convent of San Francisco in Mexico City in 1559, the monument was later described by Spanish priest and poet Francisco Cervantes de Salazar (c. 1513–75) in Túmulo imperial (1560) and in the Codex de Tlatelolco. Arciniega was also commissioned to work on the Royal Palace (1563) and on the new Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City (1564–93). Among his many commissions were the convents of San Agustín in Acolman (1558–60), San Agustín of the City of Mexico (1561), San Nicolás de Tolentino in Actopan, Santos Reyes de Metztitlan (c. 1577), and the Franciscan convents of San Francisco in Zacatlan (1562–67) and Santiago in Tecali (c.

1569). Chief architect of the city’s Cathedral by 1570 and master builder of New Spain by 1576,

237

Arciniega had gained experience in hydraulics while working on the aqueduct of Santa Fé in

1574.

II.105. Possibly from Spain, the architect Alonso MARTÍNEZ López de Vía (fl. 1607–1626, d.

1626) worked as the Chief Builder of the Cathedral of Mexico in Mexico City between 1613 and

1623. In 1624, he held the position of commissioner of public works for the Inquisition until his death. In this prestigious position, Martínez was able to work on important architectural landmarks, including the convent of Jesús María (c. 1618–20) and fountains attached to the aqueduct of Santa Fé in the Plaza Mayor and the Plaza del Volador (1620–26). A wealthy man, he bought land in 1615 to design and develop a residential and commercial area of thirty-six houses and stores in the market district of Mexico City. In 1607 and 1611, he worked with

Enrico Martínez on the city’s drainage system.

II,105. Damián DE ÁVILA Mesura (also Dávila, fl. 1505–1514) was master and

stonemason in Mexico City. In addition to working on the city’s drainage system, he carried out

several other municipal projects, including repairing bridges and other structures.

II. 105t. OBRAS PIAS, literary “works of piety,” can be likened to a charitable foundation through

which the Catholic Church directed shares of personal bequests to the charities that the donors had specified. Some of these funds were managed by cofraternities that invested them in secular activities.

II.108n. A 1788 graduate from Glasgow University, British physician and writer James MILLAR

(1762–1827) took his medical degree at Edinburgh in 1795. He became a fellow of the Royal

College of Physicians of Edinburgh and was part of the Edinburgh Dispensary. The editor of the

238

fourth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1810; last 15 vols of 5th edition, 1817), he also

edited the Encyclopaedia Edinensis (6 vols., 1827). In addition to publishing in several

periodicals from London and Edinburgh, he coauthored, with William Vazie, Observations on

the Advantages and Practicability of making Tunnels under Navigable Rivers, particularly

applicable to the proposed Tunnel under the Forth (1807).

II.108n. Together with James Millar, civil engineer William VAZIE (b. 1756) was involved in the construction of a tunnel under the Forth between Rosyth and Queensferry (near Edinburgh).

Due to lack of funding, the project did not come to fruition. Nonetheless, Vazie and his brother

Robert (fl. 1790–1830) became the first advocates and pioneers of underwater tunnels for roads.

II.110. Spanish clergyman GARCÍA GUERRA (1560–1612) entered the Dominican Order at the

Convent of St. Paul in Valladolid in 1578. In 1608, he was appointed archbishop of Mexico.

Soon thereafter, he officially inaugurated Mexico City’s drainage system (Desagüe del Valle de

México) designed by Enrico Martínez. In 1611, García Guerra replaced Luis Velasco II as viceroy of New Spain. In this position, he ordered a complete report of the accounts of the

Desagüe.

II.110. Master of architecture, fortifications, and the king’s chief armorer, ALONSO ARIAS wrote

a report on the subject, asserting that the drainage system was, in effect, useless. Although

Martínez defended his case before the king, Adrian Boot was sent to Mexico to inquire about

the state of the Desagüe.

II.110. The Dutch engineer Adrian Boot (fl. 1614–1634), who also submitted a report on the

drainage system, found Martínez’s canal inadequate and proposed plans for an extensive, and

239

expensive, alternative. Martínez underbid Boot and offered to make repairs. In 1616, Phillip III

rejected Boot’s plan and approved Martínez’s. Seven years later, the work on the Desagüe was

still unfinished.

II.110. PHILIP III OF SPAIN (1578–1621) reigned from 1598 to 1621. His favorite minister,

Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, the Duke of Lerma (c. 1552–1625), in cahoots with the

Archbishop of Valencia, Juan de Ribera (1532–1611), succeeded in convincing the king to expel

the Moors from Spain; Philip III signed an edict to this effect on April 9, 1609. What finally

persuaded the king was that he could confiscate Moorish assets and properties, which brought a

dramatic boost to the royal coffers. Ribera’s proposal to enslave the moriscos for work in galleys

and mines, however, was rejected.

II.110. Spanish military general Diego Carillo de Mendoza y Pimentel (c. 1557–1636), MARQUIS

OF GELVES and Count of Priego, was viceroy of New Spain from 1621 to 1624. Before that, he

had been head of the viceroyalty of Aragón (1610–21). Carillo had entered the army around

1571, fought in the Battle of Alcântara (Portugal) in 1580, and served as commander of Sicily

and Milan. During his administration in New Spain, he sought to make the Audiencia (that is, the

judicial) system more efficient and tried to fight theft and contraband. In 1623, he stopped the

works of the desagüe of the Valley of Mexico to ascertain the actual cause of the city’s cyclical

floodings. Even though the Marquis of Cerralvo, Carillo’s successor, ordered the construction

of the drainage system to continue, the temporary halt of the works resulted in the flooding of the

city. The Great Flood, caused by the San Mateo downpour, lasted for more than four years

(1629–34). Due to conflicts with the archbishop of Mexico, Juan Pérez de la Serna (1573–1631),

Carillo was sent back to Spain.

240

II.112. In March 1630, Novo–Spanish engineer SIMÓN MÉNDEZ proposed to solve the problem of the inundation of the Valley of Mexico by way of a direct canal. His proposal came after the

Great Flood of 1629 at a time when Mexico City was still underwater: The valley’s five interconnected lakes would drain through the slightly lower and salty Lake Tezcoco and, by way of a canal and a tunnel, empty into the Tequixquiac River. The project approved, Méndez was ordered to test the design and begin work. After the initial trial phase, however, Méndez’s project was abandoned until 1774, when Joaquín Velázquez de León studied and approved it, once again. After several attempts at finishing the canal and tunnel, it took the 1865 rainy season in the valley to spur serious interest in completing the drainage system. The Desagüe del Valle de

México was finally inaugurated on March 17, 1900.

II.112. ANTONIO (Antón) ROMÁN and JUAN ÁLVAREZ DE TOLEDO (also Taledano) competed unsuccessfully for the commission to design and build the drainage system of the Valley of

Mexico after the Great Flood of Mexico in 1629. A total of four projects were presented to the viceroy: a new project from Román (with Álvarez de Toledo); two others from Alonso Pérez de

Zúñiga and Francisco Gutiérrez Naranjo; and the fourth from Enrico Martínez (which was already underway). Román and Álvarez de Toledo proposed to build a draining system through the Lagoon of San Cristóbal; Martínez’s project through the Huehuetoca prevailed. Competing with Méndez, Román, in 1630, proposed yet another project that included two open canals to drain the valley.

II.113. Spanish clergyman and missionary FRANCISCO CALDERÓN (1584–1661) held the highest religious office in the Society of Jesus in New Spain on two occasions (1644–46 and in 1653).

Calderón was head of the Jesuits during their confrontation with Juan de Palafox. Calderón had

241

arrived in the Americas in 1602 and was ordained six years later. After being dispatched to

Tepotzotlan (1610–15), Parras (1615), and the Colegio Máximo de San Pedro y San Pablo of

Mexico City (1616–31), he became rector of the Colegio de Santo Tomas in Guadalajara (1625–

28), the Colegio de San Ildefondo in Puebla (1631–34), and the seminary at Tepotzotlan (1638–

44). Stationed in Mexico City in 1630 during the Great Flood, he proposed that the

administration concentrate its efforts on finding a natural waterway to drain the city. To this end,

Calderón shared with the viceroy, the Marquis of Cerralvo, documents dating back to the

conquest: two maps of the region around the Lake Tezcoco and a pictorial manuscript that

historian Arnold Bauer has linked with the Codex Cardona. Calderón at length persuaded the

viceroy to allow a team of Jesuits to search for Pantitlan, a pre-Hispanic sacred ritual site and,

importantly for the purpose of drainage, a sinkhole in the middle of Lake Tezcoco. Although

Calderón claimed that the Jesuits found Pantitlan in 1631, the viceregal authorities did not pursue the natural drain option any further.

II.114. Spanish clergyman Francisco MANSO (Manzo) Y ZÚÑIGA, Count of Hervías (1587–1656),

was appointed archbishop of Mexico in 1628 and took office a year later. After studying canon

law, he became rector of the University of Valladolid and later a judge in the Chancery of

Granada and member of the Council of the Indies. His response to the Great Flood in Mexico

City (1629–34) was fostering the devotion of Our Lady of Guadalupe by bringing the image to

the Cathedral and to build several hospitals to tend to the sick and injured. Because of power

struggles with then-viceroy Cerralvo, Manso y Zúñiga was transferred to Spain in 1635.

II.116. Lope Díez de Aux y Armendáriz, MARQUIS OF CADEREYTA (also Cadreita, 1575–1640),

was the first Criollo to be appointed viceroy of New Spain (1635–1640). Born in Quito, he

242

followed a military career until he was chosen as viceroy. As the waters of the Great Flood were receding in Mexico City in 1635, he managed the extensive damage of the flood. Cadereyta de

Montes, a city in Querétaro (Mexico) founded in 1640, was named after him.

II.117. Spanish military officer Diego López Pacheco, Duke of Escalona and MARQUIS OF

VILLENA (1599–1653), was viceroy of New Spain from 1640 to 1642. A member of a wealthy

and powerful family, he studied at the University of Salamanca and enjoyed a military career.

Named viceroy in 1640, he was ousted by Palafox two years later. Back in Spain, he was

appointed governor of Sicily and then of Navarra.

II.117. Franciscan friar LUIS FLORES (fl. 1637–1653) was named superintendent of works for the

desagüe (drainage system) of the Valley of Mexico in 1637. The first Franciscan (of four) to hold this position, Flores modified Enrico Martínez’s tunnel system by opening up 1.8 miles (3 km) of the tunnel. On April 14, 1653, Flores wrote a report (Memorial) to the viceroy about the work carried out thus far. Flores was replaced by fellow Franciscan Bernardino de la Concepción

in 1653 who held the office from 1653 to 1665. See also Manuel de Cabrera.

II.117. Educated at the University of Alcala, Spanish clergyman Marcos de TORRES y Rueda

(1591–1649) became professor of theology at his alma mater and rector of the College of San

Nicolás. He served as bishop of Yucatán from 1646 to 1649 and as interim governor of the viceroyalty of New Spain and president of the Audiencia de México from 1648 to 1649.

II.117. Trained at the University of Salamanca and a lecturer at the universities of Burgos,

Valladolid, and Alcala, the Spanish clergyman Payo ENRÍQUEZ DE RIBERA Manrique (1622–

1684) of the Order of Saint Augustine was bishop of Guatemala (1657–67), archbishop of

243

Mexico (1668–81), and viceroy of New Spain (1673–80). He introduced the first printing press

to Guatemala in 1660. After his terms as viceroy and archbishop, Ribera retired to the monastery

El Risco in Ávila (Spain) in 1681.

II.117. Spanish colonial administrator MARTÍN DE SOLÍS y Miranda (fl. 1671–1706) was the

royal prosecutor and a judge in the Audiencia (judicial court) of Mexico from 1671 to 1686.

Solís requested the position of superintendent of the Desagüe (drainage system) in the Valley of

Mexico. Promising to finish a project that would prevent further flooding of the City of Mexico

in just two months and with fewer than 400 laborers, he secured the position in 1675 and

replaced Manuel Cabrera, but only temporarily. Although the drainage system was (once again)

officially inaugurated on July 3, 1675, it (once again) did not work. As a result, Cabrera was

reinstated. Back in Spain, Solís became judge at the Chancery of Granada and later served on the

Council of the Indies.

II.118. Spanish military engineer FRANCISCO POZUELO ESPINOSA (1651–1691) was technical adviser to Martín de Solís during the Desagüe (drainage system) fiasco in 1675. He was among the engineers who reported on the state of the drainage system in 1687. After he had passed the

required examinations, the Council of the Indies stationed Pozuelo in New Spain at the rank of

assistant engineer. There, he worked on designs for the defense of the Castle of San Juan de Ulúa

from 1673 to 1674 and Nueva Veracruz in 1683. Pozuelo’s plans are reproduced in José Antonio

Calderón Quijano’s Fortificaciones en Nueva España by (Madrid: Escuela de Estudios

Hispanoamericanos, 1984).

II.118. Spanish military officer Melchor Antonio Portocarrero y Lasso de la Vega, COUNT OF

MONCLOVA (1636–1705), was viceroy of New Spain from 1686 to 1688 and of Peru from 1689

244

to 1705. He was the last person to be promoted from the viceroyalty of New Spain to that of

Peru. Having lost an arm during the Battle of the Dunes (1658), he was known as “Brazo de

Plata” (silver arm). As viceroy of New Spain and minister of the Council of the Indies, the count

focused on protecting Spanish interests in Texas and Coahuila, especially from the French, and

in the Gulf of Mexico.

II.118. Spanish friar MANUEL CABRERA (fl. 1652–1691) arrived in New Spain in August 1645.

After finishing his studies in theology, he was appointed preacher and confessor at the convents of San Francisco of Puebla in 1652. Thereafter, he worked as a guardian, vicar, and director of several convents, including that of Santa María de la Redonda in Mexico City. In 1665, Cabrera was appointed superintendent of the drainage system for the Valley of Mexico and replaced

Father Bernardino de la Concepción (tenure 1653–65). Cabrera’s first term as head of works for

the Desagüe lasted for a decade, from 1665 to 1675. He was replaced by Martín Solís, who

promised to finish the long-awaited drainage system in a mere two months. Because of Solís’s

disappointing performance, Cabrera was reinstated in 1687 for another four years. Cabrera

criticized and lampooned Solís for the work on the Desagüe the latter had purportedly completed

in Verdad aclarada y desvanecidas imposturas (Cleared-up truth and disappeared deception,

1688–89).

II.131n. Novo–Spanish architect ILDEFONSO DE INIESTA Bejarano Durán (also Yniesta and

Vejarano, 1716–1781) was among the most notable artists of the mid-eighteenth century. Iniesta had worked as a planner for the maintenance of roads, streets, avenues, and other transportation venues since 1747. In 1763, he secured the position of construction project manager of Mexico

City. Among other achievements, Iniesta is credited with the designs of the façade of the Temple

245

of San Felipe Neri (1753–58), the reconstruction of the church of San Francisco Xavier de

Tepotzotlan (1760–62), and the exterior façade and some interior spaces of the University of

Mexico (1758–61). Also a land surveyor, Iniesta wrote a report on the drainage system of the

Valley of Mexico in 1764, which Joaquín Velázquez de León considered inaccurate. In a

second report from 1774, in which he acknowledged his earlier mistake, Iniesta included maps of

of Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco in 1769. (That report is housed in the Archivo General de la

Nación; Desagüe, vol. 19.)

II.131n. PHILIP II of Spain (1527–1598) was king of Castile (as Philip II) and king of Naples,

Aragon, Sicily, and Portugal (as Philip I). Under his rule (1556–1598), Spain reached the height of its global power and influence.

II. 132. Roman architect and engineer (fl. 70–15 BCE) is the author of the ten-book

De architectura—commonly known as Ten Books on Architecture. The only major treatise on classical building design still extant, De architectura contains a plethora of information about

Greek and and architecture. A continuing authoritative source on Classicism,

Vitruvius’s work was possibly written between 33 and 14 BCE. De architectura has been

enormously influential since the Renaissance. The famous drawing “Vitruvian Man” by

Leonardo (1452–1519), in which the naked male body is bounded by a circle and a

square, is based on Vitruvian’s image of a man as the measure of proportion.

II.137n. HERODOTUS (c. 485–425 BCE), whom called the “father of history,” is the author

of the nine-volume Histories, a magisterial account of the historical context during the times of

ancient Greece, gathered on Herod’s extensive travels in the eastern Mediterranean world. His meticulous proto-historical studies may be considered a polycentric and comparative narrative

246

that moves among different voices, stories, and points of view. Together, they render the

magnitude of the wars between Greece and the expanding Persian Empire (492–479 BCE), of

whose genealogical and dynastic emergence Herodotus gives an extensive account. For

centuries, his historiographical achievements were regarded as the epitome of the empirical and

critical gathering of historical knowledge.

II.141. Swiss meteorologist and geologist Jean André (1727–1818) published his two-

volume Recherches sur les modifications de l’atmosphère (Researches on atmospheric changes) in 1772. In it, he described experiments with moisture, evaporation, and the indications of

HYGROMETERS and thermometers. The following year, when he moved to England, the

Philosophical Transactions of 1773 printed his account of a new hygrometer that resembled a

mercurial thermometer. It had an ivory bulb that expanded as the humidity increased and caused

the mercury to move down a tube. The hygrometers Humboldt used for measuring the air’s

humidity in the tropics had all been built by the Genovese instrument-maker Théodore Marc Paul

(1760–1832). They were of two kinds: the whalebone hygrometers by André Deluc (1727–1827)

and the hair tension hygrometers by Saussure. Deluc’s concept was based on a thin whalebone

lamella that could its size by a maximum of ten percent, depending on its absorption of the

air’s humidity. The length of the fiber was then passed on to a needle pinpointing the rate of

moisture. Deluc’s rival Saussure used the same method, but instead of a whalebone, his

measuring fiber was dehumidified and degreased human hair. Both methods were designed for

travel and much needed during Humboldt’s expeditions. But the instruments lacked

standardization, so Humboldt had to rely on relative values for the degrees of humidity.

Humboldt’s barometers and hygrometers nonetheless provided valuable data for his studies on

the climates in the Americas. Gathering his own data on air pressure, temperature, and humidity

247

and comparing that data to other sources, Humboldt was able to compose his isothermal map that

shows lines that connect different sites of average-year temperatures around the globe. The

underlying idea was inspired by the work of Tobias Mayer and also by the ongoing research on

Earth magnetism. Magnetic lines displayed the global distribution of magnetic inclination, declination, and intensity. Humboldt alludes to these so-called isogonic curves in his

(vol. IV), erroneously attributing them to the British astronomer Edmund Halley (1656–1742). In fact, these lines were first drawn and presented by the Swedish physicist Johan Carl Wilke

(1732–96). Humboldt himself considered his system of isothermal lines, which he first presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1817, one of his key contributions to science. Today, it is regarded as a major example of early global climate studies.

II.143. Gaspar Clair François Marie Riche de PRONY, the Baron Riche of Prony (1755–1839),

was a French engineer. A land registrar since 1791, he oversaw the introduction of new

trigonometric tables. A member of the French Academy of Sciences since 1795, he also

measured the speed of sound with great precision and was very much involved in public works.

II.144. British industrial entrepreneur and ironmaster William REYNOLDS (1758–1803) studied

chemistry and owned a sizeable geological collection. In 1786, he led the construction of the Tar

Tunnel, a canal tunnel in the north bank of the River Severn for mining purposes. In 1787,

Reynolds built the Ketley Canal with a self-acting inclined plane, the first to be used in mainland

Britain. He also worked on the Shropshire Canal (1788–92), the Shrewsbury Canal, and

established the canal port, known as Coalport, at the Ironbridge Gorge. Among his most

significant inventions was the process for making manganese steel, which he patented in 1799.

248

Reynold’s sketchbook, in which he illustrated his many engineering pursuits, is preserved in the

library of the Science Museum in London.

II.144. Before turning to engineering, USAmerican naval inventor Robert FULTON (1765–1815)

was a portrait painter for the British aristocracy. Having migrated to England around 1787 to study painting, he later became interested in canal design and construction (1791–94). In 1793,

Fulton advocated for the use of inclined planes on the Bude Canal. His Treatise on the

Improvement of Canal Navigation (1796) established him as a civil engineer. Before returning to the USA in 1806, Fulton worked as contractor on the peak Forest Canal. He also invented the first successful steamboat, the North River Steam Boat. Seven years later, his company controlled steamboats on the Hudson, Delaware, Potomac, James, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers and the Chesapeake Bay.

II.144. British inventor Lawson HUDDLESTON (1754–1811) wrote “Method of conveying boats

and barges from a higher to a lower level, and the contrary, on canals, by means of a plunger,

instead of losing water by locks.” It was published by William Nicholson in A Journal of

Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts in 1803. British composer John Marsh (1752–1828)

dedicated his Introduction to the Theory of Harmonics (1809) to his friend Huddleston who had

nurtured his initial idea for the work.

II.144. Canarian engineer Agustín de BETANCOURT y Molina (1758–1824), who became

acquainted with Humboldt in Spain, served the Spanish Crown until 1808 and the Russian

Empire from that time until his death. Betancourt is known for his inventions in early

telegraphing and for his contributions to the Essai sur la Composition des Machines (1808)

considered the first modern treatise on machines. With his coauthor, José María de Lanz y

249

Zaldívar (1764–1839) from New Spain, Betancourt was the first to propose, in the Essai, a

classification of mechanisms based on the transformation of motion. In 1808, Betancourt left

Spain to work for Czar Alexander I (1777–1825) in Russia, where he held various prestigious

positions. In addition to authoring several manuscripts on engineering, Betancourt y Molina

published the Mémoire sur la force expansive de la vapeur de l’eau (Report on the expansive power of steam, 1790).

II.146. Of Franco-Spanish extraction, José de la Borda Sánchez aka JOSEPH DE LABORDE (1699–

1778) was once the wealthiest man in New Spain. He is not to be confused with the French

banker Jean-Joseph de Laborde (1724–94). Borda arrived in New Spain in 1716, eight years after

his older brother, Francisco, had emigrated there. After working with his brother, Borda set off

by himself to find new mineral strikes. He founded a successful mine in Tlalpujahua in 1734. In

1738, Francisco died, and Borda inherited his property. Borda’s deeper exploration of his

brother’s La Alajuela mine yielded an abundance of silver. It is from this strike that he first

funded the building of the Santa Prisca Church in Taxco in 1751. His aim in constructing this

magnificent edifice was to create a space where the priest Manuel de la Borda y Verdugo, his

son, could officiate mass. It took fifteen years to complete the structure and turn the church into

one of the most richly adorned baroque monuments in New Spain. Borda is also remembered for

founding the Borda House in the historic center of Mexico City and the Borda Garden in

Cuernavaca. The circumstances Humboldt recounts here have to do with Borda’s mortgaging the

church in Taxco in 1761, when he was practically bankrupt, to finance an expedition to

Zacatecas. The second mine Borda worked there, fittingly called “La Esperanza” (hope), restored

to him his former wealth and status as a mining magnate.

250

II.148n. JUAN IGNACIO BRIONES (fl. 1793–1803) was assistant commissioner for the office of

War and Treasury in Querétaro. A landowner, he held an administrative position in Querétaro from at least 1793 to 1803. In the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City, there is a census report with information for Querétaro for 1793 (Box 4934, Exp. 051) which Briones wrote to viceroy Revillagigedo. This report might be similar to the manuscript about Querétaro Briones shared with Humboldt.

II.151n. The ancient town of Tentyris or Tentyra (today’s Dendera) lies on the west bank of the

Nile in central Egypt. It is best known for the famous, well-preserved temple complex of Hathor, whose construction lasted for over 200 years, from the reign of the Greek Emperor Ptolemy VI

(180–145 BCE) to that of the Roman Emperor Nero (37–68, r. 54–68). The composition and design of the temple’s columns and its colonnaded street added new ornamentation and detail that would become typical of Egyptian architecture in the Greco-Roman Period. Some of these ornamentations were first sketched by Dominique Vivant DENON (1747–1825), a French writer, diplomat, and antiquary. Director-general of the Imperial Museums (today’s Louvre) during the

Napoleonic Empire (1804–14), Denon had taken part in Napoleon Bonaparte’s (1769–1821)

Egyptian campaign (1798–1801) as his chronicler and courtier, a position that Denon had already held at the Court of Louis XV (1710–74). Denon’s own impressions of the Egyptian expedition were woven into his epic Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Égypte pendant les campagnes du

Général Bonaparte (Voyage in Lower and Upper Egypt during the campaigns of General

Bonaparte, 1802), which made him well known among European archeologists and other scholars.

251

II.152. North Africa–born French military officer Jacques François Louis GROBERT (b. 1757) wrote about the Pyramids of Giza in his Description des Pyramides de Ghizé de la ville du Kaire et de ses environs (1801). He had entered the Tuscan artillery in 1773 and the French artillery in the 1790s. By the early 1880s, he was stationed in Giza. In addition to publications on artillery, mechanics, and opera, Grobert critically reviewed British army officer and military writer Henry

Lloyd’s (c. 1718–83) work on the defense of Great Britain: Observations sur les memoire du général Lloyd concernant l’invasion et la defense la Grande-Bretagne (1803).

II.156. Spanish military officer MANUEL DE FLON y Tejada, count de la Cadena (d. 1811), was governor and intendant of Puebla de los Ángeles from 1785 to 1811. He was killed during the royalist victory over Hidalgo’s army at the battle of Calderón near Guadalajara.

II.163. A supporter of the independence movement in New Spain, Novo–Spanish mathematician

José Antonio ROJAS (also Roxas, b. 1773) met Humboldt in Guanajuato. A professor at the

Colegio de la Purísima Concepción in Guanajuato since 1803, Rojas was named chemistry professor at the School of Mines in Mexico City. Having been condemned by the Inquisition for heresy in 1804, Rojas died in exile in the United States.

II.165n. NIVOSE was the fifth month in the French Republican calendar. It started on December

21 and ended on January 19. The French Republican calendar started retroactively with the year I on September 22, 1792. The new calendar was not officially adopted until late in 1793, during the radical republican phase of the French Revolution known as the Reign of Terror (September

1793 to July 1794). Reforming the society in its reference to time and space with the goal of counteracting superstition, fanaticism, and even Christian festivals, the calendar was the creation of the mathematicians Charles Gilbert Romme (1750–1795) and Gaspard Monge, Count de

252

Péluse (1746– 1818), the poets André de Chénier (1762–1794) and Philippe-François-Nazaire

Fabre d’Eglantine (1755–1794), and the painter Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), among others. Lalande was also involved in the creation of the calendar. Napoleon I (1769–1821) abandoned the Republican Calendar in 1806.

II.167. Guatemalan Jesuit poet RAFAEL LANDÍVAR (1731–1793) is the author of Rusticatio

mexicana, a poem in Latin hexameter that praised indigenous customs and traditions. After

completing his education at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala, Landívar was ordained in

the Society of Jesus in 1755. Because of the Jesuit expulsion in 1767, Landívar lived in exile in

Bologna, Italy. He composed and published Rusticatio mexicana in Bologna in 1781.

II.171. Spanish merchant and landowner José ANDRÉS PIMENTEL y Sotomayor (d. 1768) was

town councilor of Patzcuaro. He had arrived in New Spain in 1727 and, since 1740, owned the

hacienda San Pedro del Jorullo, a sugar plantation and cattle ranch that was destroyed on

September 29, 1759, during the birth of El Jorullo, a cinder cone volcano. El Jorullo destroyed

the previously rich agricultural region that surrounded it with continuous eruptions that lasted for

fifteen years (until 1774), the longest activity span ever recorded for a cinder cone volcano. After

the disaster that befell his property, Pimentel took the opportunity to gain a tax exemption from

the Audiencia of Mexico to set up a meat business in Valladolid and other large commercial

centers. He became the main provider of meat in the region for four years (1761–65). Pimentel

also tried his luck in the silver mining business, exploiting the mines San Miguel and La Soledad

in the mining district of Curucupaseo, Michoacán.

II.178. Spanish clergyman, social reformer, and educator VASCO DE QUIROGA (c. 1470–1565)

was judge of the second Audiencia of New Spain (1531–35) and the first bishop of Michoacán

253

(1538–65). He had arrived in Mexico City in 1530 and was elected to the bishopric of

Michoacán six years later; he held this position until 1539. Quiroga wrote Carta al Consejo de

Indias (Letter to the Council of the Indies, 1531), Información en Derecho (1535), Reglas y ordenanzas (c. 1565), and Testamento (1565). Inspired by Thomas More’s (c. 1477–1535)

Utopia, Quiroga founded a series of so-called hospital towns, self-regulated towns in which indigenous peoples could live self-sufficiently and independently of the Spanish colonists. The first of these towns was Santa Fé near Mexico City.

II.178. A Spanish missionary and Dominican priest, BARTOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS (1484–1566)

came to La Isla Española (today’s Haiti and ) in 1502, with his father, Pedro

de Las Casas, who was part of Columbus’s second journey. In 1511, Las Casas joined the

conquest of Cuba by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar (c. 1461–1524) who offered Las Casas an

encomienda, a special form of repartimiento, in the form of lands or Indians. The encomienda

system was a common practice among Spanish conquerors until 1542, when it was prohibited by

Spanish law. Like most Dominican clerics an adversary of the encomienda, Las Casas finally

abandoned his life as an encomendero in Cuba and tried to establish a better form of coexistence

with the indigenous populations in his attempt of autonomous Dominican colonization and

missionary work near Cumaná. Because of repeated attacks by Spanish slave hunters, the project

soon failed. Shocked by the brutality with which the Spanish treated the so-called Indians, Las

Casas became an eager defender of the indigenous cause, first as head of the Dominican mission

in Verapaz, Guatemala, and then as bishop of the Mexican province of Chiapas from 1544 to

1546. Frustrated by his experiences, Las Casas returned to Spain in 1547, where his political

efforts to denounce the systematic violence against the indigenous peoples culminated in the

famous “Dispute of Valladolid” in 1550. In this public controversy, the Dominican cleric became

254

the “Defender of the Indians,” arguing against Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1494–1573) who was

intent on legitimizing violent colonization and the enslavement of the indigenous populations as

a natural right and part of a just war against barbaric pagans. In the end, Las Casas won the

argument, which had a positive impact on the colonial legislation of the sixteenth century, known

as the “Leyes de Indias.” But Las Casas’s writings were even more influential. The Historia de

las Indias (The History of the Indies, completed in 1561) is one of the most famous early

chronicles of the Spanish “discoveries” and an authoritative biography of Columbus. The

Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (A Short Account of the Destruction of the

Indies, 1552) a shocking report of the Spanish violence against indigenous peoples, became a key document in rival colonial competitors’—Britain, France and Holland—propagandist efforts against Spain. Important contexts for the controversies surrounding the abolition of slavery in later centuries, both the Historia and the Brevísima relación are crucial to understanding the history of the Americas. Because of his proposal to replace indigenous peoples with African slaves (which he later withdrew), Las Casas’s personal and political integrity has often been called into question. Humboldt, however, typically emphasized Las Casas’s humanitarian goals.

II.183. A Novo–Spanish lawyer from Zacatecas, José GARCÉS y Eguía (d. 1824) was a graduate

of the Royal School of Mines and member of the Mining Board. Garcés published Nueva

Teórica y Práctica del beneficio del oro y plata por fundición y amalgamación (New theory and

practice of the benefit of gold and silver for smelting and amalgamation, 1802).

II.187. The gable-roofed Tomba di Annia Regilla (.61 CE) was thought to be the temple of DEUS

REDICOLUS (more properly spelled Deus Rediculus or God of Return) that marked the spot where

255

Hannibal turned back and began his retreat in 211 BCE. The temple is today regarded as the tomb of Annia Regilla (d. 161), wife of politician and writer Herodes Atticus (103–177).

II.190. NIMA QUICHÉ (or Nima K’iche’) was an allied Quiché-speaking group that formed a

powerful military state in the highlands of Guatemala (zenith c. 1450). The Nima Quiché

occupied Utlatlán (Quiché = K’umarcaah or Place of the Ancient Reeds), the capital of the

Quiché Maya confederation.

II.190. Humboldt’s Plate XI in Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous

Peoples of the Americas shows a stucco bas-relief from the northern part of the pre-Columbian

Maya Palace at PALENQUE, a Maya city and ceremonial center located at the foot of the

northernmost hills of the Chiapas highlands and overlooking the forest of the Gulf coast plain.

The Palace, with its impressive four-story tower, is the central and largest building of the site that

also includes a ballcourt and several temples. With several interior courts, galleries, and rooms,

the palace served as the residence of most of Palenque’s rulers. Its stucco, once painted, is one of

the finest in the world. Palenque was occupied from c. 1500 BCE until eighth century CE. The

drawing on which the Plate is based was created by Ricardo or Ignacio Almendáriz (fl. c. 1787),

the artist who accompanied artillery captain Antonio del Río (fl. 1786–1789) on an excavation of

the Maya site at Palenque in 1787. Almendáriz prepared thirty—often inaccurate—figures on twenty-six sheets. They were part of del Ríos’s report, Description of the Ruin of an Ancient City

Discovered near Palenque from 1787. The report’s manuscript is housed at the Academía Real de Historia in Madrid, Spain.

II.191. Nicolas-Joseph THIÉRY DE MENONVILLE (1739–1780) was a French botanist who, in

1776, volunteered to be sent to Mexico by the French Ministry of the Navy to attempt to break

256

the Spanish trade monopoly in cochineal, an insect valued for its scarlet dye. On his clandestine

mission, he worked without official papers and would have been treated brutally had he been

caught. He succeeded in obtaining and naturalizing the insect and the prickly pear nopal cactus

on which it depended in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. He describes his exploits in

Voyage à Oaxaca (Travels to Oaxaca, 1787).

II.192. French military physician Nicolas Pierre GILBERT (1751–1814) became a professor at the

Military School Hospital Val-de-Grace in Paris in 1796 and physician in chief of the army in

1806. He had begun his career as a surgeon of the Navy in 1770 and was deployed to the East

Indies. Before being named chief medical officer at Sambre-et-Meuse (1795) and professor at

Val-de-Grace, he studied medicine at Angers and served as president of the administration of the

French department of Ille-et-Vilaine from 1791 to 1794). In 1802, Gilbert was dispatched to

Saint-Domingue, where he served as head military physician until 1806. A correspondent of the

Academy of Medicine, his held the position of physician in chief of the army for six years, until

1812.

II.195. Thought to be born and educated in the Yucatán, clergyman PEDRO BELTRÁN de Santa

Rosa María (fl. 1705–1757) was a grammarian who lived in the Convent of San Pedro y San

Pablo de Teabo in Yucatán. Trained in Latin grammar at the Jesuit Colegio in Mérida, 1705, he

joined the Franciscan Convent in Merida in 1705, became a member of the Franciscan Order in

1713, and rose to the office of custodian of the order in Yucatán between 1720 and 1740. A

teacher of the Maya language in the convent, he published a collection of prayers titled Novena

de Christo crucificado con oraciones en lengua Maya (1740) and Declaración de la Doctrina

Christiana en el Idioma yucateco (1757). In 1746, he published Arte de el idioma Maya reducido

257

a succintas reglas y semilexicón Yucateco (The art of the Mayan language reduced to concise

rules and a Yucateco semi-lexicon).

II.195. Spanish Franciscan ANDRÉS DE AVENDAÑO y Loyola (1695–1705) was a missionary in

seventeenth-century Middle-America (Yucatán). On two, possibly three, occasions, he visited the territory of the Itza and Cehach in present-day Petén. He left an extensive report of his journey in

1696, on the eve of the conquest of the Maya by Martín de Ursúa (1653–1715). After his sojourn to Petén, Avendaño became a member of the provincial council of the Franciscan Province of

Yucatán (1705). His travelogues were edited by Temis Vayhinger-Scheer and published as

Relación de las dos entradas que hice a la conversión de los gentiles ytzáex, y cehaches in 1997.

An English edition was published by Frank E. Comparato as Relation of Two Trips to Petén made for the Conversion of the Heathen Ytzaex and Cehaches in 1987.

II.195. Having arrived in Yucatán in 1573, Franciscan friar ANTONIO DE CIUDAD REAL (1551–

1617) was secretary to Alonso Ponce (fl. 1584–89), commissary-general for the Franciscan

Order in New Spain. During Ponce’s inspections of the Franciscan provinces from Guadalajara to Nicaragua, Ciudad Real most likely served as a scribe. His report of Ponce’s visit, which provides invaluable detail about life in Middle America at the end of the , was published in two volumes as Relación breve verdadera de algunas cosas de las muchas que sucedieron al

Padre Fray Alonso Ponce en las provincias de la Nueva España in 1873. Ciudad Real is thought to be the compilator of a Motul dictionary written between 1584 and 1610 and published by

René Acuña as Calepino Maya de Motul in 1984.

II.195. Franciscan missionary LUIS DE VILLALPANDO (d. c. 1552) arrived at the Yucatán

peninsula from Guatemala in 1544 to become the head of the order there. Founding Mérida in

258

1542, he established the first Maya schools in 1547 and was a teacher of the indigenous

languages to newcomers. In his efforts to control and convert the Maya, he burned many of their

manuscript writings. It is believed that he wrote an Arte y vocabulario de la lengua de Yucatán o

lengua maya, which did not survive.

II.195. Francisco HERNÁNDEZ DE CÓRDOBA (also Córdova, d. 1517) was the first Spanish

conquistador to make landfall on the east coast of Yucatán, intentionally and not by error. He

took part in the conquest of Cuba under the command of Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar (c. 1461–

1524). From Cuba, Hernández de Córdoba sailed with three ships in search of slaves, reaching

Cozumel Island (Mexico) about 150 miles east of Cuba. He continued northwest to Cabo

Catoche (present-day Quintana Roo, Mexico) and landed in Campeche on February 23, 1517,

where he was repeatedly wounded during a battle with the indigenous population. He succumbed

to his wounds shortly after returning to Cuba with news about gold in the Yucatán. He is not to

be confused with his namesake Francisco Hernández de Córdoba (d. 1526), also a Spanish

conquistador who sailed the Río Desagüadero (now Río San Juan) and founded the cities of

Granada and León in Nicaragua.

II.206n. The engraver is Jean-Baptiste Louis MASSARD (1772–1810). His “Bust of a Mexica

Priestess” dates from 1805 and is now housed at the Bibliothèque National de France.

II.208. Pedro José MÁRQUEZ (1741–1820) was forced to leave New Spain, the land of his birth,

when Spain expelled the Jesuits from its colonies in 1767. In Due antichi Monumenti (Two ancient monuments), his short study on two pre-Columbian Mexica ruins (Tajín, Xochicalco),

Márquez partly adopted Alzate y Ramírez’s 1791 “Descripción de las antigüedades de

Xochicalco” and expressed his deep concern for the indigenous cultures of Mexico. Due antichi

259

Monumenti is among the many early historiographical and archeological accounts of Mexico, the

most famous of them Clavijero’s Storia antica del Messico.

II.210. Spanish colonial administrator Gaspar de Zúñiga y Acevedo (1560–1606), COUNT OF

MONTERREY, was viceroy of New Spain from 1595 to 1603 and of Peru from 1604 to 1606.

During his tenure in New Spain, he continued the administration’s policy of expansion and

supported land and maritime explorations, including travels by Sebastián Vizcaíno to the

Atlantic and by Juan de Oñate y Salazar to New Mexico. Vizcaíno named present-day

Monterey (California) in Zúñiga y Acevedo’s honor.

II.212. PHILIP V (1683–1746) was king of Spain from 1700 to 1724, when he abdicated in favor

of his son Louis, only to reassume the throne in August 1724 upon his son’s untimely death. The

first member of the to rule Spain, Philip V reigned for a total of more than

forty-five years—the longest reign in modern Spanish history.

II.217. Humboldt is possibly referring to maps by Nicolás Lafora, Manuel Agustín Mascaró,

and Miguel Costanzó of the Spanish Royal Corps of Engineers. Lafora’s map, dated July 27,

1771, is entitled “Mapa de la Frontera del Virreinato de Nueva España” (Map of the border of the viceroyality of New Spain). One of Mascaró’s many cartographic works is dated July 29,

1782, and is titled “Mapa geográfico de una gran parte de la América septentrional”

(Geographical map of a large part of South America). The “Mapa geográfico” is based on

Costanzó’s “Carta reducida del Oceano Asiático ó Mar del Súr,” dated October 30, 1770. The first two maps are housed at the British Library (MS 17,660a and 17,652a). Costanzó’s map, the original of which is at the Real Academia de Historia (Spain), is available online at Spain’s

Virtual Library of Bibliographical Heritage (http://bvpb.mcu.es).

260

II.221. Humboldt refers here to the ill-fated settlement that the Frenchman René-Robert Cavelier,

Sieur DE LA SALLE (1643–1687), who explored the region of the USA and Canada,

the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico, established on the Texas coast in the summer of

1685. As a result of faulty geography, La Salle believed that the Mississippi River emptied into the Gulf of Mexico in the Texas coastal bend. The settlement he founded on the right bank of

Garcitas Creek in southern Victoria County (Texas) was called Fort St. Louis. His colony gave

the French a claim to Texas and caused the Spaniards to occupy eastern Texas and Pensacola. It

later gave the USA the ability to claim Texas as part of the Louisiana Purchase (1804). While La

Salle had the merit of having discovered the last 700 miles of the lower course of the Mississippi

and was responsible for opening the Mississippi Valley for development, he proved as inept as

he was bold and indirectly caused the death of most of the 200 colonists who landed in Texas in

1685. La Salle never did locate the mouth of the Mississippi, and his Fort St. Louis colony lasted

for only another year after his violent death.

II.224. A corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences, French naval captain

Pierre Marie Francois de PAGÈS (1748–1793) deserted his ship in Saint-Domingue in mid-1767

to commence his own voyage around the world. Pagès sailed for New Orleans and then set out

for Texas, taking the route Humboldt describes, now known as the Old San Antonio Road. When

Pagès returned to France four years later by way of the Far East, the king, rather surprisingly,

forgave him for his desertion and reinstated him. This has raised the suspicion that the captain

might have been on an unofficial government mission. In 1776, Pagès fought with the French

navy against the USAmerican revolutionaries and later retired to a plantation in Haiti, where he

was slain during a slave uprising. Questions have been raised about the authenticity of Pagès’s

261

narrative, Voyage autor de monde (Travels around the World, 1791). Humboldt’s comments on

Pagès in these pages laid most doubts to rest.

II.227. REAL DE CATORCE is located near the city of Matehuala in the State of San Luis Potosí in

north-central Mexico. Sebastián Coronado (fl. 1772–1779) and Manuel Martínez (fl. 1772)

discovered a silver vein there in 1772 and requested that the location be registered as a mining

district. In 1778, Bernabé Antonio de Zepeda found and registered a rich silver vein famously

called “La Veta Grande” (The large vein) in the Sierra de Catorce. Zepeda’s discovery caused a

silver rush. A year later, Coronado registered the mines “Santísima Trinidad” and “La

Descubridora.” Zepeda continued with a successful mining enterprise as owner of three mines,

“La Concepción,” “Guadalupe,” and “San Miguel.” Although the mining district was initially

named Real de Nuestra Señora de la Concepción de Guadalupe de Álamos, the name “Catorce”

was added in 1777.

II.230. The recipient of a doctorate of canon law from the University of Caracas, Spanish

clergyman Pedro TAMARÓN y Romeral (1695–1768) was appointed bishop of Durango, Nueva

Vizcaya, in 1758, a post he served until his death. Tamarón had previously served as rector of the cathedral at Caracas in 1727 and had been a censor for the Inquisition there. Once in New Spain,

Tamarón carried out a series of episcopal inspections of his jurisdiction, the Tierra Caliente (hot

land). His travel journal, Demostración del vastísimo obispado de la Nueva Vizcaya 1765 was

first published and edited by Mexican historian Vito Alessio Robles in 1937.

II.235. In 1783, Spanish military officer Miguel RUBÍN DE CELIS (b. 1746) inspected the Mesón

de Fierro, a large mass of iron located in the Campo del Cielo in present-day Argentina. Leading

a group of 200 men to examine the iron deposit, he drew a map of the location and sketches of

262

the metal; both are housed at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville. Rubín de Celis sent

several iron samples to European institutions for further analysis and wrote a detailed report to

the then-viceroy of Buenos Aires, Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo (1719–1799), which is kept at the Archivo General de la Nación Argentina. Joseph Banks read a letter at the Royal Society of

London about the expedition in November 1787; it was later published in English and Spanish in the Philosophical Transactions. The first European to inspect the Mesón was Hernán Mexia de

Miraval in 1576; his account is lost. The Hoyo Rubín de Celis, the meteorite crater he also inspected, is named after him. In addition to writing about the amalgamation of metals, Rubín de

Celis published a pamphlet supporting the ideals of the French Revolution while he was living in

France. His Discours sur les Principes fondamentaux d'une Constitution libre (Discourse on the

fundamental principles of a free constitution, 1792) was widely disseminated in Buenos Aires.

Because of his support of the French cause, Rubín de Celis was investigated and stripped of his

military rank in 1793; his possessions were also confiscated.

II.235. Educated at the universities of Berlin, Halle, Göttingen, and Leiden, Berlin-born naturalist Peter Simon PALLAS (1741–1811) was elected a foreign member of the British Royal

Society at the age of twenty-three. After exploring natural history collections in London,

Amsterdam, and The Hague, he accepted the invitation of Russian Empress Catherine II (1729–

1796) in 1768 to become a professor of natural history at the Imperial Academy of Sciences in

St. Petersburg. For the next eight years, he participated in a scientific expedition throughout

Russia and Siberia, whose immediate purpose was to observe the transit of Venus in 1769. This

expedition proved remarkably fruitful. Pallas began to set down the results of his observations in

1771 as Reisen durch verschiedende Provinzen des Russischen Reichs (Travels through the

southern provinces of the , 1812). Worthy of special mention is also his collection

263

of historical information about the Mongolian people (Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten

über die Mongolischen Völkerschaften, 1776–1802). The empress bought Pallas’s impressive

natural history collection for well above the asking price and allowed him to keep it for life. In

1793–94, Pallas undertook another expedition, this time to the southern parts of Russia. The results of that voyage saw print as Bemerkungen auf einer Reise durch die südliche

Statthalterschaft des Russischen Reiches (Observations made during a journey through the southern province of the Russian empire, 1799–81). Pallas was also editor of and contributor to the journal Neue Nordische Beiträge zur physikalischen Erd- und Völkerbeschreibung,

Natugeschichte, und Ökonomie (Nordic contributions to the physical description of lands and peoples, 1781–96). He eventually moved to the Crimea, where he resided until 1810 when he returned to Berlin.

II.241. An ancient region of southeast Europe and Asia (8th–2th century BCE), SCYTHIA was an

extensive wide territory that stretched from north of the Danube to the northern Caucasus (parts

of present-day Ukraine, Russia, and Western Asia). Greeks and Romans used the word “Scythia”

to talk about the lands to their north and east. “Scythia extra Imaum” means Scythia east of

Imaus; it refers to the lands beyond Imaus, the mountain system in (Himalayas).

II.242. In 1771, Spanish Franciscan missionary Francisco Tomás Hermenegildo GARCÉS (1738–

1781) traveled through the present-day southwest USA across the Yuma and Colorado deserts.

Ordained a priest in 1763 and arriving in New Spain three years later, he was appointed to the

remaining Jesuit missions in today’s Arizona in 1768. He was part of a reconnaissance journey to

California under military commander Juan Bautista de Anza (1736–1788) in 1774–75. Garcés’s

diaries were published as On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer in 1900.

264

II.242. For FONT, see above.

II.242n. Franciscan missionary and historian Juan Domingo ARRICIVITA (1720–1794) published

the second part of Isidro Félix de Espinosa’s (1679–1755) Crónica de los Colegios de

Propaganda Fide de la Nueva España (Apostolic and seraphic chronicle of the schools of the

Propaganda Fide in New Spain). Born in Toledo, Arricivita had entered the College of Santa

Cruz de Querétaro in 1735. In 1768, he traveled to Spain to recruit Franciscan missionaries to

replace the expelled Jesuits in Coahuila, Texas, and Sonora. From 1777 to 1794, Arricivita

served as assistant to the superior of the College at Querétaro, where he was also representative

of the Franciscan community at the Pimería Alta. Selected as the official chronicler of the

college in 1787, he focused on the life and missionary work of the Franciscans Order of the

College at Querétaro in Sonora and around the Colorado and Gila Rivers. Arricivita’s Crónica

from 1792 is considered a continuation of Espinosa’s work from 1746 and the last classic

Franciscan chronicle in New Spain. Translated into English by George P. Hammond (1896–

1993) and Agapito Rey (1892–1987), it appeared as Apostolic Chronicle of Juan Domingo

Arricivita in 1996.

II.243. European explorers in America sought the legendary city of QUIVIRA, believed to be full of gold and other riches. As the Spanish expedition continued farther inland, the locale of this fantastic city kept being reimagined. Francisco Vázquez de Coronado (1510–1554), for example, sought the mythical city as far as present-day central , of course in vain. See also Marcos

de Niza.

II.248. Novo–Spanish explorer JUAN DE OÑATE y Salazar (c. 1551–1626) established the colony

of New Mexico for Spain. In 1595, Oñate had received authorization to colonize and the

265 privilege of claiming land (that is, becoming an adelantado) from Luis de Velasco I and set out for New Mexico in late 1597. After crossing the Rio Grande at present-day El Paso in 1598,

Oñate took formal possession of the province of New Mexico in April of that year. Forever in search of gold and fame, he tried unsuccessfully to find the fabled city of Quivira and the legendary Northwest Passage as far north as Kansas and west to the Gulf of California. Oñate resigned his post as governor in 1607, returned to Mexico City, and was tried for cruelty, mismanagement, and misrepresentation of the riches of New Mexico. He was found guilty, temporarily expelled from Mexico City, and exiled from the colony of New Mexico in 1614. Ten years later, he was appointed royal inspector of the mines back in Spain, where he died.

II.248. An organized rebellion of Pueblo Indians against their Spanish colonizers, known as the

Pueblo REVOLT of 1680, occurred in New Mexico from August 10–21 of the year. By 1598,

Spanish Franciscan missionaries had well established their colonizing enterprise in New Mexico.

Tensions between the indigenous peoples and the Franciscans had grown since 1675, when Juan

Francisco Treviño, then-governor of New Mexico, arrested, tortured, and murdered forty-seven native religious leaders. A Tewa religious leader named Popé (c. 1630–c. 1688), who had been imprisoned, escaped to Taos, a center of anti-Spanish resistance. The Pueblo peoples united to attack the Spaniards on August 10, 1680. After suffering losses in the hundreds—about 400

Spaniards, including twenty clergymen—the Spaniards fled on August 21, 1680, most of them to

El Paso. New Mexico remained free of colonizers for the next twelve years.

II.249. Jornada del MUERTO (Spanish for “dead man’s journey”) is a desert region in southern

New Mexico. Known as such by Spanish explorers during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Jornada typically referred to a near-waterless strip, ninety miles long and about

266

twenty-five miles wide, in the Chihuahua Desert. The direction of the Jornada del Muerto was to

the northwest, from Rincón to San Marcial and between the San Andrés Mountains and Caballo

and the Fray Cristobal Mountains (Coahuila, Chihuahua, and New Mexico). That the first atomic

bomb was detonated at Trinity Site, on the northern part of the Jornada del Muerto, on July 16,

1945, lends additional, and unexpected, significance to this old appellation.

II. 257. Portuguese navigator, explorer, and writer Pedro Fernández de QUIRÓS (also Queirós or

Quir, c. 1563–1615) discovered for Spain what he believed was the Terra Australis (southern

land), the then-unknown continent in the Mar del Sur (Pacific Ocean)—unknown to the

Europeans at least. Having entered the Spanish navy, Quirós served as a pilot for the second

Mendaña expedition to the South Pacific. Back in Spain from the Phillipines, Quirós proposed,

to the crown and the Catholic Church, an exploratory expedition to the South Pacific and

received their approval in 1603. Commanding a fleet composed of the San Pedro and Los Tres

Reyes, with Luis Váez de Torres (b. c. 1565–d. c. 1615) as second-in-command, Quirós left

Callao in search of the so-called Terra Australis in December 1605. The following year, Quirós’s

expedition claimed for the Europeans the Espíritu Santo Islands in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu),

which he named “La Australia del Espíritu Santo.” Forced to return to Acapulco, Quirós was

back in Spain in 1607. In 1614, he headed up another expedition to follow up his “discovery” of

Australia. He died on his way to the South Pacific in June 1615. Of the nearly fifty reports

Quirós wrote to support a third expedition, a few have survived, including the Relación de un

memorial… sobre la población y descubrimiento de la quarta parte del mundo, Austrialia

incognita (Report about the population and discovery of the fourth part of the world, unknown

Australia, 1610). His story is also the subject of the narrative poem Captain Quiros (1964) by

Australian poet James McAuley (1917–76).

267

II.257. Spanish navigator and explorer Álvaro de MENDAÑA de Neira (also Neyra, 1542–1595)

commanded two maritime expeditions to the Pacific Ocean in search of Terra Australis.

Mendaña arrived in the Americas in 1567 when his uncle and protector, Lope García de Castro

(1516–1576), was appointed president of the Audiencia of Lima and governor of Peru (1564–

69). In November 1567, Medaña’s expedition sailed from Callao on Los Reyes and Todos los

Santos with the captains Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa and Pedro de Ortega. The first European

expedition to sight the (in 1568) and to cross the Pacific Ocean, Medaña and his

men returned via the , Wake Islands, and Acapulco, landing at Callao in 1569.

In 1595, Mendaña commanded another expedition to the South Pacific, with Captain Quirós as

the pilot of the flagship San Gerónimo. Isabel Barreto (d. 1612), Medaña’s wife since 1586 and

facilitator of the expedition, accompanied him. The second Mendaña expedition laid claim to the

Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia), so named after the Marques of Cañete, García Hurtado

de Mendoza, viceroy of Peru. Mendaña died after losing control of the expedition on Nendo

(Santa Cruz Islands). Barreto took over as the leader of the expedition; she successfully led the

only surviving ship, the flagship piloted by Captain Quirós, back to the Philippines.

II.257n. Núño Beltrán de Guzmán, or NÚÑO DE GUZMÁN (c. 1490–1544), was president of the

First Audiencia in Veracruz, the judicial and administrative body created in 1528 to replace

Cortés’s rule in New Spain. In this role, Nuño de Guzmán repeatedly clashed with Cortés and

the Franciscans, including bishop Juan de Zumárraga (1468–1548), who would be responsible for the former’s removal from power in 1530. In 1525, Nuño de Guzmán had been appointed governor of the northern province of Panuco, where he was notorious for selling the indigenous population as slaves to traders in Saint-Domingue. He began the expansion of Spanish control

268

into northern and western Mexico through murder and pillage of indigenous settlements, causing

the famous rebellion against the Spanish known as the Mixton Wars (1532–1542).

II.257n. In 1533, Bishop SEBASTIÁN RAMÍREZ DE FUENLEAL (c. 1490–1547) commissioned friar

Andrés de Olmos to write about the pre-conquest rites and antiquities of Mexico City, Tezcoco, and Tlaxcala.

II.260. CHARLES II (1661–1700) was the last Habsburg to rule Spain and Spain’s overseas

empire. The product of inbreeding, he was born physically and mentally disabled. He is noted for

his ineffectual rule at a time when Spanish power and prestige were already seriously on the

decline.

II.260. A follower of Eusebio Kino, Italian missionary and strategist Juan María de

SALVATIERRA (also Giovanni Maria Salvatierra, 1648–1717) was a founder of the Jesuit

missions in California and became the leader of the Jesuits in New Spain. Salvatierra had entered

the Society of Jesus in 1665. Ten years later, he was sent to New Spain where he completed his

training. For more than a decade, from 1680 to 1693, he served as a missionary in the

Tarahumara region in present-day Chihuahua, east of Sonora and Sinaloa. Named royal envoy to

the Jesuit missions in northwest New Spain in 1691, he was recruited by Kino and became an

advocate of and strategist for the Jesuits missionizing visions for California. To obtain permission for their plan while serving as a rector of the Jesuist College in Guadalajara (1693–

95), Salvatierra lobbied the Guadalajaran civil and ecclesiastical authorities to develop

California. Salvatierra and Kino finally received viceregal permission to establish a mission in

California on the condition that the venture be fully self-funded in exchange for the autonomy within the mission. To finance these efforts at a time when he served as rector of the Jesuit

269

seminary of Tepotzotlán, Salvatierra began to create an endowment; it became the Poius Fund

for the Californias administrated by Juan de Ugarte. The Sicilian missionary Francisco María

Piccolo (1654–1729) replaced Kino in these missionizing efforts, as the later was not allowed to

leave the missions at Pimería Alta for California. Salvatierra and his followers founded the Jesuit

mission of Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó in Baja California in October 1697, of which he

was the head for seventeen years, until his death. From his position, he oversaw the Jesuit

expansion in California. Salvatierra’s reports and letters were important sources for Miguel

Venegas and Francisco Javier Clavigero. In 1971, Ernest J. Burrus published a collection of

Salvatierra’s papers in English translation as Juan María de Salvatierra Selected Letters about

Lower California.

II.260. Brigadier TOMÁS DE UGARTE Y LIAÑO (1754–1804) was one of several Spanish Royal

Navy officers whom Humboldt met in Lima and Callao. In 1799, Ugarte was in charge of

designing the ports of the South Sea from Chiloë to the north coast of the province Veraguas.

Three years later, he became chief of the entire Spanish fleet but retired a year later. Humboldt was familiar with Ugarte’s maps, several of which can be found in the Karpinski Collection of

the Library of Congress.

II.263. Croatian Jesuit missionary and explorer Fernando CONSAG (also Ferdinand Konscak,

1703–1759) led an exploration party to the Sea of Cortés (Gulf of California) in 1746. Assistant missionary at San Ignacio (Nuestro Señor San Ignacio de Kadakaamán) for over a decade (1733–

46), Consag organized a reconnaissance expedition to the mouth of the Colorado River to confirm the peninsularity of California once again. In 1746, he traveled up the California coast with four canoes and confirmed that the land was indeed not an island. The following year,

270

Consag was named head missionary at San Ignacio, a position he held until his death. He was

also appointed royal envoy to California on two occasions (1747–50, 1758–59), reporting to the

superior priests of the order in New Spain and in Rome. He also laid the foundation for

establishing the mission of Santa Gertrudis in the northern part of Baja California. All told,

Consag worked in Baja California for over twenty-six years. His journal of the 1746 expedition was printed as an appendix to Miguel Venegas’s work.

II.264. Working for Spanish captain Tomás de Cardona (fl. 1611–1634), the owner of a pearl fishing enterprise and holder of a license to exploit that activity in the western coast of New

Spain, navigator Juan de ITURBE (fl. 1615–16) explored the Gulf of California in a pearl fishing

expedition together with Nicolás de Cardona (fl. 1610–1639), Tomás’s nephew. After spending

some time in Acapulco to help defend the port against foreign attacks, the expedition sailed to

the Gulf of California in March 1615. Upon reaching about 30º northern latitude, they sailed

eastward and south. When Cardona returned to Acapulco to inform the viceroy of their findings,

Iturbe took charge of the expedition and sailed again into the Gulf but farther north than 30º northern latitude. Iturbe returned to New Spain the following year. In 1632, Spanish pilot

Esteban Carbonel related to then-viceroy of New Spain Iturbe’s success in finding a pearl-filled land. Iturbe also claimed to have seen a strait at the end of the Gulf of California, fostering the

mistake that California was an island, not a peninsula.

II.264. Spanish admiral Bernardo BERNAL DE PIÑADERO (fl. 1663–1677) explored California in the mid-seventeenth century. Sailing in the Gulf of California by royal commission in 1664,

Bernal de Piñadero focused more on searching for pearls than on establishing another Spanish

colony. In 1665, he was granted the title of lieutenant captain-general and authorized to recruit

271

military personnel to colonize California. Embarking on other fruitless expeditions, he was

finally compelled to return to Mexico City, where he advocated in favor of establishing Jesuits

missions in California with funding from the viceregal treasury. A royal decree dated February

1677 authorized some matching funds for this purpose. Even though Bernal de Piñadero had the

support of the Society of Jesus, he lost the bid for the missionizing expedition to Isidro de

Atondo y Antillón (bap. 1639) who eventually transported Kino to California.

II.264. The first entrepreneur based in California, Spanish soldier Manuel del OCIO (c. 1700–

1771) made his fortune in the pearl trade. Initially a soldier at the Jesuit mission in Baja

California (1733–41), he married Rosalía Rodríguez (d. bef. 1754), the daughter of the mission’s military captain, in 1736. In 1741, when the Cochimí, indigenous peoples of California, had gathered an impressive amount of pearls as a result of a storm, Ocio took advantage of his connections with the military administration and the Cochimí and began a profitable pearling business between the peninsula and the mainland. Resigning from his position as soldier in the

Jesuit Mission, he invested in pearl fishing and established a wholesale business in Guadalajara

(1741–44). Because of the pearl diving frenzy caused by his initial success, Ocio diversified his business to cattle ranching, mining, and real estate. Investing in silver mining, he founded the mining district of Santa Ana, the first permanent civil establishment of Baja California, which had started as a mission in 1723. His properties served as headquarters for José de Gálvez y

Gallardo and Junípero Serra, from which they planned the missionization of Upper California

in 1768. Ocio was a very wealthy man when he was murdered in 1771.

II.266. A merchant involved in the Manila galleon trade, that is, the Pacific trade route from

Manila to Acapulco established in 1566, Spanish navigator SEBASTIÁN VIZCAÍNO (1548–1624)

272

played a pivotal role in the Spanish expansion into the American Pacific region. A merchant and

investor, he settled in New Spain in 1589 and applied for several licences to exploit natural

resources and pearl fishing. Although the licenses were granted, his endeavors proved fruitless.

In 1601, viceroy Gaspar de Zúñiga y Acevedo appointed Vizcaíno head of an expedition to

explore and chart the coast of California. This journey, from 1602 to 1603, resulted in charts of

the entire coastline from Cabo San Lucas to Cape Mendocino. Enrico Martínez copied them in

1603. In 1608, Vizcaíno crossed the Pacific in search of the fabled islands Rica de Oro and Rica

de Plata (nomen est omen) that were to serve as ports for Spain’s Manila galleons. He reached

Japan in 1611, where he was received as the first ambassador from New Spain. During his

travels, he surveyed several ports on the east coast of Honshu. In 1614, Vizcaíno returned to

New Spain without having found the mysterious islands. Two centuries later, José Espinosa y

Tello published charts from Vizcaíno’s 1602–03 voyage in his Relación del viage hecho por las

Goletas Sútil y Mexicana en el año de 1792 (1802). The maps are reproduced in Michael

Mathes’s Vizcaíno and Spanish Expansion in the Pacific Ocean 1580–1630 (San Francisco:

California Historical Society, 1968). The charts of Vizcaíno’s 1611 trip are lost.

II.269n. Born in Casas de Millan (Extremedura, Spain), Jesuit missionary Miguel del BARCO

(1706–1790) arrived at the missions of California in 1737. An inspector of the Jesuit missions in

California on two occasions (in 1751–54 and 1761–63), he also served as a missionary at San

José del Cabo in 1737 and at San Javier from 1737 to 1768. When the Jesuits were expelled from the Spanish territories in 1768, Barco went to live in exile in Bologna, Italy. Having been a priest

in Baja California for over thirty years, Barco corrected and added to Miguel Venegas’s Noticia

de la California (1757). Unlike Barco, Venegas and Burriel had never set foot in California;

Venega was working from Mexico City and Burriel from Madrid. Barco completed his two-

273

volume “Correcciones y adiciones a la historia de la California en su primera edición de Madrid,

año 1757” in 1768. It did not see print until 1973, when Miguel León Portilla published the

manuscript as Historia natural y crónica de la Antigua California. Barco’s manuscript was a

valuable source for Francisco Javier Clavijero’s Historia de la California (1789).

II.269n. Spanish captain Juan Mateo MANGE (also Mangi, 1670–c. 1727) traveled with Father

Kino to the Pimería Alta in 1697. Mange had left Cádiz for New Spain in 1692 and arrived in

Sonora a year later. Employed in the mayor’s office in Pimería Alta, Mange explored present- day Arizona with Kino for five years, from 1694 to 1701. Upon his return, Mange was appointed mayor of the province of Sonora. About his expedition with Kino, he wrote “Luz de tierra incognita en la América Septentrional,” which includes the travel journals to which Humboldt refers Diario del Capitán Juan Mateo Mangi que accompañó a los padres apostólicos Kino y

Kappus. Mange’s manuscript also includes Primera Relación de la Pimería Alta written in 1716 by Spanish Jesuit missionary Luis Xavier Velarde (1677–1737). Mange’s journal, together with with Velarde’s Relación, was first published in 1856 as part of the Documentos para la Historia de México (vol. 1, pp. 226–390. México: Imprenta de Vicente Garía Torres). Mange’s complete manuscripts were edited by Francisco Fernández del Castillo (1864–1936) and published as Luz de Tierra Incógnita en la América Septentrional y diario de las Exploraciones en Sonora in

1926). An English edition by Harry J. Karns, titled Unknown Arizona and Sonora, 1693–1721, appeared in 1954.

II.271. Together with the Spanish captain ÁLVAR NÚÑEZ CABEZA DE VACA (c. 1490–c. 1557),

Pánfilo de Narváez undertook, in 1528, an expedition through the Gulf of Mexico from Tampa

Bay to Galveston, which took a disastrous turn. After landing in Tampa Bay, Narváez had

274

decided to split up his troops of 400 men and 80 horses into two expeditions, one to sail north

along the western coast, the other to follow the same route on land. But the tropical jungles of the

Florida peninsula and the steady attacks by Apalachees obstructed the land route, and the two

expeditions never saw each other again. Two years and several shipwrecks later, few

expeditioners were still alive, among them Cabeza de Vaca, who continued his odyssey along the

Texan Coast and the Rio Grande toward the heartland of New Spain (Mexico) in search of

Spanish settlements until 1536. We know of these first European pioneers to the West from

Cabeza de Vacas’s famous Naufrágios y Comentarios (Shipwrecks and commentaries). The most

complete English version is of this narrative is the three-volume Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca:

His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez by Rolena Adorno and Patrick

Pautz (1999).

II.272. During his circumnavigation of the globe from 1577 to 1580, SIR FRANCIS DRAKE (c.

1540–96), in his galleon The Golden Hind, made landfall on the western coast of North America,

most likely north of what is now San Francisco. In 1579, he claimed for Queen Elizabeth I

(1533–1603) the entire west coast territory. It included Lower California, which he named New

Albion.

II.273. A successful bookseller well established in London by the 1760s, Scottish compiler John

KNOX (1720–1790) published New Collection of Voyages, Discoveries, and Travels in 1767. In collaboration with William Guthrie (1708–70), Knox edited the popular A New Geographical,

Historical, and Commercial Grammar (1770). From a series of tours he made to northern

Scotland starting in 1764 (sixteen in all), Knox compiled A View of the , More

Especially Scotland (1784) and A Tour through the Highlands of Scotland and the Hebride Isles

275

(1787). A supporter of Scotland’s economic development, he lectured to the Highland Society of

London about the possibilities of establishing a fishing industry. These lectures were published

as Observations on the northern Fisheries with a Discourse on the Expediency of establishing

Fishing Stations in 1786. Arguably a supporter of the British colonies in America, Knox is also

credited with authoring a pro-American pamphlet, The American Crisis: by a Citizen of the

World in 1777.

II.277. French botanist André THOUIN (1747–1824) was a protégé of Buffon’s who financed the

former’s college education and kept him under his wing thereafter. A student of Antoine-Laurent

de Jussieu’s (1748–1836), Thouin was appointed to the chair of horticulture at the Muséum

National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. Throughout his career, he built an impressive network of correspondents. Thouin is remembered for contributions to agronomy, including studies on how to improve seed selection. He recommended Jean Nicolas Collignon (1762–c. 1788), a botanist from the Jardin du Roi, to accompany La Pérouse on his ill-fated expedition to the South Seas.

II.277. Franciscan missionary Fermín Francisco de LASUÉN (1736–1803) replaced Junípero

Serra as president of the missions of Upper California. Lasuén had been admitted to the

Franciscan Order in 1751. A deacon in 1759, he was recruited for missionary work in New Spain and reached the College of San Fernando in Mexico City that same year. Ordained a priest in

1761, Lasuén began his work at the Sierra Gorda missions near present-day Querétaro (Mexico).

In 1768, he was one of five missionaries to transfer from Sierra Gorda to the missions of Lower

California to manage the mission system the Jesuits had established; he was assigned to preside

over the Mission of San Borja (1768–73). When the Dominicans obtained control of the Lower

California missions, Lasuén transferred to Upper California. Initially working at the missions of

276

San Gabriel Arcángel, San Juan Capistrano, and San Diego de Alcalá, he advanced to head of the

missions in 1785; he held that position until his death. Lasuén founded nine additional missions

between 1786 and 1798. Among the many duties, he wrote reports about the status of the mission

system; Humboldt had access to and used his reports. Lasuén’s writings, which include annual,

biennial, and statistical reports of the entire mission system, were edited and translated into

English by Finbar Kenneally as Writings of Fermín Francisco de Lasuén (2 vols., Washington

D.C.: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1965).

II.281. Enlightenment views of languages tended to focus on the diversity of human languages as

evidence for a universal grammar. So-called primitive languages, among them Native American

languages, were of particular interest to early scholars of linguistics because they hoped to find

the origins of language by studying them. The Spanish Jesuit Lorenzo HERVÁS y Panduro (1735–

1809) was a missionary in New Spain until his order was expelled in 1767. After returning to

Rome, he compiled a six-volume catalogue of the world’s languages, Idea del Universo, published in Italian between 1784 and 1787 and in Spanish between 1800 and 1804/5. It included detailed information on numerous American languages, which he had solicited from his fellow missionaries. Certain inaccuracies notwithstanding, Hervás’s work represents the culmination of

Spanish colonial linguistics. Much like Humboldt himself, Hervás was interested in language studies as a key to human history.

II.281. Alexander’s older brother WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT (1767–1835) was a philologist,

statesman, and one of the founders of what is today the Humboldt University in Berlin. Like his

brother, he was educated at the University of Göttingen. Wilhelm gave up law in favor of

studying languages while holding government posts intermittently. He became fascinated with

277

Native American languages during his stay in Rome as Prussian resident minster (1801–08)

when his brother, having recently returned from the Americas, brought him many grammars

from the Jesuit missions he had visited there. Hervás’s work was among them. Wilhelm was at

the time interested in obtaining data on American languages for Johann Christoph Adelung

and Johann Severin Vater’s forthcoming overview of the world’s languages, to which he

contributed an essay on Basque languages (see their Mithridates, or General Linguistics). In

1824, Wilhelm began to mine the materials on the classification of thirty-two North American

language families that had supplied to Alexander. Wilhelm also worked on

Sanskrit (which was at the center of linguistics as it emerged in Germany between 1770 and

1830), Coptic, Old Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese, and old Javanese languages. For him, who was

conversant in English, Italian, Spanish, Basque, Hungarian, Czech, and Lithuanian, language was

a dynamic system, and the whole point of the comparative study of languages was to connect

language and linguistic typology more broadly with “the shaping of the nation’s mental power.”

Alexander, who edited his late brother’s work on linguistics, described him as a scholar who had profound insight into the structural interrelation of all languages and their impact on the development of human cultures on a global scale. Though undoubtedly more of a Prussian nationalist than Alexander, Wilhelm shared with his brother an unequivocally cosmopolitan approach to humanistic scholarship. Notable among those who introduced Wilhelm von

Humboldt’s work to audiences in the USA were Albert Gallatin and the ethnologist Daniel

Garrison Brinton (1837–1899), both of whom had a strong interest in Native American languages and cultures.

II.281. The typological classification of languages in which Wilhelm von Humboldt was interest was also an issue with which the brothers Schlegel grappled. The German cultural

278

philosopher, literary historian, and translator Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von SCHLEGEL (1772–

1829), along with his brother August Wilhelm (1767–1845), was the originator of the core ideas

that inspired early German . His conception of literary scholarship has had

profound influence on the rise of what is still called Geisteswissenschaften, the sciences of the

mind. After studying Sanskrit in Paris, Schlegel published Über die Sprache und Weisheit der

Indier (About the language and the wisdom of the [East] Indians, 1808), an attempt at

comparative Indo-Germanic linguistics, and the starting point of the study of Indian languages

and comparative philology.

II.292. Lorenzo FERRER MALDONADO (c. 1550–1625) was a Spaniard from Guadix (Granada) who claimed to have discovered, in 1588, the Strait of Anian, a legendary waterway separating

Asia and America. Ferrer Maldonado published the accounts of his supposed voyage in Relación del Descubrimiento del Estrecho de Anián (1609). On the Esperanza and the Santa Ana, he claimed to have traveled from Lisbon to Iceland to Labrador to the Pacific Ocean via the long-

sought-after strait, the entrance of which, he claimed, was at 60º northern latitude. The Relación

was re-discovered and copied by Juan Bautista Muñoz y Ferrandis (1745–1799) in 1781. A summary of the narrative also appeared in Historia política de los establecimientos ultramarinos de las naciones europeas (vol. 4, pp. 588–89, Madrid, 1788) by the Duke of Almodóvar writing as Eduardo Malo de Luque. On November 13, 1790, the nephew of Philippe Buache, Jean-

Nicolas Buache de la Neuville presented to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris a paper investigating Ferrer Maldonado’s Relación. In December 1790, Antonio Valdés had ordered

Malaspina to cancel his plans of traveling to the Hawaiian Islands from Mexico’s west coast and instead sail north and explore the Alaskan coast at 60º northern latitude in search of Ferrer’s

Strait of Anian. Although Bustamante and Cevallos considered Ferrer’s account ficticious, the

279 expedition nonetheless sailed north from Acapulco in June 1791 to finally disprove the Relación.

Malaspina wrote a complete review of Ferrer’s story in 1792. Not printed until 1848 in a posthumous work edited by Martín Fernández de Navarrete (1765–1844), the Exámen histórico- crítico de los viajes y descubrimientos apócrifos del capitán Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, de Juan de Fuca, y del almirante Bartolomé de Fonte [Historical-critical study of the apocryphal travels and discoveries by captain Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, Juan de Fuca, and the admiral Bartolomé de Fonte] pointed out all inconsistencies and errors. In addition to the Strait of Anian tale, Ferrer

Maldonado also authored Imagen del mundo sobre la esfera, cosmografía, y geografía téorica de planetas y arte de navegar (1626). A Muñoz copy of the Relación is housed at the Archivo del

Museo Naval de Madrid (MS. 331, f. 293–314).

II.292. In 1592, the Greek naval captain Apóstolos Valerianos (c. 1531–1602), who took the pseudonym JUAN DE FUCA when sailing for Spain, claimed to have discovered a passage between the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans between 47° and 48° northern latitude. Valerianos claimed to have used the strait to enter the North Sea (Atlantic) and then to have returned to Acapulco to report his discovery. Michael Lok (also Locke, c. 1532–c. 1621), a British merchant who promoted expeditions to America’s northwest coast, recounted Valerianos’s tale after meeting him in Venice in 1596. Lok passed on the information on to Samuel Purchas (c. 1577–1626), who published it in Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes (vol. 3, 1625). A map from

1752, crafted by the French geographer and cartographer Philippe Buache (1700–1773) and titled Carte des Nouvelles Découvertes au Nord de la Mer du Sud, was the first French map to depict the supposed 1592 discoveries of Juan de Fuca. Buache and French astronomer Joseph

Nicolas Delisle used the so-called Juan de Fuca discoveries to support arguments in favor of the

Bartomolmé de Fonte’s tales. On their expeditions to the north, the Spanish carried maps from

280

1774 and 1775 that located the mythical Strait of Juan de Fuca around 48º30′ northern latitude.

Spanish and British late eighteenth-century discoveries of an opening near the latitude of the

Strait revived speculation of the veracity of Valerianos’s account. In 1775, Bruno de Heceta on the Santiago and Bodega y Quadra on the Sonora traveled north up to 58º30′ northern latitude.

On his way back, Heceta reported to have seen an entrance that went far inland, which suggested that the Strait of Juan de Fuca did exist (in reality, it was the mouth of the ). In

1787, Charles William Barkley (1761–1832) on board the thought to have found the strait south of Nootka. In 1788, Charles Duncan on the Princess Royal also visited the area and supported Valerianos’s tale. In March 1789, Robert Gray in commanding and John Kendrick (1740–1794) on the Columbia sailed into the strait for twenty-five miles before turning back. In the summer of 1789, José María Narváez (1768–1840) sailed from

Nootka to the present-day Juan de Fuca Strait aboard the Santa Gertrudis la Magna. Narváez recounted that he had found Valerianos’s mythical strait, the middle of which was located at

48º30′ northern latitude. Esteban José Martínez, then in charge of the Spanish settlement at

Nootka and the same person who set off the Nootka Sound controversy between England and

Spain, believed that the strait consisted of two branches: one toward the west-northwest connecting to the equally mythical Strait of Almirante de Fonte, the other connecting to the

Mississippi River toward the east-southeast. Viceroy of New Spain, the Count of Revillagigedo, also became interested in the matter and commissioned Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra to determine the accuracy of the supposed entrance to the Northwest Passage. After several

Spanish expeditions to the strait in 1790 and 1791 by , , and

Francisco de Eliza, respectively, a Spanish expedition set out from Acapulco in 1792 to explore the entire Strait of Juan de Fuca and determine whether there was a connection to the Northwest

281

Passage. Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayetano Valdés y Flores (1767–1835) completed the first detailed survey of the strait; they were the first Europeans to circumnavigate Vancouver

Island. The Alcalá Galiano and Valdés expedition concluded that there was no passage to the

Atlantic by way of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which is located between Vancouver Island

(Canada) and Washington (USA). Captain George Vancouver, who met the Spanish expedition

there, also surveyed the Juan de Fuca Strait and the . In determining that

Vancouver Island was indeed an island, Vancouver’s expedition confirmed that the straits

divided the mainland of present-day British Columbia and its archipelago to the west, and

Vancouver Island from Washington State (USA) to the south. The strait now known as Juan de

Fuca Strait was named by Barkley in 1787.

II.292n. Bartolomé de FONTE (also Bartolomeo or Bartholomew) was supposedly a Spanish

admiral employed at Callao (Lima) who claimed to have traveled to the northwest coast of

America in 1640. The story held that Fonte had sailed north from Callao, passed the western

coast of Mexico and California, and reached as far north as 53º northern latitude. There, the story

continues, he had found the entrance to a river that directed him to a network of waterways

leading far inland, where he had met fur traders from Boston. Fonte’s narrative was published in

1708 in two parts in the journal The Monthly Miscellany or Memoirs for the Curious (April, pp.

123–6; and June, pp. 183–6). It was resurrected by Northwest Passage campaigner Arthur Dobbs

(1689–1765), who inserted an abridged version of de Fonte’s letter in An Account of the

countries adjoining to Hudson’s Bay (1744). Dobbs argued that the meeting of Fonte and the

New England vessel was evidence of a passage leading from California to Hudson Bay. Philippe

Buache and Joseph-Nicolas Delisle lend credence to the story. In August 1750, Delisle

addressed the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, arguing in favor of Fonte’s story, He also

282

presented a map by Buache that showed, for the first time, the imaginary discoveries by Fonte

and Fuca. The map, together with Delisle’s explanation, were published as Carte des Nouvelles

Découvertes au Nord de la Mer du Sud in 1752. Several critics of Fonte’s (and Fuca’s) supposed discoveries were John Green and Andrés Marcos Burriel (1719–1762). In his Remarks in

Support of the new Chart of North and South America (1753), Green considered both stories fictitious. For his part, Burriel revealed several inconsistencies of Fonte’s narrative in Noticias de la California (vol. 3, 1757). In 1792, Jacinto Caamaño, member of the Spanish expedition to

Alaska, explored southern Alaskan waters on the Aránzazu and finally disproved Fonte’s tale.

See also Venegas, Miguel, and Valerianos, Apóstolos.

II.292n. collector and historian Juan Agustín CEÁN Bermúdez (1749–1829) was the

archivist of the Archivo General de Indias in Seville. Ceán studied at a Jesuit School, the Colegio

de San Matías, between 1762 and 1764. A friend and protégé of Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos’s

(1744–1811), Ceán lived in Alcalá and Seville. In Seville, he was among the founding members

the Academía de las Tres Nobles Artes (Academy of the Three Noble Arts) in 1769 and was

commissioned to work at the General Archive of the Indies from 1791 to 1797 and from 1801 to

1808. He is best remembered for publishing Diccionario histórico de los más ilustres profesores

de las Bellas Artes en España (Historical dictionary of the most illustrious Spanish professors of

the fine arts, 1800). An avid writer and biographer of Jovellanos’s, Ceán also authored twelve

essays on painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as several unpublished manuscripts,

including Historia del arte de la pintura (Madrid, Real Academia de San Fernando, MS, 1823–

28). Several of his writings were published posthumously, including Sumario de las

Antigüedades Romanas que hay en España (Inventory of Roman antiquities in Spain, 1832).

283

Francisco de Goya (1746–1828), a friend of Ceán from his Madrid residence, drew and painted

him and his wife several times.

II.293. In 1542–43, Spanish navigator and explorer Bartolomé FERRELO (also Ferrel or Ferrer, fl.

1542–1543) participated in the first recorded European expedition to what became Alta

California (present-day California and Oregon) in search of the Strait of Anian. He took

command of the expedition when captain Juan Rodríguez de Cabrillo died in 1543. Under

Ferrelo’s command, the Victoria and the San Salvador sailed close to 44º northern latitude. On his way north, Ferrelo sighted and named Cape Mendocino. After more than 290 days, the

expedition reached Navidad on April 14, 1543. The first separate account in English of the

Cabrillo and Ferrelo expedition was published by Alexander Smith Taylor (1817–1876) in

Supplement to The San Francisco Herald (May 1853) as “The Voyage of Juan Rodríguez

Cabrillo, first discoverer of the coasts of California and of his pilot Bartolome Ferrelo.”

II.293n. Trained initially at the College of Juilly near Paris and then educated in England,

Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, French geographer Jean Baptiste Benoît EYRIÈS (1767–1846)

was a compiler and translator of travel narratives. Eyriès began collecting such narratives in

1805. First among the many works he published was the a French edition of William Robert

Broughton’s A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean (1804) as Voyage de découvertes

dans la partie septentrionale de l’océan Pacifique (1807). Eyriès also published a French edition

of Humboldt’s Ansichten der Natur (Views of Nature, 1808) as Tableaux de la nature (1808; 2nd

edition, 1828). A founding member of the Société de Géographie (Geographical Society) in

1821, Eyriès was also a fellow of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1839).

284

Humboldt refers to Eyriès’s biographical essay on Francisco Gali published in Louis-Gabriel

Michaud’s (1773–1858) Biographie Universelle Ancienne et Modern (1816).

II.294. A member of the 1602–03 Vizcaíno expedition, Spanish ensign MARTÍN DE AGUILAR

Galeote (d. 1603) was a captain of the vessel Tres Reyes. Aguilar died when his ship was

separated from the flagship San Diego during a storm. Estéban López, his pilot, took command

of the Tres Reyes and reached around 43º northern latitude, near Cape Blanco. On the way south,

he reported discovering a large river that flowed to the sea; it was later named Río de Martín

Aguilar. The Tres Reyes returned to Navidad in early 1603. López’s account gave rise to the

speculation that there was a large river north of Cape Mendocino, for which many explorers,

including Bruno de Heceta, would search.

II.294. A waterway that supposedly separated Asia from the Americas, the legendary STRAIT OF

ANIAN (also Enian and Anyan) was commonly referred to as the Northwest Passage. An idea that

probably arose in the wake of Ferdinand Magellan’s (1480–1521) discovery of a southern

passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans (Strait of Magellan) in 1520, the Strait of

Anian could actually be found on several maps and has taken manifold shapes since the sixteenth

century. Explorers during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries believed that the entrance to

the strait was located in present-day Canada. The strait was first shown on a 1561 map that the

Italian cartographer Giacomo Gastaldi (also Jacobus Gastaldus; c. 1500–1566) referenced in his pamphlet La universale descrittione del mondo. Gastaldi had included the kingdom of Anian in

his map of Asia (in three parts, 1559–61), likely as a reference to the country of Ania that Marco

Polo mentioned in his travelogue as published in Ramusios’s Navigationi et viaggi (1550–59).

Several influential cartographers of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries followed suit. In

285

1590, Abraham Ortels (also Ortelius, 1527–1598) portrayed Anian as a northern kingdom

located near present-day Alaska. Gerhard Mercator (1512–1594) depicted Anian as a strait and a

kingdom on his 1569 world map. Around 1595, Josse de Hondt (also Jodocus Hondius, 1563–

1612) situated Anian on the North American coastline with an adjacent strait extending up to 80º

northern latitude. Explorers embarked on numerous voyages, imagined and real, to find the

elusive strait. Bering’s discovery of an actual Northwest Passage north of Canada and the

voyages by Juan de Fuca, Ferrer Maldonado, and Bartholomé de Fonte amplified interest in

the subject. Gastaldi’s 1561 map Cosmographia universalis et exactissima iuxta oostremam

neotericorum traditio[n]em was found by Roberto Almagià (1884–1962) in the 1930s and is

housed at the British Library.

II.294n. Portuguese navigator GASPAR CORTE REAL (c. 1450–1501) explored the North Atlantic

in the early sixteenth century. He sailed north from Lisbon to Greenland during the summer of

1500. Believing that he had reached the coast of Asia, he returned to Lisbon. In the spring of

1501, he led a fleet of three ships to explore the Davis Strait, sighting Labrador and

Newfoundland. In September 1501, he sent two of his ships back with news and captives, which

reached Lisbon in October of that year. Corte Real himself turned south; he was lost at sea.

II.295. USAmerican fur trader Robert GRAY (1755–1806) was the first European to locate and

enter the Columbia River. With John Kendrick, he left Boston in 1787 on the

and Lady Washington to explore the northwest coast. When Kendrick deserted, Gray took command of the Columbia and entered the Strait of Juan Fuca for a short distance; he then

“discovered” the Columbia River. He returned to Boston via China in 1790, becoming the first

USAmerican captain to circumnavigate the globe. In 1792, Gray was ordered back to the Pacific

286

Northwest as captain of the Columbia. He became the first European to enter the Columbia

River, which he named after his ship. Once settled and married in Boston after his fur-trading tours to the American Northwest, Gray set up a mercantile service with England and the

Carolinas. Sailing to South America on the vessel Alert in 1793, he was captured and imprisoned as a French . In 1801, he sailed to the River Plate via Rio de Janeiro.

II.295. Danish-born navigator Vitus Jonassen BERING (1681–1741) is known for his two

explorations of the northeastern coast of the Asian continent and from there of the western coast

of North America. As a young man, Bering traveled the seas as far as India and the Dutch East

Indies. He also completed naval officer training in Amsterdam prior to entering the service of the

Russian Navy under Peter the Great (1672–1725) in 1703. On orders of the Czar, Bering

embarked on the First Kamchatka Expedition (1725–1730), whose significance historians have typically neglected, despite the fact that it produced the first accurate map of Russia to the east of

Tobolsk. The Second Kamchatka Expedition Bering proposed, also known as Great Northern

Expedition, was far more ambitious, and it lasted roughly from 1733 to 1743. The academic part of that expedition departed St. Petersburg as early as 1732. It was led by three professors from the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Johann Georg Gmelin was in charge of natural history research. German historian and geographer Gerhard Friedrich Müller (1705–83),

an historian at the Imperial Academy since 1725, headed up ethnographic studies and is often

referred to as the father of scientific ethnography. Finally, there was the French astronomer Louis

Delisle de la Croyere (1690–1741), the younger brother of Joseph Nicolas Delisle. Both Gmelin

and Müller published their own narratives of the expedition. Bering himself, with Aleksei

Chirikov as his deputy, set off for North America with two ships in 1741. A storm separated the

ships, but Bering sighted the southern coast of Alaska and made landfall at or near Kayak Island.

287

Unfavorable conditions forced him to turn back, and he saw some of the and

Kodiak Island on his return voyage. Bering eventually became too ill to command his ship; the

cause of his illness remains unknown. He died in December 1741 on the island near the

Kamchatka Peninsula that hencefort bore the name Bering Island. Bering’s crew reached the

shores of Kamchatka in 1742, carrying word of the expedition. The pelts they brought

sparked Russian interests in a settlement in Alaska. Although Bering’s achievements proved

immense, especially after Captain James Cook was able to confirm the former’s accuracy as an

observer, he was neither the first Russian to sight North America nor the first Russian to pass

through the strait named after him. But it was not until after his voyages that the search for the

Northeast Passage and explorations of the northwestern coastline of the Americas could begin in

earnest. Because the Russian administration carefully guarded the reports from his second

voyage, Bering’s story could not be told in full for at least a century after his death. Peter

Lauridson’s (1846–1923) important biography of Bering appeared in 1885 (the first English

translation dates from 1889), and it was not until the late 1990s that the discovery of forgotten

documents in Russian archives revitalized the study of his expeditions. Bering’s skeletal remains

were recovered in 1991 and have cast doubt upon the authenticity of the only likeness we now

have of him.

II.295. Although the credit for finding Alaska typically goes to Bering, his second-in-command,

the Russian geographer and naval instructor Aleksei Ilich CHIRIKOV (1703–1748) was actually the first to make landfall in North America. Chirikov located the shores of northwestern America at Prince of Wales Island (Aleksander Archipelago of present-day Alaska). Educated at the

School of Mathematics and Navigation in St. Petersburg and at the newly founded Naval

Academy there (1715–1721), Chirikov played a significant part in both of Bering’s expeditions.

288

Twenty-two years Bering’s junior, Chirikov was by far the most active and learned member of the First Kamchatka Expedition. He was in no small measure responsible for the compilation of the four maps that that expedition produced based on his astronomical observations. While in

Kamchatka, Chirikov also collected information about meteorology, geology, natural history, agricultural practices, and the local cultures. During the Great Northern Expedition, he was in command of the St. Paul, the second ship, which was separated from the St. Peter in a storm in

June 1741. The following year, Chirikov, to whom the top command of the second expedition passed after survivors reported Bering’s death, set out in search of Bering’s ship. During this trip, when he was barely recovered from scurvy, he located Attu Island. A talented cartographer,

Chirikov did much with far more limited tools than both Cook and Lapérouse had during their later voyages in the same waters. The great map of the Russian discoveries in the Pacific Ocean

from 1746, the year Chirikov was appointed director of the Naval Academy, was largely based

on his own very precise observations.

II.296. Second lieutenant Juan José VERNACI y Retamal-Villaredo (also Vernacci, c. 1763–1810)

was one of the three junior officers on Alessandro Malaspina’s vessel Descubierta. Vernacci

had joined the Malaspina Expedition in Acapulco in 1791 to conduct astronomical work. In

1805, when he was posted in the Philippines, he commanded the galleon Magallanes. He died in

Manila five years later. Vernaci Point in British Columbia is named after him.

II.296. An experienced pilot originally from Mallorca, Juan Antonio PÉREZ (d. 1775) had served in the port of San Blas for many years before heading the first Spanish exploratory mission to the

Pacific Northwest. Pérez led the First Bucareli Expedition to America’s northwest coast in July

1774. Viceroy Bucareli gave Pérez detailed instructions to sail up to 60º northern latitude and

289

return to Monterey (California). With Estéban José Martínez as the second-in-command on the

Santiago (aka Nueva Galicia), Pérez was to reconnoiter the west coast and take formal

possession for Spain of any site they deemed suitable for occupation. Implicit in the instructions

was that Pérez should confirm any Russian activities in the area. Since Pérez was also to supply

the missions at Monterey on his way north, Father Junípero Serra traveled with him. Pérez

departed from San Blas. After stops at San Diego and Monterey, the Santiago sailed northward

until it reaching the northern end of Queen Charlotte Island on July 18, 1774. Pérez named the

northernmost point of Langara Island Punta de Santa Margarita (present day St. Margaret Point).

After trading with the local peoples at Langara Island, he continued north to 54º40′ northern

latitude but could not sail any farther. On his way back to Monterey, he sighted Vancouver

Island, the first European to do so. The expedition anchored close to the entrance to Nootka

Sound (which he named Surgidero de San Lorenzo) near Estevan Point. After Nootka, the

Santiago returned to Monterey. In 1775, Pérez served as second-in-command to Bruno de

Heceta on the Second Bucareli Expedition to the Northwest; he died of typhoid fever on the return trip to San Blas. Herbert K. edited and translated into English documents from the

1774 expedition under the title Juan Pérez on the Northwest Coast: Six Documents of his

Expedition in 1774 (Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1989). Bucareli’s instructions to Pérez,

“Ynstruccion que debe observer el Alferez de Fragata graduato D. Juan Perez, primer piloto de los de numero de el Departamento de Sn. Blas, á cuyo cuidado he puesto la Expedición de los

Descubrimientos siguiendo la Costa de Monterey á el Norte” (from the Archivo General de la

Nación, Mexico City, Historia 68) were published in English by Manuel P. Servín (b. 1920) as

“The Instructions of Viceroy Bucareli to Ensign Juan Perez” (California Historical Society

Quarterly 40.3 [September, 1961]: 237–48).

290

II.296. A lawyer by training, Spanish colonial administrator GUILLERMO DE AGUIRRE y Viana (d.

1811) was a member of the Audiencia of Mexico. He was the nephew of Francisco Leandro de

Viana (1730–1804), Count of Tepa. Aguirre became a judge at the Audiencia of Guadalajara around 1783. Five years later, he was promoted to head of the crime chamber of the Audiencia of

Mexico with the help of his powerful uncle, then a minister at the Council of the Indies.

II.296. A graduate of the San Telmo Naval College, Seville native Estéban José MARTÍNEZ

Fernández (1742–1789) arrived in San Blas in 1773. A year later, he became Juan Antonio

Pérez’s second-in-command on the Santiago and took part in the first Spanish expedition to the

Pacific Northwest. Between 1775 and 1788, Martínez transported supplies from San Blas to the

Spanish ports in Lower and Upper California. In 1788, Martínez, on , and López de

Haro, on the San Carlos, sailed to present-day Alaska to confirm the Russian incursion in the

north. The fleet left San Blas in March, reaching Kodiak Island in June. There, López de Haro

found the Russian settlement at Three Saints Bay and met Delareff. In December, the fleet

returned to San Blas with the news that the Russians intended to occupy Nootka. Following

viceroyal orders, Martínez, in 1789, set up and commanded Santa Cruz de Nutka at Friendly

Cove, Nootka Sound, to protect Spanish territorial and trade interests in the Pacific Northwest.

After taking formal possession of Nootka, he precipitated the Nootka Sound crisis between Spain

and England by confronting British fur traders in the region. He impounded John Meares’s

Princess Royal, commanded by Thomas Hudson (d. 1790), and the Argonaut, commanded by

British captain James Colnett. He also challenged and killed Callicum, a second-ranking chief

and a relative of Chief . Martínez’s actions led to the Nootka Sound Convention of

1790, the year Martínez returned to Nootka with Francisco de Eliza, and eventually resulted in

Spain’s withdrawal from Vancouver Island. After spending four years back in Spain, Martínez

291

returned to the Naval Department at San Blas, where he served until his death. See also

Maldonado, Manuel Antonio Flores, and Fuca, Juan de.

II.297. Spanish clergyman and explorer Juan CRESPI (1721–1782) was a member of the 1767

missionary expedition to California, known as the Sacred Expedition. Having entered the

Franciscan Order in 1738, Crespi arrived in New Spain in 1749, joined the Franciscan College of

San Fernando in Mexico City, and became a missionary in the Sierra Gorda (1751–1767). In

1767, he joined Junípero Serra to staff the remaining Jesuit missions in California. When Serra

chose him to be part of the 1769 Sacred Expedition to Upper California, Crespi became part of

Gaspar de Portolá Rovira’s (1723–1784) overland journey to San Diego. Crespi also served as

chaplain on the First Bucareli Expedition to the Pacific Northwest under Juan Pérez. The first

European to locate San Francisco, Crespi was a diligent chronicler of the Spanish invasion of

California. His diaries were included in Francisco Palou’s “Noticias de la Nueva California,”

copied by Francisco García Figueroa and included in Documentos para la Historia de Mexico

(4th series, vol. 6–7. Mexico: Vicente García Torres, 1857). Herbert Eugene Bolton (1870–1953)

published an English translation of Crespi’s manuscripts as Fray Juan Crespi Missionary

Explorer on the Pacific Coast 1769–1774 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1927).

II.298. A Spanish naval officer and hydrographer from Bilbao, BRUNO DE HECETA (also Hezeta or Eceta) y Dudagoitia (1744–1807) was one of Spain’s most accomplished sailors. Heceta joined the Real Colegio de Guardiamarinas in 1758. By 1774, he had advanced to the rank of senior lieutenant. That same year, Heceta reached New Spain together with five other naval officers, including Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra and Juan Manuel de Ayala. In

1775, Heceta commanded the Second Bucareli Expedition to the Northwest Coast of America

292

(Juan Pérez had commanded the first surveying expedition in 1774) in search of Russian settlements there. Heceta, accompanied by Pérez as second-in-command of the Santiago and

Bodega y Quadra at the helm of the smaller Sonora, attempted to reach 65º northern latitude or beyond and assert Spanish territorial rights along the way. A third vessel, the San Carlos under

Ayala, carried out a detailed survey of San Francisco Bay. The expedition departed from San

Blas in March 1775. The Santiago and the Sonora stopped over in northern California and the northwest tip of present-day Washington to assert Spanish sovereignty. In July, a storm separated the ships. Bodega y Quadra continued northward and reached Alaska. After searching in vain for the Sonora, which had probably sailed up to Nootka Sound (Vancouver Island, British

Columbia), Heceta began the return trip to Monterey on the Santiago. He followed the coastline and sighted the mouth of the Columbia River (known to the Spaniards as Entrada de Heceta) and named it Bahía de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora. Unable to confirm whether the Columbia was a river or a bay, Heceta suggested that it might be the fabled Strait of Juan de Fuca. Several places on the and in Alaska are named after Heceta. Heceta’s account of the 1775 expedition was translated into English as For Honor and Country: The Diary of Bruno de Hezeta

(1985).

II.298. Born in Osuna (Andalucia, Spain), Juan Manuel de AYALA y de Aranza (1745–1797)

graduated from the Real Colegio de Guardia Marinas in 1760. After attaining the rank of alférez

de navío, he arrived in New Spain in 1774. Once at San Blas, he was to be the commander of the

Sonora (also known as Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe and at times as La Felicidad) in Heceta’s

1775 expedition to explore the northwest coast of America. Because Miguel Manrique,

commander of the San Carlos (also known as Toisón de Oro) became mentally unstable, likely

an effect of scurvy, Ayala replaced him on the leg of the expedition that would make a detailed

293

survey of San Francisco Bay. On March 1775, Ayala, on the San Carlos, departed for the

California missions. On August of that year, Ayala became the first European to sail through the

Golden Gate into San Francisco Bay. Remaining in the bay for over a month, the San Carlos

anchored between Angel Island (which Ayala named Nuestra Señora de los Angeles) and the

mainland. José de Cañizares and Juan Bautista Aguirre (not the poet by the same name)

explored the bay; their work produced the first comprehensive map of San Francisco Bay. Ayala

proved that San Francisco Bay was navigable, which resulted in subsequent expeditions and

settlement by the Spaniards.

II.298. Admiral Francisco Antonio MOURELLE de la Rúa (also Maurelle or Morel, 1750–1820)

graduated as a pilot from the Naval College at El Ferrol in 1765 and embarked on several sea

voyages across the Atlantic thereafter. By 1773, he had made six trips from Cádiz to Havana,

Puerto Rico, Trinidad, and Veracruz. Two years later, Mourelle arrived in New Spain together with several other naval officers. Assigned to the Naval Department at San Blas as first pilot, he served on the Sonora under Bodega y Quadra during Heceta’s 1775 expedition to present-day

Alaska. In 1779, Mourelle sailed again to the northwest, again under Bodega y Quadra. In 1780,

he traveled from New Spain to Manila under Heceta on the Princesa (also known as Nuestra

Señora del Rosario). Commanding the Princesa on the return trip, he sighted Fonualei (Tonga

Islands) in February 1781, Toku in April, and two of the Ellice Islands () in May. This was the first of several trips on the New Spain–Manila route. In 1790, Mourelle was stationed in

Mexico City as secretary to viceroy Revillagigedo. Among other duties, he was in charge of

creating a compendium of Spanish expeditions to America’s northwest coast (a copy of

Mourelle’s manuscript is at the Museo Naval de Marina at Madrid, MSS 331). Mourelle also recorded his own voyage across the Pacific on the Princesa as Noticia de la navegación de la

294

fragata “Princesa” al mando del alférez de fragata D.F. Mourelle (1781). One of the most senior pilots at San Blas, Mourelle served as an interim director of the Naval Department (1785)

and was admitted to the Orden Militar de Santiago (1788). After returning to Spain in 1793,

Mourelle advanced to rear admiral in 1819 and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of San

Hermenegildo. Mourelle’s travel journal of the 1775 expedition with Bodega on the Sonora fell

into the hands of British writer, judge, antiquary, and naturalist Daines Barrington (c. 1728–

1800). A supporter of arctic explorations and a believer in the Northwest Passage, Barrington

published the journal in English translation as “Journal of a voyage in 1775 to explore the coast

of America northward of California” (1781). Mourelle’s travel journals (1775, 1779, 1780–81)

were also published by Amancio Landín Carrasco in Mourelle de la Rua, explorador del

Pacifico (Madrid: Cultura Hispánica, 1971.)

II.299. A 1745 graduate of the Naval Academy in Cádiz, the Andalucian Ignacio de ARTEAGA y

Bazán (1731–1783) arrived in the Americas in 1766, when he was posted in Havana to command

the sloop Víbora. The following year, he was promoted to senior lieutenant. When he returned to

Spain (1771–74), Arteaga was imprisoned at the naval arsenal at La Carraca for insulting an

ecclesiastical tribunal by marrying without permission. In 1775, he went back to San Blas, New

Spain. Arteaga commanded the 1779 Spanish expedition to survey the Pacific Northwest. His

second-in-command on the Princesa (also known as Nuestra Señora del Rosario) was Pedro

Fernandez de Quirós; José Camacho was the senior pilot. Bodega y Quadra was in command

of the Favorita (or Nuestra Señora de los Remedios), with Francisco Mourelle as second

captain and José de Cañizares Rojas as pilot. This third Spanish expedition to present-day

Alaska departed San Blas in February 1779; in May they had reached and began to survey

Bucareli Bay; in July, they sailed into Prince William Sound. The Arteaga–Bodega expedition

295

returned to San Blas in November. A year later, Arteaga replaced Bruno de Heceta as the commander of San Blas; he held that post until his death. Arteaga’s 1779 expedition journal,

“Diario de la navegación,” was published in the Colección Chimalistac de los libros y documentos acerca de la Nueva España in 1959. See also Bodega y Quadra.

II.300. Spanish navigator and explorer GONZALO LÓPEZ DE HARO (d. 1823) commanded the packboat San Carlo during the first Spanish expedition to present-day Alaska under Estéban

Martínez in 1788. López served as a pilot during Francisco de Eliza’s 1790–91 exploration expedition to the Pacific Northwest.

II.300. Royal Navy officer James KING (1750–1784) served as second lieutenant on Captain

James Cook’s final voyage. King shared the duties of astronomer with Cook, conducting

astronomical observations to determine the Resolution’s position at sea and on shore either by

sextant or by astronomical quadrant. King’s observations significantly contributed to the

accuracy of the surveys carried out during the voyage. After Cook’s death, King initially

remained on the Resolution. Upon the death of Cook’s successor, Charles (1741–1779),

King became commander of the Discovery for the remainder of the voyage. For his scientific

contributions, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1782. Because of

King’s familiarity with the earlier Russian explorations of the North Pacific, he was entrusted

with writing the third volume of the official account of the voyage, A Voyage to the Pacific

Ocean. See also Cook, James.

II.301. British naval officer and fur trader Nathaniel PORTLOCK (c. 1747–1817) entered the

Royal Navy in 1772. After gaining experience at sea under James Cook, he was appointed commander of the 320-ton King George, which sailed to the northwest coast of America together

296

with the Queen Charlotte under George Dixon. The purpose of the expedition was to promote

the fur trade in Northwest America and in China. Wintering in Hawai’i, Portlock first arrived on

the northwest coast in July 1786 and again in May 1787; he then departed for Asia. In August

1788, the fleet returned to England. The account of this voyage was published by Dixon and

Portlock as A Voyage Round the World, but more particularly to the North-West Coast of

America: performed in 1785, 1786, 1787, and 1788 in 1789.

II.301. In 1786, British explorer and fur trader Charles DUNCAN (fl. 1786–92) commanded the

Princess Royal to take part in the sea otter fur trade in the Pacific Northwest. In the company of

the Prince of Wales commanded by James Colnett, Duncan arrived at Nootka Sound that same

year and had a good trading season. His exploration led him to become a believer in the

existence of a Northwest Passage. Under instructions from the Hudson’s Bay Company, Duncan

attempted to find that passage on a voyage from 1790 to 1792.

II.303. Chief MAQUINNA (b. c. 1760) was the main tais (chief) at Nootka Sound and the ranking

leader of the peoples living on the west coast of present-day Vancouver Island. He was

considered to be about thirty years old when encountering the Malaspina Expedition in 1791.

At Nootka, Maquinna negotiated with the Spanish and English naval officers and diplomats

engaged in the maritime fur trade. With the help of secondary chief Callicum, Maquinna

developed Nootka as a major commercial center for the fur trade. He provided a secure and

hospitable environment for trading and reprovisioning ships. In addition to controlling the

commerce with the Europeans, Maquinna also supplied the actual pelts, which he collected from

other regions and sold to Spanish and British traders (Nootka itself had a poor supply of pelts).

After Callicum’s murder by Estéban Martínez’s men, Maquinna’s relations with the Europeans

297

was strained until Bodega y Quadra’s and Vancouver’s diplomatic inventions reestablished an amicable atmosphere. Chief Maquinna also used these relations to consolidate his standing as

principal chief. Tomás de Suria Lozano (1761–1844), a Spanish painter trained in Mexico who

was part of the Malaspina Expedition, drew a portrait of Chief Maquinna in pencil while in

Nootka Sound in 1791. Titled “Cazique Pral de Nutka nombrado Maquina” and now at the

Museo Naval (Madrid), Suria’s portrait is the chief’s only authenticated likeness. Maquinna’s

portrait was reproduced in Carmen Sotos Serrano’s Los Pintores de la Expedición de Alejandro

Malaspina (vol. 2, fig. 606) in 1982.

II.305. Spanish military officer PEDRO DE ALBERNI (1747–1802) was part of Francisco de

Eliza’s 1789 expedition to Nootka Sound to defend Spanish territorial and trade interests.

Alberni had joined the Spanish army in Catalonia in 1762. After six years, he was transferred to

New Spain and became the military commander of the province of Nayarit. A commanding

officer since 1783, his role was to protect Spanish interests against those of the British, Russians, and USAmericans. In Nootka, he saw to the building of infrastructure for the settlement. In 1792, he was replaced by Bodega y Quadra. Promoted to lieutenant-colonel that same year, Alberni then served as commander of the fort of San Juan de Ulúa in Veracruz. His last posting was to

Monterey (California), where he also served as military commander.

II.306. British naval officer and fur trader JAMES COLNETT (1753–1806) began his career at sea

in 1770. A year later, he served under James Cook and, during the USAmerican War of

Independence, as quartermaster of the ship Adventure. Promoted to lieutenant in 1779, Colnett

commanded the Prince of Wales in a fur-trading expedition to the Pacific Northwest coast, along

with Charles Duncan on the Princess Royal. Both reached the coast in 1787 and then left for

298

Asia, where they remained until the following year. In Asia, Colnett met John Meares with

whom he formed the Associated Merchants Trading to the Northwest Coast. After a brief return

to England, Colnett again sailed for the Americas in 1789 to establish a permanent settlement at

Nootka Sound. Starting the famous Nootka Sound crisis between Great Britain and Spain,

Estéban José Martínez arrested Colnett and confiscated his ship, the Argonaut, and the

Princess Royal. Upon his release, he returned to England. By 1791, Colnett had returned to the

fur trade in Asia and was later involved in opening the South Pacific for sperm whale fishing. He published A Voyage to the South Atlantic and round Cape Horn in the Pacific Ocean for the

Purpose of extending the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries in 1798.

II.306. In 1790, viceroy Revillagigedo appointed Spanish naval officer and explorer FRANCISCO

DE ELIZA y Reventa (1759–25) to command an expedition to reoccupy Nootka Sound. Having

graduated from the Real Compañía de Guardias Marinas (Royal Navy) in 1773, Eliza y Reventa

had arrived in the Americas in 1780. He arrived at Friendly Cove, Nootka Sound, in April 1790

with the ships Concepción, San Carlos, and Princesa Real. At Nootka, he gave priority to

exploration and dispatched Salvador Fidalgo to visit the Russian outposts in Alaska and

Manuel Quimper to reconnoiter the Juan de Fuca Strait. Eliza himself explored the strait in

1791. After restoring the Spanish presense on the Northwest Pacific, Eliza returned to New Spain

a year later and served as commander of the Naval Department of San Blas from 1795 to 1801.

II.306. Spanish naval officer and explorer Salvador FIDALGO y Lopegarcía (1756–1803) served

in the Pacific Northwest under Eliza y Revento and Bodega y Quadra. At the Real Colegio de

Guardias Marinas, from which he graduated in 1775, he had been trained in cartography by

Vicente Tofiño (1732–95). As part of the Spanish expedition to occupy Nootka Sound, Eliza

299

dispatched Fidalgo to explore present-day Alaska in 1790. On the San Carlos, Fidalgo sailed

north to Prince William Sound and to . Finding a Russian settlement at Kodiak Island,

he took possession of several Alaskan locations for the Spanish Crown. Fidalgo subsequently

served as commander of the Naval Department in San Blas. In 1792, he participated in Bodega y

Quadra’s voyage to defend Spanish interests at Nootka Sound. Fidalgo founded a Spanish

settlement in Neah Bay that was later abandoned.

II.309. Humboldt owned a 1798 Carte de la Guiane by Jean-Nicolas BUACHE de la Neuville

(1741–1825), a nephew of the famous cartographer Philippe Buache (1700–1773), who had

contributed notably to the theory of physical geography and pioneered the use of contour lines to

represent relief on maps. Although Jean-Nicolas Buache’s fame was more due to his uncle’s

renown than to his own achievements, he was still considered the premier geographer both

during the Ancien Régime and in revolutionary France. Buache was a member of the Academy

of Sciences and the Bureau des Longitudes.

II.309. Thaddeus Peregrinus HAENKE (1761–1816) was a South American naturalist from

Bohemia, who had studied under Nikolaus Joseph Freiherr von Jacquin in Vienna. Haenke

joined the Malaspina Expedition in Chile, staying with it as far as Vancouver Island. He

traveled across Mexico, returned to Chile, and, in 1796, ended up in Cochabamba, Bolivia,

where he worked in a silver mine on an estate he had purchased. He accidentally poisoned

himself. Haenke donated his botanical collection to the National Museum in Prague, but only a

part of the collection reached its destination. He did not publish an account of his explorations but left notes and manuscripts that other naturalists consulted. Most of his manuscripts are now at the National Archives in Buenos Aires and at the Botanical Institute in Madrid.

300

II.309. Louis NEE (c. 1737–c. 1807) was the French-born botanist of the Malaspina Expedition;

the other two naturalists were Antonio de Pineda y Ramírez (1751–1792) and Thaddeus

Haenke. During that expedition, he supervised the botanical artists, among them José Guio y

Sánchez, José del Pozo (c. 1757–1821), Francisco Lindo, and Francisco Pulgar. Prior to joining

the Malaspina Expedition, Née had worked in the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid and appears

to have participated in earlier expeditions as well. Pineda described Née as a botanist with a

broad knowledge of the theoretical and applied aspects of botany. The botanist Antonio José

Cavanilles tried to discredit Née in a letter to Celestino Mutis from April 28, 1795. Mutis,

however, a friend of Née’s, had a better opinion of him. Cavanilles, too, seems to have changed

his mind by 1797. Indeed, when Née’s post-expedition funding ran out, Cavanilles lobbied his

influential friend Juan Bautista Muñoz y Ferrandis to help ensure that Née’s work be continued.

Although he published little, Née collected thousands of plants, only few of which survive today

in Madrid.

II.311. English watchmaker John ARNOLD (1737–1799) had manufactured three marine chronometers for the second of James Cook’s three expeditions to the Pacific (1772–75).

Arnold’s models, as well as the chronometer by Larcum Kendall (1721–1795) that Cook also used, were among the first mobile time-keepers to be applied to the real-life conditions of a maritime expedition. They derived from the first portable “H4” prototype chronometer designed by carpenter and mechanic John Harrison (1693–1776) in 1764. All three Arnold models failed the test. This experience prompted a series of important improvements and refinements that enabled Arnold to build high-quality chronometers in larger amounts and for more affordable prices. The ones on board the Malaspina expeditions were most likely part of this more advanced batch. Because of its superb quality, Humboldt—whose instruments regularly suffered

301

damage due to the rough travel conditions—had asked that an Arnold chronometer be sent to

him in Havana, but the package never reached him.

II.312. Peruvian-born navigator and explorer MANUEL QUIMPER Benítez del Pino (fl. 1789–

1819) was appointed to the Naval Department at San Blas in 1789. A member of the Francisco

de Eliza expedition to Nootka Sound, he explored the Juan de Fuca strait on the Princesa Real

between May and December 1790. Quimper sailed to the Phillipines in 1791 and returned to San

Blas the following year. About his voyage to return the Princesa Real (Princess Royal) to the

British in Asia and to end the Nootka Sound controversy, Quimper wrote Islas de Sandwich

(1822). He later served as intendant of Puno (1806–14) and Huamanga (1816–19) in Peru.

II.312. Having worked under Vicente Tofiño de San Miguel (1732–95) in 1788, the Spanish

navigator and explorer Secundino SALAMANCA y Humara (c. 1768–1839) was chosen for the

Malaspina Expedition in 1789. In 1791, Salamanca was appointed to the Sútil under Alcalá

Galiano to carry out a surveying expedition to Nootka Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. For his services during the Malaspina Expedition and the surveying expedition to the Pacific

Northwest, Salamanca was promoted to the rank of commander in 1797. For his command of the

Rayo at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), Salamanca was awarded the rank of commodore in 1805 and was subsequently appointed governor of Sanlúcar (Spain). He retired in 1826.

II.315. Posted in the Naval Department of San Blas (Nayarit), the Spanish navigator and explorer

JACINTO CAAMAÑO Moraleja (b. 1759) arrived in New Spain in 1789 as member of the Real

Colegio de Guardias Marinas. A year later, he traveled to Nootka. Caamaño also took part in the

Expedition of Limits to the Pacific Northwest under Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra.

Commanding the Aránzazu, he arrived again at Nootka Sound on May 1792. Subsequently

302 searching for the passage of Bartolomé de Fonte, Caamaño concluded that this passage was but a myth.

II.319. PAUL I (1754–1801) was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801.

II.320. British explorer and hydrographer Joseph BILLINGS (c. 1760–1806) entered the Royal

Navy in 1776 and then joined Captain James Cook’s voyage to the Pacific Northwest. Having applied for admission to the Imperial Russian Navy in 1783, Billings was commissioned by

Empress Catherine II (1729–1796) to command an expedition to the northeastern parts of her domain in 1785. Drafted by natural historian and scientist P. S. Pallas, Billings was instructed to map the area from the mouth of the River Kolyma in northeastern Siberia along the eastern

Siberian shoreline up to the Bering Strait; to chart the Chukotka peninsula inland from the

Bering Strait as far as Cape Shelagsky; and to provide accurate maps of the chain of Aleutian and other islands between Kamchatka and the American coast. Fully equipped with scientific instruments, Billings’s expedition began in June 1787. With Gavril Sarychev as second commanding officer, Billings surveyed from Kamchatka large areas of the Pacific in the Slava

Rossii (1789–91); the expedition landed on on June 1790 and sailed up Prince

William Sound. While Sarychev, who became hydrographer-general of the Russian Navy, took command of the Slava Rossi in 1791 to explore the Aleutian Islands, Billings led a survey party to chart the northeastern Russian coastline. The expedition returned to St. Petersburg in 1794. A year later, Billings was transferred to the Black Sea where he conducted hydrographic surveys.

He retired with the rank of commodore in 1799.

303

II.320n. French diplomat Nicolas Auguste Marie Rousseau de SAINT-AIGNAN (1770–1858) was

Napoleon Bonaparte’s (1769–1821) envoy to Weimar from 1811 to 1813. He was acquainted

with Wilhelm von Humboldt.

II.323. Starting in 1775, Russian seafarer and trader Grigory Ivanovich SHELIKHOV (also

Shelekhov, 1747–1795) organized commercial shipping trips to the Kuril and Aleutian Islands.

From 1783 to 1786, he led an expedition to the shores of under the auspices of

the Shelikhov-Golikov Company (the other owner was Ivan Larionovich Golikov [1729–1805]),

which would become the basis for the Russian-American Company founded in 1799. Shelikhov

arrived in Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island in 1784. Conflicts ensued with the indigenous

Koniaga, during which Shelikhov killed hundreds of this native population. Having thus

established his authority on Kodiak Island, Shelikhov founded the first permanent Russian

settlement in North America on southeast Kodiak Island. In 1786, he also organized what was likely the earliest fishing enterprise in Alaska at the Karluk River on Kodiak Island to procure dried salmon for the workers of his fur-trading company.

II.323. Humboldt’s Mr. SARYTSCHEW was Russian navigator, hydrographer, and later admiral

Gavril Andreevich Sarychev (also Sarichef, 1763–c. 1830), who became an honorable member

of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1809. From 1785 to 1794, Sarychev had taken part

in the expedition sent out by Catherine the Great (1729–96) and led by Joseph Billings.

Sarychev was one of the two explorers who accompanied Billings; the other was Martin Sauer, the British secretary to the expedition. Sarychev, who was responsible for supervising the building of ships in Okhotsk, described and mapped the coastline of the Sea of Okhotsk from

Okhotsk to Aldoma and many of the Aleutian Islands, especially Unalaska. He also described a

304

number of islands, among them St. Matthew Island, St. Lawrence Island, and King Island. After

heading the Baltic hydrographic expedition from 1802 to 1806, Sarychev was placed in charge of

hydrographic research in Russia. He was also in charge of the compilation of the atlas of the northern part of the Pacific Ocean in 1826.

II.324. Although Evstratii Ivanovich DELAROV (also Yefstrat Ivanitsch Delareff or Eustrate

Delarof, c. 1740–1806) was the first documented Greek explorer and merchant to arrive in

Alaska, he is often forgotten in the annals of history. A rather exceptional figure among the

European merchants of his time, Delarov quickly developed a reputation as a fair and just trader

in an age of aggressive and often brutal European incursions into the Americas. Delarov had

come to Russia as a young man and signed on with the fur-trading company of Grigory and

Pyotr Panov, which had organized expeditions to Alaska since 1747. Delarov stayed with that

company until 1786. After meeting Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov Irkutsk, Delarov, also known

as “the Greek,” became the chief manager of the Shelikhov-Golikov Company on Kodiak Island,

a position he held from 1787 to 1791. In that position, Delarov made contact with any visitors,

including the 1788 Spanish expedition of Gonzalo López de Haro and Esteban José Martínez.

He handled visitors deftly and gracefully, succeeding brilliantly in keeping British, French, and

Spanish explorers out of Alaskan territory and maintaining it as a Russian province during the

entire tenure of his command. When the Russian-American Company was founded in 1799,

Delarov, who had by then become a partner in the Shelikhov-Golikov Company, moved to St.

Petersburg to serve on the new company’s board of directors. He did so until his death.

II.324. Presumably a former employee of the British trade office, Martin SAUER (fl. 1780s–

1790s) served as secretary and translator to the Billings-Sarychev expedition. Traveling under

305

the patronage of Sir Joseph Banks, Sauer published his Account of a geographical and

astronomical expedition to the northern parts of Russia in 1802.

II.327n. German geographer and statistician Johann Georg Heinrich HASSEL (1770–1829)

published various statistical and geographical writings about Austria, Prussia, the German

Confederacy, Helvetia (a part of Switzerland), Italy, the Ionian Islands (a group of islands in

Greece), Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden with Norway, Russia, Poland, the

Asiatic kingdoms, the two East Indian peninsulas, Japan, British and Russian North America, the

USA, Mexico, Guatemala, and Australia. Humboldt owned at least seven of Hassel’s books.

Hassel had published statistics on Russia as early as 1805–1807. He also collaborated with

others, among them the geographer Adam Christian Gaspari (1752–1830), who had taught at the

University of Königsberg since 1810.

II.328. Commander of the Legion of Honor, French diplomat, writer, and translator Jean-

François, Baron DE BOURGOING (1748–1811), was a member of the Danish Academy of

Sciences and the Fine Arts Academy in Stockholm. He wrote his Nouveau voyage en Espagne, ou, Tableau de l'état actuel de cette monarchie (New travels in Spain, or, Portrait of the present state of this monarchy), first published in 1788–89, after spending nine years in Spain as secretary of the French Embassy. Banned in Spain by the Inquisition, the book enjoyed moderate

success elsewhere and went through several editions under the shorter 1806 title Tableau de

l'Espagne moderne (Portrait of modern Spain). Bourgoing added new information to each

edition. In 1791, he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary of Spain. After devoting several

years to his literary endeavors, he returned to the diplomatic service as ambassador to Denmark

in 1799.

306

II.329. Jedidiah Morse’s sons assisted him in his 1792 American Universal Geography, whose

final revision was completed in 1819 by his son SIDNEY EDWARD MORSE (1794–1871).

II.339. British naturalist Thomas NUTTALL (1786–1859) was the author of A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory (1821), the result of a botanical expedition into the Arkansas Territory from 1818 to 1820. Trained as an apprentice in the printing business in Liverpool (1800–07),

Nuttall had developed a passion for botany, geology, and mineralogy. He embarked for

Philadelphia in 1808, where he was employed as a botanical assistant to Benjamin Smith

Barton. With support of his mentor, Nuttall carried out his first botanical explorations from 1809

to 1811, traveling to Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, the Great Lakes region, Fort Mandon

up the Missouri River, and New Orleans. From 1815 to 1817, he explored the Ohio River,

Kentucky, and the Carolinas. The result of his exploration was Genera of North American Plants

(1818), a comprehensive botanical publication about part of North America. An instructor of

botany and natural history at Harvard College (1822–1834), Nuttall also published the textbook,

An Introduction to Systematic and Physiological Botany (1827). In addition to writing a book on

ornithology after a successful expedition through the Rocky Mountains (1834–1835), Nuttall

prepared a new edition of The North American Sylva (1849) by François-André Michaux (1770–

1855).

II.343. Knighted in 1833, Sir Charles WILKINS (bap. 1749–1836), a British merchant in the East

India Company from 1770 to 1786, was the first to translate into English the Bhagavad-gītā, a small part of the epic Mahābhārata (which inspired Kālidāsa’s famous Abhijñānaśākuntala) and

an influential Hindu text. A pioneering Sanskrit scholar, Wilkins established a printing press for

Oriental languages in 1778 and published A Grammar of Sanskrit in 1779. He was one of the

307

founding members of the Asiatick Society of Bengal in Calcutta. Elected to the Royal Society in

1788, Wilkins became the librarian of the East India Company in 1800.

II.343.The Arabic phrase ‘ILM AL RAML translates as science of the sand and refers to

geomancy, or “earth divination.”

II.343. The GEOMANTIC TABLEAU to which Humboldt refers here is the Dresden Codex, a ritual-

calendrical screenfold on amatl paper housed at the State Library of Saxony in Dresden. One of the most important surviving pictorial Maya manuscripts, the Dresden Codex contains divinatory almanacs, representations of many ceremonies and deities, multiplication tables for the synodical revolutions of Venus, and observations about other matters, such as disease and agriculture. One of only four Maya hieroglyphic manuscripts in existence (the others being the Madrid Codex, the

Paris Codex, and the Grolier Codex), Humboldt published five of thirty-nine of its pages in

Views of the Cordilleras (Plate XLV). Although Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (1814–

1874) did not rediscover the fragments of the Madrid Codex until 1866, Humboldt might have seen the Codex Troano, a seventy-page codex fragment named after Spanish paleographer Juan

Tro y Ortolano (1814–1875). Together with the Codex Cortesianus, a forty-two-page codex fragment, that manuscript is known as Madrid Codex or Codex Tro-Cortesianus. The Madrid

Codex, a series of almanacs based on a 260-day period of time, records a variety of hunting and agricultural practices, social and religious rites, and astronomical information about the Maya.

II.344. A Dominican monk from New Granada, FRANCISCO NÚÑEZ DE LA VEGA (1632–1706)

was appointed bishop of Chiapas and Soconusco in 1683, an office he held until his death. His

Constituciones diocesanas (1702) discuss and the predominance of a spirit cult called nagualism in the indigenous population of eighteenth-century southern Mexico. Núñez de

308

la Vega was the first to mention Votan (Uotan, “heart”), a deity in highland Chiapas. In the

seventeenth century, the peoples of Teopisca (who spoke Tzeltal) were regarded as the

descendants of Votan. According to a myth related by Núñez de la Vega, Votan traveled through

a serpent-made subterraneous passage and brought back and deposited several tapirs and a treasure in a dark house he constructed in Huehuetlán in Soconusco (a district in the state of

Chiapas, Mexico). In the Maya tzolk’in calendar, Votan was identified with the third day

(ak’b’al, darkness).

II.344. Humboldt’s so-called “Tetimpa Diary” can be found in Appendix I of Ulrike Leitner’s edition of his Mexican travel diary, Von Mexico Stadt-nach Veracruz (From Mexico City to

Veracruz, Berlin: Akademiverlag, 2005).

II.346. Some believe that Humboldt’s “SAGE TRAVELER” may have been Simón Tadeo de Ortiz y Ayala. We have been unable to verify this.

II.351. Mexican colonizer and writer Simón TADEO ORTIZ y Ayala (1788–1833) carried out a

reconnaissance mission to the Tehuantepec Isthmus to determine the feasibility of building an

interoceanic canal there. As a result of the expedition, he received approval for and attempted to

colonize the isthmus, especially the Coatzacalcos (1823–29). A supporter of Mexican

independence, Ortiz also attempted to colonize Texas. He published Resumen de la Estadística

del Imperio Mexicano (Statistical overview of the Mexican empire, 1822) and México

considerado como nación independiente y libre (Mexico viewed as an indepdent and free nation,

1832). He died of cholera on a journey to New Orleans to recruit colonists.

309

II.362. MATÍAS DE GÁLVEZ y Gallardo (1717–1784) was José de Gálvez y Gallardo’s eldest

brother and the father of Bernardo de Gálvez. To serve as inspector general of the Audiencia de

Guatemala, he arrived in Guatemala in July 1778. In April of the following year, Gálvez was

promoted to president of the Audiencia, an office he held until 1782. Because the capital,

Antigua, had been destroyed in a 1773 earthquake, he relocated the capital of the Audiencia to

present-day Guatemala City during his first year as president of the Audiencia. In August 1782,

Gálvez was appointed interim viceroy of New Spain. The official transfer of office took place in

April 1783, the same year the viceregal nomination was made permanent. Gálvez was viceroy

until his death.

II.362. Spanish surveyor MANUEL GALISTEO (fl. 1781) explored present-day Nicaragua in 1781 to determine the viability of building an interoceanic canal under orders of Matías de Gálvez.

After carrying out a survey of the Lake Nicaragua region and an examination of the route to the

Pacific Ocean, he determined that the project was too difficult a task. Currently at the Biblioteca

del Palacio Real in Spain, his report is entitled “Plan de nivelación de la altura y declives que tiene el río San Juan y Gran Laguna de Nicaragua” (MS 2857).

II.363. In 1779, Matías de Gálvez, then-captain-general of Guatemala, ordered Spanish military officer IGNACIO MAESTRE y Fuentes (b. 1737) to determine the practicability of an interoceanic

canal through present-day Nicaragua. Joaquín de Ysasi and José Alejandre, engineers under his command, reported back in June 1779, emphasizing the difficulty of constructing a canal on

that site. A member of the Real Compañía de Guardias Marinas (Royal Navy) since 1753,

Maestre served as commander of the fort of San Fernando de Omoa in present-day Honduras.

310

While stationed in Nicaragua, Gálvez put Simon Dexnaux, a French engineer, in command of the

fort at Honduras.

II.363. Spanish military engineer JOAQUÍN DE YSASI (also Isasi, fl. 1762–1780) was accepted as a draftsman to the Spanish Royal Corps of Engineers in 1762. By 1774, Ysasi was posted in Spain during the construction of the Channel of Castile. Stationed in Central America with fellow engineer José Alejandre at the beginning of the 1770s, Ysasi worked on a reconnaissance mission to explore the possibility of an interoceanic canal through Nicaragua’s San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua. Together, Ysasi and Alejandre produced a chart titled “Diseño en que se procura manifestar el Reconocimiento… a fin de averiguar si tenía o podía tener comunicación el

Lago de Nicaragua con el Mar de el Sur.” The map is reproduced in Obras Hidráulicas en

América Colonial (1993).

II.363. Spanish military engineer JOSÉ MARÍA ALEJANDRE Guerrero (fl. 1764–1803), whom

Humboldt calls José Alejandro, served in Guatemala and was transferred to the Castillo de San

Juan in present-day Nicaragua in 1771. Alejandre had begun his military service in Spain as second lieutenant and draftsman in Catalonia and subsequently advanced his career in the

Kingdom of Guatemala for more than three decades. While stationed in Central America,

Alejandre drew a croquis of the San Juan River (1781) and a map of the port of Granada (1783).

To defend Lake Nicaragua against a British invasion, he designed a fort at Granada (1785), another at San Carlos (1785), and drew a plan of the San Carlos fort (1803).

II.371n. Spanish pharmacologist Juan José TAFALLA Navascués (1755–1811) was a member of

the Botanical Expedition to the Viceroyalty of Peru and Chile, led by Spanish botanists Hipólito

Ruiz López and José Antonio Pavón y Jiménez from 1777 to 1788.

311

II.371n. French botanist Augustin (Auguste) François César Prouvençal de SAINT-HILAIRE (c.

1779–1853) traveled in South America—mainly in south and central Brazil—between 1816 and

1822. From 1813 to 1820, he explored the flora, fauna, and geography of the province of Minas

Gerais with the Prussian politician and naturalist Baron Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff (1774–

1852), collecting data in all fields of natural history.

II.371n. British botanist Aylmer Bourke LAMBERT (1761–1842) studied at Oxford University

from 1779 to 1782. He had been interested in botany from an early age. In 1788, Lambert,

Samuel Goodenough (1743–1827), and Thomas Marsham (d. 1819) had founded the Linnaean

Society of London, of which Lambert became vice president in 1796. The following year,

Lambert published A Description of the Genus Cinchona (1797). The first volume of his famous

A Description of the Genus Pinus (1803–07) was initially published in a seven-part folio edition with engraved plates by Ferdinand Bauer (1760–1826). The second volume appeared in 1824, and a second edition edited by David Don (1799–1841) was published between 1828 and 1837.

Lambert had a collection of dried plants (herbaria) that was freely available to botanists for study. Upon Lambert’s death, the collection comprising of about 50,000 specimens was divided into 317 lots, sold by auction, acquired by sixteen buyers, and dispersed throughout Europe and the USA. Lambert was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1791 and the Society of

Antiquaries in 1838.

II.381n. Italian naturalist, explorer, and amateur musician Giuseppe ACERBI (1773–1846)

published Travels through Sweden, Finland, and Lapland, to the North Cape (1802) after his

1798–99 travels in northern Europe. Although he was appointed a diplomat to Lisbon, he turned

down the position to serve as editor of the Biblioteca italiana (1816–1825), a literary magazine.

312

Acerbi was named consul of Austria in Alexandria (Egypt) in 1825. He also published Delle viti

italiane (1825), a horticultural book about grapes.

II.382. At age seventeen, Humboldt’s close friend Johann GEORG Adam FORSTER (1754–1794)

traveled the world as the assistant to his father, the Lutheran pastor and naturalist Johann

Reinhold Forster (1729–98) who, on short notice, replaced Sir Joseph Banks as the official

scientist on Captain Cook’s second voyage. While Georg Forster’s main responsibility was to

draw the flora and fauna that the expedition encountered, his real fields of interest were

comparative geography and ethnology. He would soon conduct his own research in these areas.

Forster’s unofficial account of that voyage, A Voyage round the World in His Britannic Majesty's

Sloop Resolution (1777), is still deemed a foundational text for modern scientific travel

literature. Because of the family’s desperate finances, which Forster’s book failed to alleviate, his father had to sell the complete collection of botanical and zoological drawings his son had made during the Cook expedition to their rival Banks who kept them under lock and key for the rest of his life. It was not until 2007 that an edition of Forster’s text and drawings saw print in

German. Georg Forster and Alexander von Humboldt met during Humboldt’s study years in

Göttingen, where they were introduced by Forster’s father-in-law, the famous classicist and archeologist (1729–1812), whose lectures Humboldt attended enthusiastically. Forster’s influence on Humboldt was substantial. His advice to study basalt deposits encouraged Humboldt’s first book publication, Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein (Mineralogical observations of some basalts in the Rhine region, 1790).

An early study on the Pacific breadfruit stimulated Humboldt’s incipient drafts of plant geography, which he presented to his mentor the same year that a joint journey led both men through the Low Countries, England, and France and resulted in Forster’s three-volume

313

Ansichten über den Niederrhein (Views of the Lower Rhine country, 1791–94). This book

proved an important inspiration for Humboldt’s popular Ansichten der Natur (Views of Nature).

Witnessing the peoples’ enthusiasm for the French Revolution in Paris profoundly stirred the

Jacobin political beliefs in both men. When the revolutionary army seized the city of Mainz in

1792, Forster became one of the leaders of the short-lived, democratic Mainz Republic. He soon

had to flee into French exile, where he died only two years later.

II.383. Spanish clergyman Tomás Martínez Gómez, later Bishop TOMÁS DE BERLANGA (c. 1487–

1551), is credited with the European discovery of the Galapagos archipelago. On his way to Peru

from Panama to resolve a territorial dispute between Francisco Pizarro (c. 1470s–1541) and

Diego de Almagro (1475–1538), he entered the Doldrums (or Intertropical Convergence Zone)

and was swept away by the currents until accidently sighting the archipelago in March 1535. He

made a report of his journey that landed in the hands of the Flemish mapmaker Abraham Ortelius

(1527–1598), who inserted the islands in a map of Peru entitled “Peruviae Auriferae Regionis

Typus” (1574). Berlanga’s report about the Galapagos archipelago to Charles V was published

as “A Letter to his Majesty from Fray Tomás de Berlanga describing his Voyage from Panama to

Puerto Viejo, and the Hardships he encountered in this Navigation” in Colección de Documentos

Inéditos Relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista y Organización de las Antiguas Posesiones

Españolas de América y Oceanía (1884). When he left to Peru, Berlanga, who had entered the

Dominican Order in 1507, was acting bishop of Tierra Firme with a see in Panama. Recruited for missionary work at Hispaniola, he had arrived in America around 1510. He became vice- provincial of the Dominican Friars in 1521 and fourth bishop of Tierra Firme in 1533. Berlanga resigned from the bishopric in 1537 and returned to Spain in 1543.

314

II.383. Spanish explorer and navigator Pero (Pedro) ALONSO NIÑO, EL NEGRO (1468–c. 1505),

had participated in several Portuguese expeditions before joining Columbus’s third voyage to the

Americas in 1498. Before returning to Spain, Niño explored the coast of present-day Venezuela that year.

II.383. Spanish explorer and navigator Vicente Yáñez PINZÓN (c. 1492–1509) commanded the

Niña during Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas in 1492. Pinzón himself led an expedition

across the Atlantic in 1499/1500. Arriving in Brazil about three months before the Portuguese

navigator Pedro Cabral, Pinzón explored the estuary of the and the coast of

Brazil up to the Costa Rica. In 1507, Pinzón reconnoitered the estuary of the River Plate.

II.384n. René Louiche DESFONTAINES (1750–1833) had initially come to Paris to study

medicine. But listening to Louis Guillaume Le Monnier’s (1717–99) lectures at the Jardin des

Plantes in Paris, he quickly became fascinated with botany, a field of interest in which he

excelled. (Louis Guillaume was the younger brother of astronomer Pierre Charles Le

Monnier.) Flora Atlantica (1800), a book that included 300 genera new to science, resulted from his trip to Tunisia and , where he spent two years and amassed a large collection of plants. Having been elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1783, Desfontaines replaced

Le Monnier as professor of botany at the Jardin des Plantes three years later. Later on, he directed France’s , served as president of the Academy of Sciences, and was inducted into the Legion of Honor. He was also a member of the French National Academy of Medicine. Humboldt dedicated his Essay on Plant Geography (1805–07), the first work of his

American voyage, to the French botanists Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748–1836) and

Desfontaines, both of whom he had met during his five-month stay in Paris in 1798. During these

315

months, which Humboldt used as the final preparation time for his American voyage, he had laid

the groundwork for his long affiliation with Parisian scientific circles. In addition to

Desfontaines and Georges Cuvier, both of whom expanded Humboldt’s understanding of botany and zoology, the young Prussian scientist became well acquainted with the zoologist

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and with the chemists Antoine-François de Fourcroy (1755–1809) and

Louis Nicolas Vauquelin.

II.385. German botanist and medical doctor Joseph GÄRTNER (1732–1791) is best known for his work on plant fruits and seeds, De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum (Of plant fruits and seeds,

1788–92). After completing his medical degree in Tübingen, Gärtner traveled extensively in

Italy, France, England, and Holland, continuing his scientific work alongside his medical practice. In addition to botany, he was also interested in optics and mechanics, even to the point of building his own scientific instruments. Having returned from a longer sojourn to England in

1761, Gärtner was appointed professor of anatomy at his alma mater. In 1768, he was offered a professorship of natural history and the directorship of the botanical garden and natural history collection in St. Petersburg. Quickly dissatisfied with his largely administrative position, Gärtner returned to Germany—and to his scientific work—only two years later. He now had the time to turn to his true passion: seeds and plant fruits. To complete his collection, he took another trip to

Holland and England in 1778 and had the good fortune to meet up with Sir Joseph Banks and

Carl Peter Thunberg, who allowed him to make very liberal use of specimens they had brought back from their own travels. When he finally completed it, De Fructibus included valuable details on more than a thousand plant species (with 180 copper-plate engravings), ushering in a new era in plant morphology. Gärtner’s son, Karl Friedrich Gärtner (1772–1850), who was involved in editing his father’s work, also contributed important studies about hybridization. In

316 his Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich, mit Hinweisung auf die ähnlichen Erscheinungen im Thierreiche (Essays and observations about plant hybridization, with remarks about similar phenomena among animals, 1849), the younger

Gärtner showed how the features of plants could be controlled by artificial pollination.

II.385. Scottish-descended French naturalist and traveler Michel ADANSON (1727–1806) was the first to subject Linnaean to a serious critique on the occasion of his five-year travels in the Canary Islands and in (1749–1753). He found that the plants he encountered in

Senegal, part of what was then known as “the Torrid Zone,” did not fit available categories, including Linnaean ones, which were based on more temperate climatic conditions. Adanson was convinced that observing plants in their natural environments was crucial, and the descriptions he published in Histoire naturelle du Sénégal (Natural History of Senegal, 1757) are always accompanied by thermometric, barometric, and hygrometric measurements. In 1763, Adanson published his Familles naturelles des plantes (Natural plant families), in which he proposed a new taxonomic vocabulary. Though initially ridiculed by the defenders of Linneaus (Carl von

Linné, 1707–87), Adanson’s ideas about the natural method of classifying plants eventually won broad-based acceptance, especially after his mentor, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748–1836), published his in 1789.

II.385. The work of two men, both in the employ of the Dutch East India Company

(Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC for short) marked the beginnings of European botanical studies in Asia. One was the German-born botanist and ethnographer Georg Eberhard

RUMPF (also Rumphius, 1627–1702), the other the Dutch amateur botanist Hendrik Adriaan van

RHEEDE tot Drakenstein, Lord of Mijdrecht (1636–1691). Rumpf lived most of his adult life on

317 the island of Amboina (now Ambon), part of the Maluku Islands of today’s Indonesia, of which he became governor late in life. He is best known for his Herbarium Amboinense, a six-volume catalogue of plants on the island of Ambon that was published posthumously in a Latin translation in 1741. Initially a cadet with the VOC, Rumpf had set out for Batavia in 1852 and proceeded to the so-called spice islands of the Ambon archipelago two years later. By the 1660s, he was embroiled in his botanical work there, with the support of the governor of Batavia. There were, however, myriad obstacles to completing and publishing his work. In 1670, Rumpf lost his eyesight to glaucoma, and four years later an earthquake killed his wife and daughter. He remained undeterred, even starting over the manuscript originally written in Latin as there was no one in Batavia to whom he could have dictated in that language. In 1687, all of the original plates were destroyed in a house fire that also consumed much of Rumpf’s library. The new manuscript, in Dutch, was then lost in a shipwreck. A copy finally arrived in Holland in 1697, only to be buried by the East India Company for more than four decades for containing an abundance of sensitive information. Of Dutch nobility, Van Rheede was a military man who quickly advanced to High Commissioner of the VOC. Having joined the VOC in 1656 as a soldier, he was appointed commander of Dutch Malabar in 1670. Initiated because of the medical needs of the VOC, Van Rheede’s work on the plants of the Malabar region began in 1674, and a draft of the first volume was ready around 1675. Van Rheede employed a team of nearly a hundred to compile and edit his twelve-volume opus Hortus Malabaricus (1678–1703), which described 740 plants of the region. The group included physicians, professors of medicine and botany, amateur botanists, Indian scholars, and physicians from Malabar and adjacent regions, as well as technicians, illustrators, engravers, and company officials. In 1677, Van Rheede moved to Jakarta as part of the Council of India, returning to Amsterdam the following year. In 1681, he

318

signed a contract with botanists Jan Commelin (1629–1692) and his nephew Caspar Commelin

(1667–1731), and the physician Johannes Munnicks (1652–1711), to work on editing and

indexing Hortus. Both Rumpf and Van Rheede’s books contributed significantly to the

development of Linnaeus’s system of plant taxonomy.

II.386. GARCILASO DE LA VEGA, El Inca (1539–1616), was a relative of the Inca Atahuallpa (c.

1502–1533). Born Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, he was the son of the Spanish conquistador

Sebastián de la Vega Vargas and the Inca ñusta (princess) Chimpu Ocllo (d. 1571), baptized

Isabel Suárez. Garcilaso adopted the epithet “El Inca” to signify pride in his indigenous ancestry.

The first American to write in Spanish, he lived in Spain from 1561 until his death. He authored an extensive , the Comentarios Reales de los Incas (Royal Commentaries of the Incas), which was first published in Lisbon in 1609 and 1617. The Comentarios was banned in Peru in 1780 at the outset of the rebellion against colonial dominance led by José Gabriel

Condorcanqui, better known as Tupac Amaru II.

II.386. The Spanish Jesuit José de ACOSTA (1540–1600) was a missionary mainly in Peru, but he

was also briefly stationed in Mexico. Trained in Greek philosophy, Latin rhetoric, and Christian

theology, Acosta arrived in Peru in 1572, the year in which the Jesuit order was formally

instituted in the Americas; he visited , Arequipa, La Paz, Charcas, Potosí, and Chuquisaca.

His Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias (Natural and moral history of the Indes) was written

in both Latin and Spanish. Its preliminary version was published under the title De natura novi

orbis (Of the nature of the new world, 1588–89). The final edition was published in 1590 and

translated into several European languages—Italian, French, Dutch, German, Latin, and

English—between 1596 and 1604. Acosta’s Historia was based on his direct interactions with

319 the local peoples; he also benefitted from conversations with and writings by Juan de Tovar and

Polo de Ondegardo. In addition to publishing a catechism in Aymara and Quechua in 1583, the first book to be printed in Peru, Acosta wrote De Christo revelato (Of the revelation of Christ,

1590), De temporibus novissimis (Of modern times, 1590), and a book of sermons. In 1597, a decade after having returned to Spain, Acosta was appointed dean of the Jesuit College in

Salamanca, a position he held until his death.

II.389. French physician and agronomist Henri-Alexandre TESSIER (1741–1837) was best known for his works on the cultivation of sugar beets and his contributions to the Paris Journal des

Savants. Tessier was a student and lifelong friend of Antoine Laurent de Jussieu’s (1748–1836), who introduced him to Paris’s scientific community. In 1776, Tessier became one of the inaugural members of the Royal Society of Medicine. Together with Lavoisier, he was also a member of the Agricultural Society of Paris and, because of his abiding interest in introducing merino sheep to France, was appointed inspector-general of sheep farms by the newly formed

Agricultural Office. A member of the French Academy of Sciences since 1795, Tessier was a prolific writer on a wide range of medical and especially agricultural topics. On the latter, he contributed regularly to the agricultural section of the Encyclopédie méthodique. Tessier was also an editor of note, founding the Journal d’agriculture in 1791 and the Annales de l’agriculture françoise in 1798. When hiding from the Reign of Terror under an assumed name in Normandy in 1792, he had a chance encounter with Georges Cuvier, then an unknown young zoologist, and recommended him to his friends in Paris, notably to Jussieu, Auguste-Antoine

Parmentier, and Étienne Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire, then a professor of zoology at the newly constituted National Museum of Natural History. Soon after, Cuvier became Saint-Hilaire’s assistant. Humboldt apparently did not care much for the “annoying” Tessier.

320

II.391. The legendary king and conqueror ALEXANDER III of Macedonia, known as Alexander

the Great (356–323 BCE), overthrew the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the battle of Arbela in

331 BCE, in which he defeated Darius III of Persia. Historians and archaeologists have long

debated the exact location of this battle, which is assumed to have taken place not in Arbela

(today’s Arbil in northern Iraq) but close to Gaugamela (today’s Mosul). The hard-won battle

gave Alexander control of the vast Persian territories—at the time the largest empire of the

ancient world—and opened the way for Hellenistic forays into Asia.

II.391. Gaius Plinius Secundus (23–79 BCE), also known as , was a Roman naturalist, politician, and naval commander. His monumental Naturalis Historia, an encyclopedic work of thirty-seven books, is the most valuable compilation of ancient Greek and

Roman science, covering the physical universe, geography, anthropology, , mineralogy, medicinal plants, and the fine arts. Humboldt, who first read Pliny during his studies at the

University of Göttingen (1789–90), cites the Roman encyclopedist extensively and adopted

Pliny’s maxim as the motto of his own Cosmos: “Naturae vero rerum vis atque maiestas omnibus momentis fide caret si quis modo partes eius ac non totam conplectatur animo” (Indeed the power and majesty of the nature of the universe at every turn lacks credence if one’s mind embraces parts of it only and not the whole” (Naturalis historia, VII, 1).

II.393n. French lexicographer, printer, and civilian officer Pierre-Marie-Sébastien CATINEAU

LAROCHE (1772–1828) wrote about French Guyana in 1822. Narrowly escaping death in Saint-

Domingue, he traveled through England on his way to Paris in 1797. The owner of a press, he

published a pocket dictionary of the French language as Nouveau dictionnaire de poche de la

langue français (1797). When his business burned, Catineau Laroche was appointed chief clerk

321

in the bureau of commerce in the colonies in 1826. In 1819, he was commissioned for an

expedition to Guiana to study the climate and resources of that province. The results of his

voyage were published as De la Guyane Française and Notice sur la Guyane Française, both in

1822.

II.395n. French naturalist and plant collector François Richard de TUSSAC (1751–1837) was born

on Martinique into a wealthy planter family. He traveled extensively in Saint-Domingue,

Jamaica, and Cuba, and lived in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Haiti until 1802. Tussac is noted

for one of the earliest floras of the Antilles, the four-volume Flora Antillarum; seu, Historia

generalis botanica, ruralis, oeconomica vegetabilium in Antilles indigenorum (Antillean flora, or

general botanical, rural, and econoic history of the native vegetation of the Antilles, 1808–27).

Methodologically influenced by Linnaeus (Carl von Linné, 1707–1787) and Antoine Laurent de

Jussieu (1748–1836; see also annotation on Desfontaines), Tussac’s Flora marks the beginning of modern botanical study of the Antilles. It was unmatched for decades until the 1896 publication of Flore Phanérogamique des Antilles françaises (Phanerogamic flora of the French

Antilles) by Antoine Duss (1840–1924). Perhaps surprisingly, Flora also includes an account of

Toussaint l‘Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution. In 1816, Tussac accepted a position as director of the Jardin Botanique d'Angers in the Loire region of France, which he would hold for ten years. His book Cri des Colons (Cry of the colonizers, 1810) is largely an anti-reformist polemic opposing legal rights for Antillean Blacks.

II.397n. In 1637, German naturalist Georg MARGGRAF (also Markgraf or Marcgrave, 1610–

1644) was appointed astronomer of a company formed to sail to the Dutch colony in northeastern

Brazil. This was the first scientific expedition to the colony that had existed for thirty years

322

(1624–54). The zoological, botanical, and astronomical expedition was sponsored by Count

Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen (1604–1679), governor of the Dutch possessions in Brazil.

Marggraf was accompanied by Dutch physician and naturalist Willem PISO (also Guilherme

Piso, 1611–1678), who was van Naussau-Siegen’s personal physician and also served as the

expedition doctor. Arriving in Brazil in early 1638, they traveled from the Rio Grande to south of

Pernambuco to study its natural history and geography as they accompanied the governor on his military missions. On his later exploratory visit to Angola, Marggraf succumbed to fever in

1644. Four years later, the Dutch geographer Joannes de Laet (1589–1649), who came into possession of Marggraf’s notes after Johan Maurits brought them to Europe, edited and published them, together with Piso’s own work on medicine, under the title Historia naturalis

Brasiliae. In addition to his work on astronomy—Marggraf had an observatory in Recife—he made signature contributions to zoology and botany. Much of his work, especially his notes on astronomy, remains lost. Piso, who returned to Holland to become one of the founders of tropical medicine, was later accused of attempting, in subsequent publications such as the second edition of the Historia published under his name, to downplay Marggraf’s accomplishments, which include the large map published in 1647 by the Dutch polymath Caspar Barlaeus (1584–1648) and attributed to Marggraf.

II.397n. Scottish botanist ROBERT BROWN (1773–1858) was part of a British expedition under

the command of Matthew Flinders (1774–1814) along the northern and southern coasts of

Australia from 1801 to 1805. In 1810, Brown took charge of Joseph Banks’s library, which he

inherited after Banks’s death. Brown donated the library to the British Museum when he became

Keeper of Botany there. Humboldt esteemed Brown, whom he had met in Paris in 1816, so

highly that he procured an annual pension for him through Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850).

323

II.397n. A Scottish Orientalist employed by the East India Company, John CRAWFURD (1783–

1868) successfully combined scholarship with diplomacy. Having received his medical education in Edinburgh, Crawfurd, aged twenty, was appointed to the northwestern provinces of

India. He held various posts in Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. After the first Anglo-

Burmese war, he served as the first Briton at the court of Ava in 1827. Crawfurd retired to

England in the 1830s and unsuccessfully tried for Parliament. He published a number of books based on his far-ranging experiences, including a three-volume History of the Indian

Archipelago (1820); Humboldt quotes from it. Crawfurd’s Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian

Islands and Adjacent Countries (1856) remains an important contribution to the study of early nineteenth-century maritime Southeast Asia.

II.397n. The Scottish botanist and physician (c. 1751–1815) studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. In his late teens, he was appointed surgeon’s mate and sailed twice to the East, eventually settling in Madras. He started submitting papers on natural history to the Royal Society and sometimes also sent seeds. In 1781, he moved to Samulcottah where, among other things, he occupied himself with improving the manufacture of sugar, writing several papers on the Hindu method of cultivating the sugarcane. In 1793, he was appointed superintendent of the new Botanical Garden in Calcutta.

II.397n. Auguste-Nicaise DESVAUX (1784–1856) started out as the director of the Botanical

Garden of Poitier and regularly went to Angers to listen to François Richard de Tussac’s lectures on botany. Tussac was then the head of the Angers Botanical Garden, a position in which Desvaux succeeded him in 1826. Desvaux wrote and published on botany, zoology, mineralogy, and related subjects. His scholarly output was extensive, but he seems not to have

324

been admired for his precision. In 1808, he was a vocal part of group of French naturalists

responsible for founding the first journal of botany in France five years later, in 1813. For

reasons that remain unclear, the broadly conceived Journal de Botanique was short-lived.

II.397n. Inspired by Humboldt, the chemist and mineralogist Alexander CALDCLEUGH (d. 1858)

served as a private secretary to a British diplomat in Rio de Janeiro and traveled extensively in

Brazil, Chile, and parts of present-day Argentina.

II.397n. British surgeon WHITELAW AINSLIE (1767–1837) is best known for his work in India, where he went in the service of the British East India Company in 1788. He remained in India until 1815. His 1803 Materia Medica of Hindoostan, and Artisan’s and Agriculturist’s

Nomenclature includes a list of edible fruits and vegetables.

II.399. Natural historian Gonzalo Fernández de OVIEDO y Valdés (1478–1557) became the official chronicler for Charles V in 1532. Oviedo had crossed the Atlantic for the first time in

1514 as part of an expedition to the Isthmus of Darien. He lived in America for most of his life,

serving the Crown as inspector of gold mines in Tierra Firme, governor of Cartagena, and

councilman in perpetuity and governor of Santo Domingo on Hispaniola. The firsthand accounts

of Central America’s flora, fauna, and peoples in his Sumario de la natural historia de las Indias

(Summary of the natural history of the Indies, 1526) became the basis for his seminal Historia

General y Natural de las Indias (General and natural history of the Indies, 1535). One of the

most important chroniclers of the region, Oviedo also wrote the unpublished Libro de blasón (c.

1528), a chivalric novel best known as Don Claribalte (1519), and Quinquagenas de la nobleza

de España (1880), in addition to poetry and other literary works.

325

II.401. Giorgio GALLESIO (1772–1839) was an Italian botanist who, although trained in law at

the University of Pavia in Italy, had a passion for pomology. He published several books on the

topic, including Teoria della Riproduzione Vegetale (Theory of plant reproduction, 1816) and his famous Pomona Italiana ossia trattato degli alberi fruttiferi (1817–39), an important collection of images and description of fruits and fruit trees from Italy. The Gallesia, a flowery plant species, is named after him.

II.401. British military physician and naturalist William WRIGHT (1735–1819) began his medical

career in the Navy in 1758 as a surgeon’s second mate. In 1760, he sailed to the West Indies and

remained there until 1763. After obtaining a medical degree in England, he moved to Jamaica in

1764 and established himself there as a physician until 1777. The surgeon-general of Jamaica

since 1774, Wright became a collector of Jamaican plants for the natural history museum of the

University of Edinburgh. In 1778, during a visit to England, he was elected a fellow of the Royal

Society of London. Returning to Jamaica for three years (1782–85), he continued collecting

plants for Joseph Banks. After selling his properties in Jamaica, Wright settled at Edinburgh temporarily. From 1796 to 1798, he was the physician to the army and director of military hospitals in Barbados. A supporter of slavery, Wright was a member of the Royal Society of

Edinburgh, the Society of Natural History of Edinburgh, the Royal Physical Society of

Edinburgh, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and the Royal Medical Society.

II.401. Swedish botanist Pehr LÖFLING (1729–56) was one of the apostles of (Carl

von Linné, 1707–1787) who was responsible for carrying the intellectual seeds of Linnaean

taxonomy across the world. When King Ferdinand VI (1713–1759) asked Linné either to travel

to Spain or to send one of his students instead, Linné selected Löfling. The latter remained in

326

Spain from 1751 to 1754, collecting samples of Spanish flora that he sent to Linné at Uppsala. In

Spain, José de Carvajal y Lancáster (1698–1754), secretary of foreign affairs, invited Löfling to

join what became known as the Expedition to the Limits of the Orinoco (1754–61). The purpose

of this journey was to establish the borders with the Portuguese possessions in South America

and thus to comply with the terms of the border treaty from 1750. Löfling accepted and thus

became the King’s Botanist. He was to study plants, particularly cinnamon, and collected

botanical and zoological species. With the material he gathered in and around Cumaná, he wrote

two manuscripts that are now housed at the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid: “Primer Borrador

de la Flora Cumanensis” y “Flora Cumanensis.” They are basis for the Iter Hispanicum, edited

posthumously by Linné. In the spring of 1755, Löfling went to Guayana on another botanical

mission. It was during this overland voyage that he contracted the yellow fever of which he died.

II.402. Humboldt refers to Amerigo Vespucci’s letter from September 1504, addressed to a

“Magnificent Lord” who was probably Piero Soderini (1450–1522), a Florentine statesman. A

copy of this letter in a French translation was sent to Renee II, DUKE OF LORRAINE (1451–1508).

II.404n. French pharmacist, botanist, and explorer Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée-AUBLET

(1720–78) laid the foundations of tropical American forest botany, and his work has caught the

attention of many twentieth-century ethnobotanists. In 1752, the French East India Company sent

him to Mauritius (then l’Île de France) where he was to establish a pharmacy and a botanical

garden. He returned to Paris in 1762 after freeing all of his slaves and marrying an African

woman originally from Madagascar, with whom he had a son. That same year, Fusée-Aublet was dispatched to Cayenne in French Guiana, where he stayed for three years and assembled an enormous herbarium. This collection became the basis for his Histoire des plantes de la Guiane

327 françoise (History of the plants of French Guiana, 1775), which is notable not only for its many generic names but also for its specific nomenclature based on local vernacular. Fusée-Aublet had

Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748–1836) check his descriptions and engravings prior to publication. Reportedly, Sir Joseph Banks acquired Fusée-Aublet’s herbarium, which consisted of plants and seeds from all over the world by the time the latter died. Parts of it ended up in the

British Museum and the French National Museum of Natural History.

II.408. The private physician of Philip II of Spain, Francisco HERNÁNDEZ de Toledo (c. 1515–

87) was also a renowned Spanish naturalist. In 1570, Hernández was appointed chief medical officer of the Indies and arrived in New Spain a year later, charged with researching indigenous flora and fauna. He used the opportunity to interview Nahua intellectuals who knew Latin. In

1577, Hernández returned to Spain, preparing eleven volumes with illustrations of 3,000 collected specimens. The work was written in Latin and struck Philip II as too philosophical.

Nardo Antonio Recchi was asked to prepare a digest limited to useful medicinal plants. Recchi’s version was not published until several decades later. Hernández began a Spanish translation and also ordered a Nahuatl version of his work. One of the two original manuscripts, Hernández’s corrected draft, is divided between the Museum of Natural Sciences and the General Archive of the Ministerio de Hacienda in Madrid. His final report to the king was housed at the Escorial and destroyed during a 1671 fire. The Spanish Jesuit Juan Eusebius Nieremberg (1595–1658), who taught physiology at the Royal Academy in Madrid, based his Historia naturae (1635) on

Hernández’s original works, including the lost Escorial manuscript. Hernández also translated into Spanish and annotated Pliny the Elder’s Historia Naturali.

328

II.415. Although Antoine-Augustin PARMENTIER (1737–1813), a French pharmacist with strong

interests in nutrition and agronomy, is best known as the father of the potato, he also wrote about

other nutritive plants, including grains, beets, and corn. As a nutritional reformer, he was most

interested in the potato, unknown as a respectable food for humans in France, as an alternative to

corn, especially in times of drought. Parmentier’s interest in potatoes apparently stemmed from

his imprisonment in Prussia during the Seven-Year War (1756–1763)—he served as a military

apothecary at the time—and was forced to subsist exclusively on potatoes. Upon his return to

France, Parmentier gained the patronage of Louis XVI (1754–93) and was able to conduct a wide

range of experiments with foodstuffs. In addition to founding a school for bakery, Parmentier

became an expert on public health matters, including vaccinations. He became a member of the

French Academy of Sciences in 1795.

II.420n. German historian Arnold Hermann Ludwig HEEREN (1760–1842) was an alumnus of the

Georg-August-University in Göttingen, where he began studying theology, philosophy, and

history in 1779. He became an adjunct professor there in 1784. That same year, in preparation

for his edition of Johannes Stobaios’s Eclogae physicae et ethicae (fifth century), he traveled to

Italy, France, and Holland. Upon his return to Göttingen three years later, he was appointed professor of philosophy and, in 1799, professor of history. His first and most influential historical work, Ideen über die Politik, den Verkehr und den der vornehmsten Völker der alten Welt (Ideas about politics, intercourse, and trade among the most distinguished peoples of the ancient world) appeared between 1793 and 1796. (It is likely that this is Humboldt’s source

here, but Heeren also wrote about Africa elsewhere.) In Ideen, Heeren, inspired by

(1689–1755) and (1723–90), explored the relations between economics and politics. As an empiricist, Heeren was most fascinated by actual life conditions, the details of

329

commerce, and the reconstruction of ancient trade routes. In 1809, he published Geschichte des

europäischen Staatensystems und seiner Kolonien (History of the European states and their colonies), followed by his Handbuch der Geschichte der Staaten des Alterthums (Historical handbook of states of antiquity) in 1810. Most of Heeren’s books went through several editions and were widely translated.

II.421. Humboldt first mentioned the Franciscan Father Jodoco RIXI in Views of Nature (see p.

149 and pp. 143–44 in the English edition).

II.422. A Greek physician in the service of Roman emperors Claudis and Nero, Pedanius

DIOSCORIDES (first century) was the most famous pharmacologist of European Antiquity. Born

in Anatolia and trained in Tarsus in south-central Turkey, then the most significant center of

botanical–pharmacological research in the , Dioscorides wrote his main work, (About natural remedies) from his perspective of someone who practiced autopsies and by consulting scores of older writings in Greek. Comprised of five detailed volumes, De materia medica is the earliest known pharmacopia of its realm.

II.422. Born in what is now Spain, Lucius Iunius Moderatus COLUMELLA (fl. 50) was a Roman soldier turned farmer in Italy. The owner of several estates near Rome, Columella wrote one of the most systematic agricultural manuals to survive from his time. Written around 60–65 in twelve books, De re rustica (On agriculture) advocated a particular type of agricultural management: slave-staffed estates characterized by capital investment, close supervision by the owner, and integration of arable and animal husbandry. Another one of his extant works is a book on trees, Liber de arboribus, which was probably part of a shorter manual on agriculture.

330

His works criticizing astrologers and treatises on religion in the context of agriculture did not

survive.

II.422n. After having studied under (c. 428–347 BCE) at the Academy at Athens, Tyrtamus

of Eresus, better known as (c. 370–c. 287 BCE), replaced (384–322

BCE) as the head of the Lyceum at Athens in 323 BCE. Diogenes Laёrtius, Theophrastus’s

biographer, attributes to him 227 treatises on diverse subjects, ranging from biology and

geognosy to ethics and metaphysics. His major botanical works, De historia plantarum (Of the

history of plants) and De causis plantarum (Of the causes of plants), offer the first systematic descriptions and categorizations of the plant parts. They earned Theophrastus his reputation as the father of scientific botany.

II.431. Jacques NECKER (1732–1804) from Geneva was a banker who served as the general

director of finance under King Louis XVI of France (1754–93) between the 1770s and 1790 (he

had moved to Paris in 1750). His daughter was Madame de Staël (1766–1817). Both returned to

Switzerland in 1790 during the French Revolution.

II.437. French physician and economist François QUESNAY (1694–1774) is known for the

analytical approach to economics in his Tableau économique (Economic tableau) from 1758.

This tableau has been called the manifesto of the Physiocrats, who believed that an economy’s

power resides in its agricultural sector. Already in 1767, Quesnay’s book had disappeared from

circulation. But the substance of it has been preserved in Ami des homes, ou Traité de la

population (Friend of humankind, or treatise on population, 1756–58) by the elder Mirabeau

(1715–1789) and in La Physiocratie (Physiocracy, 1767) by Pierre Samuel du Pont de

Nemours. Quesnay’s work paved the way for classical economics and the concept of political

331

economy, particularly for Adam Smith (1723–1790) who adopted Physiocratic notions of free trade and the preeminence of agricultural production.

II.439n. Count Gilbert Joseph Gaspard de CHABROL de Volvic (1773–1843) was a French

military engineer educated at the École Polytechnique in Paris. A senior official under

Napoleon, he joined the expedition to Egypt as a scientist. As prefect of the Seine Department

and chief administrator of Paris (1812–1830), Chabrol de Volvic produced the Recherches

statistiques sur la ville de Paris et le département de la Seine in collaboration with Jean-

Baptiste-Joseph (1768–1830). Four large volumes published in 1821, 1823, 1826, and

1829, the Recherches was the first collection of demographic, economic, and meteorological

statistics on Paris. One of the landmark accomplishments in the field of urbanism, it was the

most significant source of raw population data in France in early nineteenth century.

II.441. The journal La Feuille du Cultivateur (1790–1798) began in 1772 as the short-lived

Tableau annuel des progrès de la physique, de l'histoire naturelle et des arts launched by the

French jurist, writer, and agronomist Jean-Baptiste DUBOIS DE JANCIGNY (1752–1808). Educated

in Dijon, Paris, and Warsaw, Dubois de Jancigny, who was a member of the Prussian Academy

of Sciences and the French Agricultural Commission, wrote not only about agriculture, trade,

and political economy in Poland and France, but he also authored the Essai sur l'histoire

littéraire de Pologne (Essay on the literary history of Poland, 1778), among other humanistic

works.

II.441. One of Dubois de Jancigny’s coeditors during the French Revolution was the Abbot Jean-

Laurent LEFEBVRE, procurator-general of the Order of Sainte-Geneviève and a member of the

Paris Agricultural Society since 1786 together with Parmentier and Lavoisier. Lefebvre’s most

332

important works were Mémoire sur la création d’une ferme expérimentale (Report on the

creation of an experimental farm) and Réflexions générales sur l’éducation des vers à soie

(General reflections on raising silkworms), both published in 1793.

II.443. Friedrich RÜHS (1781–1820) was a German historian known for his work on

Scandinavian and Germanic history and mythology. A student of Arnold Heeren’s at

Göttingen—where he wrote a dissertation on the history of ancient Scandinavia—Rühs

published a history of Finland (1809) and edited the volume on Sweden that was part of Anton

Büsching’s Neue Erdbeschreibung. Rühs also published writings on Islandic poetry and the

Middle Ages. His major work is a five-volume Geschichte Schwedens (History of Sweden,

1803–14). In 1810, he was appointed to a professorship at the University of Berlin. Rühs’s later

polemics against the French and Jews, though not entirely unusual for his time, harmed his

academic reputation.

II.443. Humboldt’s Mr. SWARTNER is Martin von Schwartner (also Márton Schwartner, 1759–

1823), a historian who studied at the University of Göttingen and became known for his

historical and statistic work on Hungary. Initially interested in diplomacy and genealogy,

Schwartner later turned to statistics. In his Statistik des Königreichs Ungarn (Statistic of the

kingdom of Hungary, 1798), he assembled demographic and economic data about Hungary.

II.443. Spanish military engineer, cartographer, explorer, and naturalist FELIX DE AZARA (1746–

1821) was trained in the Military Academy of Barcelona from 1764 to 1767. Admitted to the

Royal Corps of Engineers, Azara was appointed draftsman in 1767. After serving in Barcelona

(1767), Algiers (1775), Girona (1778–79), and Gipuzkoa (1780), he was appointed part of a team

meant to study the territorial boundary between Spanish and Portuguese in South America on the

333

basis of the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1777). During the twenty years he spent in South America,

Azara drew a map of the border regions with Brazil. In addition, he greatly contributed to science

by describing about 450 species, most of them not known to Europeans. From his notes and

travel journals, Azara published major works on natural history, which were among the earliest

and most important accounts of the fauna of South America. His first book on natural history

appeared as Essais sur l’lhistoire nauturelle des quadrupeds de la Province du Paraguay (1801), which Médéric Louis Élie Moreau-Saint-Méry (1750–1819) published in French from Azara’s correspondence with his brother, José Nicolás de Azara (1730–1804), Spanish ambassador in

Paris. In addition to cartographical and historical works, Azara also published Apuntamientos para la historia natural de los páxaros del Paraguay y Rio de la Plata (Notes toward a natural history of the birds of Paraguay and Río de la Plata, 1802–05). Humboldt cites Azara’s Voyages dans l’Amérique méridionale, depuis 1781 jusque en 1801 (1809). Azara’s works on natural history also influenced other scientists, including Charles Darwin (1809–82).

II.447n. Venetian-born Vincenzo, Count DANDOLO (1758–1819) initially studied medicine at the

University of Padua but his intellectual passions quickly turned to chemistry and later to

agronomy. Dandolo published many treatises on chemistry, agriculture, viticulture, and animal

husbandry in Italian; he even wrote about silkworms (The Art of Rearing Silkworms). He also

translated into Italian major French works on chemistry, notably Antoine Lavoisier’s Elements

of Chemistry (Trattato Elementare di Chimicain, 1792). Dandolo became a corresponding

member of the Academy of Sciences in Turin in 1795. In 1805, Napoleon appointed him

governor of , a position in which Dandolo distinguished himself through his efforts to

eliminate poverty and introduce better agricultural practices to the area. He did not return to

Venice until 1809, when Dalmatia was reconquered by Austria.

334

II.447n. Diplomat Albert GALLATIN (1761–1849) was the fourth Secretary of the USAmerican

Treasury and Representative and Senator-elect from Pennsylvania. He was born in Geneva,

Switzerland, graduated from the University of Geneva in 1779, and promptly ran away to

Boston. Having served in the revolutionary army, he became an instructor of French at Harvard in 1782 but moved to Virginia three years later. Gallatin was elected to the USAmerican Senate and took the oath of office in 1793, but a petition was filed claiming that he did not meet the citizenship requirement. Early in 1794, the Senate declared his election void. Gallatin served in

Congress from 1795 to 1801, when he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President

Thomas Jefferson. Reappointed under James Madison (1751–1836), Gallatin served until 1814,

moving on to negotiate the Treaty of Ghent. From 1815 to 1823, he served as USAmerican

special envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary to France, and from 1826 to 1827 as Minister

Plenipotentiary to Great Britain. Upon his return, he became president of the National Bank of

New York. Humboldt owned some of his later works. His reference to Gallatin, however,

appears to be based on the fairly extensive correspondence they had rather than on publications.

II.448. Dutch surgeon Isaac TITZING (also Titsingh, 1745–1812) was a merchant with the Dutch

East India Company (VOC) who was best known for his work on Japan. During his thirty-four-

year career with the VOC, which began in 1765 when he sailed to Batavia (today Jakarta,

Indonesia), Titzing held various positions and ultimately became a chief factor. After Batavia,

Titzing served the VOC as chief factor in Japan for the better part of five years, off and on from

1779 to 1784. Japan’s isolationist policy enhanced the singular importance of the VOC’s head

there during this period. The VOC’s Dutchmen were the sole official conduit for trade and for

scientific–cultural exchanges. Titzing’s ambitions were not just financial; they were also

scholarly. A well-educated man, he held doctorates in medicine and law from the University of

335

Leiden. During his time in Japan, he hatched the idea of a compendium in which Japan sources

in his translation would represent Japanese history and customs from the beginnings of recorded

time to the present. His intent was to publish this work simultaneously in Dutch, French, and

English. But once away from Japan and back in Europe in 1796, after assignments in Bengal

(1785–92) and China (1795–96), Titzing was unable to complete his project. Nothing had been

published by the time of his death, and two of his friends, the sinologist Jean-Pierre

Rémusat (1788–1832) and Heinrich Julius von Klaproth, were left to sort through his papers.

The result was their 1820 edition titled Mémoires y anecdotes sur la dynasty régnante djogoun

(Reports and anecdotes on the ruling dynasty of shoguns). Other publications from Titzing’s

papers followed, in French and eventually in Dutch. His library and also his collection of cultural

and scientific materials were dispersed widely. Some of them became part of the collections of

the Collège de France, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the British Museum, Kyoto University

Library, and the University of Leiden.

II.451n. French botanist Charles-François Brisseau de MIRBEL (1776–1854) was mainly

interested in studying plants’ physiological–anatomical properties. The author of Traité

d'anatomie et de physiologie végétale (Treatise on plant anatomy and physiology, 1801), he was

the founder of the science of plant cytology (or cell biology). In 1808, Brisseau de Mirbel was elected to the French Academy of Sciences and appointed chair of the botany department at the

Sorbonne. He had previously been superintendent of the gardens of Empress Josephine at

Malmaison. After Napoleon’s fall, Mirbel became head of the Botanical Garden in Paris. In

1837, the Royal Society of London elected him as a corresponding member.

336

II.453n. Swedish naturalist (1743–1828) studied botany under Carl von

Linné (1707–87) at the University of Uppsala, where he developed a fascination with Japan, a country that was then closed to most Western explorers and missionaries. Only the Dutch East

India Company (VOC) was allowed a trading station. In late 1771, Thunberg made arrangements with the VOC to set out for the Cape of Good Hope, where he lived among Dutch settlers to learn their language and customs so that he could pass for a Dutchman. In 1775, Thunberg finally embarked for Batavia (Java, Indonesia), from where he went on to Japan, following in the footsteps of Engelbert Kaempfer. Like all foreigners, Thunberg was detained on tiny Deshima

Island near Nagasaki. Establishing cordial relations with the Japanese interpreters, with whom he exchanged medical and botanical information, Thunberg was eventually permitted to set foot in

Nagasaki and subsequently traveled as far as Edo (Tokyo). In 1778, he returned to Sweden via

Denmark and England where he met Joseph Banks. In 1784, Thunberg succeeded to the chair

that his teacher Linné had once occupied at Uppsala.

II.454. Jesuit missionary and scientist Antoine GAUBIL (1689–1759) left for China in 1721. He

arrived in Beijing in 1723 and remained there until his death. After having studied astronomy

and mathematics at different institutions, including the Royal College of La Flèche and the

Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris, Gaubil was ordained in the Society of Jesus in 1718 and

dispatched to China to serve as a mathematician there three years later. His arrival coincided

with the rise of power of Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–35). Because of Gaubil’s linguistic

talents, the emperor named him official interpreter of the court (1725). In 1729, Gaubil served as

a professor of the newly established Latin School (which survived until 1744). Gaubil greatly

contributed to making the history of China known in Europe, especially with his of Shujing

(Book of history) published as Le Chou king, un des livres sacrés des Chinois (The Shujing: One

337

of the sacred texts of the Chinese, 1770) by Joseph de Guignes. Gaubil’s copious correspondence from Beijing made him a vital member of the academies of sciences in Paris,

London, and St. Petersburg. Among his many works on Chinese dynastic history, philosophy, literature, astronomy, and religion, he authored Abrégé de l’histoire chinoise de la grande dynastie des T’ang (1814).

II.455. SIR (c. 1552–1618) was many things: courtier, poet, spy, and explorer.

Humboldt’s reference here is to Raleigh’s 1584 plan to establish a colony at Roanoke Island in which is now South Carolina, which ended in failure the first time. Raleigh’s second attempt

three years later proved more successful.

II.457. Sir Joseph BANKS (1743–1820) was a famous British explorer and naturalist. Having

inherited a considerable fortune in 1761, Banks traveled extensively in Newfoundland and

Labrador (1766) as well as in Iceland (1772), collecting plants and other specimens. He also accompanied Captain James Cook on his first voyage around the world (1768–71), notably to the “South Sea Paradise” of Tahiti, where the crew of the Endeavor stayed for three months, and

on to New Zealand and Australia. As long-time president of the Royal Society, Banks vigorously

promoted science, making his own residence a meeting place for the exchange of ideas. His

herbarium and library are now part of the British Museum. Humboldt met Banks in London

through his friend Georg Forster, who had been part of Cook’s second journey (1772–75)

before becoming a leader of the German . Banks gave Humboldt the use of his extensive

private library, and the two men stayed in touch until the former’s death.

II.457. When he was crowned the ninth Sapa Inca, Titu-MANCO-CAPAC, or Inca Cusi Yupanqui

(also Inca Yupanqui), took the name Pachacutec (or Pachacuti). The creator of the

338

Tahuantinsuyu Empire (known as the ), Pachacutec became ruler due to his victory

over the Chanca people in 1438; he led the empire for about thirty-three years, until 1471. After

conquering the neighboring states, Pachacutec turned over the command of the imperial armies

to his son, Topa Inca (aka Tupac Yupanqui, r. 1471–93), and retired to Cusco, which he rebuilt and turned into the empire’s political capital. In Cusco, which then housed only royalty, nobility, and religious monuments, Pachacutec ordered the construction of the Quri Kancha (or

Coricancha, “enclosure of gold”), the Temple of the Sun that became the central sanctuary of the

Inca Empire.

II.457n. German botanist and explorer Friedrich August Freiherr MARSCHALL VON BIEBERSTEIN

(1768–1826) was the first to offer a systematic account of the flora of the Caucasus and the

Crimea. His scientific career began in 1792 when he joined the Russian military in the Crimea

after having receiving military training in his hometown of Stuttgart. The different administrative

positions he filled gave him enough time to pursue his taxonomic studies. As a result of his work

in the Crimea, he published the Tableau des provinces situées sur la côte occidentale de la mer

Caspienne entre les fleuves Terek et Cour (Portrait of the provinces situated at the western edge

of the between the Terek and Kura Rivers, 1798), a major work that was translated into German, with added material, in 1790. Von Bieberstein also made several trips to the

Caucasus, which resulted in his famous Flora taurico-caucasica (1808–19). In addition to descriptions of flora and fauna, this book includes information about topography, history, economics, and population. After von Bieberstein’s death, the St. Petersburg Academy of

Sciences purchased his herbarium, which consisted of nearly 10,000 plant specimens. The collection is now housed at the Botanical Institute in Komarov.

339

II.460–61. Like Humboldt, an alumnus of the University of Göttingen, Johann BECKMANN

(1739–1811) was appointed adjunct professor of philosophy at that university in 1766. Educated

in theology, mathematics, physics, natural history, and public finance and administration,

Beckmann lectured on political and domestic economy, and, two years later, founded a botanic

garden based on the principles of Linnaeus (1707–78). He had met Carl von Linné during his earlier travels in Sweden and Denmark. After being promoted to a full professorship at Göttingen in 1770, Beckmann was also elected a member of the Royal Society of Göttingen, to which he contributed valuable scientific writings until 1783. Among the other scientific societies of which he was also a member are Amsterdam, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, and the Royal Swedish

Academy of Sciences.

II.460-61. Swedish botanist Jonas Carlsson DRYANDER (1748–1810) was a pupil of Carl von

Linné (1707–78) at Uppsala University. Following the death of in 1782,

Dryander became botanist–librarian to Sir Joseph Banks, librarian of the Royal Society, and

vice president of the Linnean Society in London. Dryander’s publications included Catalogus

bibliothecae historico-naturalis Joseph Banksi (Catalogue of the natural history library of Joseph

Banks, 1796–1800). In 1784, Dryander was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish

Academy of Sciences.

II.461. Upon graduating from Oxford in 1580, British astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer, and linguist THOMAS HARRIOT (c. 1560–1621) was hired by Sir Walter Raleigh as a

mathematics tutor and scientific advisor. Harriot made only one expedition, around 1585–86,

when he spent some time in Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina. During his stay, he

improved his understanding of the now-extinct Carolina Algonquian language, which he had

340

learned prior to the voyage through his contact with Manteo, a Croatan Indian, and Wanchese, the last known ruler of the Roanoke. Both were among the first Native Americans to visit

England. Harriot was also interested in optics and became the first to observe a celestial object through a telescope. In addition to having the observatory at the College of William and Mary named in his honor, the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, is also named after him. Harriot’s Brief and True Report of the

New Found Land of Virginia dates from 1588. He is sometimes credited with having introduced the potato to the British Isles, an honor that actually belonged to the slave trader John Hawkins.

II.461. British herbalist (also Gerarde, 1545–c. 1611) was notable both for his

herbal garden and his writings on botany. Working within the early wave of Renaissance natural

historians, he sought to systematize natural history while also retaining and building on the

works of the ancients. Gerard’s The Herball or Generall historie of plantes from 1597, for

instance, included Dioscorides’s Materia Medica.

II.461n. The four-month exploration of the North American coastline by Philip AMADAS (c.

1565–c. 1618) and Arthur BARLOWE (c. 1550–1620) was a key episode in the history of the

Americas. In the employ of Sir Walter Raleigh, Barlowe and Amadas each captained his own

flagship. Their instructions were to find a location suitable for a colony. On July 13, 1584, they

made landfall at Core Banks between Cape Lookout and Cape Hatteras. Amadas and Barlowe

explored and traded with the indigenous populations, then returned to England with the Native

American chiefs Manteo and Wanchese on board. Amadas and Barlowe’s narratives, which

Barlowe wrote in the form of a letter to Raleigh, were designed to promote Raleigh’s efforts to

entice settlers and backers. There are indications that Barlowe distorted the account of his

341

contact with the local Native Americans, depicting a near-idyllic people ready to welcome and trade with English and colonists. See also Harriot, Thomas; Raleigh, Walter.

II.464n. A second cousin of Sir Francis Drake’s, JOHN HAWKINS (or Hawkyns, 1532–95) of

Plymouth, England, was a naval hero, a freebooter, and a slave trader in the service of Queen

Elizabeth I (1533–1603). Often considered a pioneer of the British slave trade, he formed a

syndicate of wealthy merchants to invest in the trade. The voyages he made between 1555 and

1569 initiated the triangular Black Atlantic trade, with a profit at every stop. Hawkins wrote

about the details of this trade in An Alliance to Raid for Slaves (1568). In 2006, his descendant

Andrew Hawkins publicly apologized for his ancestor’s role in the slave trade. Hawkins was also

the chief architect of the Elizabethan Navy. His improvements in ship construction and rigging

made the British ships fast and nimble, which, in no small measure, contributed to the defeat of

the in 1588. Hawkins served as vice admiral during that battle and received a

knighthood for his exploits. In 1595, he accompanied Drake on a voyage to the West Indies,

during which both men fell ill and died. Some have suggested that Hawkins was the one who

introduced tobacco to Britain. See also Harriot, Thomas.

II.464n. German philologist and theologian Karl Wilhelm Ernst PUTSCHE (1765–1834) was a

preacher in Wenigen-Jena. In 1815, he was awarded a doctorate from the and

was invited to teach there two years later. In addition to his academic lecturing, he was also a

farmer and beekeeper. He also edited and published an agricultural monthly—Allgemeine

Encyklopädie der gesammten Land- und Hauswirthschaft der Deutschen, mit gehöriger

Berücksichtigung der dahin einschlagenden Natur- und andern Wissenschaften (General

encyclopedia of the entire agricultural and domestic economies of the German, with proper

342

consideration of relevant natural and other sciences, 1827–31)—and published the first

expansive German treatise on the potato in 1819. See also Bertuch.

II.464. Educated at the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow and at Trinity College, Oxford,

Scottish politician Sir JOHN SINCLAIR (1754–1835) wrote extensively on finance and agriculture.

He was the first person to use the word statistics in the English language, in his twenty-one- volume pioneering work, Statistical Account of Scotland (1791). Sinclair was instrumental in the creation of the Board of Agriculture in Edinburgh, of which he was the first president. A member

of most of the continental agricultural societies, a fellow of the Royal Society of London and the

Royal Society of Edinburgh, as well as of the Antiquarian Society of London, he was elected a

foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1796.

II.464n. British astronomer EDWARD SABINE (1788–1883) experimented with determining the

shape of the Earth and studied the planet’s . As the astronomer of the expeditions

of Sir John Ross (1818, 1777–1856) and Sir William Edward Parry (1819) in search of the

Northwest Passage, Sabine carried out pendulum measurements in the Arctic. His wife,

Elizabeth Sabine (1807–79), translated Humboldt’s Cosmos and other works into English.

II.465. William BECKFORD (1744–99) was a Jamaican sugar planter, an Oxford-educated

historian, and a patron of the arts. In 1756, Beckford inherited considerable estates in Britain and

in Jamaica, including 910 slaves. Among his published works is Descriptive Account of the

Island of Jamaica (1790), in which he defends the slave trade but urges amelioration. Beckford

came from an influential and illustrious family: his uncle, William Beckford (bap. 1709–70), was

lord mayor of London.

343

II.465n. The Pennsylvania Quaker William BALDWIN (1779–1819) was a physician who made

significant contributions to botany. Baldwin served as a ship’s surgeon on two voyages overseas,

one to China during his youth, the other to South America. From 1817–18, he served on

President James Monroe’s (1748–1831) South American Commission. The Delawarian Caesar

Augustus Rodney (1772–1824) and the Virginians John Graham (1774–1820) and Theodorick

Bland (1776–1846) were the commissioners for this special diplomatic mission to South

America, and Baldwin was selected as a botanical investigator as well as the ship’s surgeon on

the USS Congress. During its voyage, the vessel stopped at Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Buenos

Aires (where Baldwin met Aimé Bonpland), Maldonado, San Salvador, Brazil, and Margarita

Island, Venezuela, giving Baldwin ample opportunity to collect plants that he would press and

dry for later study. While he published only two scientific papers, his major contributions were

the knowledge he shared with other botanists in his letters and through the thousands of

specimens that he provided for their herbaria. After Baldwin’s untimely death during an

expedition up the Missouri River, his collection became part of the herbarium of William

Darlington (1782–1863), who also gathered all of his friend’s writings into the Reliquiae

Baldwinianae (1843).

II.465n. Michel Félix DUNAL (1789–1856) held the chair of medical natural history at

Montpelier, France, from 1816 to 1819. He is especially known for his work on the genus

Solanum, a large and diverse genus of flowering plants that includes the potato and the tomato.

II.465n. A lieutenant in the First West York Militia, JOHN (b. 1770) received an

appointment as assistant surgeon in in 1802. A few years later, he left Sydney,

having been sentenced and suspended from duty for refusing to attend to the wife of a settler in

344

her childbirth. Although the sentence was set aside in England, Savage did not return to Australia

but signed on with the East India Company. He took up his duties as assistant surgeon in Bengal

in 1808 and was promoted in 1823. The year 1835 found him back in London in ill health and in

dire financial straits. Savage’s Some Account of New Zealand (1807), written and published

during his earlier time in London, was the first work that had been published on New Zealand

since James Cook’s account. Savage had collected material for his book when the Ferrett, the

ship on which he sailed back to England, had stopped over at New Zealand. On this return voyage, Savage also had a companion sail with him: the Maori Moehanga, who was the first native New Zealander to make a round trip to England.

II,467n. Spanish historian Antonio de Herrera y TORDESILLAS (1559-1625) served as Royal

Chronicler of the Indies under Philip II (1527-98) for almost thirty years, from 1596 to1625. In

his famous Historia General [General history] (1601-15), an apology for the Conquest also

known as Décadas, he rewrote the history of the Indies from published and un-published source.

Herrera y Tordesillas never traveled to the Americas.

II.467n. After having served in the Caribbean, India, and the Far East, Irish-born British naval officer and explorer James Hingston TUCKEY (1776–1816) was dispatched to Australia in 1802, a

journey he described in An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass’s

Strait on the south coast of New South Wales (1805). Captured by the French on the way home,

he was detained in France until the peace of 1814. Besides marrying a fellow-prisoner’s

daughter, Tuckey used his time to write a four-volume treatise on maritime geography, Maritime

Geography and Statistics (1815). In poor health, he died during an expedition to explore the

345

Congo River. The journals of his voyage, Narrative of an expedition to explore the river Zaire,

usually called the Congo, in South Africa, in 1816, were published posthumously in 1818.

II.468. Venetian explorer Alvise CADAMOSTO (also Ca’da Mosta, Cà da Mosto, or Cadamusto, c.

1432–1488) led a reconnaissance mission to the western coast of Africa for Portugal. Having entered the service of Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) in search of a sea route to India along the coast of Africa in 1454, Cadamosto made expeditions to explore then-uncharted territory for the Europeans in 1455 and 1456. He sailed to the River Gambia, discovered for the Europeans the Islands, then went south to the River Corubal and the River Géba. After his successful expeditions, Cadamosto became a trader in Portugal and then returned to Venice.

About his travels for Portugal, he wrote Navigazioni, a travel narrative that was widely reprinted and translated into Latin, German, French, and Spanish. Published posthumously, it was included in Paesi novamente retrovati et Novo Mondo da Alberico Vesputio Fiorentino intitulado (Newly discovered countries and New World of Alberico Vesputio Florentine, 1507), a collection of narratives of exploration compiled by Fracanzano da Montalboddo (fl. 1507–22).

II.468. Portuguese navigator and explorer Pedro ÁLVARES CABRAL (c. 1467–c. 1520) claimed

Brazil for Portugal in 1500. The commander of a thirteen-ship fleet on its way to India, he

strayed west and landed on the coast of Brazil. After claiming the land in the name of Portugal

and sending news to Lisbon, he sailed eastward to India. He was the second European to reach

Brazil, the first being Vicente Yáñez Pinzón.

II.469n. Flemish doctor and botanist Carolus CLUSIUS (also Charles de l'Écluse, 1526–1609) was one of the most influential scientific horticulturists of the Renaissance. He has been called the

father of descriptive botany. Unlike any other botanist of his time, Clusius knew many plants

346

from different regions of Europe. No one discovered and described as many new species as he

did. In 1564, Clusius accompanied the merchant Johann Jacob Fugger (1516–75) on a voyage to

the Iberian Peninsula where Clusius collected many plants, among them unknown types. From

1573 to 1576, Clusius was the botanist of Emperor Maximilian II (1527–76) in Vienna, under

whose auspices he became one of the first to study the flora of Austria. Clusius also encouraged

the dissemination of exotic plants such as the potato and the tulip. He published two major

original works: Rariorum aliquot stirpium per Hispanias observatarum historia (1576), one of

the earliest works on Spanish flora, and Rariorum stirpium per Pannonias observatorum

historiae (1583), the first book on Austrian and Hungarian alpine flora. In 1593, Clusius gained a

professorship at the University of Leiden. In that city, he helped create one of the earliest formal

botanical gardens in Europe, the Hortus Academicus. His collected and augmented works, to

which Humboldt refers here, were published in two parts: Rariorum plantarum historia (1601),

which includes his Spanish and Austrian flora and a pioneering study on mushrooms from

Central Europe; and Exoticorum libri decem (1605), a survey of unusual flora and fauna.

II.469n. WILLDENOW (1765–1812) classified many of the plants that Humboldt and

Aimé Bonpland had brought back from their journey and which Humboldt had sent his friend from Havana. Willdenow can be considered one of the most influential of Humboldt’s teachers, since he stimulated in Alexander the “infinite thirst for the examination of unknown objects” (as

Humboldt noted in 1801).

II. 470. Danish-Norwegian botanist and zoologist Martin Henrichsen VAHL (1749–1804) was a

student of Carl von Linné’s (1707–87) at the University of Uppsala from 1769 to 1777. From

1779 to 1782, Vahl lectured at the University of Copenhagen’s Botanical Garden and was

347

appointed professor at the Society for Natural History there four years later. In the intervening

period, Vahl made several research trips to France and North Africa. Among his works are

Symbolæ botanicæ (1790–94), Eclogæ Americanæ (1796–1807), and the posthumous

Enumeratio Plantarum (1805–07). Vahl was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish

Academy of Sciences in 1792 and became a full professor of botany at the University of

Copenhagen in 1801.

II.470. Like Vahl, the Swedish naturalist Daniel Carlsson SOLANDER (also Daniel Charles

Solander, 1733–82) was a disciple of Carl von Linné’s, whom he encountered at Uppsala in

1750. As a result of this encounter, Solander abandoned studying for the ministry and decided to

take up medicine instead. Linné was like a father for Solander and even entrusted him with the

editing of Elementa Botanica in 1756. Four years later, Solander relocated to England where,

with his mentor’s help, he became an assistant librarian at the British Museum in 1763. In this and his later position as Keeper of the Natural History Department (1773–82), Solander was able to promote the Linnean system of classification. In 1768, he entered the employ of Joseph

Banks to join him on James Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Solander helped collect

and describe an important herbarium of Australian plants that later formed the basis of Banks’s

Florilegium. Upon the expedition’s return in 1771, Solander became Banks’s secretary and

librarian and the following year traveled with him to Iceland, the Faroes, and the Orkney Islands.

Linné meanwhile was incensed that his disciple seemed to enjoy traveling and collecting more

than he did taxonomic work. Though accomplished in Swedish, Dutch, English, and Latin,

Solander published virtually nothing independently. His death prevented the publication of the

descriptions of the plants collected on the voyage of the Endeavour. Twenty volumes of his

manuscript are, however, preserved in the botanical department of the British Museum.

348

II.471. At the ripe old age of sixty-two, Dutch explorer Jacob ROGGEVEEN (1659–1729) set out

to find Terra Australis. In 1721, Roggeveen proposed to the Dutch West India Company (VOC),

which he had joined in 1706, an exploratory voyage to the unknown regions of the Pacific

Ocean. Once the trip was approved, Roggeveen and his brother, a merchant from their home

town Middleburg in Zeeland, first sailed down to the , passed through the Strait

of Le Maire, and continued south to enter the Pacific Ocean. The expedition eventually found

Easter Island in April 1722, although Roggeveen reportedly never set foot on the island he

named “Paasch Eylandt.” The three-ship expedition then sailed on to Batavia via the Tuamotu

Archipelago, the Society Islands, and Samoa. Roggeveen returned to Holland in 1723. More than a hundred years later, in 1836, a copy of Roggeveen’s lost journal, made by scribes of the VOC

scribes in Batavia, was found in the company’s archives in Middleburg. First published in 1838,

this journal offered the first authoritative account of the expedition, replacing the popular 1739

French translation of Karl Friedrich Behrens’s (1701–47) account from 1738. Three other

eighteenth-century expeditions—that of Spanish navigator Felipe González de Ahedo (1702–92)

in 1770, English circumnavigator James Cook in 1774, and French explorer Jean-François de

Galaup de La Pérouse in 1786—would encounter the enigmatic Easter Island.

II.472. José Francisco CORREIA DA SERRA (1750–1823), also known as Abbé Correa, was a

Portuguese polymath, botanist, naturalist, philosopher, and politician. He established his reputation primarily as a botanist and geologist and helped found the Academy of Sciences in

Lisbon, organizing programs and activities to promote scientific research and the publication of scientific texts. He was one of the first botanists to uphold the view that the classification of plants should be based on their similarities rather than their differences, introducing the concept of symmetry. He also favored that the methods in comparative zoology be extended to botany.

349

His writings were considered highly controversial, and they brought him into conflict with

Portugal’s religious and political elite. Because of these conflicts, Correia fled to London and

then to Paris, in 1786, where he first met Humboldt. Although he was of Portuguese descent,

Correia’s work was not recognized by the Portuguese scientific community. His European peers,

however, more readily accepted his findings. In 1779, Correia was appointed secretary to the

Portuguese embassy in London. In 1813, he left Europe for the Americas. He spent most of his time there in Monticello where, thanks in part to letters of introduction written by prominent thinkers such as Humboldt himself, he developed a close friendship with celebrated scientists and intellectuals, among them Thomas Jefferson. Correia was a member of many academies of

science in France and Italy as well as the American Philosophical Society.

II.472n. The author of Flora Cochinchinensis (1790), Portuguese missionary and natural scientist

João de LOUREIRO (1710–91) was one of the most important botanical collectors of the

eighteenth century. Loureiro lived in Asia for more than four decades. Traveling to the East in

1735, Loureiro was first stationed in Goa, Macao, and finally in Vietnam, then called

Cochinchina (1742–77). In Vietnam, he left the Society of Jesus to enter the service of the king

as mathematician and physician. Traveling to Bengal, Pondichery, and Macao, he continued his

botanical activities in Canton until 1781. Back in Portugal in 1782, he published the results of his

extensive botanical studies with the support of the Academy of Science in Lisbon. Written in

1788, Flora Cochinchinensis, Loureiro’s main work, contains the description of almost 1,300

species of Indo-Chinese fauna, more than half of which were new to Europeans. Several other

papers of his were published posthumously by the Portuguese Academy of Science.

350

II.473n. ARISTOBULUS of Cassandreia (c. 375–301 BCE) was a Greek historian who accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns.

II.478n. German Jesuit Athanasius KIRCHER (also Kirchner, 1602–80) published widely on all fields of seventeenth-century science and became one of the most renowned Baroque scholars. In

1629, he was appointed professor of mathematics, philosophy, and Oriental languages in

Würzburg. In Rome, he taught mathematics, Hebrew, and Syriac at the Jesuit’s Pontifical

Gregorian University and invented, among other things, one of the earliest calculating machines.

He also produced the first cartographical representations of the world’s ocean currents and the moon’s surface. Kircher had an early interest in China, telling his superior in 1629 that he wished to become a missionary there. In 1667, he published a treatise commonly known as China

Illustrata (China illustrated). It was a work of encyclopedic breadth, combining material of uneven quality, from accurate cartography to mythical elements. The work drew heavily on the reports of Jesuits working in China. China Illustrata emphasized the Christian elements of

Chinese history, both real and imagined. In addition to noting the early presence of Nestorian

Christians, Kircher also claimed that the Chinese were descended from the sons of Ham, that

Confucius was Trismegistus/Moses, and that the were abstracted hieroglyphs.

II.480. British naval officer and colonial administrator William BLIGH (1754–1814) made a remarkable open-boat voyage of about 3,500 miles to Timor (Indonesia) after a mutiny on his ship Bounty in 1789. Having entered the Navy in 1762, he was appointed to the Resolution during James Cook’s third voyage to the Pacific Ocean (1776–80). After advancing to lieutenant in 1781, Bligh served in the North Sea and the Mediterranean. Six years later, he was named

351

commander of the Bounty to transport breadfruit and other plants to the West Indies. His crew

famously mutinied off Tonga Island. Bligh served as governor of New South Wales in Australia

from 1806 to 1808. Before his death in London, he had reached the rank of vice-admiral.

II.480n. Like Humboldt himself, the German botanist Karl Sigismund KUNTH (1788–1850) was

a student of Willdenow’s. Kunth was Humboldt’s assistant in Paris from 1813 to 1819, where he classified the plants that Humboldt and Bonpland had collected during their journey across the

Americas.

II.482. Engelbert KÄMPFER (1651–1716) was a German physician in the employ of the Dutch

East India Company (VOC). One of the first to travel with scholarly ambitions, having studied available materials beforehand, Kämpfer had been to Iran in the 1680s and had also traveled to

Siam (Thailand). His account of Siam, A Description of the Kingdom of Siam (1690), is probably the most reliable one of his day. Kämpfer also visited Edo (Tokyo) twice, in 1691 and 1692. He

mentioned the Karatats-banna in his Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum

fasciculi V. (1712). See also Thunberg, Carl Peter.

II.488. French biologist Jean-Baptiste Antoine de , Chevalier de la Marck (also LAMARCK,

1744–1829), was an early proponent of the idea that evolution occurred and that it proceeded in

accordance with natural laws. Although he had initially studied medicine, Lamarck had a special

interest in botany, which he developed during his visits to the Jardin du Roi. He spent ten years

studying French flora under the famous Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748–1836). After publishing his three-volume Flore françoise (French flora, 1779), Lamarck gained membership of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1788, Lamarck was appointed professor of botany at the

Jardin du Roi, the name of which he changed in 1790, at the height of the French Revolution, to

352

the more appropriate Jardin des Plantes. When the French Museum of Natural History was

founded in 1793, Lamarck became a professor of zoology there, working alongside the

entomologist Pierre André Latreille, who would succeed him. Lamarck was among the most

prominent members of the French Academy of Sciences and one of the first modern naturalists

to use the term biology. In his (Zoological philosophy, 1809), he outlined

his theory of “transformism,” discussing the persistence of types as a process of improvement through modification and adaptation to the environment. Severely criticized in his day by rivals such as Georges Cuvier for its tendency to mix speculation with empirism, Lamarck’s

Philosophie zoologique, along with other groundbreaking works on botany and the zoology of invertebrates (a term he also coined), are now acknowledged as producing the evolutionary paradigm shift in modern biology decades before Charles Darwin’s

(1859). An October 1804 memoir written by Lamarck and the chemist Louis Bernard Guyton de

Morveau (1747–1816) only months after Humboldt’s return from the Americas shows that

Lamarck held the Prussian in high esteem. Humboldt presumably met Lamarck in Paris in 1798.

Volume 3

III.3. GONZALO DE VELOSA (also Vellosa) is often credited with being the founder of the

sugarcane industry in the Americas. In 1515, he was the owner of Hispaniola’s first trapiche—an

animal-powered sugarmill. From 1515 to 1516, with the help of brothers Francisco and Cristóbal

de Tapia, he set up the first American ingenio, a colonial sugarmill that ran on hydraulic power,

in Santo Domingo.

353

III.7n. Military commissioner José Ignacio Peñalver y Cárdenas, MARQUIS DE ARCOS (1736–

1804), was the Royal Treasurer of Havana and a member of the Sociedad Económica de

Amigos del País.

III.11n. In 1799, the French chemist and politician Jean Antoine Claude CHAPTAL, Count of

Chanteloup (1756–1832), was appointed councilor of state and succeeded Lucien Bonaparte

(1775–1840), the younger brother of Napoleon I (1769–1881), as Minister of the Interior. In that

position, Chaptal established a chemical factory near Paris, along with a school of arts, and a

society of industries. He also reorganized the hospitals and introduced the metric system to

France. A popularizer of science who contributed regularly to the journal Annales de chimie, the prolific Chaptal is probably best known for his three-volume work Éléments de Chimie

(Elements of Chemistry, 1790). He was inducted into the French Academy of Sciences in 1816.

In 1821, he published the Mémoire sur le sucre de betterave (An account of beet sugar) to which

Humboldt refers here.

III.14n. A contemporary of David Ricardo (1772–1823), Thomas Malthus, and James Mill

(1773–1836), with whom he founded the Political Economy Club in London in 1821, British financier and economist Thomas TOOKE (1774–1858) was among the first to advocate free trade.

In his publications, he detailed the circumstances that might affect prices, notably in Thoughts

and Details on the High and Low Prices of the last Thirty Years (1823), Considerations on the

State of the Currency (1826), and History of Prices and of the State of the Circulation during the

Years 1703–1856 (1838–57). Tooke had started out his adult life in business in St. Petersburg

354

and retired a governor of the Royal Exchange Corporation in 1852. He had been a Fellow of the

Royal Society since 1821 and became a correspondent of the Institut de France in 1853.

III.20t. Jules Paul Benjamin DELESSERT (1773–1847) was a French banker, philanthropist,

collector, and botanist who generously sponsored scientific research, botanical expeditions, and

individual collectors. Along with a large art collection, he had an extensive botanical library and

a notable herbarium that included specimens Humboldt had sent him. A member of the French

Academy of Sciences, Delessert founded the first beet sugar factory in Passy in 1801.

III.24. Johann Daniel Georg MEMMINGER (1773–c. 1840) edited and authored contributions for

the Beschreibung des Königreichs Württemberg (Description of the Kingdom of Württemberg)

in the 1820s and 1830s. He had started publishing accounts of that region in 1812. A notable

family from that particular German state, the Memmingers are also of interest to USAmerican history: Christopher Gustavus Memminger (1803–88) was a German-born Confederate Secretary of the Treasury, who has generally been held responsible for the collapse of his government’s credit during the USAmerican Civil War.

III.27. Eli Whitney (1765–1825) invented the cotton gin, a MACHINE that separated seeds from

fiber, in 1793.

III.28n. Beginning in 1797, British chemist, writer, translator, and inventor WILLIAM NICHOLSON

(1753–1815) published and edited the Journal of , Chemistry, and the Arts.

This journal, to which he also contributed, was generally known as Nicholson’s Journal and was

the earliest work of its kind in Great Britain. Its publication continued until 1814. As inventor,

Nicholson devoted his attention to the construction of machines for comb-cutting, file-making,

355

and printing. Among other things, he invented an aerometer and a machine for cylinder printing,

but many of his projects seem to have amounted to little. In addition to his important

contributions to the journal Philosophical Transactions, Nicholson translated several key texts

on chemistry by Antoine-François Fourcroy (1755–1809) and Jean-Antoine Claude Chaptal.

III.31. LUIS PARRILLA was director of the so-called Temporalidades program, which was

designed to provide workers with a meager amount of food in addition to some money for rent.

Due to his administrative expertise, he was named director of the San José de Chalco and San

Francisco de Borja plantations in the Chalco region of New Spain in 1780. He was in charge of

overseeing the labor by the plantations’ employees, and part of his duties included sporadic work

reports. Parrilla received a significant amount of additional responsibilities when he advanced to director. He was in charge of all existing documentation, including contracts, instructions, and reports. Plantation workers generally regarded Parrilla as tyrannical because he treated them as scapegoats for the administrative and economic failures that the plantations were facing at the time.

III.35. Spanish Jesuit Lorenzo HERVÁS y Panduro (1735–1809) was a missionary in New Spain

until his order was expelled in 1767. Much like Humboldt himself, Hervás was interested in

language studies as a key to human history. After returning to Rome, he compiled a catalogue of

the world’s languages as part of his Idea del Universo (1779–87), which may be regarded as the

culmination of Spanish colonial linguistics. The book included details on numerous American

languages, which Hervás had solicited from his fellow missionaries.

356

III.47. In 1776, the French Ministry of the Navy sent French botanist Nicolas-Joseph THIÉRY (or

Thierry) DE MENONVILLE (1739–80) on a clandestine mission to New Spain to steal the cochineal

insect valued for its scarlet dye. His Voyage à Guaxaca (Travels to Guaxaca, 1787) describes

how he purchased the insects and the nopal cacti on which they depend, along with vanilla beans,

smuggling them from Oaxaca to the Saint-Domingue. There, he succeeded in naturalizing a

small colony of nopales in the botanical garden in Port-au-Prince, effectively breaking the

Spanish monopoly on the valuable red and yellow dyes made from the pulverized bodies of the female beetles. Upon his return to France, Thiéry was rewarded for his biopiracy with the title of

King’s Botanist and a hefty pension.

III.48. Tangáxuan II (d. 1530), the last king of TZINTZUNTZAN, was the ruler of the Purépechas

or Tarascans, as the Spanish called them. Partially located in present-day Michoacán, his empire

was the second largest in at the time. In 1522, Hernán Cortés sent an expedition

to the capital Tzintzuntzan in order to establish a new colony. Although the

immediately collected tribute from the king, Tangáxuan apparently understood the presence of

the Europeans as a kind of ambassadorial visit; he continued to rule his territory and maintained a personal relationship with Cortés. Upon the latter’s return to Spain, Nuño de Guzmán started the systematic sacking of the Purépechan state, which also led to the murder of Tangáxuan in

1530.

III.48n. From 1756 to 1759, Swedish botanist and physician Johan Andreas MURRAY (1740–91) was a student of Carl von Linné’s (1707–87) at the University of Uppsala. The following year,

Murray departed Sweden for Göttingen, Germany, where, in 1769, he was appointed professor of

medicine and botany, and director of the botanical garden. His most significant work was the six-

357

volume compilation Apparatus medicaminum (1776–92), a fount of knowledge for later

pharmacologists. Murray and Linné corresponded until 1776.

III.52. A specialist on fiscal and financial matters, the French statesman JEAN-CLAUDE (or Jean-

Pierre) FABRE DE L’AUDE (1755–1832) was one of the architects of the French Revolution.

Though forced into exile during the Reign of Terror, he was named deputy to the Counsel of

Five Hundred in 1795 and became commissioner of finance. In 1807, he became senator.

Humboldt’s reference here is to Fabre de l’Aude’s Recherches sur l’impôt de tabac et moyen de

l’améliorer (Researches on the tax on tobacco and ways of raising it, 1802).

III.53. MARCO POLO (1254–1324) was a Venetian merchant whose travels and empirical

observations introduced Europeans to the culture, products, and ideas of Central Asia,

particularly with the dissemination of his chronicled travels titled Il Milione, commonly known

as The Travels of Marco Polo. Polo’s oral travel account was recorded by Rustichello da ,

his secretary, in 1298/99 and first published in 1300. Although many scholars have questioned

the accuracy and veracity of the events recorded in this text, much of the information has been

affirmed by scrutinizing the book in relation to historical documents produced during Polo’s

lifetime. This includes his portrayal of the preparation of indigo in Hindustan.

III.54. French physician and chemist (1748–1822) was educated in

Turin and Paris. He collaborated with Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier, Louis Bernard Guyton de

Morveau (1737–1816), and Antoine François de Fourcroy (1755–1809) on the important

Méthode de Nomenclature chimique (Method of chemical nomenclature, 1787), which became

the basis of the modern system of naming chemical compounds. Berthollet also conducted

research on dyes and bleaches and became the first to introduce the use of chlorine gas as a

358

commercial bleaching agent in 1785. Another strong chlorine oxidant and bleach he investigated

and was the first to produce was potassium chlorate, known as Berthollet’s Salt. In 1794,

Berthollet was appointed professor of chemistry at the École Polytechnique. Much impressed with Berthollet’s scientific work, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) recruited him for his

Egyptian Expedition (1798–1801), and he became one of the founders of the Institut d’Égypte. A

Fellow of the Royal Society of London since 1789, Berthollet was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1801 and a Foreign Honorary Member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1822. He spent the last twenty years of his life working in his well-equipped laboratory in Arcueil near Paris. This laboratory attracted many

prominent scientists and eventually led to the formation of the Société d’Arcueil, a forum for

sharing and advancing scientific research. The Societé counted among its members Alexander

von Humboldt, Jean-Baptiste Biot (1774–1862), Pierre-Simon Laplace, and Louis Jacques

Thénard. The group’s work was published from 1807–17 as Memoires de la Société d’Arcueil.

III.55. Don GARCÍA (de?) GRANADOS was an educated and experienced merchant from

Guatemala (see Humboldt 1826).

III.58. French naturalist and director of the Jardin du Roi, Georges Louis Leclerc, COUNT OF

BUFFON (1707–88), is renowned for the first attempt at presenting systematic knowledge in

natural history, geology, and anthropology in a single multivolume book, the Histoire naturelle,

générale et particulière (36 vols., 1749–1804). Buffon studied mountains and glaciers and was

one of the first to point out that climate, species, and the position of the continents were not fixed

but ever-changing. He also argued that separate regions with a similar environment have distinct

359

faunas (this became known as Buffon’s Law). After Buffon’s death, his work was continued by

Bernard Germain Étienne Médard de la Ville-sur-Illon, the Count of Lacépède.

III.58n. Of Irish extraction, Lord George MACARTNEY (1737–1806), the first Earl Macartney,

was appointed governor of Grenada (West Indies) in 1775 and served as governor of Madras

(Chennai) from 1781 to 1785. From 1792 to 1794, he headed the first formal British diplomatic

mission to China. As special envoy to Russia in 1764, he had successfully negotiated an alliance

between Great Britain and the Russia of Catherine II (1729–96). On his China mission, which

ultimately failed to open China to the West, Macartney was accompanied by John Barrow and

George Staunton. The latter was charged with compiling a book about their diplomatic mission,

titled Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China

(1797).

III.60n. Spanish conquistador Pedro de CIEZA de León (c. 1520–54) is widely regarded as the

“prince of Peruvian chroniclers.” His celebrated Crónica del Perú (The Peru chronicle, 1553)

was the best firsthand account of the conquest of the Inca. It describes the land in detail and

narrates the history of the Inca of Cusco. A year after he saw the famed treasure being unloaded

from Francisco Pizarro’s (c. 1470s–1541) ships in Seville in 1535, Cieza set out for the New

World; he was thirteen. He spent nearly fifteen years in South America as a soldier, keeping

meticulous notes about everything he saw: flora, fauna, landscapes, ruins, events, and so on.

Being one of the first Europeans in the Andean region to use native informants for his research,

Cieza also amassed information about the indigenous peoples and their history. After having

been named official chronicler of the Indies, Cieza traveled in Peru from 1548 to 1550,

collecting material for the thousands of manuscript pages that became the basis for his Crónicas.

360

He would see only the first part of his Crónicas published. The other parts of his manuscripts

were used by historians such as Herrera y Tordesillas. Because parts two to four were still

unpublished when he died, Cieza included them in his will, requesting that they either be

published by his executor or sent to Bartolomé de las Casas for that purpose—that part of the

will was not carried out. Parts two and four were published in the late nineteenth century, part

two as El señorío de los Incas (The state of the Inca, 1880) and part four as Las guerras civiles

del Perú (Civil wars in Peru, 1877–81). Historians considered part three lost until Francesca

Cantù, a modern history professor at the Università degli Studi Roma Tre, found the complete

manuscript in the Apostolic Library of the Vatican in the 1970s. Cantù published part three,

which offers a detailed narrative of the Spaniards’ presence in the Andes, as Pedro de Cieza de

León e il descubrimiento y conquista del Perú (Pedro Cieza y León and the discovery and

conquest of Peru, 1979), and later as Crónica del Perú: Tercera Parte (Peru chronicle: third part,

1989).

III.60n. Sebastián de BELALCÁZAR (1480–1551) was a Spanish conquistador who took part in the subjugation of some of the territories that today belong to Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Colombia.

His image is memorialized on the November 1988 ten-sucre bill issued by the Banco Central del

Ecuador. There are different accounts of when and how Belalcázar, whose family name might have been Moyano, came to the New World. According to some accounts, he traveled with

Columbus on his third voyage (1498–1500). Others place him among the troops of Pedro Arias

Dávila, which arrived in the Americas in 1514. We do know that Belalcázar eventually made it to Darién (Panama) and from there traveled west with Francisco Hernández de Córdoba (d.

1526), another Spanish conquistador who sailed up the Río Desagüadero (now Río San Juan) and founded the cities of Granada and León (Nicaragua) in 1524. Belalcázar, who probably held the

361

military rank of captain (rather than general), became the first mayor of the city of León. In

Nicaragua, he likely met Francisco Pizarro (c. 1470s–1541) and Diego de Almagro (c. 1474–

1538). In 1532, Belalcázar sold his possessions in Nicaragua to outfit two ships to join the

conquest of the Inca. A year later, as he went north, he clashed at Cañar with the troops of

Rumiñahui (d. 1535), one of ’s (c. 1500–July 26, 1533) generals, and defeated him in

the Battle of Mount . On his retreat northward, Rumiñahui destroyed the main cities

of the Inca realm. Belalcázar pursued him, founding Santiago and San Francisco near today’s

Riobamba; these movable “cities” eventually became Quito and Guayaquil. Belalcázar, who

resided in Quito, eventually captured Rumiñahui but was unable to make him reveal the location

of the Inca gold. Around 1536, Belalcázar moved further north into today’s southwest Colombia,

presumably inspired by rumors of . A year later, he founded Popayán, among other cities. After conflicts and near-clashes with other conquistadors, notably with Pedro de

Alvarado, (1505–42), and Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, Belalcázar, in

1540, was appointed governor of Popayán and the Provincias Equinocciales (part of today’s

Colombia and most of today’s Ecuador). Eventually, he was sentenced to death for having executed conquistador Jorge Robledo (1500–46) in a territorial dispute but died before he could return to Spain to appeal the judgment.

III. 63. Half-brother to Atahualpa (c. 1500–July 26, 1533), the Inca HUESCAR (also Huáscar, or

Waskar in Quechua) was the son of Wayna Qhapaq (Huayna Capac or Guayna Capac in

Hispanicized spellings, c. 1468–1527). Waskar ruled the Inca Empire from 1527 to 1532. His

heavily disputed accession to the Inca throne after his father’s sudden death led to a prolonged

bloody civil war between him and the older brother Atahualpa, who was to become the last Inca

362

ruler. It is likely because of this political disunity among the Inca nobles that Francisco Pizarro

(c. 1470s–1541) was able to conquer their empire.

III.63. ASTORPILCO was the illegitimate son of Francisco Pizarro (c. 1470s–1541) and one of

Atahualpa’s daughters, Doña Angelina. At the time of Humboldt’s visit in 1802, Astorpilco’s

descendants lived in the town of Cajamarca, Peru. Humboldt writes more extensively about his

acquaintance with a descendant of this family in Views of Nature (pp. 280ff). He also mentions

the Astorpilcos in his Political Essay on the Island of Cuba and even in Cosmos.

III.66. Olivier de SERRES (1539–1619) was a French author and soil scientist who turned his estate Pradel into a model of progressive soil management. He implemented early forms of crop rotation and introduced numerous plants to French agriculture, such as madder root from

Flanders, hops from England, corn from Italy, and, above all, the mulberry. He was called to

Paris by King Henry IV (1553–1610) who wished to develop the sericulture in his realm. Serres

published a book on that topic in 1599. His most important work, the Théâtre d'Agriculture (The theater of agriculture, 1600), was the textbook of French agriculture in the seventeenth century.

III.69t. The author of Recherches sur le commerce (1778–79) is Cornelis van der

Oudermeulen. See III.402n.

III.70. Johann Karl ILLIGER (1775–1813) was a German entomologist and zoologist. His teacher

Johann Hellwig (1743–1831), whose daughter Illiger later married, discovered Illiger’s early interest in science. Hellwig’s outstanding collection of insects influenced Illiger’s decision to dedicate himself entirely to entomology, after an attempt at studying medicine had failed due to his fragile health. He studied natural history in Helmstedt and Göttingen and published his own

363

entomological journal, Magazin für Insektenkunde (1802–07). In 1810, Illiger attained a chair in

zoology at the University of Berlin with Humboldt’s help. As head of the university’s zoological

museum, Illiger reorganized the natural history collection there and improved its scientific

accessibility. In 1811, he published Prodromus Systematis Mammalium et Avium (Systematic

prodromus about mammals and birds). His work facilitated the general acceptance of Carl von

Linné’s (1707–7878) taxonomy and terminology.

III.70. Louis JURINE (1751–1819) was a Swiss physician, surgeon, and naturalist whose main

interest was in entomology. After his studies in Paris, he moved to Geneva, where he worked as

a practical surgeon while also pursuing his scientific interests. In 1817, he returned to Paris to

assist Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) during her final illness. One of his major scientific achievements was his proof of the significant role that hearing plays for bats.

III.70. French entomologist Pierre André LATREILLE (1762–1833) was the adopted son of

renowned mineralogist René Just Haüy. Latreille was arrested in during the French

Revolution and supposedly released when he discovered a new kind of beetle in his prison cell.

He came to direct the entomology department of the Museum of Natural History in 1799 and was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1814. In 1829, he succeeded Jean-

Baptiste Lamarck as professor of entomology. Latreille’s Melipona and Trigona are stingless bees, for which he had a particular fascination.

III.72. Admiral Horatio NELSON (1758–1805), also known as the First Viscount Nelson, was a

British officer and explorer known for his service in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars

(1803–15). He was crucial to many victories, including the battles of the Nile (1798) and the

battle of Trafalgar (1805). He was killed during the latter while in command of the HMS Victory.

364

Nelson had attended schools in Norwich and North Walsham before enrolling in the Royal Navy at Chatham at the age of twelve. He gained significant experience and training in the Thames estuary, and in 1773 he took part in an unsuccessful expedition to the Arctic. In 1777, Nelson sailed to the West Indies. He was stationed in North America during the USAmerican War of

Independence (1775–82). During this time, he was also promoted to captain and soon took part in expeditions and operations against Spanish settlements in Nicaragua. During the French

Revolutionary Wars in 1793, Nelson was given command of the Agamemnon and took part in several inshore and blockade actions. He helped secure Corsica from the French and, during a siege of Calvi in 1794, was famously blinded in the right eye.

III.73. In 1756, the Basque Francisco Leandro de Viana, the first COUNT OF TEPA (1730–1804), was appointed fiscal attorney of the Audiencia of Manila, a counseling body to the captain- general appointed by the Spanish Crown. He assumed office in 1758. In addition to writing reports on the state of the Philippine islands after the British occupation of Manila from 1762 to

1764, he also outlined trading plans in which products such as cotton and wine would be exported to Manila in exchange for pearls, indigo, cochineal, and several other dyes. He wrote a series of letters to Charles III of Spain, in which he discussed ways to increase the revenue produced by New Spain. In these letters, the count also addressed other issues, such as questions of security, governmental mismanagement, the irresponsibility of religious orders and institutions, and the neglect of the teaching of Spanish. Viana’s lengthy statements codified a new condition for the continuity of colonial rule that deviated from the imperial and missionary endeavors of the colonies. This new code focused on increasing the productivity of the financial undertakings in the colonies.

365

III.75. Antoine-Nicolas DUCHESNE (1747–1827) was a botanist from Versailles best known for

his book on strawberries, Histoire naturelle des fraisiers (1766). The Fragaria monophylla to

which Humboldt refers was a new kind of strawberry that Duchesne had discovered in 1763 and,

by collecting the seeds, was able to cultivate.

III.76–7. Second lieutenant of the frigate San Carlos Borromeo, Pantaleón RUIZ DE MONTOYA

became mayor of Nejapa, a municipality in southwestern New Spain, in 1773. He is the author of

a 1770s treatise on the production of “scarlet grain” in Nejapa province, in which he

painstakingly describes the labor-intensive process of raising the cochineal insect and harvesting

it for a crimson-colored dye known as carmine.

III.78. Swiss botanist Augustin-Pyrame de CANDOLLE (1778–1841) studied with George Cuvier

and Jean Baptiste Lamarck in Paris and eventually became professor of natural history in

Geneva. In 1813, Candolle published his famous Théorie élémentaire de la botanique (Basic

theory of botany), in which he introduced the term “taxonomy.” He proposed his own

classificatory system to replace Carl von Linné’s (1707–87). Candolle made important

contributions to the geography of plants by describing the relation between the distribution of

plants and soil types, based on observations he had made during his travels in Brazil, East India,

and North China. Humboldt refers to Candolle’s Plantarum succulentarum historia: ou Histoire

naturelle des plantes grasses published in 1799 and illustrated by Pierre-Joseph Redouté.

III.78. Painter and botanist Pierre-Joseph REDOUTÉ (1759–1840) is known for his watercolors of

roses and lilies. From a family of painters, he started his career with church paintings and stage settings. In 1782, Redouté moved to Paris, where he met the botanist Charles Louis L’Héritier de

Brutelle (1746–1800). Illustrating the latter’s works gained him fame and helped his remarkable

366

career. Marie Antoinette (1755–93) named Redouté Painter to the Queen’s Cabinet. After the

French Revolution, he became a member of the Academy of Science, taught painting to Empress

Marie-Louise of Austria (1791–1847), and provided illustrations for many botanical

publications. He also became the protégé of Josephine Bonaparte’s (1763–1814). His most famous publications are Les Liliacées (1802–1816) and Les Roses (1817–1824).

III.79. Leonard PLUKENET (1641–1706) was an English botanist. It is unclear where he was

educated. Though enrolled at Oxford, he did not take any degree there. He practiced as a

physician in London; after obtaining his medical degree abroad, he began to develop a small

botanical garden in Westminster. He had access to the gardens of other botanists and eventually

developed a large herbarium that contained at least 8,000 plant specimens from various parts of

the world. Plukenet’s work in botany caught the attention of Queen Mary II (1662–94) in 1689;

she made him Royal Professor of Botany and superintendent of the royal gardens at the Hampton

Court. The six volumes of his collected botanical works, Opera omnia botanica, were initially

published between 1691 and 1705. Plukenetia, a genus of mainly tropical members of the spurge

family, was named in his honor.

III.79. Spanish mathematician and cartographer Antonio de ULLOA (1716–95) accompanied the

1735 French expedition to South America as representative of the Spanish Crown. After their

return to Europe in 1745, Ulloa and Jorge Juan y Santacilia coauthored a confidential report to

the Crown, entitled Discurso y reflexiones políticas sobre el estado presente de la marina de los

reynos del Perú (Discourse and political reflections on the present state of the royal fleet of Peru,

1749). Denouncing colonial administrators’ corrupt practices, the report was unofficially

published in London as Noticias secretas de América (Secret news from America, 1826). Ulloa

367

later held several high-ranking positions in the Spanish colonial administration, including that of

governor of Louisiana (1766–8), of Huancavelica (Peru, 1758–63), and of lieutenant-general of

the Spanish Navy. In addition to several other joint publications with Juan, such as the Relación

histórica (Historical narrative), Ulloa also wrote a natural history entitled Noticias americanas

(American news, 1772). See also Bouguer and La Condamine.

III.80. A native of Santander, Spain, José FRANCISCO IBAÑEZ DE CORVERA was one of the most

influential tradesmen of the Zimatlan region in Oaxaca, Mexico, during the eighteenth century.

He was honorary administrator of the Oaxaca town hall and also the representative of the

Veracruz merchants’ guild. In 1759, he wrote a report in which he discussed the cultivation,

preparation, and distribution of cochineal in local residences, where people would keep

cochineal-infested cactus pads in their houses for a period of twenty to thirty days.

III.87. HERNÁN (or Hernando) DE SOTO (c. 1500–42) was a conquistador in Nicaragua and Peru

(with Francisco Pizarro) who became governor of Cuba. After the failed expedition to Florida

by Pánfilo de Narváez, the more experienced de Soto was sent on a second voyage to the

tropical peninsula (1539–43). On his famous route through Florida, along the River and

across the Mississippi, de Soto searched for the mythical Seven Cities and a pathway to the

Pacific—both without success. After his death, his expedition continued south across the

Mississippi and along the coast to Tampico, where the remaining crew dispersed.

III.90. German classicist and naturalist Johann Gottlob Theaenus SCHNEIDER (1750–1822)

received his education in Leipzig and Göttingen before moving to Strasbourg, where he assisted

Richard François Philippe Brunck (1729–1803) in editing the Greek classics. In 1776, Schneider

became professor of ancient languages and eloquence at Frankfurt (Oder) and later at Breslau. In

368

1814, he was appointed chief librarian in Breslau. His most influential work was Kritisches

griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch (1797–98), a Greek-English lexicon that became the basis of most later Greek lexicons. Schneider was especially interested in the writings of ancient authors concerned with science and natural history, editing works by (170–

235), Theophrastus, Nicander of Colophon (second century BCE), Aristotle (384–322 BCE),

Lucius Columella, and Epicurus (c. 341–271 BCE), among others, Schneider also edited the

Systema Ichthyologiae iconibus ex illustratum (1801) by his contemporary Marcus Elieser Bloch

(1723–1799) and the complete works of Xenophon (c. 430–c. 355 BCE). Many of his own

writings, such as his Naturgeschichte der Schildkröten (General natural history of the tortoises,

1783) were also dedicated to the natural sciences. The account on whaling to which Humboldt

refers here is from Schneider’s Sammlung Vermischter Abhandlungen zur Aufklärung der

Zoologie und der Handlungsgeschichte (Collection of diverse treatises to illuminate zoology and

the history of trade, 1784: pp. 259–303).

III.90. Bernard Germain Étienne Médard de la Ville-sur-Illon (1756–1825), the Count of

LACÉPÈDE, had considerable talents in both music and physics. In addition to attracting the

attention of several renowned composers, notably Christoph Willibald Ritter von Glück (1714–

87), Lacépède also won favor with Buffon, who secured him a position at the Jardin du Roi. He

continued Buffon’s Histoire des animaux (Natural ) after the latter’s death.

Lacépède’s best-known works deal with the oviparous quadrupeds, reptiles, fishes, and

cetaceans; the most important of these is his Histoire naturelle des poissons (Natural History of

Fishes, 1798–1803). Active in French politics, Lacépède was exiled during the Reign of Terror.

369

III.101n. Joaquín MANIAU y Torquemada (1753–1820) was the major officer of the General

Directive and Treasury of Tobacco and commissioner of the royal armies in New Spain.

Maniau’s appointment to this position upset many, not only because his father was the general accountant of Mexico City (which violated promotional procedure) but also because Maniau was considered too inexperienced. In 1810, he became deputy of Veracruz for the royal court. During his time as commissioner, he brought attention to issues such as the abolition of the Inquisition and freedom of the press. Maniau is best known for his Historia de la Real Hacienda de Nueva

España (History of the Royal Treasury of New Spain) from 1794.

III.101n. Pedro ESTALA (1757–1815), was a Spanish philosopher, poet, translator, Hellenist,

Francophile, and one of the best-known literary critics of his time. The suggestion that he had studied Greek and theology at the University of Salamanca during the early 1760s remains unsupported. It is certain, however, that he became a professor at the College of San Fernando in

1778, where he taught humanities. Estala was then assigned a position as a professor of rhetoric and Greek at the San Carlos Seminary in Salamanca. He is known for his Spanish translation of the Abbot Joseph de la Porte’s (1714–79) collection Le Voyageur Francois (1767–95) as El

Viagero Universal (The universal traveler). Begun in 1776, the translation was published between 1795 and 1801. El Viagero Universal consisted of forty-two volumes that contained valuable information on various parts of the world, particularly South America, including estimates of the non-indigenous population of various major cities such as Buenos Aires.

Important to note is that Estala updated the French version, so that volumes 26 and 27 (which deal mainly with New Spain) contained the most current information available in Europe about

New Spain. Because of his close relations with Manuel Godoy, the Trespalacios family, and returning New Spain viceroys, Estala was most likely able to obtain reliable statistics and other

370 information about New Spain. It is possible that Humboldt did not at the time know that Estala, whose work he mentions here as something to which he did not have access, had been the translator-author of the Viagero Universal, which he cites in other places. Estala died in disgrace and obscurity.

III.106n. Austrian-born Spanish author and philosopher Gaspar Melchor de JOVELLANOS (1744–

1811) was one of the leading figures of the Spanish Enlightenment. His prose works on political and legislative economy helped cement his position as a literary authority, particularly his well- known 1795 “Mémoire curieux sur le perfectionnement de l’agriculture” (sometimes translated as “A Report on the Dossier of Agrarian Law”); Humboldt refers to it as Jovellanos’s “work on the land laws.” Jovellanos’s account argues for financial and economic freedom based on the analysis of agricultural development from physical, legal, and intellectual perspectives.

III.116. Scholars have long been intrigued by ’s complex identity. At times,

Quetzalcoatl (“Feathered Serpent” or “Precious Serpent”) is represented as a god; at others, he is either the priest of the Great Temple or a heroic leader. Recent scholarship distinguishes three distinct characters that have been conflated in Spanish accounts: (1) the deity of air or wind,

Ehécatl Quetzalcoatl; (2) the high priest of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlán, named

Quetzalcoatl Totec Tlamacazqui (priest of the plumed serpent); and (3) the heroic figure of Ce

Ácatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. Ehécatl Quetzalcoatl is believed to be one of the creators of the universe and the founder of civilized life; he is associated with wisdom, arts, and philosophy.

Since Ehécatl Quetzalcoatl is the patron of priests and rulers, the Great Temple’s priests are also named Quetzalcoatl. Ce Ácatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl was the son of the earth/fertility

Chimalma(n)/Cihuacoatl/Coatlicue/Coacueye and the quasi-divine conqueror and founder of the

371

Toltec kingdom, Mixcoatl/Camaxtli/Totepeuh. Current scholarship has shown the story about

Quetzalcoatl the foreign, white missionary to be largely fictitious, much like his alleged

opposition to human . Both were products of the Spanish chroniclers and clearly served

their purposes.

III.120. French chemist Louis Nicolas VAUQUELIN (1763–1829) discovered chromium and

beryllium in 1797 and 1798, respectively. He served as professor of chemistry at the Paris

Faculty of Medicine where he succeeded his teacher and friend Antoine-François Fourcroy

(1755–1809). Vauquelin himself supported Louis-Jacques Thénard, another soon-to-be-famous chemist. During his time in Paris, Humboldt was in touch with all three men. Like Humboldt,

Vauquelin was also an inspector of mines.

III.121. In 1799, French economist, statesman, and former supporter of the French Revolution

Pierre Samuel DU PONT DE NEMOURS (1739–1817), together with his two sons and their families,

emigrated to the USA. There, he befriended Thomas Jefferson, and his son Eleuthère Irénée du

Pont (1771–1834) became the founder of the powder company E.I. du Pont de Nemours and

Company in Wilmington, Delaware in 1802. A protégé of François Quesnay’s while still in

France, du Pont published writings on the national economy that drew some attention. In his

book La Physiocracie (Physiocracy, 1767), he advocated low tariffs and free trade, ideas that

deeply influenced Adam Smith (1723–90). In 1768, du Pont became editor of Ephémérides du

citoyen ou Bibliothèque raisonnée des sciences morales et politiques (Citizen’s Ephermides, or

reasoned library of moral and political sciences), taking over from the theologian Nicolas

Baudeau (1730–92). Volume 6 of the Ephermides includes du Pont’s “Observations sur

l'esclavage des nègres” (Observations about Negro slavery). There appears to be no further

372

information about the Gallic axe Humboldt mentions here. The Pierre Samuel du Pont de

Nemours Papers are at the Hagley Museum in Greenville, Delaware.

III.121. French physician Jean D’ARCET (also Darcet, 1724–1801) studied chemistry with

Guillaume-François Rouelle (1703–70), a proponent of the phlogiston theory that the German

chemist Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734) had developed. Stahl claimed that all combustible

materials, including metals, contain a special substance, which is what makes them combustible.

In 1763, when D’Arcet first encountered the ideas of Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier, also a

former Rouelle student, he embraced Lavoisier’s theory of the formation of chemical

compounds. Humboldt refers here to D’Arcet’s special interest in how minerals and metals

behaved at high temperatures. Among other things, this knowledge was key to the production of

hard-paste , which D’Arcet introduced to France. He also invented the D’Arcet Alloy, a

compound of lead, bismuth, and pewter that liquefied at the temperature of boiling water and

was used for stereotype printing. In 1784, D’Arcet was appointed professor of chemistry at the

Collège de France, became a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and replaced the

chemist Pierre Joseph Macquer (1718–84) as director of the Royal Manufactory of Porcelain in

Sèvres. In 1798, the Academy commissioned a report from D’Arcet and Claude Louis

Berthollet on Lavoisier’s pioneering Elementary treatise on chemistry.

III.121. Often called the father of modern crystallography, the French mineralogist and honorary

canon of Notre Dame René Just HAÜY (1743–1822) owned a collection of 12,000 specimens at

the time of his death. Haüy had previously studied with the naturalist Louis-Jean-Marie

Daubenton (1716–1800), who, together with Laplace, convinced Haüy to present his discoveries to the French Academy of Science, of which he became a member in 1783. In addition to

373 producing influential work in mineralogy, Haüy was also a pioneer in the development of pyro- electricity. He retired from his professorship at the Collège de Cardinal Lemoine at the

University of Paris after twenty years of service to devote himself fully to crystallography. Like many other clergymen, he refusing to pledge allegiance to the French Revolution and suffered accordingly. He lost his papers and his collection of crystals, and he was imprisoned. His former student, the naturalist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844), at length interceded for him, so that, in 1794, Haüy was appointed curator of the Cabinet des Mines and professor of physics at the École Normale. After the death of mineralogist Dieudonné Dolmieu (1750–1801), Haüy advanced to chair of mineralogy at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Losing his professorship during the Restoration, he spent his last days in poverty. Regardless, he refused to sell his precious collection, which, in 1823, was acquired by the first Duke of Buckingham and

Chandos (1776–1839).

III.121n. Richard KIRWAN (1733–1812) was an Irish chemist who also contributed to other areas of science and scholarship and corresponded with scientists all over Europe and the USA. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of London and president of the Royal Irish Academy. Initially,

Kirwan was a strong advocate of the theory of phlogiston, which sought to explain burning processes now known as oxidation (see his Essay on Phlogiston and the Constitution of Acids,

1787). During the 1780s, he was engaged in a public controversy with Henry (1731–

1810) in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London on the subject of carbonic acid. Humboldt mentions Kirwan several times in his Personal Narrative. Here,

Humboldt refers to Kirwan’s belief that tin could be found in its native state, a claim Kirwan advanced in his Elements of mineralogy (1784), the first systematic study of mineralogy in

374

English. Kirwan abandoned the phlogiston theory in 1791 because he failed to show the formation of fixed air from phlogiston and oxygen. See also D’Arcet, Jean.

III.122n. Thanks to his father’s connections, Henry Thomas COLEBROOKE (1765–1837) was able to travel to India for the East India Company in 1782. Colebrooke was a prolific scholar with manifold interests and broad knowledge, ranging from the study of Sanskrit to natural history.

He may be seen as a successor to the philologist William Jones (1746–94), especially as he took over the responsibility of preparing a digest of Hindu law after Jones’s death. Colebrooke published twenty papers in Asiatick Researches, the journal of the Asiatick Society of Bengal.

See also Webb, William Spencer.

III. 138. The Freemason Ignaz Edler von BORN (1742–1791) was a mineralogist and metallurgist. In 1776, the Hapsburg ruler Maria Theresa (1717–1780) appointed him to organize the imperial museum at Vienna, where he was also nominated to the Council of Mines and the mint. Born introduced a method of extracting metals by amalgamation and pioneered other improvements in mining. The term saxum metalliferum to which Humboldt refers here was introduced in Born’s Briefe über Mineralogische Gegenstände (Letters on mineralogical subjects, 1774).

III.138. French mineralogist and geologist Francois Sulpice BEUDANT (1787–1850) established his reputation in Europe with Voyage minéralogiquȩ et géologique en Hongrie (1822), in which he published the results of his 1818 geological journey across Hungary. Beudant succeeded

Haüy at the Sorbonne (1822–1839) and became a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1824. In addition to his treatises on physics, mineralogy, and geology, he also published a

French and a Latin grammar.

375

III.139. A student of Abraham Gottlob Werner’s, the German mineralogist Dietrich Ludwig

Gustav KARSTEN (1768–1810) made a quick and successful career in mining administration while simultaneously pursuing his scientific interests and working as an instructor at the Berlin

Mining Academy. Karsten authored a voluminous catalogue of the mineral collection by

Nathanael Gottfried Leske (1751–1786), which was purchased by the Dublin Natural History

Museum in 1792. Karsten helped his mentor Werner prepare a similar catalogue of the Karl

Eugen Pabst von Ohain (1718–1784) collection, later sold to the government of Portugal and shipped to Rio de Janeiro. In 1791, Karsten published a survey of mineralogical fossils

(Tabellarische Übersicht der mineralogisch-einfachen Fossilien), the definitive work on the subject until the second half of the nineteenth century. Karsten and Klaproth describe the fire opal Humboldt mentions here in volume 4 (pp. 156f) of Klaproths Beiträge zur chemischen

Kenntnis der Mineralkörper (Contributions to the chemical understanding of minerals, 1807).

III.155n. Alexandre BRONGNIART (1778–1847) was a professor of natural history who made

valuable contributions in paleontology, mineralogy, and zoology. His later years were dedicated to the study and improvement of ceramic production. He held the position of professor of mineralogy at the National Museum of Natural History (Jardin de Plantes) in Paris from 1822 until 1847. His most important work in paleontology was the study of the fossil-laden strata in

the Paris Basin, which he commenced in 1804. In the field of zoology, he proposed the division

of the class Reptilia into four different groups, three of which are still in use in modern

classification systems. His recognition in mineralogy is mainly based on his Traité élémentaire

de minéralogie (Basic treatise on mineralogy, 1807), which Humboldt mentions here, In 1800,

Brongniart was named director of the Sèvres Porcelain Factory and in 1824 opened a museum to

show the production of the factory to the public.

376

III.156n. Tomás JOAQUÍN DE ACOSTA y Pérez de Guzmán (1800–52) was a geologist, historian,

and military officer known chiefly for his collection of historical and geographical research notes

titled Compendio histórico del descubrimiento y colonización de la Nueva Granada en el siglo

décimo sexto (Historical compendium of the discovery and colonization of New Granada in the

sixteenth century, 1848). He traveled to Paris in 1825 to study mineralogy, geology, and military engineering. Humboldt wanted to meet Acosta to consult with him on the structure of the Chocó lands. Upon noticing Acosta’s curious and intelligent nature, Humboldt decided to show and discuss various maps that he was designing at the time in order to receive the young scholar’s feedback. In exchange for his insights, Humboldt introduced Acosta to the major figures of the

Parisian elite.

III.156. Ignacio CAVERO y Cárdenas (c. 1756–1834), who was in charge of tobacco exports and a

customs officer in Cartagena de Indias for almost twenty years, was active in the struggle for

New Granada’s independence in 1810. As a result, he was forced to live in exile in Jamaica from

1815 to 1821, when he returned to Colombia.

III.157. JOSÉ MARÍA de MOSQUERA y Figueroa (1752–1829) was a wealthy Colombian merchant

and father of Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera (1798–1878). Cipriano was one of Colombia’s

leading political figures who would become the fourth in 1863. He was

also the governor of the Popayán province from January to October 1814.

III.157n. One of the founders of the Geological Society of London (1807), English mineralogist

and geologist William PHILLIPS (1775–1828) wrote several standard texts, notably Outlines of

Mineralogy and Geology (1815) and Elementary Introduction to the Knowledge of Mineralogy

(1816). In the latter work, there is a paragraph on “native platina” in which the remarks

377

Humboldt criticizes here can be found. Phillips’s Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales

(1822), the first part of a larger work on which Phillips collaborated with the geologist and

paleontologist William Daniel Conybeare (1787–1857), had a major influence on the

development of British geology. A member of the Society of Friends, Phillips was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society in 1827. His brother, Richard Phillips (1778–1851), distinguished himself as a chemist.

III.157n. Spanish botanist Antonio José CAVANILLES (1745–1804) was among the first naturalists in Spain to use the taxonomy developed by Carl von Linné (1707–87). Initially,

Cavanilles had studied theology and philosophy but, in 1777, he moved to Paris where he became acquainted with botanist Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748–1836). Cavanilles gained fame for the botanical work he carried out during the ten years of Jussieu’s tutelage. After returning to Spain, Cavanilles dedicated himself to the description of the Spanish flora and published Anales de ciencias naturales (1799–1804). In 1801, he was named director of the

Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid.

III.160n. A student of Abraham Gottlob Werner’s at the Freiberg School of Mines from 1791 to 1793, French geologist and mineralogist André-Jean-François-Marie BROCHANT de Villiers

(1772–1840) was a mining engineer and editor of the Journal des Mines. In 1801, he was

appointed professor of geology and mineralogy at the Paris School of Mines and inspector-

general of the mines of France. Here, Humboldt most likely refers to Brochant’s Traité

élémentaire de minéralogie (Basic treatise on mineralogy, 1801–02), in which he combined

Werner’s theories with Haüy’s discoveries.

378

III.160n. After spending time in the military and as a mathematics teacher, Jean François

D’AUBUISSON de Voisins (1769–1841) studied with Werner at the Freiberg School of Mines from 1797 to 1802. In addition to his interest in geology and mineralogy, D’Aubuisson was a hydraulic engineer of considerable renown. In 1802, he published Des mines de Freiberg en Saxe et de leur exploitation (About the mines in Freiberg, Saxony, and their exploitation), which

Humboldt cites here. Among D’Aubuisson’s publications are a treatise about basalt (1803), a well-known textbook about geognosy (1818–34), and another one about hydraulics (1834). As a

resident of , France, he concerned himself intensively with the sourcing and

maintenance of the city’s water.

III.170n. Christoph Gottlieb MURR (1733–1811) was a German polymath particularly known for

his historiographical writings on a wide array of subjects. Although has was a Protestant, he came into contact with the Jesuits during his travels, as a result of which many of his works are dedicated to members of the Society of Jesus. The text to which Humboldt refers is a collection

of accounts from missionaries in South America. The cited paragraph is part of the travel account

by the Würzburg-born Jesuit Joseph Och (1725–1773) describing his sojourn in New Mexico

from 1754 to 1767.

III.177. DIEGO RUL (1761–c. 1812), the first count of Casa Rul (a title he purchased), hailed from

Malaga, Spain, and was married to María Ignacia, one of the two daughters of the silver

millionaire Antonio Obregón y Alcocer, the first Count of Valenciana and patriarch of one of a

handful of influential mining families of New Spain. Marrying into the Obregón family made the

well-educated Spaniard an enormously wealthy landowner who, in addition to being part-owner of the Valencia mine, also acquired significant stakes in other silver mines. He also owned

379 refining mills and several haciendas. The count’s mansion in the city of Guanajuato is considered an architectural jewel and has become one of the most emblematic colonial buildings in Mexico.

It is catalogued by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) as a national treasure. A fierce opponent of the Mexican insurgency of 1810, Rul died defending the cause in the state of Morelos in Cuautla. Humboldt stayed in Rul’s spectacular abode between the months of August and September 1803.

III.177. Little is known about the biographical details of Indian peasant DIEGO HUALCA except for the story of his serendipitous discovery of a silver deposit in Potosí, Peru, which immensely fueled the desires and ambitions of explorers and miners back in 1545. Although there are different versions of Hualca’s discovery, most accounts posit that, as he was chasing a wild goat through the mountains of Potosí, he grabbed onto a bush to pull himself up a steep ledge. Unable to sustain his weight, the bush came loose, revealing a cluster of silver embedded in the dirt.

Hualca eventually made a small fortune from his discovery, which he kept secret until his sudden change of lifestyle raised the suspicions of residents in Porco. A mine was established in Potosí on April 21, 1545 by a Porco resident known as Villaroel.

III.177n. French surveyor and mapmaker Frédéric MOTHÈS was among the group of scientists whom Fausto de Elhuyar recruited for his 1789 scientific expedition from Buenos Aires to study various mines in South and Central America. Potosí was at the time the mining center of the highlands of what is now Bolivia. Mothès visited the Cerro de Potosí together with the Baron

Nordenflycht, another member of the expedition. Humboldt may well have obtained Mothès’s unpublished manuscript from Nordenflycht.

380

III.182n. Humboldt’s reference is to the geographical writer Johann Gottfried EBEL (1764–1840) and his traveler’s guide to Switzerland, titled Anleitung, auf die nützlichste und genussvollste Art in der Schweitz zu reisen (1793). This guide, which included an alphabetically arranged list of places with descriptions, superseded all other books of its kind and remained the best Swiss guidebook until the publication of John Murray’s Handbook for Travelers in Switzerland (1838).

In 1798, Ebel published Schilderungen der Gebirgsvölker der Schweiz (Depiction of the mountain peoples of Switzerland), in which he focuses on the cantons of Glarus and Appenzell.

Having been naturalized in Switzerland in 1801, Ebel settled down in Zurich to work on his major geological work, published in 1808 as Über den Bau der Erde im Alpengebirge (About the configuration of the earth in the Alps).

III.182n. German geologist and historian Johannes (Johann) STEININGER (1794–1874) taught

mathematics and natural sciences at the Trier provincial high school until vision problems forced

him to retire in 1857. In his spare time, he pursued significant geological research. His work Die

erloschenen Vulkane in der Eifel und am Niederrheine (The extinct volcanoes in the Eifel and

the Lower Rhine valley, 1820) was printed as a report for the Gesellschaft nützlicher

Forschungen zu Trier (Trier society for useful research) of which he was a member.

III.182n. An alumnus of the Mining School in Schemnitz, the Austrian geologist Franz Xaver

RIEPL (1790–1857) was also a specialist on railways and in metallurgy. In 1816, the Landgraf

von Fürstenberg employed him in his iron mine in Bohemia. After this, Riepl conducted

scientific explorations in Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Silesia, and Mähren (in Rhineland-

Palatinate). Upon his return in 1819, he was appointed as professor of natural history at the

Technical University of Vienna, where he stayed until 1838. In 1836, he conceptualized Emperor

381

Ferdinand of Austria’s Nordbahn and proposed plans for building a railroad network across

Austria.

III.182n. The disappearance of British North Canada explorer Sir John FRANKLIN (1786–1847)

set off an Arctic-wide search. In 1844, Franklin had set out with two ships to find the Northwest

Passage. A decade after his disappearance in 1847, Scottish explorer John Rae (1813–1893) and

Admiral Sir Francis McClintock (1819–1907), respectively, found evidence to suggest that

Franklin’s ships had been frozen in the ice between Victoria Island and King William Island. No one is known to have survived of the entire expedition of some 129 men. The search for

Franklin’s diaries still continues. In his Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea

(1823), Franklin described his travels from Great Slave Lake to the Arctic coast at the mouth of the Coppermine River. His Narrative of a Second Expedition to the Shores of the Polar Sea

(1828) details his journey to Great Bear Lake, where he built Fort Franklin (now Déline).

III. 188n. Johann Carl FREIESLEBEN (1774–1846) was a German mining commissioner.

Humboldt met him while studying in Freiberg, which led to a lifelong friendship. Freiesleben

held various positions in mining administration at Marienberg, Johanngeorgenstadt, and

Eisleben. In 1824, he sold his valuable collection of minerals to the University of Moscow. In his

writings he promoted the ideas of his teacher Abraham Gottlob Werner and made them known

to a broader public.

III.200. Grandson of an immigrant from Castile, merchant and entrepreneur PEDRO LUCIANO

OTERO (1717–88) started out as a shopkeeper in the mining village of Rayas in Guanajuato. In

1760, Antonio Obregón y Alcocer, the owner of the famous Valenciana mine, unable to

properly administrate and distribute the costs of running the mine, was forced to sell part of the

382 property to Otero. Otero thus became the official owner of twelve shares (approximately 42%) of the Valenciana, one of the most productive silver mines in the world. Soon after this partnership, the Valenciana mine became a model for all other mines in New Spain due to its use of high- quality technology and the tight entrepreneurial organization Obregón had implemented. Otero’s death, besides leading to the dispersal of the mine’s ownership across the various families in

New Spain, also led to an intense legal battle about who was to inherit his fortune. Humboldt visited the Valenciana mine in August 1803. See also Mazo, José Antonio del; Rul, Diego.

III.200n. Little is known about captain Juan Antonio de SANTA ANA (also Santana and Santa

Anna), a silent investor in the Valenciana mine in Guanajuato, who held four shares of the property (which he received in 1764). Using the profits generated by the mine, Santa Ana was able to purchase around 450,000 pesos worth of property in Salamanca. Throughout the rest of his life, he remained in this area, continuing to invest in the mining trade of Guanajuato and operating a silver refinery.

III. 223. As Humboldt himself mentioned, JOSÉ ALEJANDRO BUSTAMANTE y Bustillo (d. 1750) was a very private individual. Most of what is known of his life is found in accounts that

Francisco Javier Gamboa (1717–94) collected in his Comentarios a las ordenanzas de minas

(Commentaries on mining ordinances) in 1761. Bustamante was a wealthy miner from Pachuca who co-owned the Veta Vizcaína mines in this region. With the help of his business partner,

Pedro Romero de Terreros, he was also responsible for building the Azoyatla gallery in the

Pachuca valley. This gallery provided ventilation and drainage facilities to the mines in the area.

See also annotation for Moran (I.60).

383

III.223. PEDRO ROMERO DE TERREROS, the first Count of Regla (1710–81), was a Spanish mining magnate and philanthropist believed to be one of the richest men of his time. In 1743, he began a business partnership with Bustamante y Bustillo and administrated the excavation and extraction of minerals at the Vizcaína mines. With the unexpected death of Bustamante, Romero de Terreros became the sole proprietor of the Vizcaína, which dramatically increased his wealth.

Despite his prosperity and his charitable ventures, which included monetary donations to religious institutions and the gift of a battleship to the Spanish navy, Romero de Terreros severely damaged his reputation during a workers’ strike at Vizcaína in 1766. The reason for the strike was his refusal to comply with the tradition of the tequio, which entitled miners to a portion of the minerals they extracted.

III.228. Mr. Lachaussée was a Flemish machinist of whom little else appears to be known.

III.228n. In 1770, German mineralogist, metallurgist, and geologist Christoph Traugott DELIUS

(1728–79) became a professor of metallurgy and mineralogy at the Schemnitz Mining Academy.

Two years laer, he worked as an assessor at the Oberberg- und Münzkollegium in Vienna. He later became councilor at the Imperial Court in Vienna, and, from 1775 to 1776, was in charge of reorganizing and improving the Hungarian mines. Humboldt refers here to the French translation of Delius’s Anleitung zu der Bergbaukunst (Mining manual, 1773), a mining manual that was used until the late nineteenth century.

III.246. SALVADOR SEIN taught physics at the School of Mining in Mexico City.

III.246. Georg Friedrich von REICHENBACH (1771–1826) was a German maker of scientific instruments and inventor of the transit circle for use in scientific observatories, such as the one in

384

Mannheim, Germany, where he was first introduced to astronomy. Humboldt, however, refers to

Reichenbach’s work in hydraulics and the reputation he gained for bringing the steam engine to

Bavaria. While in England in 1791–92, Reichenbach studied with James Watt (1736–1819) and

surreptitiously made a drawing of Watt’s steam engine. In 1817, he built a twenty-five kilometer

long pipeline with a steam-driven pump through which to pump brine from Berchtesgaden to

Bad Reichenhall, an achievement for which the Bavarian king granted him a title. Later on,

Reichenbach developed similar engines that would pump water into water towers.

III.246n. The lead-mines of Huelgoat in Poullaouen, Britanny, were famous for the hydraulic

pump constructed by Auguste JUNCKER (1791–1865), an Alsatian mining engineer who was

almost related to Georges Cuvier. Juncker was mayor of Poullaouen and engineer-in-chief of

the Royal School of Mines there.

III.254. In 1779, Anton RUPRECHT (1748–1814) was a Hungarian professor of chemistry,

metallurgy, and mineralogy at the Mining Academy in Schemnitz. A year later, he became court

counsellor at the Royal Imperials Chamber of Minting and Mining in Vienna, where he

succeeded his mentor Ignaz Elder von Born at the age of forty-four. Ruprecht was the first one

to succeed in melting .

III.254. German chemist and mineralogist Christlieb Ehregott GELLERT (1713–95) was a member of the Freiberg Mining Council. After visiting the Latin school at Freiberg, he moved to

St. Petersburg where he developed an interest in chemistry and physics. Back in Freiberg, he worked as a consultant for the mining facilities. In 1762, he became the principal curator of the metallurgic industry at Freiberg and, in 1766, the first professor for metallurgy at the newly founded mining academy. Gellert also introduced a new method of amalgamation based on

385

Born’s works. The English translation of Gellert’s major book on metallurgy was published as

Metallurgic chymistry in 1776.

III.256. In 1571–72, Spanish miner Pedro FERNÁNDEZ DE VELASCO perfected a relatively inexpensive method of amalgamation known as beneficio de cajones (the boxes method). After hearing about Fernández’s method, viceroy of Peru Francisco de Toledo summoned him to

Cusco to demonstrate his technique, which used mercury to facilitate silver production. Toledo subsequently employed Fernández to teach his process to the miners of Potosí. It has been argued that this technological change led to the town’s economic salvation.

III.256n. Criminal judge of the Royal Audiencia of Mexico, Luís BERRIO DE MONTALVO (d.

1643) was a Spanish engineer, doctor, and lawyer who occupied various administrative positions in New Spain. He was commissioned to assess the benefits of silver amalgamation and published a treatise on the process, Informe del nuevo beneficio (Report on the new form of reduction), in

1643. The twenty chapters of this treatise included observations about the amalgamation process, along with suggestions and modifications for making the process more efficient and cost- effective. It is a common mistake to credit Berrio de Montalvo with having invented the amalgamation process. That honor belongs to Fernández de Velasco.

III. 356n. Wilhelm August Eberhard LAMPADIUS (1772–1842) was a German metallurgist, chemist, and agronomist. Due to his early and pronounced interest in science, he was offered to accompany the Bohemian naturalist Kaspar Maria von Sternberg (1761–1838), who had met

Humboldt in Paris in 1805, on his expedition to Russia. In 1794, Lampadius became a professor for chemistry at the Mining Academy in Freiberg. His Handbuch der Allgemeinen Hüttenkunde

(Handbook of mining) was published between 1801 and 1826. Among his most important

386

scientific achievements were the discovery of carbon disulfide, the extraction of sugar from potato starch, and investigations into the composition and use of coal. Lampadius was also one of the pioneers of the use of gaslight in Europe.

III. 257n. Captain PEDRO MENDOZA MELENDEZ and PEDRO GARCIA DE TAPIA discovered a

method of amalgamation through which one could extract silver in under twenty-four hours. In

1643, Luís Berrio de Montalvo improved on Mendoza and García’s amalgamation method in the mines of New Spain.

III.258n. Jesuit priest ALVARO ALONZO BARBA (1569–1662) was a Catalonian metallurgist who

proposed an innovative amalgamation process in which ore was crushed, heated, and treated with

mercury in order to extract silver. He is best known for his work Arte de los metales (The art of

metals, 1640), in which he summarized the mining and metallurgic procedures developed and

used in New Spain. Barba’s work was the last example of the medieval alchemical tradition. In

1761, Francisco Javier Gamboa (1717–94) redefined mining in his Comentarios a las ordenanzas de minas (Commentaries on mining rules).

III.258n. Priest and theologian JUAN José ORDOÑEZ de Montalvo was a mining technician in the

province of Tulancingo during the eighteenth century. He was also the director of the mines and

plantations that belonged to the sons of Agustín Moreno y Castro, the Marquis of Valle-Ameno

(1670–1755). In 1758, Ordoñez compiled a report titled Arte o nuevo modo de beneficiar los metales de oro y playa, y de plata con ley de oro, por azoque (New method of reducing metals such as gold and silver using quicksilver), in which he tried to improve the effectiveness of the

patio method, which used heat-based amalgamation, by employing additives such as salt and

calcite. In this process, silver ore was crushed to a fine paste mixed with salt, water, copper

387

sulfate, and mercury, which was then spread on a one- to two-foot layer on a patio. After weeks of mixing, a chemical reaction converted the silver to a native metal. See also Medina,

Bartolomé de.

III.258n. FRANCISCO XAVIER DE SARRÍA (also Soria, b. c. 1750) published his Ensayo de

metalurgia, ó descripción por de las catorce materias metálicas (Essay on metallurgy, or a

description on the fourteen metallic materials) in 1784. In it, he explained the metallurgic

techniques and European chemical theories applied to amalgamation in New Spain. This essay

was the first print source in the New World to discuss the details of the innovative chemical

nomenclature applied to this process. The King of Spain, Carlos III (1716–88), also supported

Xavier de Sarría’s project to create Spain’s first national lottery, which was a simplified and

more logical version of the ones carried out in Naples and England. The new lottery was created as a new source of financial revenue for making institutional improvements. This system was adopted by other European lotteries a year later.

III.266. In 1767, German mineralogist Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Toussaint von CHARPENTIER

(1728–1805) was a professor at the Freiberg Mining Academy and director of the mines of

Saxony. His publications, including his Mineralische Geographie der chursächsischen Lande

(Mineralogical geography of the , 1778), are mainly dedicated to the mineral resources of Saxony. Charpentier introduced to Saxon metallurgy new ways of amalgamation that were used in Hungary at the time.

III.266n. Educated at the University of , mineralogist and mining expert Joaquim Pedro

FRAGOSO da Motta DE SIQUERIA (d. 1833) was the royal inspector-general of mines and metals in

Portugal. He traveled widely in Europe, including in Saxony, and, in addition to belonging to the

388

Lisbon Royal Academy of Sciences, he was a corresponding member of the academies of

Leipzig and Madrid.

III.267. In 1586, the Peruvian miner CARLOS CORSO DE LECA discovered a mining process known as el beneficio de hierro (the iron method). This process consisted of adding small pieces of iron to the torta, the name for the metallic flour mixture to which Humboldt refers, in order to save mercury via the reduction of the chloride present in silver. It is unclear whether this method of extraction was actually effective, as it was not broadly employed in New Spain.

III.267n. In 1633, JUAN CARVAJAL Y SANDE (also Carbajal) was appointed president of the Real

Audiencia de la Plata (Royal Court of Silver), which also made him governor of the province known as Charcas (today’s Bolivia). In the 1630s, viceroy Luis Jerónimo Fernández de Cabrera y Bobadilla (1589–1647), the fourth Conde de Chichón, appointed Carvajal to visit the imperial villa to formulate and implement a new charter for the mita—a form of legal servitude for the indigenous population who were called mitayos (Indian workers). Carvajal was known for making financial choices that benefited the mitayos while decreasing the finances of officers in

Charcas. For instance, he denied such workers to the owners of twenty-nine of the one hundred mines in the Charcas area. He also decreed that travel allowances be paid to the mitayos, and he eliminated the percentage of their income that had been traditionally given to the chief overseer of the mines. In this way, Carvajal succeeded in alienating colonial administrators in Spain and

New Spain alike.

III.268. In 1676, miner and metallurgist JUAN DE CORRO SEGARRA (also Cegarra, fl. 1670s) invented a technique known as beneficio de la pella de plata (silver lump method), which is a modification of Pedro Fernández de Velasco’s silver extraction procedure. Corro Segarra’s

389

process consisted of using amalgamated mercury, rather than pure mercury, to extract silver. He believed that this method facilitated a quicker incorporation of the silver present in an amalgam while at the same time limiting the amount of mercury that had to be used. Corro Segarra’s method was widely celebrated for being easier and cheaper, but there were also doubters. In the

end, Corro’s theory proved to be an utter failure when put into practice.

III.268. Canary Islander LORENZO Felipe DE LA TORRE Barrio y Lima was a proprietor of the

mines of the district of San Juan de Lucanas in Peru. In 1738, he published a document titled

Arte, o cartilla del nuevo beneficio de la plata en todo genero de metals fríos y calientes, in which he discussed a method of extracting silver from both warm or cold types of ore by using white or yellow coppers known as colpa. In the process, he also criticized Juan de Corro

Segarra’s extraction method with the intent of boosting his own credibility as a metallurgist.

Spanish monk and scholar Benito Jerónimo Feijóo (1676–1764) praised De la Torres’s work and thanked him for offering his most significant invention to New Spain.

III.269. Bartolomé de MEDINA (c. 1503–85) was a wealthy Seville merchant and entrepreneur.

He claimed to have been acquainted with a German metallurgist who had taught him how to extract gold and silver embedded within rocks. After hearing about the riches of New Spain, he moved to Pachuca, Hidalgo, and quickly became one of New Spain’s most prominent metallurgists and mining specialists. In 1555, he discovered and experimented with a silver amalgamation process known as beneficio de patio (patio method), which used the natural chemical properties of mercury to extract silver. Medina’s process required mixing pulverized

“impure” ore with water, salt, and mercury and spreading this mixture, known as torta (cake), out on a patio to dry. The dried torta would then be washed and heated, so that the silver

390

separated from the mercury and could be shaped into bars. The patio process replaced smelting

as the most common practice of silver amalgamation and extraction in New Spain. Pedro

Fernández de Velasco adapted Medina’s process with some slight modifications and introduced

it to Peru.

III.270. Among other things, Humboldt’s close friend Louis-Joseph GAY-LUSSAC (1778–1850),

a student of the French chemist Claude Louis Berthollet, was one of several well-known French

physicists and chemists who, after the 1783 ascent of the heated-air balloon “Montgolfière,” became fascinated with scientific ballooning. In 1804, Gay-Lussac collaborated with Jean-

Baptiste Biot (1774–1862) to reach an altitude of 23,000 feet in order to make magnetic and

temperature observations. The following year, Humboldt and Gay-Lussac worked together on studying the composition of the atmosphere.

Gay-Lussac’s British peer and competitor in the analysis of the then-curious new substances of iodine and chlorine was the chemist Sir Humphry (1778–1829). Davy also experimented

with nitric oxide in his efforts to develop an anesthetic gas and also with trichloramine (a

compound later used in swimming pools). He was severely injured in both experiments.

III.270. A student of Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, French chemist Louis Jacques THÉNARD (1777–

1857) was renowned as a researcher and a teacher. In 1802, Thénard succeeded his mentor at the

Collège de France. Like Gay-Lussac, Thénard collaborated with Humboldt (among others) on

chemical experiments during Humboldt’s Parisian years (1804–27). One of Thénard’s best-

known discoveries was (in 1818). He also discovered boron and almost beat

Humphry Davy in isolating the element chlorine. Thénard’s textbook, Traité de chimie

391

élémentaire, théorique et pratique (An Essay on Chemical Analysis) was first published in 1813

and went through many editions.

III.274n. Mariano Eduardo de RIVERO y Ustariz (1798–1857) was a prominent Peruvian geologist, mineralogist, chemist, archeologist, politician, and diplomat. In his own country, he is

typically known as the founder of archeology and anthropology, and he is considered a major

precursor of the Peruvian mining industry. Humboldt himself pushed Rivero to study at the

Royal School of Mining in France, where he undertook his first research on chemistry and

mining. Rivero’s publications—about his discovery of Humboldtine (an iron-oxalate), about

demonstrating the existence of organic minerals, about deposits of copper and sodium nitrate

near Tarapacá in the Atacama desert (today Chile), and about bird- and coal in Peru—

made him a pioneer of mining education in South America and the most notable Peruvian

scientist of the nineteenth century. His contributions to Peruvian archeology and geology were

also well known at the time: he analyzed the mineral water of the thermal sources of Yura and

provided vivid descriptions of gold idols, silver, and ceramics in the mines of Peru. In 1822, the

minister of Gran Colombia in Paris, Francisco Antonio Zea, asked Rivero, upon Humboldt’s

recommendation, to found and run a mining school in Bogotá. In 1828, Rivero established the

Lima Mining School, known today as the National University of Engineering. He also created

Lima’s first museum of natural history.

III.282. Educated in Paris and Moûtier, the French geologist and mineralogist Pierre BERTHIER

(1782–1861) became an engineer in 1805 and was promoted to chief engineer of the French

mining schools in 1816. His research on phosphates was important for the development of modern agriculture. He also discovered bauxite, and the mineral Berthierite. In 1825, Berthier

392

was elected member of the Paris Academy of Sciences and, in 1828, became Knight of the

Legion of Honor. Humboldt refers here to Berthier’s work on copper and silver alloys.

III.282n. In 1796, English mining and civil engineer John Taylor (1779–1863) invented a crusher

designed to process copper ore for the Wheal Friendship mine at Tavistock. He was also a

supervisor for the construction of the Tavistock Canal, which linked the mine to the Tamar

River, from 1803 to 1817. A fellow of the Geological Society since 1807, he served as its

treasurer from 1816 to 1844. After working as a chemical manufacturer in Stratford, Essex,

Taylor reopened an abandoned copper mine in Cornwall in 1819. This mine, known as the

Consolidated Mines at Gwennap, soon became the most productive copper mine in the country.

Years later, Taylor became one of the founders of University College in London.

III.290n. Charles-Étienne Cocquebert de MONTBRET (1755–1831) was a diplomat who also

headed the French empire’s statistical department, taught physical geography, and founded the

Journal des mines. He collaborated with Jean-Baptiste Omalius d’Halloy (1783–1875) on what

they called a “mineralogical-agricultural map” of France, which they presented to the Academy

of Sciences on February 19, 1821. The Ministry of the Interior had gathered the information for

this map in 1808–9.

III.294. ANTONIO DEL CAMPO MARÍN was an accountant who specialized in the financial administration of quicksilver mines in New Spain. In 1783, he compiled an unpublished comparative financial report on the mining of quicksilver as a lucrative economic venture, in

which he traced the prices and consumption of quicksilver from 1762–82. This report consisted

of a list of gold, silver, and quicksilver prices in conjunction with summaries and comparative

interpretations in yearly intervals. Campo Marín’s report demonstrated the financial viability of

393

producing quicksilver, which was increasingly used as a catalyst for silver extraction and in amalgamation processes.

III.310n. Gerolamo (also Girolamo or Geronimo) CARDANO (also Cardan or , 1501–76)

was an mathematician, physician, astrologer, and gambler. He wrote more

than 200 works on medicine, mathematics, physics, philosophy, religion, and music. His

gambling led him to formulate elementary rules in probability, making him one of the founders

of the field.

III.310n. Michele MERCATI (1541-1593), also known as Michael Mercatus and Mercator, was a physician and naturalist from Florence. He founded the Vatican‘s Botanical Garden and became famous for his naturalist collections of minerals, fossils and archeological artifacts.

III.310n. Educated at the universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig, Ernst Florens Friedrich

CHLADNI (1754–1827) was a German-Hungarian-Slovak physicist and musician. In addition to

his foundational work in acoustics, also researched meteorites. At the time, his claim

that the meteorites found on Earth came from space and were evidence of earlier developments

of planets in our solar system was almost unanimously rejected by his peers, including

Humboldt.

III.312. Casimiro Ramón CHOVEL, perhaps the most distinguished alumnus of the School of

Mines established in New Spain to teach mineralogy and metallurgy, was general manager of the

Valenciana mine. Like most of his former fellow students, Chovel joined the troops of Miguel

Hidalgo (1753–1811) in Guanajuato to fight for Mexican independence in 1810. Like the

insurgent leader, he was executed.

394

III.312n. José Antonio del MAZO (d. 1805), an immigrant from Santander in Cantabria, Spain,

was married to the widow of mine owner Pedro Luciano Otero of Guanajuato. By 1791, Del

Mazo had attained control over the vast mining fortune that Manuel Antonio de Otero had inherited from his brother Pedro in 1788. In contrast to his brother-in-law, a profligate spender,

Mazo was a shrewd and careful businessman who steered clear of direct investments in mining.

Mazo left most of his fortune to his two wards.

III.319. PEDRO GARCÍA de la Vera was an educator and intellectual in the Cuenca region of New

Spain. Cuenca’s educational system was based almost entirely on the teaching of Latin and was

reserved for the richest of families. García was known for his charitable ventures, such as

importing and distributing Latin books for Jesuits colleges so that children could learn how to

read. These included texts written by polymath Fray Benito Jerónimo Feijóo (1676–1764).

García de la Vera was also known for teaching subjects such as advanced arithmetic and

geometry. Humboldt considered his observations on the use of cinnabar as very useful.

III.320. The French astronomer Guillaume-Joseph-Hyacinthe-Jean-Baptiste LE GENTIL de la

Galaisière (1725–92) became the protagonist of one of the most peculiar accounts in historical

astronomy. An urgent astronomical matter of his time was to ascertain the distance between the

Earth and the sun by measuring the transit of Venus, which was calculated to occur in 1761. For

the transit to be measured accurately, hundreds of astronomers were to travel to different

locations around the globe to observe the event from diverse angles. In 1760, Le Gentil, under

royal orders, signed on with an astronomical expedition to the Indian Ocean; he was determined

to reach the French colony of Pondicherry on the southeast coast of India to make his

observations. Due to a British sea blockade, Le Gentil never reached Pondicherry. He saw the

395 transit only from the sea and was forced to redirect his voyage, traveling instead to Île de France

(Mauritius). In 1768, he finally managed to sail to Pondicherry where he was granted permission to install an astronomical observatory designed to observe Venus’s second transit a year later (its last one in over a century). Yet, on the exact day of the transit and despite perfect weather conditions in the weeks before, clouds obstructed Le Gentil’s view of the planet’s course, leaving him, once again, without any results. In his Voyage dans le mer de l’Inde (Voyage to the Indian

Sea, 1782), he gives a vivid report of this and many other events during his decade-long travels around the world, during which he undertook significant astronomical, cartographical, and cultural studies in the Philippines, Madagascar, and India.

III.322. Fürchtegott Leberecht von NORDENFLYCHT (1752–1815) was a German mining engineer descended from a line of Swedish aristocrats who had moved to Prussia during the second half of the eighteenth century. After studying in Freiberg, Nordenflycht worked as director of mines in

Miedziana Góra (Poland). On behalf of the Spanish crown, he assembled a team of Saxon mining experts and went to Lima, where they arrived in 1790. The task to increase the productivity of the silver mines at Potosí and Cerro de Pasco failed due to difficulties with local authorities. Nordenflycht, however, managed to install a laboratory in Lima, where amalgamation techniques derived from von Born could be performed. Humboldt met

Nordenflycht in Lima in 1802.

III.322n. Educated at the Jesuit’s College in Lyon, Barthélemi FAUJAS DE SAINT-FOND (1741–

1819) was a French naturalist, geologist, and traveler known for his theory on the formation of volcanoes. In addition to traveling in the Alps, he also visited Scotland, England, and the

396

Hebrides. In 1793, he was appointed the first professor of geology at the Natural History

Museum (Jardin des Plantes) in Paris.

III.333n. Spanish miner and official mining accountant JUAN LUCAS DE LASSAGA (Humboldt’s

de la Sage) was heir to the Cedros plantation and the massive fortune of his uncle, Juan de Uroz.

Knowing that one day he would inherit Uroz’s fortune, Lassaga carefully studied the

management of the plantation, and he also developed hands-on experience in mining administration and business negotiations. He coauthored a 1774 petition titled Representación que, a nombre de la Minería de esta Nueva España hacen al Rey Nuestro Señor los Apoderados de ella (loosely translated as “Presentation made to our lord, the King, regarding of the mining of

New Spain, by its owners”) with Joaquín Velázquez de León, a lawyer in the Royal Audiencia of

New Spain. This petition, which consists of seventy-eight paragraphs and additional notes, discusses the state of mining in New Spain and details the reasons why the industry was not as prominent as it should have been. In the document’s conclusion, Lassaga and Velázquez propose that a fifty percent reduction in the price of the silver tithe and in the price of mercury would be needed to help boost mining. The Crown ultimately consented to a twenty-five percent cut, dropping the price of silver and mercury from eighty to sixty pesos per hundredweight. In 1767,

Lassaga and Velázquez authored Representación de precios de mercurio (Presentation on mercury prices), a memorandum in which they sought official backing for their metallurgical experiments.

III.352. RODRIGUEZ DE OCAÑO is credited with discovering the mines in the mountains of

Chupicayacu, located a few kilometers west of Hualgayoc. Historians disagree about the actual

date of his discovery, but estimates usually fall between 1767 and 1771. During the first years of

397

the establishment of this mine, it was known for producing silver and gold. Now, miners extract primarily copper, lead, and zinc from it.

III.355. Lieutenant and captain of the Galician Infantry, ANTONIO ÁLVAREZ Y JIMÉNEZ (d. c.

1813) was the governor of the Chiloé region of New Spain from 1800 to 1813. He arrived at

New Spain in 1784. Prior to his position as governor of Chiloé, he was governor of the Arequipa

region. He is best known for his report Relaciones de la vida del intendente de Arequipa don

Antonio Alvárez y Jiménez (Report of the intendant of Arequipa, Antonio Alvarez y Jiménez),

written between 1786 and 1792 but not published until 1941–52. In this report, Ávarez de

Jiménez described the physical aspects of the region and gave a detailed account of Arequipa’s

ten towns and three valleys. He also discussed Arequipa’s flora and fauna and commented on the

obvious lack of the animal and food production industry in the region.

III.358n. Initially worked by Peru’s indigenous peoples, the Ticapampa mine eventually became

the site of the Anglo-French Silver Mining Company (established in 1904 through

reorganization) and one of the oldest continuing operations in the history of modern mining in

Peru.

III.358n. JUAN BAUTISTA ARRIETA was one of the most important figures in silver mining in the

Cajatambo Province near Lima, Peru. In 1777, he was involved in labor disputes with indigenous

mine workers but stayed in the mining business at least until 1790.

III.360n. Humboldt refers here to the report presented to the House of Commons by the BULLION

committee in 1810. This important document discussed the necessity of stabilizing the paper

398

currency by basing it strictly on the amount of disposable gold, as proposed by the British

economist David Ricardo (1772–1823). See also III.14n.

III.361n. Connecticut-born Joseph Thomas REDHEAD (1767–1847) was a Scottish physician educated in Edinburgh and at Göttingen University in Germany where he shared classes with

Humboldt. In the early 1790s, the Scottish government commissioned Redhead to engage in the study of nature in the New Continent, and he arrived in Buenos Aires around 1793. As a result of his travels in the north of today’s Argentina, Redhead became a renowned naturalist interested in everything from typhus and malaria to botany and geology. He was one of the first to measure

the elevation of the Andes. He also collected information about the mineral wealth of the

northern Argentine region, including the oldest data in the history of petroleum extraction in

South America. Redhead was not politically neutral but fought for Argentine Independence,

notably in the Battle of Salta (1813). In 1812, he had left Salta for Tucumán, where he served as

the personal physician of General Manuel Belgrano (1770–1820), a hero of the Argentine War of

Independence and creator of the Argentinean flag. Redhead died in Salta.

III.361n. Anton Zacharias HELMS (1751–1803) was a German mining expert dispatched by the

Spanish Crown to improve the production technology in the mines of Peru and Alto Peru. He had

formerly been director of the Cracow mines in Poland and was one of the fifteen members of the

mission to Potosí organized by the Baron Fürchtegott Nordenflycht, a wealthy student of the

Mining Academy of Freiberg. Helms was one of the first to record geological and mineralogical

observations in northwestern Argentina and southern Bolivia. During his journey from the

Eastern Cordillera to the Puna region, Helms described the tectonic patterns of the mountains and conducted a comparative study with the mountains of Europe. His findings were

399

disseminated almost one hundred years earlier than those of Alfred Stelzner (1852–1906), who is

generally considered the founder of Argentinean geology. During his quest to improve the

production technology of the Peruvian mines, Helms concluded that the Oruro mines held greater

riches than those of Potosí. Despite the projected potential of Oruro, however, its mines were

inefficient. Humboldt’s page numbers refer to the 1789 German edition of Helms’s Travels from

Buenos Ayres, by Potosi, to Lima (1807).

III.365n. Miguel LAMBERTO de SIERRA was treasurer of the Potosí bank. He was also a

representative of a legal court known as the Recaudación (collection), which was in charge of

prosecuting fugitives and confiscating their properties. Due to the irregularity of the prosecution

processes and its poor management, this court proved a complete failure. Sierra also oversaw the

financial management of the Potosí mines.

III.365n. From 1826 to 1827, Filiberto-Héctor VARAIGNE, the translator of Ignacio Nuñez’s

Noticias históricas, políticas, y estadísticas de las Provincias Unidas del Río de La Plata

(Historical, political, and statistical notes on the United provinces of Río de La Plata) was the

emissary to France of Argentina’s then-president Bernardino Rivadavia (1780–1845).

III.366n. Estienne DAMOREAU was a French merchant. His Traité des negociations de banque, et des monnoyes étrangeres (1727) is an early eighteenth-century work on currency exchange and the European banking systems of his day.

III.367. SEBASTIÁN SANDOVAL Y GUZMÁN was an attorney hired by the mining guilds of Potosí

in the early 1630s to argue their case before the Council of the Indies. Without financial

assistance from the Crown, the Potosí silver industry was facing the threat of collapse. Since

400

none of the guilds’ petitions for support had the desired effect, they hired Sandoval y Guzmán to

plead their case. His arguments were published in Madrid in 1634 as Pretensiones de la Villa

Imperial de Potosí (Claims of the Imperial Town of Potosí). The document offered a number of

suggestions for improving the silver production at Potosí, and it also dealt with viniculture in

nearby valleys. A significant section addressed the economic aspects of mining and suggested

several innovations that would save the Potosí mines from shutting down. These innovations

highlighted the importance of the Potosí mining industry for the economic benefit of the Crown.

They included distributing mercury at cost and on credit to the mercury miners and the reduction

of the royal share of production from twenty to ten percent.

III.380. The son of Juan de Tejada (c. 1525), advisor for the Supreme Council of the Crown,

FRANCISCO TEJADA was an official advisor of the Indies. The Crown commissioned him to visit

and examine the mines of Spain, primarily because many believed that these mines produced a

meager amount of ores and silver when compared to the mines in New Spain. Tejada testified

that he had encountered over five hundred Spanish mines abundant in silver and suggested that

extraction of ore from these mines would prove economically beneficial to the Crown. He also

highlighted particular mines, focusing particularly on a mine in Almodóvar del Campo in which

1,360 ounces of silver were extracted daily, a significant amount for the times. Tejada’s observations disproved claims later made by Charles-Louis de Secondat (better known as

Montesquieu, 1689–1755) that Spain lacked mines that produced copious amounts of silver and gold.

II.380n.The physicist (1726–1806) was one of the most prominent British manufacturers of scientific equipment. Humboldt, who was known for using only the finest

401 instruments, worked with this and other thermometers made by Nicholas Paul (Geneva), Jesse

Ramsden (London, 1735–1800), Pierre Bernard Megnié (Madrid, 1751–1807) and Nicolas Fortin

(London). They were mainly used for determining air temperature.

III.386n. IGNACIO Sánchez de TEJADA (1764–1837) was the secretary of the Royal Treasury of

Santa Fé. As a child, he had studied at the Real Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, to which he donated most of his library after his death. Tejada had initially been assigned a position as representative of the Kingdom of Granada in order to advocate for the union of American territories. He then became a secretary of the viceroyalty of Santa Fé and was famous for his eloquence in the Congress of Bayona. Tejada was known to have worked briefly with Napoleon

Bonaparte (1769–1821) and became a member of the retinue of José I (1768–1844) when Lucien

Bonaparte (1775–1840), Napoleon’s younger brother, declared the latter king of Spain. Tejada became a part of this entourage because José I promoted the most advanced program of

European liberalism. Since he had been born and raised in the Americas, Tejada was enthusiastic about this trend among Spanish politicians. In 1824, he was offered a position as the vice president of Santander. Tejada accepted this position and engaged passionately with the

Santander political scene until his death.

III.387. Jean-Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné (1802–87) was known for his work in agricultural chemistry and for the development of the first chrome steels. In 1821, Simón Bolívar

(1783–1830), desirous to found an institute for training engineers in Colombia, engaged

Boussingault. Boussingault attempted to reach the peak of Chimborazo and described his feat in

“Ascension au Chimborazo exécutée le 16 décembre 1831” (Attempt to ascend Chimborazo on

December 16, 1831), which prompted Humboldt to publish a detailed account of his own climb.

402

Later on, Boussingault also published Viajes científicos á los Andes ecuatoriales; ó, Colección

de memorias sobre física, química é historia natural de la Nueva Granada, Ecuador y Venezuela

(Scientific travels to the equatorial Andes, or collection of reports on the physics, chemistry, and

natural history of New Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela, 1849).

III.389n. Coronel TOMÁS VALENCIA (1752–1819) was a miner and aristocrat of Popayán in

charge of exploring mines in the Quiebralomo, an area in Riosucio, Caldas (Colombia). He was

an associate of a Royal Mining Company of Quiebralomo, which was established around 1792.

Valencia is credited with identifying platinum deposits in the aquifer lands near Lloró. He was

the richest man of the Quiebralomo area during the early nineteenth century, until the mines were

purchased by English companies.

III.394n. William JACOB (c. 1762–1851) has was among few English merchants to be involved in

direct trade with South America. His trading interests made him a firm supporter of the liberation

of the Spanish American colonies and of the abolition of the slave trade slave. Starting in 1806,

he served as a Member of Parliament on several occasions. During the winter of 1809–10, Jacob

traveled in Spain and published his letters as Travels in the South of Spain in 1811. Through his

own travels in Europe, he became an expert on the European corn trade and on British

agricultural protection. In addition to his official reports, he published several books and

pamphlets on economic subjects; he also contributed to the Quarterly Review and the

Encyclopædia Britannica. From 1832 to 1838, he served as treasurer of the Royal Society of

Literature.

III.398n. Essayer of Commerce Pierre-Frédéric BONNEVILLE (b. 1768) was a French numismatic

expert. In 1806, he published an extensive book on coins of all nations, Traité des monnaies d'or

403

et d'argent qui circulent chez les différents peuples (Treatise on gold and silver currency that

circulate among different nations) under government sponsorship.

III.398n. German-born Nicolaus MAGENS (also Megens or Meggens, c. 1697–1764) gained early experience as a merchant in Hamburg, Germany, and in Spain. In the early 1700s, he settled in

London, where, as a successful insurance trader and later director of the London Assurance

Company, he accumulated considerable wealth. The Universal Merchant (1852), his first publication in English, established Magens’s reputation as an authority on monetary and commercial matters. A second influential study was his Essay on Insurances (1755), an amended and augmented translation of his Versuch über Assecuranzen (1753).

III.399. The German apothecary Johann Gottlieb (or Jean-Théophil) GEORGI (1738–1802)

traveled as a naturalist and geographer in Siberia in 1773 and 1774. Starting his journey from St.

Petersburg, he joined the botanist Johann Peter Falk (1732–1774), among others. In 1797, Georgi published Geographisch-physikalische und naturhistorische Beschreibung des Russischen

Reichs (Geographical-physical and natural-historical description of the Russian Empire). He also translated from the Swedish Pehr Osbeck’s Dagbok öfwer en ostindisk resa åren 1750. 1751.

1752 (1757) as Reise nach Ostindien und China (Travels to China and the East Indies, 1765).

III.402n. A major trader in the Levant, Cornelis van der OUDERMEULEN (1735–1794) was an

administrator of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He also served on the board of directors

of the West Indian colonies and was in charge of the Dutch colony of Surinam. Oudermeulen

made a fortune from the company’s trade in China tea. His published his Recherches sur le

commerce (Research on trade), to which Humboldt refers here, in 1778–79.

404

III.405. Economist and politician GERÓNIMO DE UZTÁRIZ y Hermiaga (1670–1732) was one of

the most studied and discussed Spanish mercantilists. At the age of sixteen, he moved to

Flanders and enrolled in the Royal Academy of Brussels, where he was educated in military arts.

He then served in the Spanish army for twelve years. Uztáritz was best known for his treatise on

the trade of Spanish monarchy, Théorie et pratique du commerce et de la marine (The theory and

practice of trade and maritime affairs) published in Madrid in 1724. Although based on concepts

of mercantilism, Uztáriz’s book imported ideas from other countries, such as the upgrading of

the navy and the establishment of royal manufacturers. In his view, the only way in which Spain

would be able to escape its state of economic decay and decadence would be through the

acquisition of utilitarian commercial practices. In order to promote the advancement of the

Spanish economy through such means, Uztáriz pushed for cutting-edge changes within Spanish

government and infrastructure, such as the reduction of monopolies, the elimination of swaps,

and tax reform. In 1730, he was named secretary of the Royal Board of Trading and Currency,

where he was able to put many of his ideas into practice.

III.405. Spanish economist SANCHO DE MONCADA (b. 1580) was one of the founding fathers of

arbitrismo, a generic name given to a current of political and economic thought that developed in the Spanish monarchy during the second half of the sixteenth century. Even though many have considered him to have close ties with the , which focused on liberty and natural law, he actually distanced himself from that group. In 1619, Moncada wrote a treatise that would be reissued in 1746 as Restauración política de España (The political restoration of

Spain). In this book, he advanced a quantitative theory of the Spanish economy and presented a complete model of Spanish mercantilism. He also highlighted the weaknesses of the Spanish economy and depicted Spain as a kingdom whose trade was on the decline and that had become

405

financially indebted to enemy countries. His proposed solution to these problems was an extreme

protectionism.

III.405. PEDRO FERNÁNDEZ DE NAVARRETE (1564–1632) was a Spanish politician, humanist,

translator, and poet who was best known for his Conservación de monarquias (The conservation of monarchies) from 1626. Written from a mercantilist perspective, this treatise argued for an

increase in exports and more controls on Spanish imports. He acknowledged that Spain had an

overabundance of currency but he warned that this excess would create a perilous situation if

Spain did not focus on producing goods for domestic consumption and for export. He pointed out

that industrialization might go far toward relieving the economic stagnation from which Spain

was suffering, and he placed more value on raw materials and agriculture rather than on the

accumulation of silver and gold.

III.405n. In the early , Eobald TOZE (1715–1789) studied history, economics, political

sciences, and law at the University of Göttingen, Germany, where he was also appointed adjunct

professor. He earned his academic reputation through his own historical research and as

translator of historical works from the English and the Dutch. In 1761, Toze became professor of

history at the newly founded University of Bützow, where he remained until his death which

coincided with the closing of that institution. Humboldt’s page reference to Toze’s “Abhandlung

von der grossen Menge des Goldes und Silbers, das aus der Neuen Welt nach Spanien

gekommen ist” (Essay on the large amounts of gold and silver which came to Spain from the

New World, in Kleine Schriften, pp. 92–108) is in error.

III.405n. One of France’s leading economists, Paris-educated François Véron Duverger de

FORBONNAIS (1722–1800) contributed several articles to ’s Encyclopedie. From his

406

position as inspector-general of finance, Forbonnais advanced to personal advisor of King Louis

XV (1710–1774) in 1759 and, a year later, began to edit the Journal de l’agriculture, du

commerce et des finances. In the 1750s, several significant translations into French he authored

added to Forbonnais’s reputation: Gerónimo de Uztáriz’s Theorica, y practica de comercio, y

de marina (1724), Charles King’s (fl. 1713–1721) The British Merchant, or, Commerce preserv'd (1721), and David Hume’s (1711–1776) A Treatise on Human Nature (1739–40).

III.405n. François GERBOUX was the author of Discussion sur les effets de la démonétisation de

l'or, relativement à la France (Discussion of the effects of the demonetization of gold, with

respect to France, 1803).

III.407. A native of Segovia, Spain, Pedro Arias DÁVILA (also Pedrarias Dávila, c. 1440–1531) was a Spanish colonial administrator and soldier who fought in the wars against the Moors in

Granada in the 1490s and in North Africa in 1508. A colonel of the infantry, he had influential

friends who secured him the favor of Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, Bishop of Burgos (1451–

1524), the head of the Council of the Indies. In 1514, Dávila was placed in command of the

largest Spanish expedition sent to the Americas at that time, and he reached ,

Colombia, with nineteen ships. He was given lengthy instructions, in which the salvation of the

Indians and the dissemination of the Catholic faith were cited as the reasons for invading the

New World. Known for being strict and ruthless, Dávila not only kidnapped and enslaved

indigenous persons but also executed anyone who disagreed with him. In 1519, he founded the

city of Panama. He also laid the basis for the exploration of South America’s west coast and the

subsequent conquest of Peru.

407

III.410. French economist, writer, and politician Germain GARNIER (1754–1821) is probably best

recognized for his annotated and very laudatory 1802 translation of Adam Smith’s (1723–1790)

Wealth of Nations (1776), which he produced during his exile in England. Among Garnier’s other translations is a 1796 French version of William Godwin’s (1756–1836) The Adventures of

Caleb Williams (1794). Though a self-declared physiocrat, Garnier was a staunch defender of

Smithian economic doctrine against earlier criticisms it had received from Thomas Malthus and

David Ricardo (1772–1823).

III.421. In 1502, Nicolás de OVANDO y Cáceres (1460–1511) sailed to the New World with a

fleet of thirty ships. His expedition also included Francisco Pizarro (c. 1470s–1541). As governor

of Hispaniola (1502–9), Ovando laid the foundations for colonial economics and the centralized

bureaucratic control of Spain’s colonies. He recommended a system of forced labor for the

indigenous populations, which the crown approved in 1503 (see encomienda and Bartolomé de

las Casas). The introduction of this system accelerated the native people’s almost complete

extinction in the Caribbean. When the Spanish had come to the island in 1492, the indigenous

population had been estimated at 400,000; by 1508, it was down to 60,000. Because the new

colonists needed more workers for the gold mines and farms, they brought in Indians from the

Lucayas (now the Bahamas) and African slaves from Spain (Ladinos, that is, of African origin

but born in Spain); those were the first African slaves brought to America. In 1509, Ovando was

recalled to Spain. He was succeeded by (c. 1479–1526) but was permitted to

retain his property.

III.423n. Jesuit FATHER BLAS VALERA (1545–1597) was a Peruvian-Hispanic chronicler and one of the leading figures to defend Inca civilization against defamation by Spanish authorities and

408

thinkers. Valera was able to tap into his Inca mother’s cultural and linguistic roots to work with

indigenous Incas in Peru. His knowledge of Quechua allowed him to take part in missions that

the Jesuits had established in Huarochirí, a pre-Hispanic center of worship. During these

missions, he was able to engage in spiritual discussions with the Inca elites in Cuzco. These

deliberations were based primarily on the similarities between Inca religions and Christianity.

Within his writings, he condemned the Spanish conquest of the Incas (of which he was a

product) and praised Inca rule for being moral and legitimate. He also placed Quechua on par with Latin in terms of its civilizing influence. He even claimed that the Inca religion possessed an inherent knowledge in Christ. Valera placed himself in the middle of the controversial debates over the of Iberian rule and the manner in which the indigenous peoples should be treated. Because of his radical views, he was quickly accused of heresy and was imprisoned for fourteen years. He spent the rest of his life in exile.

III.425n. Noël-François-Mathieu Angot DES ROTOURS (1739–1821) had a special interest in

numismatics. After the French Revolution, he became part of the currency committee of the

National Constituent Assembly. He was a member of the Rouen Académie de Sciences, Belles-

lettres et Art.

III.425n. Miguel de MÚZQUIZ y Goyeneche (1719–1785) was minister of economy and finance

of Spain from 1766–85. During this time, he reinvigorated Spanish finances, trying to improve

the organization of the customs system, implement a new, more equal tax system, and promote

agriculture, industry, and trade. He encouraged the cultivation of silk and sought to increase the

production rates of factories. He also inspired the economically important laws of 1778, which

decreed freedom of trade between Spain and the Americas.

409

III.426n. George ANSON, the first baron Anson (1697–1762), was an admiral in the British Royal

Navy during the Seven Years’ War. He is mostly known for his circumnavigation of the globe,

which he began in 1740 with a rather ill-equipped fleet. When he returned to Britain four years later, having failed to achieve his ambitious goal, his crew of 1,854 had dwindled to 188. Anson became a member of Parliament shortly after his return and published his Voyage round the

World in London in 1749.

III.433. Jean Nicolas DÉMEUNIER’s (1751–1814) literary interests and aspirations earned him the

position of royal censor. A supporter of the French Revolution, he became a member of the

Constitutional Committee in 1789. During the Reign of Terror (1793–94), Démeunier fled to the

USA. He returned to France in 1796 and resumed his political career as a member of the

Tribunat, the national legal Assembly of which he soon became president. Démeunier’s

Encyclopédie méthodique, économie politique et diplomatique (Systematic encyclopedia of political and diplomatic economy), corrected and discussed in correspondence with Thomas

Jefferson (1743–1826), was issued as a separate volume of Charles-Joseph Panckoucke’s (1739–

1798) Encyclopédie méthodique, a successor to Denis Diderot’s famous encyclopedia.

III.438. French cavalry officer Carloman Louis-François Félix Renouard, marquis DE SAINTE-

CROIX (also Renouard Sainte-Croix, 1773–1840) traveled in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

Voyage commercial et politique aux Indes Orientales (Commercial and political voyage to the

East Indies) is the travelogue of his 1807 journey to China, Macao, and other regions in South

Asia. He was a member of the French Abolitionist Society who also wrote about Martinique—

Statistique de la Martinique (1822)—and Hindu culture.

410

III.441. A key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, Henry DUNDAS (1742–1811), also known as

the first Viscount Melville, was a British politician whose skillful control and knowledge of

Scottish politics earned him the nickname “King Harry the Ninth.” Educated at the University of

Edinburgh, he abandoned his private legal practice in favor of public affairs. He was especially concerned with the abolition of slavery and the dealings of the East India Company. It is said that his intimate familiarity with Indian affairs and his ability as a debater helped neutralize and

overcome most of the opposition that existed toward the East India Company. Because of his

success in eliminating this opposition, he was appointed the company’s treasurer and president of

the board from 1782 to 1800. In 1802, Dundas entered the British office as the First Lord of the

Admiralty, where he introduced many improvements. In 1806, however, he was impeached because of mismanaging public funds.

III.442. Humboldt’s COUNT ROMANZOFF was Nikolay Petrovich Rumyantsev (also Rumiantsev,

Romancov, or Romantzof, 1754–1826), a Russian statesman and patron of the arts and of

exploration. From 1782 to 1795, he served as Russian consul in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Before Alexander I (1777–1825) appointed him minister of commerce (1802–11), foreign

minister (1807–14), and imperial chancellor, Rumyantsev held prominent positions in banking

and commerce. Having the ear of the Czar enabled the Count to find financial backing for

several Arctic expeditions: that of Captain Adam Johann von Krusenstern (1770–1846), who had

proposed the first Russian circumnavigation of the world (1803–06) and, in 1815, a search for

the Northwest Passage led by the Baltic navigator Otto von Kotzebue (1787–1846) who had

traveled with Krusenstern as a lieutenant. During Rumyantsev’s tenure as foreign minister,

Russia established diplomatic relations with the USA. In the fall of 1812, the Count met John

Quincy Adams (1767–1848), who proved a kindred spirit. The year before, Rumyantsev had met

411

Humboldt and invited him to an expedition to Siberia, a voyage that did not take place until three years after the Count’s death, in 1829. Rumyantsev retired in 1814 and turned to scholarly pursuits. He had a keen interest in Russian history and amassed a huge library, together with a collection of manuscripts, ethnographic items, and numismatic materials. His library, which was given to the state after his death, served as the basis for the Lenin State Library of the USSR in

1925, and his collection is preserved in the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow. Rumyantsev also produced the first printed publications of several old Russian chronicles.

III.443n. Educated at the Universities of Copenhagen, , and Göttingen, the Danish-German

Holger De Fine OLIVARIUS (1758–1838) was the publisher of Le Nord littéraire, physique, politique, et moral (The North: literary, physical, political, and moral). In 1781, he became professor of Danish law and language at the University of Kiel, Germany. But his travels throughout Europe left him little time for lectures, and he requested to be freed from his academic responsibilities in 1825. Olivarius lived out his life as an independent scholar and teacher in Altona near Hamburg.

III.448. General Nicolai Alexsejevitch von SCHLENEW (also Shlenev) was chief mining officer in

Ekaterinburg in the Ural region, where gold was first extracted in 1814. Schlenew had a fine collection of minerals from this and other regions in Russia.

III.448n. This reference is likely to the Venetian mathematician Michele Franzini (c. 1740–

1810).

III.449. After completing his studies in Göttingen, Marburg, and Clausthal in 1803, Wilhelm

Ludwig von ESCHWEGE (1777–1855) became a mining engineer for the Portuguese government,

412 working independently under the Brazilian-born mining director José Bonifacio d'Andrada e

Silva (1763–1838), a friend of Humboldt’s. The Napoleonic invasion, which forced Dom João

VI of Portugal (1767–1826) into exile in Brazil in 1807, also disrupted Eschwege’s work. Three years later, he, too, went to Brazil to reorganize the run-down system of gold mines and establish a smelter industry. Rather than accepting a professorship in mineralogy, as had initially been planned, Eschwege decided to explore the vast country, mainly in the region of Minas Gerais.

Eschwege returned to Portugal in 1821 but took a leave from his mining position. Upon his return to Portugal in 1824, he was promoted to mining director-general, a position in which he remained until 1830, when he once again returned to Germany because of the persistent political upheavals in Portugal. Eschwege returned to Portugal again in 1835, after unsuccessful negotiations with the Russians about entering their public service beyond being a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy. In 1839, Ferdinand II of Portugal (1816–1885) asked

Eschwege to transform the Pena estate near Lisbon into a summer residence. It took Eschwege ten years to realize the fabled Pena . He also became known as the Baron de

Pena. He returned to Germany in 1850. It was on the basis of Eschwege’s work in Brazil that

Humboldt, who met Eschwege in Paris in 1821 and corresponded with him until the 1850s, was able to predict that diamonds would also be found in the Ural region.

III.450n. Adrien BALBI (1782–1848) was a geographer and statistician from Venice who started out teaching mathematics, physics, and geography. In 1819, he left Italy and spent about two years in Portugal before moving to France for fourteen years. There, in 1822, he published the

Essai statistique sur le royaume de Portugal et d’Algarve (Statistical essay on the kingdom of

Portugal and the Algarve region). He also wrote about geography, for instance, in his Compendio di geografia universale (1824–25).

413

III.451. Joseph LOWE (d. 1831) was a Scottish journalist and political economist who was mainly

known for The Present State of England in Regard to Agriculture, Trade and Finance, first

published in 1822. The book contains one of the most encompassing commentaries on the

variation of prices, the state of currency, finance, and population for its time. The most

influential chapter was the ninth, titled “Fluctuation in the Value of Money or in the Price of

Commodities,” in which Lowe discussed an original plan for giving a steady value to money

contracts. He also proposed that people should be appointed to collect information about the

prices placed on everyday household commodities. Although this plan was praised for its

theoretical depth, Lowe did not fully explore the practical aspects of his proposal, which was

riddled with many difficulties and challenges. He also authored the first clear treatment of the

concept of indexation (including indexed bonds and contracts), which is why he is generally

known as the father of index numbers.

III.451. Born near Edinburgh, JOHN ALLEN (1771–1843) was a prominent eighteenth-century medical practitioner, historian, and writer. He became a doctor of medicine of the University of

Edinburgh in 1791, and since he could not find the resources to establish a practice in that city, he resorted to offering lectures on medical topics. In 1801, he moved to Spain in order to become the private physician and medical advisor of Henry Vassall-, the third Baron Holland (1773–

1840). Although Allen left Spain in 1805 to stay at the Holland estate, he returned to the peninsula once again, in 1808, to accompany Lord Holland on a tour across the country. During this journey, Allen conducted a close study of the history and culture of the Spanish people. He intended to convert these notes into a publishable volume but never finished it. He engaged in countless other literary pursuits, contributing nearly forty articles on miscellaneous subjects, such as French and Spanish history, to the Edinburgh Review. It was his time at the Holland

414

estate that allowed Allen to become immersed in the history and traditions of the eighteenth-

century Whig politics. His major publication was titled Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the

Royal Prerogative (1830). He was the custodian of Dulwich College from 1811–20 and served

as master of that institution until his death.

III.453. Russian mining engineer and metallurgist Vasily LUBARSKY (1795–1852) taught at the

mining cadet corps of St. Petersburg, from where he had graduated in 1816. From 1820 to 1827,

he worked in the department of mining and salt affairs. In 1823, Lubarsky first identified

platinum as a new metal and three years later, together with the engineer Pyotr Sobolevsky

(1781–1841), developed a method for refining crude platinum and converting it into a malleable

metal. In the 1830s, he was mining inspector in Yekaterinburg.

III.453n. Johann Friedrich ERDMANN (1778–1846) had initially studied theology at the

University of Wittenberg, Saxony, but changed to medicine a year later. He taught pathology and

therapy at Wittenberg until 1808, when the university was merged with the University of

Halle/Saale. After travels in Italy, Switzerland, and France, Erdmann accepted a professorship at

the University of Kazan in what is now Tartarstan, Russia, despite the fact that he did not speak any Russian and thus had to lecture in Latin. From Kazan, he made countless excursions, of which his Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Innern von Russland (Contributions to the knowledge of the

Russian interior, 1822–26) are one result. In 1817, he left Kazan for the in

Estonia, where, despite a heart condition, he taught and administered off and on until 1842.

During his lifetime, Erdmann published widely on such subjects as malaria, galvanism, and

mineral springs.

415

III.453n. Born in Berlin and educated at the University of Halle, where he studied mathematics

and geography, German physicist and chemist Ludwig Wilhelm GILBERT (1769–1824) first taught at his alma mater (in 1795) and at length at the University of Leipzig (from 1811 until his death). He belonged to numerous learned societies, including the Russian Academy of Sciences in (1809) and the Prussian Academy of Sciences (1812). From 1799 to 1824,

Gilbert edited and published Annalen der Physik, which he made into an internationally renowned scientific journal. Johann Christian Poggendorf (1796–1877) took the journal over in

1824 and renamed it Annalen der Physik und Chemie. During his travels in Germany,

Switzerland, and France, Gilbert amassed a significant mineral collection. The Leipziger Zeitung from March 8, 1824, includes a brief obituary.

III.454n. French pharmacist-chemist and mineralogist André LAUGIER (1770–1832) was a

student of Antoine Francois Fourcroy’s (1755–1809), a relative, and of Louis Nicolas

Vauquelin. Because of his frail health, Laugier did not accept a position as chief pharmacist to

the French army in Egypt but instead taught chemistry and pharmacy at the military schools in

Toulon and Lille. In 1803, he was appointed to the first chair of the Natural History of

Medications at the School of Pharmacy in Paris and, in the same year, became a founding member of the Society of Pharmacy. Upon Fourcroy’s death in 1809, Laugier replaced his cousin as professor of chemistry at the Museum of Natural History and, in 1829, succeeded Vauquelin

as director of the School of Pharmacy. That same year, Laugier published his four-volume Cours

de Chimie générale (Course in general chemistry). Deemed one of the most outstanding

chemical analysists of his day, Laugier wrote extensively on minerals and meteorites and devised

practical methods for separating cobalt from nickel, iron from titanium;, and osmium from

416

platinum. Many of his findings saw print in the Annales du Muséum National d'Histoire

Naturelle. Laugier fell victim to a cholera epidemic in Paris in 1832.

III.454n. Likely of Swiss origin, although some claim he was Dutch, the naturalized British

traveler Peter SCHMIDTMEYER (1772–1829) journeyed extensively in the Southern Cone from

1820 to 1821. Crossing the Cordillera of the Andes, he went as far as Chile. In his travelogue, he

refers to Humboldt twenty-three times.

III.458n. Scottish economist and bullionist Robert MUSHET (1782–1828) was an official of the

Royal Mint, for which he began to work around 1804. Although he made innovations to the coin

casting process and also took out a patent for a special way of alloying copper for sheathing

ships, he is best known as an authority on currency questions. Mushet’s An Inquiry into the

Effects Produced on the National Currency and Rates of Exchange by the Bank Restriction Bill

Explaining the Cause of the High Price of Bullion (1811) drew attention from Thomas Malthus.

Mushet also compiled tables of the exchanges and prices of gold from 1760 to 1810. His Tables from 1821 trace through history how the value of gold coin varies from that of paper money in circulation. Mushet was one of the founding members of the Political Economy Club that same year.

III.458n. Director of the British East India Company, CHARLES GRANT (1746–1823) was one of

the witnesses that the Bullion Committee of 1810 questioned. Grant’s fifty-year link with India

began in 1767, when he first sailed for Calcutta. Grant’s initial appointment in India had been as

secretary to the board of trade, which gave him access to people of influence. Supported by

Prime Minister William Pitt (1759–1806), among others, Grant was elected a director of the

company in 1794 and its deputy chairman in 1804. A steadfast defender of the company’s trade

417

monopoly, Grant held the post of chairman three times during his career. In addition to being a

businessman, Grant was also a passionate evangelical missionary in India, two roles that did not

always prove compatible.

III.462. Geneva-born Jean-Charles-Léonard Simonde de SISMONDI (1773–1842) was a prolific though neglected historian and political economist. His most significant contributions that this advocate of Adam Smith’s (1723–90) theories made to economics may have been his discovery of economic cycles and his ideas about aggregate demand. A keen observer of industrial capitalism in England, Sismondi challenged the notion of economic laissez-faire, insisting instead that the state regulate how wealth was produced. In his Nouveaux principes d’économie politique (New principles of political economy), to which Humboldt refers here, Sismondi criticized wealth accumulation as an end in itself and emphasized its harmful effect on the poor.

This critique attracted the attention of David Ricardo (1772–1823), John Stuart Mill (1806–

1873), and Karl Marx (1818–1883), among others. Sismondi’s Histoire des Français (History of the French), begun in 1818, was published in twenty-nine volumes over a span of twenty-three years.

III.463. After the coup d’état by Napoleon I Bonaparte (1769–1821), Martin-Michel-Charles

Gaudin, the first DUC DE GAËTE (1756–1841) agreed to become minister of finances in France.

He held this post, which he had refused twice before, until 1814. In this position, which put him

in charge of tax collection, Gaudin introduced significant reforms to finance administration and,

in 1800, founded the Bank of France, of which he became the head in 1820.

III.465n. Gregory KING (1648–1712) was an English engraver, herald, surveyor, and secretary to

the Commissioners for the Public Accounts. As an economic statistician, he was best known for

418

his estimates of the wealth and the population of England. Material from his manuscripts—

notably Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of

England (1701) and Of the Naval Trade of England, 1688 and the National Profit then arising

thereby (1697)—appeared in the writings of political economist Charles Davenant (1656–1714).

It was also used by Adam Smith (1723–1790) in his Wealth of Nations (1776) and the statistician

Thomas Tooke in his High and Low Prices (1823). Humboldt’s reference here is most likely to

King’s Of the Naval Trade.

III.470. Sébastien-André TARBÉ DES SABLONS (1762–1838) was a French parliamentary counsel,

a printer-publisher, and a public administrator. He is the author of a Manuel pratique et

élémentaire des poids et mesures (Practical and elementary manual of weights and measures),

which was revised continuously during the course of fifty years and which contributed

significantly to the popularization of the metric system in France. Tarbé des Sablons was jailed

for having harbored the magistrate Adrien Duport (1759–1798), a leading constitutional

monarchist during the early stages of the French Revolution who had fled to Switzerland in

1797, the year of the military coup. Beginning in 1804, Tarbé des Sablons held different

positions within the finance administration. His wife was the popular novelist Michelle-

Catherine-Joséphine Guespereau (1777–1855).

Volume 4

IV.1. Zenón de Somodevilla y Bengoechea, also known as the MARQUÉS DE LA ENSENADA

(1702–81), was a powerful politician and statesman. He entered the civil administration of the

Spanish navy as a clerk in 1720 and performed administrative duties in the occupation of in

1731. In 1736, King Charles III of Spain conferred on Somodevilla the title of Marqués de la

419

Ensenada. Although the Spanish elites had initially been upset about the fact that a self-made man received a title, they were still delighted that the title was a pun on the Spanish phrase “en si nada,” which translates into “in himself nothing.” At the age of forty-one, Somodevilla was appointed minister of state, leading Spain to victory alongside France and Prussia in the War of

Austrian Succession (1740–48). His administration was notable for the robustness of his internal reform policies and its support for military strength. Public works commenced; shipping to outside countries, notably the American colonies, was encouraged; the trading industry was revitalized; and many Spaniards were sent outside of the country to be educated. Somodevilla also stimulated the development of the army and especially the navy, expanding the Atlantic and

Mediterranean fleets. Beginning in 1749, he encouraged the creation of the most important census conducted in Europe of his time, known formally as the Catastro de Ensenada, as a way of reforming tax policies that had been unsuccessful. He was eventually forced into exile in the

Spanish village Medina del Campos and consigned there to fifteen years of political inactivity.

IV.4. Miguel Gijón (or Jijón) y León, the first COUNT OF GIJÓN (1717–1794), was a well-

connected Spanish-American businessman from Ecuador. At mid-century, he traveled to Spain,

via Cape Horn, where, together with the Marquis de Maenza, he hatched a plan to colonize

Ecuador with European immigrants. The Spanish Crown rejected the project. Gijón was an

associate and close friend of writer-politician Pablo de Olavide y Jáuregui (1725–1803).

Olavide’s Madrid residence was a meeting place of the members of enlightened elites, including

Denis Diderot and future USA president John Adams (1735–1826), both of whom Gijón befriended. Denounced to the Inquisition in Lima for being in possession of banned books, the count died in Kingston, Jamaica, as he tried to flee to Spain.

420

IV.4. Manuel de Ascásubi y Matheu, the MARQUIS DE MAENZA (1804–1876), was vice president

of Ecuador from 1847 to 1851 and president from 1849 to 1850. He was born into a family that

believed strongly in the independence of Ecuador, and even though he received little formal

education, he devoted himself to that cause. During his short period as president, Ascásubi

became known for establishing a progressive and Republican governmental system. He helped

found schools in the towns of Ecuador and promoted the study of medicine while also improving

the condition of hospitals.

IV.8. The son of Luís de Velasco I (1511–1564), the second viceroy of New Spain during the

Spanish colonization of the Americas, LUIS DE VELASCO II (c. 1534–1617), also known since

1609 as the marqués de Salinas del Río Pisuerga, was the eighth viceroy of New Spain. Between

1596 and 1604, he was also the viceroy of Peru, defending Lima against the ascension of the

Dutch pirate Oliverio van Noort (1558–1627). In 1591, Velasco II succeeded in “pacifying” the

Chichimecas who were in constant revolt and not under Spanish control. After signing a peace

treaty with the Chichimeca leaders, four hundred Tlaxcalteca families were sent to live with

Spanish families so that they might be introduced to the customs of the colony. In order to

further ease their integration into the colonies, Velasco II reduced the taxes imposed on the

indigenous population, and he even tried to find lawyers to represent them in the Real Hacienda.

The Marquis of Salinas returned to Spain in 1611 to assume the presidency of the Council of the

Indies, a position he held until his death.

IV.20. Spanish conquistador Diego de ORDAZ (1480–1632) accompanied Hernán Cortés on his expedition to conquer the Mexican mainland. In 1519, after having seized the ancient capital of

Mexico, Cortés is said to have sent two expeditions to the then-smoking volcano in order to

421 explore it as a possible source of sulfur, which could be used to make gunpowder. Ordaz commanded the first contingent and presumably succeeded in reaching the top of the crater and ascertain that sulfur was found inside the volcano. Francisco MONTAÑO (b. 1499) led a second, much smaller expedition that was to try to enter to crater. History has it that Montaño not only made it to the top of the mountain but also survived seven sorties into the cauldron and brought back a load of sulfur each time. The story of the Dominican monk BLAS DE IÑENA venturing into the cauldron of the Masaya volcano to find gold believed to be hidden in its interior can be traced back to López de Gómara.

IV.22. Francisco Fernandez de Córdoba Zayas, also known as the MARQUÉS DE SAN ROMÁN

(1756–1818), was the superintendent of Mexico City’s prestigious mint.

IV.47. Captain JUAN DE LA REINAGA (b. 1509) was the ruler of the Osorno region of Chile, and his politics regarding Chilean indigenous populations were viewed as emancipatory and exemplary. Many of the locals considered him a man of justice. Reinaga not only ensured that part of the gold extracted in Chile was invested in sheep that would provide indigenous peoples with food and clothing; he also tried to assign them to public positions. He may be best known for his attempt to introduce camels in Peru. The act was approached with jealousy by the encomenderos (lords or proprietors of the indigenous villages) who kept Peruvian natives as slaves and distributed them as beasts of burden in charge of transporting heavy loads across vast distances. The encomenderos prevented the introduction of the camel, which deprived Peru of a useful creature that would have facilitated inland communication.

IV.50. Spanish navigator ANDRÉS NIÑO (1475–c. 1530) belonged to the famous Niño family, a group of distinguished seafarers from . He first sailed to the East Indies in 1511, where

422 he developed his skills as a navigator. Named the Royal Pilot of the South Sea in 1514, he participated in several expeditions along the coasts of Central America. That same year, Niño was dispatched in the caravel Santa María de la Consolación to follow the fleet commanded by

Pedro Arias Dávila in order to reinforce and revitalize Spain’s new colonies. This voyage gave

Niño the knowledge and the means that later led him to explore the South Sea, known today as the Pacific Ocean. In 1522, he traveled south from the Bay of San Vicente, exploring the coast of

Cape Blanco, the Bay of Papagayos, Lake Nicaragua, and the volcano of Masaya.

IV.52. Spanish sailor and explorer of the order of St. John, Father García Jofré de Loaísa, also known as García Jofré de LOAYZA (1490–1526), commanded an armada of seven ships and 450 men with the objective of retracing the route of Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) to reach the spice islands of Indonesia known as the Moluccas. Loayza was appointed the governor of these islands. This expedition was to find a sea route to the Orient so Spain could gain access to the profitable spice trade and establish a permanent settlement in the East Indies. This journey proved one of Spain’s great fiascos, for only the flagship reached the Moluccas and no spices were found. Of the remaining ships, the Pinnacle reached Mexico, almost without food, the

Santa Maria del Parral was shipwrecked in the Philippines, and the caravel San Lesmes became one of Europe’s first ships to be lost in the Pacific. Loayza died of scurvy while crossing the

Pacific Ocean.

IV.52. Oaxaca-born Father FRANCISCO BURGOA (c. 1600–1681) was a historian and Catholic philologist who had joined the Dominican order in 1629. He was a custodian of several Indian parishes and known to be proficient in some indigenous languages, particularly those of the

Zapotec and the Mixteca. Burgoa became head of San Hipólito province in 1649 and of Oaxaca

423

in 1662. He remains known for his Palestra historial (Historical forum, 1670) and its

continuation, Geográfica descripción de la parte septentrional, del polo ártico de la América, y

nueva iglesia de las Indias Occidentales (Geographical description of the northern part, of the

arctic pole of America, and the new church of the West Indies, 1674).

IV.53. In 1774, on orders of Antonio María de Bucareli, the Viceroy of New Spain, Agustín

CRAMER (d. 1780) surveyed the Isthmus of Tehuantepec for the possibility of an interoceanic

waterway. Cramer was an engineer in command of the Fort of San Juan de Ulúa in Veracruz. His

report is preserved in the Archivo de Indias in Seville, Spain. It is not clear whether Agustín

Cramer is the Agustín Cramer Mañecas of Navarre who came to Cuba in 1763 as a brigadier of

the army engineering corps to repair the damages done to Havana’s forts by the British. This

appears possible, considering that Bucareli, before being appointed viceroy, had been governor

of Cuba since 1766. He might well have called upon his Cuban contacts when he pondered the

option of an interoceanic waterway. Cramer Mañecas helped construct a warehouse for the

Cuban Royal Tobacco Trading Post in 1770. In 1777, he wrote a study on commerce and

navigation in Guiana. He also published an important treatise on Cuba’s commercial activity.

MIGUEL DEL CORRAL was Cramer’s assistant.

IV.73t. GRAND AIGLE is a French paper size: 75 × 106 cm.

IV. 99. A citizen of Cáceres, DIEGO DE OCAMPO was the first Spaniard to navigate from

Tehuantepec to Lima, a voyage considered more difficult than a journey from Spain to the

Philippines. Ocampo was said to be under the command of (d. 1523), a

Basque conquistador and a sailor on the second voyage to the New World in 1493. The

expedition took place in 1542, and it consisted of ships striking south across the trades winds to

424

30° south and then northeast to pick up the southerly winds or the currents off the Peruvian

coast. Ocampo, along with Hernán Cortés, presumably discovered this route. Few, however,

traveled it because it took approximately three to four months to complete.

IV.105. In addition to being an outstanding geographer, Francisco Antonio MAURELLI (or

Mourelle) de la Rua (1750–1820), a navigator in the service of the Spanish Crown, was also

interested in natural history and ethnology. Although he had initially planned on enrolling in the

Real Compañía de Guardamarinas (Royal Company of Midshipmen), he ultimately chose the

Academy of Ferrol pilots in 1763 and became a pilot three years later. In 1775, Maurelli was named first pilot of the San Blas port in Mexico and later that year explored the coast of

California. He became captain of La Princesa in 1780 and was ordered to deliver vital documents from the Philippines to the viceroy of Mexico. During this journey, he sailed the

Pacific Ocean, sighting such islands as the Ermitaño Islands, Mabua, and Tabar, among others.

His most important discovery was the Vavao in the archipelago of Tonga. Maurelli returned to

Spain in 1793 and was promoted to frigate captain in 1799, a position he held until his death.

IV.106n. Brittany-born explorer Jean François Marie de SURVILLE (1717–1770) began work for

the French Indian Company when he was only ten years old, sailing mainly the Indian Ocean and

the China Sea. In 1766, he became involved in the trade between France, India, and China and

received financial backing for a voyage to the South Pacific on the basis of rumors that the

Cornish navigator Samuel Wallis had discovered Tahiti. Surville’s ship, the Saint Jean Baptiste,

set sail for India in 1769. A few months into the voyage, the crew already showed grave signs of

scurvy. Surville first made landfall on Choiseul Island (in the Solomons), then had to proceed to

New Zealand to obtain supplies, following the charts of Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman (1603–

425

1659). During this journey, Surville passed James Cook’s Endeavor, which was sailing the New

Zealand waters at the same time. Bad weather prevented them from sighting each other. The

Saint Jean Baptiste anchored in Doubtless Bay for two weeks while the crew recovered.

Although the local Maori were hospitable, Surville ran afoul of them—the result of a misunderstanding—and abducted one of their chiefs. He continued east across the Pacific, making no more new discoveries. In 1770, he sought help for his crew, which was dying from scurvy, in Chilca, Peru, and drowned while attempting to go ashore in heavy seas.

IV.107. The grandfather of the acclaimed poet Lord (1788–1824), British naval officer

John BYRON (1723–1786) entered the navy as a midshipman and joined the Wager, one of the

six ships that sailed for the Pacific in 1740. The Wager was shipwrecked off the coast of Chile.

This incident, in addition to other hardships Byron encountered during his voyages, earned him

the nickname of “Foul-Weather Jack.” In 1760, he was sent with a fleet to demolish the

fortifications of Louisburg, Nova Scotia, which had been taken from the French. He became the

governor of Newfoundland in 1769. Byron’s term was not noted for any particular reforms,

except that he prohibited fishing at the Magdalena Islands without a license due to previous

difficulties with New England crews. He became vice-admiral in 1776 when he was placed in the

command of the West India squadron.

IV.109. Samuel WALLIS (1728–1795) was a Cornish naval captain who circumnavigated the world twice. In 1757, he was sent to North America, a year later to Canada. The British admiralty gave him command of the HMS Dolphin in 1766 in hopes that he would find the mythical Great South Land, the “Terra Australis Incognita.” Wallis was accompanied by Philip

Carteret (d. 1796), who had sailed with John Byron in 1764–66, as far as the Strait of Magellan.

426

Unable to find the fabled continent, Wallis charted other locations, including the island of Tahiti

(originally known as Otaheite) in 1767, which he named “King George the Third’s Island.”

Wallis also discovered a fifteen small islands throughout the Pacific, laying the groundwork for

James Cook’s Endeavour voyage. Although Wallis had difficulty finding employment when he returned to England, he was eventually appointed extra-commissioner of the navy (from 1782 to

1783, and from 1787 until his death). The Polynesian archipelago of Wallis and Futuna is named in his honor.

IV.110. In 1585, JUAN JAYME (also Jaime) set sail from Manila to Acapulco in the company of

Spanish sailor FRANCISCO GALI (1539–1591) for the sole purpose of testing a declination instrument presumably invented by the Seville mathematician, apothecary, and naturalist Felipe

Guillén (b. 1492). Sometime prior to 1525, Guillén had constructed an astrolabe of sorts during the voyages to the Americas in which he had participated at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Among other places, he had also visited New Spain. Falsely presenting himself as a renowned Castilian mathematician and astronomer, Guillén offered his invention to the

Portuguese king Joao III (1502–57), claiming that his invention would enable Portuguese mariners to sail day and night without fail and that it would also provide the coordinates of gold mines and other earthly paradises in what is now Brazil. The king placed Guillén in his employ with a lavish salary and pension. When Guillén’s deceit was discovered, he was imprisoned for life.

IV.111n. GARCIA HURTADO DE MENDOZA y Manrique (1535–1609) was a Spanish officer, the fourth Marquis of Cañete (from 1589–1596), and the eighth viceroy of Peru. In 1561, he sent an expedition to the Peruvian Andes in order to establish a colony focused on the civilization of the

427

Huarpes people who lived around the area. This town, eventually named Mendoza, became a significant center during the Spanish rule in Chile. Hurtado, who also had administered the

Huancavelica mines, was known for his difficult relationship with the indigenous peoples. At

first benevolent, he changed his attitude after hearing about their plan to attack the Spanish

colony at Andalicán and ordered the fort of San Luis de Toledo to be built in Araucana. Hurtado

was perhaps best known for the rebellion that he ignited when he tried to enforce the collection

of a sales tax, which he finally imposed in 1592. The opposition to this tax was unanimous, and

in many cities, people refused to pay it. Quito had a particularly violent protest.

IV.111n. CRISTÓBAL SUÁREZ DE FIGUEROA (c. 1571–c. 1644) was a Spanish writer and jurist. He

obtained his doctorate training in civil law in Italy and was named governor of Milan and

inspector of the Spanish troops in Piamonte. After sixteen years of service he returned to Spain,

where he devoted himself to the art of writing.

IV.111n. Spanish sailor and traveler ISABEL DE BARRETO (c. 1567–1612) is considered one of the

first women to hold the position of admiral. It seems that she was Galician by birth, although

many scholars point out that she was most likely Portuguese. She was the wife and later widow

of ALVARO DE MENDAÑA de Neyra (1542–95), a Spanish navigator and patron of several

expeditions to the Pacific Ocean and the Marquesas Islands. Barreto is known for taking over for

her husband during his last expedition from Peru to the Pacific in 1595. Initially, three ships had

departed from Peru. After failing to find one of the expedition’s lost ships, the Santa Isabel, and

her severely reduced crew, Barreto decided to lead the expedition’s few remaining survivors to

the Philippines. Historical accounts of Barreto variously depict her as merciless and selfish, but it is also important to bear in mind that many crew members disrespected a woman in command.

428

Barreto even considered suicide because of such maltreatment during the expedition. She was

eventually honored for her service in Manila.

IV.112n. Born near Plymouth, England, commander John SHORTLAND (1736–1804) had a

reputation for being a capable seaman and an experienced officer. He had joined the Royal Navy

as a midshipman at the age of fifteen, and, after being promoted to lieutenant in 1763, was

assigned to work in transport service between England and the Americas. In 1786, he was

appointed as the naval agent to the transports of the , a role of notable importance

because he was in charge of overseeing and fulfilling all of the contracts necessary for transport.

After his journey to the Botany Bay, Australia, Shortland was placed in command of a convoy of traders en route to China. During his extensive travels, he discovered and charted many islands and reefs, including Gatutaki, the Shortland Islands, the Shortland Strait, and the Russell Islands in the Solomons. He is sometimes confused with his oldest son, John Shortland (1769–1810), who was also a naval officer and traveled with his father to the West Indies and to New South

Wales.

IV.112n. Spanish pilot Hernando GALLEGO (fl. sixteenth century) had previously sailed with

Juan de Ladrillero (c. 1495–1582) and Álvaro de Mendana de Neira (1541–1596). Inspired by

the discovery of the Solomon Islands in 1568 and intent on finding a new route to New Guinea,

Gallego commissioned the construction of a large brigantine that he took on three exploratory

voyages. During those voyages, he discovered Guadalcanal, Malaita, and the San Jorge Islands.

He returned to Callao in 1569.

IV.112n. Spanish explorer and navigator JUAN FERNÁNDEZ (1536–1604) discovered what is now

known as the Juan Fernández Islands off the coast of Chile in 1563 while on an expedition to

429

find a route to the “Great South Land,” which many deem to have been Africa. Because of his

knowledge of the trade winds near the American west coast, he was able drastically to shorten

the time it took to travel between the South America ports. For instance, he was known to sail

from Lima to the coast of Chile in under thirty days, a feat unheard of at the time. Because of his

exploits, he was often called el brujo, meaning warlock or wizard, and he narrowly escaped

being indicted as a sorcerer. He also discovered the Pacific Islands of San Felix and San

Ambrosia in 1574 and is credited with finding either Australia or New Zealand. Due to the lack

of detail and clarity in his written reports it is unclear which one.

IV.112n. LUIS VAEZ (or Vaz) DE TORRES (b. c. 1565) was an experienced navigator who, in

1605, was given command of the vessel San Pedrico, the second largest of three ships that set sail from Callao, Peru, in search of the fabled Southern continent. He was in charge of commanding the fleet with the leader of the expedition, Fernandez de Quirós, when they were lost in a storm. Rather than abandon the voyage, Torres decided that he would return to Callao after some exploring. The rest of the crew did not receive this decision well. For a period of about two months, Torres charted the course of a strait that divides the continent of Australia from the island of New Guinea; it is through this navigation that he determined that New Guinea was not the northern peninsula of a southern continent. The strait is known today as the Torres

Strait in his honor. Until the British occupied Manila in 1762, Torres’s discovery had been overlooked among historians.

IV.112n. Spanish navigator and explorer Álvaro de SAAVEDRA CERÓN (d. 1529) was the first

European to sail across the Pacific from the Viceroyalty in Mexico to the East Indies. His cousin,

Hernando Cortés, led an expedition that began in 1527 with their departure from Zihuatanejo on

430

the western coast of New Spain with a crew of 110 men. Three ships were sent out on this

voyage to investigate what had happened with two earlier expeditions to the East Indies and to

rescue any possible survivors. Only one of these ships reached Surigao in Northeastern

Mindanao but failed to colonize the place. The expedition later sailed past and reached the

Philippines in early 1528. Sailing along the coast of New Guinea a month later, they discovered the Marshall, Caroline, and Admiralty Islands. Saavedra attempted to return to Spain three times, but the strong winds drove him back. He became ill and died on the third attempt.

IV.113. (c. 1758–1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the first

king to unite and rule all of the Hawaiian Islands, previously known as the Owyhee islands.

Kamehameha was known for upholding the value of religion and spirituality despite the invading

presence of outside cultural influences. Although he engaged in trade with Europeans, he firmly controlled business and political contacts with Hawaiians. An adept battle strategist and an aficionado of European weaponry, Kamehameha used guns and cannons to defeat his enemies in

battle in his effort to consolidate the power of the islands. In the events leading up to the battle of

Nu’uanu, a key clash in the final days of Kamehameha’s efforts to unify the Hawaiian Islands, he

requested military assistance from Captain George Vancouver. In exchange for this assistance,

Kamehameha, in 1794, temporarily ceded the island of Great Hawaii to Great Britain. A year

later, he had most of Hawaii under his control, except for two islands. Once these two islands

were ceded to him, he cemented his position in history as the first monarch to govern all of

Hawai’i.

IV.118n. British traveler, cleric, and historian William COXE (1774–1828) was an early authority

on the Russian explorations in the Pacific. Educated at Eton and at King’s College, Cambridge,

431

Coxe traveled widely throughout Europe. In 1778 and from 1785 to 1786, he visited Russia.

These voyages, during which Coxe checked the reliability of his Russian sources, many of which

he had consulted in German translation, and also secured some unpublished material, led to his

Account of the Russian Discoveries between Asia and America (1780) and his five-volume

Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark (1784–90). The latter went through four

revised and updated editions, the last of which included accounts of the expeditions of Bering

and Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov.

IV.119. CAPTAIN James HANNA (d. 1787) was the first European to sail to the Pacific Northwest

to engage in the trade of furs, a business that contributed to the westward expansion of the USA

and Canada. In 1785, he sailed from Macao, China, to Nootka Sound, British Colombia, which

James Cook had identified as a place likely to be rich in sea otter pelts. Upon their arrival,

Hanna and his crew were attacked by Nootka Indians, which led to a struggle in which several

chiefs were killed. Despite this tension, peace was established between Hanna and the Nootka

Indians, and in due course, Hanna acquired around 560 sea otter pelts that he was able to sell at sixty dollars apiece—one of the most lucrative trading engagements of his time. Because of the profitability of his first voyage, Hanna’s sponsors funded a second voyage in 1786, during which he charted and named several inlets and islands around the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Although his visits to the northwest coast of the USA and Canada were brief, the observations in his journal proved useful to those conducting geographical and historical studies on the northwest coast and the fur trade.

IV.120n. Starting in 1775, Russian seafarer Grigory Ivanovich SHELIKHOV (also Shelekhov,

1747–1795) organized commercial trips to the Kuril and Aleutian Islands. Under the auspices of

432 the Shelikhov-Golikov Company, which, in 1799, would form the basis for the Russian-

American Company, Shelikhov led an expedition to the shores of Russian America from 1783 to

1786. The expedition arrived at Kodiak Island in 1784. The local Koniaga, an Alutiiq nation, fiercely resisted their attempt to create a settlement. They defended themselves valiantly against the Russians, and Shelikhov slaughtered hundreds, possibly thousands, in what became known as the Awa’uq Massacre. Having thus established his authority, Shelikhov founded the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska on the island’s Three Saints Bay.

IV.120n. Born in the St. Petersburg Governorate of the Russian Empire, Alexander Andreyevich

BARANOV (also Baranoff, 1746–1819) left home at the age of fifteen and eventually became a successful trader in Irkutsk, Siberia. Before long, however, the booming fur trade and an employment offer from Shelikhov lured him to Russian America. In 1790, Baranov sailed for

Kodiac Island, from where he established and managed trading posts throughout the region. In

1799, through the intervention of the Russian statesman Nikolai Petrovitch Resanov (1764–

1807), Baranov was appointed general manager of the Russian-American Company, which had been founded earlier that year. His responsibilities then included the Aleutian and Kuril Islands.

The flourishing trade in sea otter and seal pelts inevitably brought tensions with the local population, and in 1804, Tlingit warriors burned down Fort St. Michael on Sitka Island.

Governor Baranov, who was married to an Inuit woman, is credited with unusually humane treatment of Alaska’s indigenous peoples. Among other things, he created schools for their children. In 1818, Baranov left Alaska for Russia on a route around the Cape of Good Hope.

During an extended stopover in the Dutch settlement of Batavia on the island of Java, then part of the colonial Dutch East Indies (today’s Indonesia), Baranov fell ill and died soon after the ship resumed its journey. Baranof Island in Alaska is named after him.

433

IV.120n. Descended from Polish nobility that had settled in south Russia and received Russian citizenship in the seventeenth century, Akhilles Pavlovich SHABELSKY (also Achille Schabelski,

1802–1856) was a Russian civil servant who worked as an interpreter and translator in the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He volunteered to serve aboard the Apollon in that capacity.

Humboldt refers here to Shabelsky’s 1826 travel narrative Voyage aux Colonies Russes de l'Amérique (Voyage to the Russian colonies in America).

IV.122n. Born in Mallorca, Spain, Cristóbal CLADERA (1760–1816) was a prolific writer and translator. A doctor of theology and a lawyer, he was educated in Murcia, Orihuela, and

Valencia. His encyclopedic work Espíritu de los mejores diarios literarios que se publican en

Europa (The spirit of the best literary journals published in Europe) published between 1787 and

1791, was a popular and financial success.

IV.124n. Appointed treasurer of Veracruz in 1795, José DONATO DE AUSTRIA y Achútegui (d.

1806) applied his progressive economic views to solve the problems of the port of Veracruz.

Among other measures, he supported the port’s wartime trade with neutral ports and engaged in neutral shipping in order to maintain stable flour imports, stable prices, and to prevent smuggling. Because of the backlash he received from more traditional merchants who did not believe in political neutrality, Austria sought reassignment. Not only was his request ignored; in

1804, he also received a hefty salary increase. He served as secretary of the Veracruz city council until his death.

IV.162n. Magistrate DANIEL GOOKIN (1612–1687) was a settler in Virginia and Massachusetts and one of the most prominent writers on the subject of so-called American Indians at the time.

In 1621, he sailed with his father from Ireland to Virginia, where they eventually settled in the

434

area now known as Newport News. Because of his doctrinal sympathies with the Puritans,

Gookin moved from Virginia to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was appointed as captain of the militia and as a member of the house of deputies. In 1656, he was assigned the position of superintendent of all of the Native Americans who recognized the government of Massachusetts.

Gookin was unpopular in this position, mainly due to the protections and the rights he granted the indigenous peoples, but also because of his interest in their spiritual development and instruction. In conjunction with Reverend John Eliot (1604–90), he protested and argued against

King Philip’s War (1675–78) against the Natick and other local populations who had submitted

to the English colony. Because of this protest, Gookin not only received the scorn of his fellow magistrates but also faced public humiliation. In 1662, Gookin and the Reverend Jonathan

Mitchell (bapt. 1624–68) were appointed as the first licensers of a printing press at Cambridge.

This gave Gookin a way of circulating his writings among the citizens of Massachusetts.

Gookin’s Historical Collections of the Indians of New England was published posthumously in

1792.

IV.163. Jacob MACKITTRICH practiced medicine in the West Indies and wrote about yellow fever

in his degree thesis entitled De Febre India: Occidentalis Maligna Flava (Of the fever in the

Indies, 1766).

IV.163. In addition to being one of the founding fathers of the USA, Pennsylvania physician

BENJAMIN RUSH (1746–1813) was also a professor of chemistry, medical theory, and clinical

practice at the University of Pennsylvania from 1769 until his death. Humboldt met Rush when

he toured the College of Physicians in Philadeplia in 1804. Educated first at the College of New

Jersey (now Princeton) and at the University of Edinburgh, Rush developed an interest in the

435

medical relationship between mind and body, which led to therapeutic theories he put to the test

during the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Rush himself contracted the fever twice

and recovered both times. His interest resulted in the 1812 publication of Medical Inquiries and

Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind, which secured his position as the father of

American psychiatry. Humboldt refers here to Rush’s work on nosology, that is, the

classification of diseases, and later on to Rush’s report on the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic

of 1793, which was translated and annotated by Ignacio María Ruiz de Luzuriaga in 1804.

IV.163. A German naturalist, Michael Bernhard VALENTINI (1657–1729) was educated in the

city of Giessen, where he was appointed professor of physics in 1686, after having spent several

years on scientific travels in France, Holland, and England, among other places. Ten years later,

when he had become one of the most respected and prolific members of the faculty, he

exchanged his initial professorship for one in medicine. Also a royal physician of Hesse and the

author of a book about herbs, Viridarium reformatum, seu regnum vegetabilis (1719), Valentini

was one of the first German medical doctors to make therapeutic use of cinchona bark. He also

worked in the areas of physics, meteorology, and mineralogy. It is also possible that Humboldt’s

reference here is to French army-doctor Louis Valentin.

IV.163. The Spanish physician and polyglot Ignacio María Ruiz de LUZURIAGA (1763–1822) was educated at the Royal Patriotic Seminary of Vergara, Spain, and studied in Paris with the chemist Antoine Fourcroy (1755–1809) and the naturalist Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748–

1836), among other scientific celebrities. Before returning to Spain, Ruiz de Luzuriaga spent two years in England and Scotland, where he became interested in the so-called “sanitary movement.” In the following years until his death, he devoted significant efforts to introducing a

436

similar system to Spain. A member and president of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Madrid,

he played a notable role in bringing smallpox vaccination to Spain.

IV.165. Posthumously known as the English Hippocrates, Oxford- and Cambridge-educated

Thomas SYDENHAM (1624–1689) was a prolific English physician who developed a reputation as

a clinician for his treatment of smallpox, for using the first form of a tincture of opium, and for

his advocacy of the use of cinchona bark to alleviate malaria. Throughout his work, Sydenham emphasized the importance of precise observation and the development of new methods of treatment. Humboldt is likely referring to Sydenham’s first book, Methodus curandi febres (The

method of curing fevers) from 1666. Sydenham, who also wrote about smallpox and gout (of

which he himself was a victim), is credited with the first diagnosis of scarlet fever and the

discovery of the neurological disorder of chorea. In the nineteenth century, a Sydenham Society

continued to make his and like-minded works available in up-to-date editions.

IV.165. In his 1694 Tratado unico da constituiçam pestilencial de Pernambuco (One and only

treatise on the pestilential condition in Pernambuco), the first book to describe yellow fever in

detail, the physician JOAO FERREIRA DE ROSA (fl. 1680–1695) wrote about the first appearance of yellow fever in Brazil in 1686, where it caused thousands of deaths over the course of eight years. Rosa believed that the epidemic had been imported by a ship from St. Thomas, likely a slaver. A recent graduate in medicine from Coimbra, Portugal, Rosa had traveled to Recife in

1687 at the request of the governor. He closely studied the fever as he treated patients for five years before returning to Portugal.

437

IV.166. A resident of Cartagena de Indias, JUAN JOSÉ DE GASTELBONDO worked at the hospital of San Sebastián in that city. His published work from 1753 focuses on the spread of yellow fever in the port cities of Colombia.

IV.166. Physician George CLEGHORN (1716–1789) was one of the leading figures of eighteenth-

century Irish medicine. He was sent to Edinburgh at the age of fifteen to begin the study of

physiology and surgery. Cleghorn also attended many seminars and lectures on subjects other

than medicine, including botany, chemistry, and material medica. In 1736, he was appointed

surgeon to the twenty-second regiment of foot, then stationed on the Mediterranean island of

Minorca. During his thirteen years there, Cleghorn spent most of his time studying epidemic

diseases and anatomy. His groundbreaking Observations on the Epidemical Diseases in

Minorca, 1744–1749 (1751) includes not only an account of Minorca’s inhabitants and its

natural history but also the first written description of diseases such as infectious hepatitis.

Observations was very successful and went through four English editions during Cleghorn’s

lifetime and one German translation. In 1751, he settled in Dublin, where he also delivered a

series of anatomical lectures. He is considered the first to establish an anatomical school in

Ireland.

IV.166. Born in Scotland, John PRINGLE (1707–1782) was educated at the universities of St.

Andrews and Edinburgh. He switched from business to medicine after meeting the famous Dutch

botanist and physician in Amsterdam, and he subsequently received his

medical degree from the University of Leiden in 1730. During the War of the Austrian

Succession (1740–48), Pringle served as physician-general of the British army. He recorded his

experiences—among them, the lack of ventilation of barracks and field hospitals, unsanitary

438 camps in which disease could spread rapidly, and the failure even to issue blankets to common soldiers—in Observations on the Diseases of the Army (1752). Although this book was reprinted many times, the army high command ignored the practical changes Pringle proposed to improve the deplorable conditions he encountered and to isolate the sick for decades.

IV.166. Edinburgh-born and educated (1716–1794) was a pioneer of naval hygiene and an expert on scurvy and typhus. In 1739, he became a surgeon’s mate, sailing in the

Mediterranean, Guinea, and the West Indies. While serving as surgeon on HMS Salisbury in

1747, he conducted experiments to discover the cause of scurvy. A year later, he retired from the navy to attend Edinburgh University. He is the author of A Treatise of the Scurvy (1753), An

Essay on the Most Effectual Means of Preserving the Health of Seamen in the Royal Navy

(1757), and An Essay on Diseases Incidental to Europeans in Hot Climates (1768). In the latter, to which Humboldt refers here, Lind took stock of the diseases prevalent in each colony. Lind was in a position similar to Pringle’s. While many recognized the importance of his findings on scurvy at the time, an official admiralty order about the supply of lemon juice on ships was not implemented until more than forty years later.

IV.166n. Born into an Italian family of physicians, Giacomo TOMMASINI (1769–1846) studied medicine at the Unviersity of Parma. After graduting from Parma in 1789, he supplemented his medical education by spending time at the universities of Padua, Bologna, Pisa, and Turin.

Although he was also awarded merti scholarships to continue his studies at Vienna, Paris,

London, and Edingburgh, the political events surrounding the French Revolution forced him to cancel his travel plans and return to Parma instead, where, in 1794, he was awarded a professorship in physiology and pathology and wrote what may be his most important medical

439

treatise, the three-volume Lezioni critiche de fisologia e patologia (Critical lesson in physiology

and pathology, 1803–04). Tommasini was one of the founders of the Società medica-chirugica di

Parma (1804) and edited the society’s Giornale from 1806 to 1815. Although he had

steadfastedly refused to leave Parma even in the face of many other academic opportunities, in

1815, with Napoleon’s regime at its end, Tommasini finally agreed to relocate to the University of Bologna. In Bologna, he conceptualized and put into clinical practice a new medical school: the “Nuova Dottrina Medica Italiana,” whose popularity culminated in the founding of an eponymous journal by the Bologna medical faculty in 1819. The journal was closed in 1828 because of its vocal criticisms of an Italian governed by the Catholic Church, which subjected

Tommasini and his followers to a political investigation. Tommasini himself resigned from

Bologna a year later. He returned to his native Parma, where, as vice president of the university, he reformed the medical curriculum and, as professor of clinical medicine, focused on improving smallpox vaccination and preventing cholera epidemics.

IV.166n. A botanist, ethnographer, and engineer, the Dominican priest Jean-Baptiste LABAT

(1664–1738) became part of the Order of Preachers of Paris at the age of twenty. After being

ordained in 1685, he temporarily taught philosophy at the diocese of Nancy but abandoned this

work and became a missionary who preached in churches around France. In 1693, Labat

obtained permission to go to the Americas. After working as a parish priest in Martinique, he

was able to travel to the French, Dutch, and English Antilles because of his knowledge in

engineering. Inspired by his voyages, Labat, while in Rome and Paris, wrote Nouveau Voyage aux isles de l'Amérique (A New Voyage to the Isles of America, 1722), which became a veritable

bestseller during the eighteenth century. His amalgam of fact and fiction of his life in the

Caribbean included ethnological, sociological, and geographical information, along with

440

observations about soil, flora, and suggestions for the islands’ commercial development. Inspired by his success, Labat used other missionaries’ diaries to write accounts of several African

countries.

IV.166n. An experienced writer and scientist, Colin CHISHOLM (c. 1747–1825) of Inverness

made valuable contributions to the knowledge of tropical diseases especially in the West Indies.

After graduating from Aberdeen University in 1792, he worked as a medical practitioner in

Grenada. The author of An Essay on the Malignant Pestilential Fever (1801), Chisholm was one

of the first to recognize that yellow fever, a disease introduced to the Caribbean as a result of the

transatlantic slave trade, was highly infectious. He is also known for donating a significant

amount of money toward the establishment of the Northern Infirmary of Inverness, which

opened in 1803.

IV. 167n. Educated at the School of Medicine in Montpellier, Jean François Xavier PUGNET

(1765–1846) was a French military surgeon and epidemiologist. He worked as general surgeon

for the French army in Egypt, a post to which he was appointed in 1797. As a chief surgeon in

the French Antilles, he had the opportunity to compare the plague, which he had encountered in

Egypt, with the yellow fever in the Caribbean. The first version of his epidemiological history

was titled Mémoires sur les fièvres pestilentielles et insidieuses du Levant avec un aperçu

physique et médical du pays (Descriptions of the insidious pestilential fevers of the Levant, with

a physical and medical overview of the country, 1802). In 1804, Pugnet added a supplement of

142 pages to include the West Indies. He was elected to the newly established Legion of Honor

and became a member of the societies of medicine of Montpellier and Lyon and a corresponding

441

member of the Société de Médecine de Paris. Afflicted with blindness as a belated result of his

Egyptian travels, he retired in 1821 to Switzerland, the home of his wife.

IV.168. Italian physician, epidemiologist, and anatomist Giovanni Maria LANCISI (1654–1720)

was the first to connect malaria with mosquitoes. Attributing the prevalence of malaria in Rome to mosquitoes, he suggested draining the surrounding marshes, but without success. Lancisi studied medicine at University of Rome, where he earned his doctoral degree at the age of eighteen. In addition to being a doctor and professor of anatomy at La Sapienza (1684–1697), he

also served as personal physician to several (Innocence XI, Innocence XII, and Clement

XI). In his work De noxiis paludum effluvis (1717), he pointed to mosquitoes as carriers of contagion, including malaria and rinderpest, an opinion that went contrary to the idea, popular at the time, that epidemic diseases were caused by so-called bad air. He also published, in collaboration with Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli (also Marsili, 1658–1730), an important treatise on fungi, Dissertatio de Generatione Fungorum (1714), in which the authors contradict the old assumption that fungi are created by rot. In 1706, Lancisi became a fellow at the London Royal

Society, and a year later, he was elected member of the Leopoldina, the German Academy of

Sciences.

IV.168. Francesco TORTI (1658–1741) was an Italian physician who earned his medical degree at

the Unviersity of Bologna in 1678. At the age of twenty-three, he was appointed to a professorship in his native Modena and soon after became one of the personal physicians of

Duke Francesco II (1660–1694). The duke’s successor retained Torti and, in 1798, made him

official demonstrator of the newly founded anatomical amphitheatre. After publishing his

research on the barometer, Troti turned to his most famous work, Therapeutice Specialis ad

442

Febres (Special therapies for fever, 1712), which established his reputation as a brilliant practical physician. As a result, Torti was elected corresponding member of the Royal Society of London and the Academy of Sciences of Valencia, Spain. Although he was offered professorships in

Turin and Padua, he preferred to stay in Modena.

IV.168. The Heidelberg-educated German physician Johann Peter FRANK (1745–1821) is considered the founder of public hygiene and social health care. After having completed his studies of medicine in 1766 and a quick stint as a country doctor, Frank was employed as the personal physician of the Margrave of Baden (1769–72) and the Bishop of Speyer (1772–84).

The patriarchal philanthropy of enlightened absolutism that surrounded Frank motivated him to begin work on the six volumes of his influential treatise, System einer vollständigen medicinischen Polizey (System of complete medical policy, 1772–1819), in which he brought together all the different parts of health care into a unified system. Hygiene thus became a legitimate science that could be taught at the universities. In addition to being a theoretician,

Frank never lost sight of the importance of practical applications. This included modernizing hospital environments and instruction alike, which he did in Göttingen (1784–85), Pavia,

Lombardy (1785–95), Vienna (1795–1804), Vilnius (1804–05) and, finally, St. Petersburg

(1805–08). In addition to being a successful teacher, Frank published De curandis hominum morbis Epitome (Treatise on practical medicine, 1792–94 and 1811–21), which quickly became a leading medical textbook. From 1807 to 1808, Frank served as personal physician of Czar

Alexander I (1777–1825). He returned to Vienna in 1809 to complete his major work. Frank died there of a . The Johann-Peter-Frank Medal was established in 1972; it is the highest honor that the German Medical Association confers annually for special accomplishments in the field of public health.

443

IV.168n. French physician Jean-Nicolas BERTHE (1761–1819), who earned his doctorate in

1782, was the first professor of therapeutical medicine at the University of Montpellier. In 1800, he was part of a commission charged with studying yellow fever in Andalusia, on which he reported in his 1802 Précis historique de la maladie qui a regné dans l'Andalousie en 1800

(Historical account of the disease that ravaged Andalusia in 1800). Berthe, a contagionist, was a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Cataluña.

IV.168n. Born into a family of physicians, PHILIPPE PINEL (1745–1826) studied medicine at the universities of Toulouse and Montpellier. He is best known as the founder of modern psychiatry.

Through his Nosographie philosophique (Philosophical treatise on the classification of diseases,

1807), he contributed to the classification of mental illnesses. Pinel first introduced a more humane approach to the treatment of psychiatric patients in 1793, when he worked as superintendent at the Asylum de Bicêtre, a Paris hospital also mentioned in Michel ’s

(1926–84) Madness and Civilization. Pinel continued his efforts to improve asylum conditions along with clinical teaching when, in 1795, he was appointed chief physician of the large

Hospice de la Salpêtrière and, at the same time, professor of medical pathology. He retained both positions nearly for the rest of his life. Pinel was elected a member of the Paris Academy of

Sciences in 1804 and of the Academy of Medicine in 1820, the year of its founding.

IV.170. Born in Havana, JOSÉ BARREIRO Quijano (1746–1809) was commander of the San

Diego fort and governor of Acapulco. In 1799, he ordered the creation of a passage in the mountains that would allow air to flow into the fort and cool the area. This passage was known as the San Nicolás Opening, since it was located near the temple of San Nicolás Tolentino.

444

Although the opening was inaugurated in 1800, it remained unfinished due to economic

circumstances.

IV.171. George SHAW (1751–1813) was an English medical practitioner who later became a

zoologist and botanist. Although he was ordained as a deacon in 1774, he abandoned the church

as a profession due to his love for the sciences and natural history. Shaw studied medicine in

Edinburgh for three years before moving to Oxford as a lecturer in botany. In 1791, he was

appointed to the natural history unit of the British Museum and later on became the keeper of

this unit. Colonists of eastern Australia were very interested in the flora and fauna that they

found within this territory. Many samples and specimens were sent off to England, and Shaw

published the first descriptions and names of many popular Australian animals, including but not

limited to the wombat, the echidna, and the platypus—the latter was known to have greatly

perplexed Shaw because the creature was so unusual. He was the writer of Zoology of New

Holland (1794), the first book to use the unqualified term Australia within its pages.

IV.171. One of the most visible figures of the literary and scientific life during the first quarter of

of the existence of the USA, Samuel Latham MITCHILL (1764–1831) is often regarded as the

father of American geology. He was a man well versed in many areas, including medicine, science, letters, politics, and the social sciences. Before Mitchill studied medicine at the

University of Edinburgh, his maternal uncle had helped him receive an education in the classics.

Mitchill was the first professor of natural history, chemistry, and agriculture at Columbia

College, and he was one of the founders of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture. At

Columbia, he was particularly known for his expertise in ichthyology, and many fisherman and fishmongers brought specimens to his office. Mitchill was one of the founders of Medical

445

Repository, the first medical journal in the USA. He was also a US representative and senator

from New York. Mitchill was greatly admired for his encyclopedic knowledge and not so much

for his originality of thought. He owned one of the first mineral collections in the USA.

IV.171n. The French diplomat and historian Abbot Jean-Louis Giraud-SOULAVIE (1751–1813)

was also a geographer, geologist, and volcanologist, educated at the Collège Saint-Nicolas in

Avignon. After being ordained in 1776, he became vicar in his native Antraigues. His major work, the Histoire naturelle de la France méridionale (Natural history of southern France, 1780–

84), was largely based on his own observations in the Département Ardèche (the Vivarais). It remained unfinished. Two of Soulavie’s main ideas—the extinction of species and the importance of volcanic activity—led to considerable controversy in the scientific community of his day. This debate also extended to the Catholic Church, notably to the Abbot Augustin Barruel

(1741–1820) who attacked Soulavie on the grounds that the latter’s theories ran afoul of the

Church’s teachings. In the mid-1780, Soulavie’s interest in natural history began to give way to his concern for contemporary history, and his publications became mostly memoirs, at times imaginatively enriched. After 1789, when he became a , he also wrote political essays.

Three years later, he renounced his priesthood and married. He became the French Ambassador in Geneva (1793–94), where he supported local revolutionaries who demanded that their country become part of France. This caused an international incident, as a result of which Soulavie was decommissioned. His later attempts to return to the diplomatic service were unsuccessful. He was a member of Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris and of the St.

Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

446

IV.176n. Jean-Baptiste LEBLOND (1747–1815) sailed to the West Indies at the age of nineteen.

He supported himself there by practicing medicine, based on knowledge he had acquired from a

French and a British physician in Martinique and St. Vincent, respectively. Having traveled as

far as Peru, Leblond returned to France in 1785. Some of the work on geography, natural history, anthropology, and tropical medicine that he had presented to the learned societies of Paris upon

his return was published, and Leblond was elected a corresponding member of the French

Academy of Science. In 1786, he again sailed for South America, having been commissioned by

Louis XVI of France (1754–93) to study the natural history of French Guiana. Leblond’s

Description de la Guyane Française (1813) resulted from this voyage. After returning to France

for good in 1802, he wrote Observations sur la fièvre jaune (1805), the book on yellow fever and other tropical diseases to which Humboldt refers here.

IV.177. In 1792, Basque administrator and sailor VICENTE EMPARÁN y Orbe (1747–1820) was

appointed captain-general and governor of Cumaná, Venezuela. Although he revered French

science, literature, and politics, a predisposition that many residents of Venezuela considered

unattractive, Emparán was still admired because of his excellent administrative skills. His

government was known for being progressive and generous to native Venezuelans. He

encouraged free trade with the ships from neutral countries, lowered import taxes for machinery

and agricultural tools, and promoted weaponry and armor purchases.

IV.179. A physician and naval surgeon, FLORENCIO PÉREZ Y COMOTO was a friend and disciple of famous Cádiz chemist and physician Juan Manuel de Aréjula. Pérez y Comoto was the main physician of the General Hospital of San Sebastián in Veracruz. His personal library included the most recent medical and scientific literature from the USA and Europe. In his research, he

447

documented the growing professionalization of doctors in Mexico and the modernization of

Mexican hospitals. When Humboldt visited Veracruz in 1804, Pérez y Comoto presented to him

a muleteer who had contracted yellow fever in the plains between Antigua and Veracruz.

IV.181n. Richard V. W. THORNE was a surgeon on an American armed ship.

IV.184n. French meteorologist Louis COTTE, better known as Father Cotte (1740–1815),

belonged to the Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri and was vicar of the parish of

Montmorency, France. Although he published widely on meteorology, he is probably best

known as the discoverer of the benefits of the sulfuric mineral waters in Enghien-les-Bains in the northern suburbs of Paris. Cotte was a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris and a member of the Royal Society of Agriculture in Laon.

IV.187. A native of Seville, José María CHACÓN (1747–1833) was a rear admiral of the Spanish

Royal Navy, a knight of the order of Calatrava, and the last Spanish governor of Trinidad, from

1784 to 1797. In order to increase the population of the island, Chacón successfully incentivized

immigration. The population decree of 1783 brought French colonists, free Blacks, and African

slaves to Trinidad in significant numbers and effectively inaugurated the island’s plantation

economy. During his tenure, Chacón also initiated important public works, such as the deviation

of the St. Ann’s River. He fled to Spain after the British army invaded Trinidad in 1797. In 1801,

a military tribunal in Cádiz absolved him of the charge of handing the island over to the British

without much resistance. Carlos IV of Spain (1748–1819), however, refused to accept this

judgment and forced Chacón into exile, where he died, stripped of his possessions. The

meteorological observations to which Humboldt refers here come from Juan Manuel de

Aréjula’s Breve descripción de la fiebre amarilla (Brief description of yellow fever), p. 138.

448

IV.187. Spanish physician, chemist, and epidemiologist Juan Manuel de ARÉJULA (1755–1830)

enrolled in the Surgery College of Cádiz at the age of seventeen and worked as a military

surgeon from 1776 to 1784. During this period, he visited many American colonies, where he

also had his first encounters with the yellow fever. In 1784, he went to Paris to study chemistry,

working initially on translating chemical nomenclature to Spanish. In 1791, he returned to Spain,

where he became a professor of chemistry, medicine, and botany at the University of Cadiz.

During the first few years of the nineteenth century, he dedicated himself to researching the

yellow fever epidemic in Andalucía. His Breve descripción de la fiebre amarilla was published

in 1806.

IV.189. A Philadelphia-based publisher of Irish extraction, Mathew CAREY (1760–1839) sailed

for the USA in 1784 to avoid prosecution for criticizing the Irish penal system and parliament,

among other matters. Carey continued to write on social topics throughout his life. A Short

Account of the Malignant Fever (1793) was a widely distributed pamphlet in which he

disparaged the actions of during the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in

Philadelphia, accusing the members of the Free African Society, who had risked their lives to nurse the sick and dying, of having caused the epidemic. In 1815, Carey was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society, and most of his papers still reside there.

IV.190. James WALKER was a physician in Kingston, Jamaica.

IV.190. A doctor from the University of Nancy, Louis VALENTIN (1758–1829) was physician-in-

chief of the armies of Saint-Domingue and of the French Hospitals in Virginia. Valentin

believed that yellow fever was a disease of rotting matter and that improved sanitation, not

quarantine, was the best means of preventing it.

449

IV.190. Edward MILLER (1760–1812) was a professor of medicine at the University of New

York and the resident physician for the city. At the age of fourteen, he was sent to a seminary in

Newark, where he devoted four years to the study of Greek and Latin. He began the study of medicine in 1778. Two years later, he joined his country’s army as a surgeon’s mate, and, in

1781, he accepted the position of surgeon on board of a ship bound for France, where he learned

how to speak the language and amassed a large collection of French medical books. After his

one-year stint in France, he returned to the USA, enrolling in a series of medical lectures at the

University of Pennsylvania. He received his medical degree in 1789 and established a practice in

his native town of Dover. In 1796, he moved his practice to New York, where he found

considerable success as a medical practitioner for the city’s elite. A year later, he founded a

medical magazine, the Medical Repository. Miller had been interested in the study of yellow

fever ever since its emergence in 1793. His Report on the Malignant Disease of Yellow Fever

which Prevailed in the City of New-York, in the autumn of 1805 was first published in 1806.

IV.190n. Physician STUBBINS FFIRTH (1784–1820) joined the University of Pennsylvania in the

1790s, a few years after the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, the largest in American history, had

ravaged about 5,000 people in Philadelphia. Ffirth conducted rather unusual investigations into

the causes of yellow fever, including experiments on himself, to prove that the disease was not

contagious. He was so convinced of his theory that he brought himself into repeated direct

contact with bodily fluids of infected patients. The fact that he somehow never became infected

served him as proof of his hypothesis. While Ffirth was correct in noting that yellow fever was

much more prevalent in summer, his explanation that the disease was therefore attributable to

heat and related stresses on the human body proved false. It was not until 1886 that the Cuban

450

epidemiologist Carlos Juan Finlay (1833–1915) linked mosquitoes to the transmission of yellow

fever, something that Giovanni Maria Lancisi had done much earlier.

IV.191n. French surgeon Francois-Victor BALLY (also , 1775–1866) was chief physician

of the French military and the civiliaņ population on Saint-Domingue during the opening years

of the nineteenth century. Bally, who was also on the faculty of the School of Medicine in Paris,

had written his doctoral dissertation on gangrene at the University of Montpellier in 1797. He

also worked on cholera. In 1814, he published another significant work on yellow fever, which

he called “typhus d’Amérique” (American typhus), based on his observations in the Caribbean.

Unlike others, among them Stubbins Ffirth, Bally was a contagionist. The 1806 commission on which Bally served was dispatched to Spain by the French Department of Agriculture.

IV.191n. Belgian-French physiologist and pediatrician Pierre-Hubert NYSTEN (1771–1818) was one of the pioneering scientists in the field of muscular anatomy and cardiology. He obtained his medical degree in Paris in 1802, the same year he published the results of experiments that made use of the process of galvanization. Together with Bally and Duméril, Nysten participated in the

1806 commission charged with studying the causes and effects of the yellow fever in Spain.

Soon after, Nysten became a professor at the School of Medicine in Paris. He conducted experiments in cardiology early in his career and from 1805 to 1812 studied silkworm diseases in southern France. In 1811, he provided one of the earliest scientific descriptions of rigor mortis, known as Nysten’s Law, considered his major contribution to medicine.

IV.191n. José PABLO VALIENTE y Bravo (1740–1818) was the intendant of Havana in the 1790s.

He began his public work as a professor at the and as a judge in the Royal

Court of Mexico. He transferred to Cuba in 1791 and, a year later, was appointed intendant of the

451

Cuban treasury. His accomplishments in this position were so distinguished that he was selected

as Counselor of the Indies in 1799.

IV.191n. Barcelona-born Carlos Francisco AMELLER y Clot (1753–1836) studied medicine at the

Royal College in Cádiz until 1772, when he entered the Spanish Royal Armanda. After nine

years of service, Ameller settled in Cádiz where he became professor of experimental physics at

the School of Medicine and Surgery. In 1805, he was appointed head of the school, a position he

occupied for thirty years. Ameller had a distinguished medical and administrative career and was

a member of the Academies of Medicine of Barcelona, Seville, and Murcia.

IV.191n. Pedro María GONZÁLEZ Gutiérrez (1764–1838) was a naturalist, taxidermist, and

physician for the Spanish Royal Armada. In 1781, he enrolled in the Royal Armada’s College of

Surgery (located in the Royal Hospital of Cádiz), an institution at which he would later teach and

of which he would become vice-rector in 1799. Thanks to his outstanding academic

achievements, he was named First Surgeon in 1786. While assigned to the San Sebastián, he

conducted a series of experiments on the desalinization of seawater and the use of ventilators in

iron heaters. A well-known biologist and naturalist, González collected various zoological and

botanical specimens, some of which are still at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid. In the

port of Cadiz, he focused on diseases that sailors developed while at sea, particularly scurvy. In

1797, he traveled on the frigate Esperanza with the purpose of examining medicinal drugs that might have commercial use. He also continued his research on sea illnesses, experimenting with

citrus fruits such as oranges and lemons to prevent scurvy. He wrote some of the most complete descriptions of the disease, for instance in his Tratado de las enfermedades de la gente de mar

(Treatise on the diseases of sailors) from 1805, the year when he was named professor of

452

physiology and hygiene at the Royal Armada’s college. He held this position for over thirty

years.

IV.191n. Because of the alleged helpfulness of oil frictions as a remedy for plagues during

ancient times, they were used extensively during the yellow fever epidemic in Spain in 1804.

Physicians such as Doctor DELON of Cádiz explored the internal use of olive oil to prevent yellow fever. Such effort were in vain.

IV.192. Physician Caspar WISTAR (1761–1818) was a president of the American Philosophical

Society and president of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Humboldt met him during his

visit to Philadelphia in 1804. After volunteering as a nurse at the Battle of Germantown, Wistar

was inspired to study medicine and enrolled in the medical department of the University of the

State of Pennsylvania. He ultimately received his medical degree from the University of

Edinburgh in 1786. He returned to Philadelphia a year later and established a private practice

there. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, Wistar joined other doctors, notably Benjamin

Rush, in their efforts to treat the disease, but he was critical of the use and abuse of bleeding and

purging as a remedy. From 1789 to 1792, he was a professor of chemistry and physiology at the

College of Philadelphia, for which he was later a trustee. In 1808, Wistar became a full professor at the recently formed University of Pennsylvania, where he taught anatomy, midwifery, and surgery. Penn’s Wistar Institute was founded in 1892 by Wistar’s great-nephew, Isaac Jones

Wistar (1827–1905), from Wistar’s collection of anatomical specimens.

IV.192. Scottish physician and naval surgeon Sir Gilbert BLANE (1749–1834) was a fellow of the

Royal Societies of London, Edinburgh, and Göttingen, and of the Royal Academy of Sciences of

Paris. He attended Edinburgh University at the age of fourteen but graduated from the University

453 of Glasgow in 1781. As a physician in the West Indies fleet during the American War, he accidentally discovered that lemon and lime juice could be used to prevent scurvy. Blane’s reforms increased the efficiency of fleets, while also inaugurating a new standard for the sanitary conditions of the British Royal Navy. He also offered advice for preventing contagious fevers in prisons, advocated compulsory vaccination, and pushed for regulations of medical services in

India.

IV.192. Physician Isaac CATHRALL (also Cathral, d. 1819) was a native of Philadelphia and a member of the American Philosophical Society. He was known for being a judicious physician, a skillful anatomist, and a man of rigid principles. After studying in London, Edinburgh, and Paris, he returned to his hometown in 1793. During the epidemic of 1793, he decided to remain in

Philadelphia and promptly contracted yellow fever. Before and after his recovery, he devoted most of his time to investigating the causes, characteristics, and remedies for the disease. During the peak of the epidemic, he dissected the bodies of fever victims to study the effects the disease, focusing on the dark-colored “vomit” produced in the victims’ stomachs. He published his findings as A Medical Sketch of the Synochus maligna in 1797.

IV.200n. Friedrich SCHNURRER (1784–1833) studied medicine in his native city of Tübingen and completed his doctoral degree in 1805, after which point he traveled extensively in Germany. He also went to Paris to do research at the zoological museum of the Jardin des Plantes. In 1810,

Schnurrer published his famous Materialien zu einer Naturlehre der Epidemien und Contagien

(Materials toward a naturalistic approach to epidemics and contagions) in which he articulated his efforts to understand the study of diseases as an integral part of the work of a naturalist. As an

454

administrator in the southern part of Germany from 1811 to 1814, Schnurrer had repeated

occasions to witness epidemics. These observations became the material for his later writings. In

1830, Schnurrer was appointed personal physician to the Duke of Nassau in Biberach, where he

became privy counselor two years later. Schnurrer was also a staff member of the Allgemeine

Litteraturzeitung (Jena) and contributed to the Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und

Künste (Universal Encyclopedia of Sciences and Arts), which (1766–1828)

and (1744–1851) began in 1813.

IV.206. Alexander RUSSELL (1715–1768) was a Scottish physician and naturalist who studied

medicine in his native city of Edinburgh. He traveled to London in 1734, shortly after obtaining

his degree in medicine. In 1740, he was appointed a physician in an English factory in Aleppo,

where he eventually became a principal practitioner. Part of Russell’s success in Aleppo can be

attributed to his efforts to study languages, which allowed him to communicate with people of all ranks and professions from various cultural backgrounds, including Franks, Turks, Armenians, and Greeks. Russell returned to England in 1754 and, two years later, published his Natural

History of Aleppo (1756), in which he described the ravages of the 1742–43 plague. In 1759, he was elected physician for the St. Thomas Hospital in London, an office he kept until his death.

IV.208. The most famous teacher at the LEYDEN school of medicine was the physician Hermann

Boerhaave (1668–1738), who was also a botanist and a chemist. He came to the University of

Leyden in 1701 and attracted students from all across Europe. His students, renowned in their

own right, were instrumental in the founding of medical schools in Vienna and Edinburgh.

IV.208. Born in Swabia, the physician Maximilian STOLL (1742–1787) entered the Jesuit order in 1761, against the will of his father, an impoverished surgeon who had begun to apprentice his

455

son at the tender age of nine. After being ordained, Stoll moved to Ingolstadt and then to Tyrol,

where his more enlightened ideas aroused suspicions in his superiors. A transfer to Eichstädt in

Brandenburg intensified the conflict, and, in 1767, Stoll left the order and went to Strasbourg and

Vienna to study medicine. Having completed his doctoral studies in 1772, he gained employment

as a doctor in Hont County in the Kingdom of Hungary. In this position, he had ample

opportunity to treat patients who suffered from different fevers, and he himself contracted

malaria. He returned to Vienna in 1774, where he found a large number of patients among the

Greek population. Stoll had already apprenticed medical students even prior to being officially

appointed as a clinical teacher in 1776. He was also a fervent advocate of small pox vaccination.

Stoll’s writings are especially noteworthy because he so carefully documented his observations

of the victims of epidemic diseases.

IV.209n. James WOODHOUSE (1770–1809) was an American chemist and surgeon from

Philadelphia, who received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1787 and an MD from

Penn’s medical school in 1792. Humboldt met him during his visit to Philadelphia in 184. While attending medical school, Woodhouse focused on the study of chemistry, with a specialization in the chemical and medical properties of tree barks and astringent vegetables. It is said that he was the first person to demonstrate the superiority of the Lehigh anthracite coals of Northampton

County (PA) over the bituminous coals of Virginia. He founded the Chemical Society of

Philadelphia in 1792 and became the chair of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in

1795. During his time as chair, Woodhouse conducted research on the production of metallic potassium by carbon reduction, the reaction of metals with nitric acid, starches, and the properties of bread-baking. Woodhouse was known for establishing chemistry as a theoretical

and a practical area of study, and he instructed a generation of students in the academic and

456

industrial domains of the science. He translated Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal’s Elements of

Chemistry in 1807.

IV.209n. New York surgeon Valentine SEAMAN (1770–1817) began his studies in medicine

under the guidance of Dr. Nicholas Romayne (1756–1817), one of the founders of Columbia

University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Seaman transferred to the University of

Pennsylvania in 1791, where he studied under , among others, and obtained his

medical degree a year later. He is credited with introducing smallpox inoculation to New York

after successfully using a serum—developed by Edward Jenner (1749–1823) from cowpox

lesions—on his son. Seaman is also known for improving the practice of midwifery and was an

active member of the Society of Friends and the New York Manumission Society, which were

focused on the liberation of slaves.

IV.210. Born in the Danish West Indies, physician Johan Mathias Frederik Keutsch (1775–1815)

wrote the first medical report from the plantations of the Danish colony St. Croix. Humboldt met

and corresponded with him and his brother, Johann Christian Keutsch, also a doctor.

IV.210n. Educated at the University of Salamanca and in Paris, where he obtained a master’s

degree in anatomy, LUIS LOBERA DE AVILA (c. 1480–1551) was a Spanish medical doctor best known as the author of Vergel de Sanidad (The health orchard) from 1542. This book contained

three independent treatises on different subjects, such as personal hygiene, nutrition, and

guidelines for travel on land and on sea. Lobera’s chapter on nutrition had originally been

published as Vanquete de nobles cavalleros (The banquet of noble gentlemen) in 1530. He later became the official physician of Carlos I (1500–58), as a result of which he had to travel frequently.

457

IV.210n. Spanish physician, pharmacologist, humanist, and botanist ANDRÉS LAGUNA (c. 1499–

1559) was a pioneer in the study of anatomy, urology, and medicine. He obtained a bachelor of

arts from the University of Salamanca and then moved to Paris, where he studied Greek

language, medicine, and botany. A professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, he later

taught at the University of Bologna. Laguna is often deemed one of Spain’s greatest philologists.

In more than thirty books, he wrote on topics such as philosophical history, cures for plagues,

and methods of anatomy. He also translated the major works of Aristotle and Hippocrates, to

which he added popular tales, folk wisdom, and academic inquiries.

IV.210n. A physician from Játiva, Spain, FRANCISCO FRANCO (c. 1515–after 1569) studied

medicine at Alcalá de Henares near Madrid. He was professor of medicine at the University of

Coimbra, Portugal, from 1549 to 1555 and taught at the University of Seville in the same

capacity from 1560 to 1569. For a time, he was also the personal physician of King João III

(1502–57). Franco was best known for writing Libro de enfermedades contagiosas y la de la

preservación dellas (Book on contagious diseases and about protection against them, 1569).

IV.217n. Faculty at the Collège de France in Paris, where he held the chair in medicine from

1831 to 1855, French physiologist François MAGENDIE (1783–1855) was a pioneer in the fields

of experimental physiology, pharmacology, and pathology. He was elected a member of the Paris

Academy of Sciences in 1821 and became its president in 1837. Magendie was known for being

rude, and his indecorous demeanor led to conflicts with colleagues, among them the famous

Guillaume Dupuytren, who came to regard Magendie as a dangerous rival. In 1821, Magendie

published the inaugural issues of the Journal de Physiologie expérimentale (later Journal de

Physiologie et pathologique expérimentale), the first publication of its kind in France. When he

458 visited the chemist-physicist William Hyde Wollaston (1766–1828) in London in 1824,

Magendie publicly experimented on living dogs’ brains, which prompted protests against vivisection, as it already had in France. Like Stubbins Ffirth, Magendie believed that neither yellow fever nor cholera were contagious. Although he developed measures for symptomatic treatment, Magendie deemed quarantine unnecessary. His most significant contribution to science was also his most controversial: his experiments on the nervous system, in particular the attempt to verify the differentiation between sensory and motor nerves in the spinal cord, which eventually became known as the -Magendie law due to the fact that the Scottish surgeon

Charles Bell (1774–1842) performed similar experiments around the same time. The British claimed that Bell published his discoveries first and that Magendie had stolen Bell’s experiments.

IV.217n. Chancellor of the University of Tübingen in 1819, the physician Johann Heinrich

Ferdinand von AUTENRIETH (1772–1835) was known for his unusual scientific versatility: he was knowledgeable in all fields of medicine. After attending the High Karlsschule in Stuttgart in

1785 and the University of Pavia, Lombardy (where he studied with Johann Peter Frank) in

1792, Autenrieth traveled to Pennsylvania with his father in the hope of establishing a medical practice in Lancaster. Although he failed to do so, Autenrieth was able to study yellow fever in detail during his stay in America. After his return, in 1797, he was appointed professor of anatomy and surgery at Tübingen, where, in 1805, he opened the first in-patient clinic. The observations he made there Autenrieth published in Versuche für die praktische Heilkunde aus der klinischen Anstalt zu Tübingen (Essays on practical healing from the clinical institute at

Tübingen, 1807–08), a journal he edited. He quickly advanced to a leading member of the

Tübingen medical faculty and became one of the best-known doctors of his time. Autenrieth’s

459

most comprehensive work was his Handbuch der empirischen menschlichen Physiologie

(Handbook of empirical human physiology) from 1801, in which he defended empiricism and scientific research based on experimentation against the then-dominant speculative natural philosophy.

IV.217n. Jean-Charles-Marguerite-Guillaume de GRIMAUD (1750–1789) abandoned his early

classical studies to pursue medicine at the University of Montpellier, where he earned his

doctoral degree in 1776 and then worked for many years. A student of French physiologist Paul

Joseph Barthez’s (1734–1806), an advocate of the theory of vitalism, Grimaud developed a

different view of pathology. The early vitalists’ focus was squarely on the human organism,

whereas Grimaud explored digestion, growth, and other physiological processes that humans

have in common with other life forms. Shunning modern research methods, Grimaud promoted a

doctrine of the “two lives,” a medically grounded metaphysics of sorts, in which he classified

some vital phenomena as “higher” and others as “lower.” Grimaud’s claim was that the human

species was distinctive because of the predominance in it of the former. At Montpellier, he

lectured on physiology and on fevers to large crowds of students. His 1789 paper on nutrition,

which Humboldt mentions here, was written in response to a question from the St. Petersburg

Academy of Sciences.

IV.219. Born into a poor solicitor’s family near Limoges, France, anatomist Baron Guillaume

DUPUYTREN (1777–1835) studied medicine at the École de Santé in France. In 1803, he was

appointed assistant of surgery at the Hôtel-Dieu, the oldest hospital in Paris. During this time,

Dupuytren and Louis Jacques Thénard performed the experiments on dogs that Humboldt mentions here. In 1812, Dupuytren advanced to chair of operative surgery and became chief of

460

surgery in 1814. A brilliant surgeon and a tireless worker, he was also intolerant of rivals and dissenting views. Known as “the Napoleon of Surgery,” he reigned with an iron hand. The

Musée Dupuytren in Paris, a collection of wax anatomical items, was established in 1835 with a bequest from him.

IV.233t. To raise revenue, the Spanish Crown introduced many terms and levels of taxation to its

American colonies. There were excise taxes, tributes, and payments to avoid military service to the king. Dating back to the late sixteenth century, the ALCABALA (an excise tax) was initially 2

percent; it was later raised to as much as 6 percent. The members of the clergy and many towns

were exempt from this tax, and nobles sometimes collected the tax for themselves instead of

passing it on to the Crown. In order to increase American revenue, the viceroy of New Granada

gave instructions to remove the alcabala and the brandy monopoly. Unsurprisingly, the alcabala

was a steady source of friction between Spain and its colonies. In 1765, it became a trigger for

the Quito Revolt.

IV.233t. The ALMOJARIFAZGO was a tariff that had to be paid on all merchandize that entered or

departed the Spanish Empire, including goods in transit that were shipped through the various

peninsular and American ports. This tariff was first created by Alfonso X, the Wise (1221–

1284), together with the alcabala. Initially, the almojarifazgo had been a percentage of the value of all imports; it was calculated on the basis of the value that the merchandize would have in the

Americas, not in the port of embarkation. Alfonso XI (1311–1350), eventual successor to

Alfonso the Wise, attempted to replace the Jewish tax inspectors of old (almojarifes) with

Christian officials, which the Courts of Alcalá authorized in 1348. The almojarifazgo was

abolished in 1783.

461

IV.233t. The anata, or MEDIA ANATA, was introduced in 1631 and required that a person, upon

entering the crown’s service, had to pay in an amount equivalent to six months (media, half) of

his wages. This tax paid on assuming office continued after the end of the Franco-Spanish War

(1635–1656).

IV.247. Born in Vitoria, Ignacio María ÁLAVA y Sáenz de Navarrete (1750–1817) was the

fourteenth admiral of the Royal Spanish Armada, which he had joined in 1766. After passing his

theoretical and practical exams later that year, he participated in many voyages to the

Philippines. Promoted to lieutenant in 1778, he became commander of the vessel San Luis. In

1792, he was named mayor-general of the San Francisco de Paula fleet in the war against

England, and he became the head of the fleet two years later. The following year, Álava y Sáenz commanded a fleet destined to circumnavigate the world. During this voyage, he organized the naval forces in the Philippines and returned to Cádiz in 1803. In 1810, he was promoted to commander-general of the Havana colony.

IV.251. Spanish politician Pedro López de LERENA (1734–1792), also known as the Count of

Lerena, was minister of Property and War. After conducting studies at the University of

Salamanca, he devoted himself to business and commerce. In 1770, he was named Royal

Accountant, and he granted permissions for the construction of the medicinal baths of Solán de

Cabras. Secretary of the Spanish treasury in 1785, he is best known for his Memoria sobre la

naturaleza de las rentas públicas de España (Report on the nature of public income in Spain),

from 1790.

IV.253n. Born into a family of wealthy textile manufacturers and merchants, French lawyer

Jacques (also Dominique-Vincent) RAMEL de Nogaret (1760–1829) was Minister of Finance

462 under the from 1796 to 1799, the year when he married Ange-Pauline-

Charlotte Panckoucke, grand-niece of the encyclopedist Charles-Joseph Panckoucke (1739–

1798). A vigorous reformer of the tax system, Ramel was blamed for many of the financial problems of the time. He kept a low political profile during the Consulate (1799–1804) and the

First French Empire, reentering national politics by supporting Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) after his return from Elba. After the second Bourbon Restoration, Ramel was forced into exile in

Belgium, where he died without be able to return to France.

IV.271n. Together with MANUEL GUAL (1759–1800), the wealthy Venezuelan merchant José

Maria ESPAÑA (1761–99) fomented a conspiracy against imperial Spain in their native port town of La Guaira. The so-called Gual-España Conspiracy was directly inspired by the French

Revolution: Gual, a military man, was also a passionate reader of French philosophical and political treatises. When the plot was uncovered in 1797, España fled to the island of Curaçao.

Gual, who was in poor health, sailed for Trinidad in search of arms and supporters. He is supposed to have died there in 1800. España returned to Venezuela in 1799, where he was promptly arrested and executed.

IV.305. A native of Fife, Scotland, James GLENIE (bapt. 1750–1817) was a prominent geometrician and lieutenant. He studied Greek and Latin at the University of St. Andrews, where he discovered a passion for geometry and other sciences. He also attended divinity class due to his interest in serving the church but abandoned this idea in favor of making a fortune in the

British Royal Army. Among his greatest geometric achievements, Glenie found a solution to

Matthew Stewart’s 42nd proposition on the 39th theorem, which had remained unsolved for sixty-five years. Glenie also demonstrated the impossibility of squaring a circle, a lingering

463

question in his field of study. He obtained a commission in the artillery unit that allowed him to put his expertise in geometry into practice. During the eruption of the American War of

Independence, Glenie, now lieutenant of artillery, embarked for the country with his regiment.

During his time in America, he demonstrated exceptional skill, not only in geometry but also in engineering. In 1776/77, he published a series of impressive papers in the Philosophical

Transactions, along with a book, The History of Gunnery with a New Method of Deriving the

Theory of Projectiles (1776). These publications secured him a membership in the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

IV.305. Captain-general José Joaquín de BUSTAMANTE y Guerra (1759–1825) was a Spanish

sailor and politician who had joined the Spanish navy of Cádiz in 1770. He took part in various battles against the Berbers and in a voyage to the Philippines. From 1789 to 1794, he commanded the corvette Atrevida as part of the Malaspina Expedition, which took him to the

port of Acapulco in 1791, where he made astronomical observations and sounded the depths of

the port and the bay. In 1804, he was placed in command of a fleet of four frigates that carried a

total of four million pesos from South America to the Spanish peninsula. This fleet was

intercepted by the English, and Bustamante was forced to forfeit the cargo. He was court-

martialed as a result but was later exonerated. In 1810, he was appointed captain-general of

Guatemala, a position he kept for nine years.

IV.305. Irish naturalist, botanist, physician, and mineralogist Thomas COULTER (1793–1843) is

considered one of the most significant botanical explorers in early America. His collections were

the foundations of many important contributions to the descriptive botany of Mexico and

California. Coulter received his college education at the University of Dublin (Trinity College),

464

where he studied the mechanical and physical sciences and also demonstrated an aptitude for

entomology and botany. In 1824, he accepted a three-year position as a medical physician for the

Real del Monte mining company in Hidalgo, Mexico. During his ten years in Mexico, Coulter kept meticulous notes and drew up many tables pertaining to the geology and meteorology of

Mexico, particularly the state of Hidalgo, Mexico City, and Real del Monte. Most of his notes and the specimens he collected were lost when he returned to Europe, leaving only scant sketches of his travels. Coulter was a member of the Royal Irish Academy.

IV.306. Spanish general and engineer JUAN DE HORBEGOZO (also Orbegozo) was a member of the Provisional Governing Board during the independence of Mexico (1810–1821). He was elected a foreign corresponding member of the Royal Geographical Society in London around

1836.

IV.307. Aristides Franklin MORNAY (b. 1779–1855) was a geologist, miner, and mineralogist

best known for classifying the Bendigo iron mass as a meteorite (the iron mass was first located

in Brazil in 1784, and its source and origins had previously been unknown). Mornay collected

samples of this iron mass and gave some of them to Lord Henry Dundas, who donated them to

the English Geological Society. A sample of this meteorite was also given to Alexander von

Humboldt.