I would like to thank Pierre Ragon, Antonella Romano, Caria Lois, Carlos Zeron, Pierre-Antoine Fabre, Jean-Frédéric Schaub, John Monteiro, and the editorial team of The Americas, as well as its anonymous readers, for the discussions on which the construction of this text is based. This research note is part of a doctoral project financed by the French Ministry of Education. Special thanks also go to William Pickett and Cooper Pickett for their translation of this essay from the original Portuguese.

1. On the Brazilian side, the most notable work is that by Cortesào, Jaime Historia do Brasil nos velhos mapas, 9 vols. (Rio de Janeiro: Ministério das Relaçôes Exteriores/Instituto Rio Branco, 1965–1971).Google Scholar

2. Here I reaffirm the association between map and text suggested by Harley, Brian, “Texts and Contexts in the Interpretation of Early Maps,” The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography, Laxton, Paul, ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).Google Scholar

3. Curto, Diogo Ramada “Introduction,” in La cartografia europea tra primo rinascimento e fine dell’illuminismo: atti del Convegno Internazionale The Making of European Cartography, eds. Curto, Diogo Ramada, Cattaneo, Angelo and Almeida, André Ferrand (Firenze: Leo Olschki Editore, 2003), 11.Google Scholar

4. Almeida, André Ferrand, “Samuel Fritz Revisited: the Maps of the Amazon and their Circulation in Europe,” in La cartografia europea tra primo Rinascimento e fine dell’illuminismo, Curto, Diogo Ramada, Cattaneo, Angelo and Almeida, Andre’ Ferrand eds. (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2003), pp. 133–153.Google Scholar Studies on this map are rare; aside from the one by Almeida whose work focused on Fritz’s cartographic production, we have found only occasional mentions of the map by this Jesuit in works covering a wider range of topics, although the comments on his mission diary are quite numerous. See also Neil, Neil, Measuring the New World: Enlightenment Science and South America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008);Google Scholar Artur Barce-los, “O Mergulho no Seculum: exploraçâo, conquista e organizaçâo espacial jesuítica na América espanhola colonial” (Ph.D. diss., Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 2006).

5. Europeans arrived at the river by occupying, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, several points on the coast of Guiana, at the time known as the “Wild Coast.” In 1655, a French author compiled some information that was being circulated about the river, offering Cardinal Mazzarino a discourse in which he defended the interest in occupying that territory. Pagan, Blaise François (comte de) Relation historique et géographique de la grande rivière des Amazones dans l’Amérique, par le comte de Pagan, extraite de divers auteurs et réduite en meilleure forme, avec la carte d’icelle rivière et de ses provinces (Paris: Cardin Besongue, 1655).Google Scholar

6. The current location of Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas. With nearly two million inhabitants, the city has become a regional economic and financial center.

7. Mauricio de Heriarte, ouvidor-geral (liaison to the king) of the state of Maranhâo, who had been on the expedition with the Portuguese Pedro Teixeira from Belém to Quito (1637), wrote a report in 1667, in which he stressed the strategic importance of the river: “From the northern edge of this river run the Indies of Castile, and the main ports are Trindade, Orinoco, Ponta de Arajá, Cumaná, Cumagoto, and Margarita and Caracas. . . . Heading upriver one arrives at the new kingdom of Granada, which is the first province of Peru, and to the province of Pastos. . . . Populating this river with Portuguese people it is possible to make an Empire, and be the master of all the Amazon and more rivers. One can do a great deal of business by sea and by land, as well as with the Indies of Castile, Peru and all of Europe.” Mauricio de Heriarte, “Descriçâo do Estado do Maranhào, Pará, Corupá e rio das Amazonas 1662–1667” in Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, Historia Geral do Brasil, antes da sua separaçâo e independencia de Portugal, 5 vols. (1854–1857; Sao Paulo: Melhoramentos, 1975), vol. 3, pp. 171–190. Father Cristóbal Acuña, a Spanish Jesuit who undertook the return voyage from Quito to Belém with Francisco Teixeira in 1639, believed it was at the mouth of this river where most surely “one should place all defenses, so that the passage of the enemy to all this New World be blocked.” Cristóbal de Acuña, Nuevo descubrimiento del Gran Río de las Amazonas, Ignacio Arellano, José María Diez Borque, and Gonzalo Santonja, eds. (1641, Madrid; Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2009), p. 142.

8. Regarding pre-Columbian commercial routes, see Lathrap, David “The Antiquity and Importance of Long-Distance Trade Relationships in the Moist Tropics of Pre-Columbian South America,” World Archeology 5: 2 (1973), pp. 170–186;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Myers, Thomas Perkins “Redes de intercambio tempranas en la hoya amazónica,” Amazonia Peruana 4: 8 (1983), pp. 61–75.Google Scholar Regarding Caribbean-Dutch slave trafficking, see Farage, Nádia As muralhas dos serties: os povos indígenas no Rio Branco e a colonizaçâo (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1991).Google Scholar

9. Regiment of the Missions, from December 21, 1686. Reproduced in Leite, Serafini, Historia da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil, (Lisbon/Rio de Janeiro: Civilizaçào Brasileira, 1941), vol. 4, pp. 369–375.Google Scholar

10. Alvard, an edict issued by the Secretary of State that supersedes all other laws that had been passed about the Indians of Maranhào, April 28, 1688, Anais da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, vol. 66, pp. 97–101.

11. Under the jurisdiction of the Province of Quito, the Maynas mission was begun in 1636 in the Andean foothills. Between 1640 and 1680, it was expanded in the direction of the Cocamilla, Muniche, May-oruna, Aguano, Roamayna, and Coronado Indians. By the 1680s, it had probably reached the Omagua Indians, and their neighbors the Yurimagua, Aisuare, and Ibanoma, who lived along the Solimôes River up to the mouth of the Rio Negro.

12. David Buisseret, “Early European Cartography of the New World,” in La cartografia europea, p. 101. According to the author, many Jesuits who studied in the schools of central Europe were sent to the American possessions of the Hapsburgs, frequently to remote missions, where they could put their skills to good use. Samuel Fritz (1654–1724) and Eusebio Kino (1645–ca. 1711) are merely two of the best known cartographers from a large group of Jesuit mapmakers.

13. The Omagua are unanimously considered by chroniclers as the nation best prepared to receive the Gospel, since they were the most civic-minded; besides wearing clothing, the members of this nation obeyed an authority that was recognizable to the Europeans. According to calculations by Antonio Porro, based on the literature, the Omagua occupied the islands of the Amazon River and perhaps the banks over a stretch of nearly 700 kilometers,, between the Napo River and the mouth of the Mamoriá River; they may have constituted a population of around 18,000 inhabitants, in an area of a little more than 19,000 square kilometers. Antonio Porro, O pavo das aguas. Ensaios de etno-história amazónica (Rio de Janeiro: Vozes, 1995).

14. The source par excellence for the history of Samuel Fritz is the book entitled Noticias auténticas del famoso río Marañón. Written between 1730 and 1748 and summarily interrupted, this text is more a compilation of documents, including the Diary by Father Samuel Fritz, than a narrative of the goings-on in the missions. It was published for the first time by Jiménez de la Espada (Boletín de la Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid 26–32 (1889–1892), who attributed the authorship to the Jesuit Paolo Maroni. In 1892, the complete text of Noticias was published by the Real Academia de la Historia de Madrid, in whose archive it has been preserved. Recently, Jean Pierre Chaumeil coordinated a new edition, which uses the same text published by Jiménez de la Espada. Maroni, Paolo, Noticias auténticas del famoso río Marañón, Jean Pierre Chaumeil, ed. (1738; Iquitos: Instituto de Investigación de la Amazonia Peruana-Centro de Estudios Teológicos de la Amazonia, 1988).Google Scholar

15. See an analysis of several positions in Garcia, Rodolfo, “Introduçâo,” Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro 81: 135 (1918), pp. 355–374.Google Scholar

16. This is André de Almeida’s hypothesis. “Samuel Fritz Revisited: The Maps of the Amazon and Their Circulation in Europe,” in La cartografia europea, 133–153. Both the report and the Apuntes acerca de la línea de demarcación entre las conquistas de España y Portugal en el río Marañón were published by Maroni, Paolo, Noticias auténticas del famoso río Marañón pp. 332–335.Google Scholar

17. Carta regia (royal letter) to the governor of the state, Coelho, Antonio de Albuquerque March 19, 1693, in Anais da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro 66 (1944), pp. 142–144.Google Scholar Regarding the history of the Carmelite presence in the Amazon, see Prat, André Notas históricas sobre as missies carmelitas no extremo norte do Brasil, sáculos XVII–XVIII (Recife: n.p., 1941);Google Scholar Wermers, Manuel Maria , “O estabelecimento das mis-sôes carmelitanas no rio Negro e Solimôes (1695–1711),” Atas do V Coloquio Internacional de Estudos Luso-Brasileiros, vol. 2 (Coimbra: n.p., 1965).Google Scholar

18. Manoel Esperança was the first Carmelite to go to the region, in 1696, to take possession of the territories. He went with the governor and several others interested in setting up bases in that region: Manoel Esperança, “Relaçâo da Jornada que fez Fr. Manuel da Esperança, Vigano Gérai, ao Sertâo do Pará …” Esperança, vicar general, went to the sertâo of Pará to visit the Rio Negro mission, accompanied by the governor and captain of the state Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho de Carvalho, Hilario de Sousa de Azevedo, Mateus Dias da Costa, Francisco Teixeira de Moráis, Antonio Carvalho de Albuquerque da Costa Rayol, and others, 1696. Biblioteca da Ajuda, Cód. 51–VII–27 fol. 120–126.

19. Tordesillas Treaty (1494) and Lisbon Treaty (1681).

20. According to the Portuguese, Pedro Teixeira placed a possession marker at the upper Japurá River in 1639, during a journey from Belém to Quito. For Fritz, this act of possession was invalid because it had not been confirmed by Philip IV before Portugal declared itself independent, in 1640.

21. Fritz, Samuel Mapa Geographica del Río Marañón o Amazonas, 1691,Google Scholar Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Cartes et plans, Rés. Ge C 5037, Manuscript (ink on paper), 55 Χ 130 cm;

22. Fritz, Samuel , “El Gran Río Marañón, o Amazonas con la Misión de la Compañía de Jesús,” 1707 Google Scholar, BNF, Ge D 7855. Engraving in metal by Juan de Narváez, 32 Χ 42 cm.

23. Sanson, Guillaume Le cours de la rivière des Amazones dressé sur la Relation du R.R, Christophe d’Acuña par le Sr. Sanson d’Abbeville, géographe ord. du Roi, 1680,Google Scholar gravé par Liebaux.

24. Although he had not preached in nor visited all the sites represented on the map, Fritz was able to gather the information from Indians and from other missionaries with whom the Jesuit had contact, and possibly from material kept at the library of the Jesuit colégio of Santo Alexandre, in Belém. Despite the fact that we have not yet found any Portuguese maps from the period, there are several references to the use of maps in support of missionary work. Father Joâo Felipe Bettendorf comments in his chronicle that he himself began his missionary activities, together with Antonio Vieira, hunched over a map of the Amazon River. “Crónica da Missào dos padres da Companhia de Jesus do Estado do Maranhâo,”Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geogràfico Brasileiro, 72 (1909), p.158. In letters sent to the general of the society, in Rome, and in the Bettendorf chronicle, there are also references to maps of the Amazon River, of the mission in Maranhâo and of the captaincy of Cabo do Norte, produced by the Jesuit Aloisio Conrado Pfeil between 1684 and 1700. See Serafini Leite, Historia da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil, vol. 3, p. 255.

25. Antonella Romano identifies the emergence of a Jesuit science not only at the schools, but also in mission activities. According to the historian, the relationship of the missionary endeavor with knowledge and domination of space mobilizes, particularly in the New World, techniques and methods different from those created for urban centers. Romano, Antonella “Actividad científica y Nuevo Mundo: el papel de los jesuítas en el desarrollo de la modernidad en Iberoamérica,” in Los jesuítas y la modernidad en Iberoamérica (1549–1773), Marzal, Manuel and Bacigalupo, Luis, eds. (Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú/Universidad del Pacífico/Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 2007), pp. 56–70.Google Scholar

26. The vast blank spaces in the upper part of the representation may be a testament to either the cartog-rapher’s ignorance of the geography of that region or simply the fact that the objective of the representation is exclusively the course of the Amazon River, as the title states. In sum, it is an area which at that point in time had already been extensively mapped, especially by the Dutch. Additionally, the information that appears in that part is certainly borrowed from other sources, as evidenced by the inclusion of such places as the legendary Parime Lake, which appears in earlier Dutch maps, for example the one by Jansson, Jan Guiana, siue, Amazonum Regio (Amsterdam: 1600–1664).Google Scholar

27. A stretch that corresponds to a journey by river of nearly 900 kilometers.

28. He most likely observed caimans, which are common in the Amazon Basin.

29. It is noteworthy that this clothing corresponds to the missionary standard and is different from that traditionally worn by the Omagua Indians, which was decorated with characteristic figurative patterns, such as those described by the chroniclers and possibly represented in the prints from Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira’s voyage. Ferreira, Alexandre Rodrigues. Viagem filosófica pelas capitanías do Grao-Pará, Rio Negro, Mato Grosso e Cuiabá, 1783–1792. Iconografia, vol. I: Geografia-Antropologia (Rio de Janeiro: Conselho Federai de Cultura, 1971).Google Scholar

30. Maroni, Apud Paolo Noticias auténticas, p. 329.Google Scholar

31. Sebastiào José de Carvalho e Melo, known as Marqués de Pombal (1669–1782), was secretary of state of the kingdom during the reign of Dom José I (1750–1777). He undertook a series of administrative, economic, and political reforms in the Portuguese empire, including the formulation of a new policy regarding its relationship with the American Indians. In 1755 he definitively prohibited their enslavement, and in 1757 he withdrew from the religious authorities the responsibility for the administration of indigenous settlements, transferring it to public servants in accordance with a new regime known as the Directorate of the Indians.

32. Regarding the concept of “geographic reality,” see the text by Casti, Emanuela, “Elementi per una teoria dell’interpretazione cartografica,” La cartografia europea, p. 309.Google Scholar

33. Cooke, Edward. A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World (London, 1712).Google Scholar See also Dionisio de Alsedo y Herrera, Aviso histórico, politico, geográfico con las noticias más particulares del Perú, Tierra Firme, Chile y Nuevo Reino de Granada (Madrid: Oficinas de Diego Miguel de Peralta, 1740).

34. Cours du fleuve Maragnon autrement dit des Amazones, map (257 X 380 mm) in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, écrites des missions étrangères, par quelques missionnaires de la Compagnie de Jésus, 34 vols. (Paris: Le Mercier 8c Boudet, Marc Bordelet, 1707–1776) vol. 12, p. 212.

35. In his study, André de Almeida classified the discrepancies between the original version and the second printing as “minor changes.” André Ferrand Almeida, “Samuel Fritz and the Mapping of the Amazon,” Imago Munii 55 (2003), p. 118.

36. Valverde, Nuria and Lafuente, Antonio “Space Production and Spanish Imperial Geopolitics,” in Science in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, 1500–1800, Bleichmar, Daniela Vos, Paula De, Huffine, Kristin and Sheehan, Kevin eds. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), pp. 198–215.Google Scholar

37. Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, vol. 12, p. 212.