Mapping Mythical and Imaginary Places in d Anville s Carte de l Amérique Méridionale

January 9, 2017 | Author: Jonathan Campbell | Category: N/A
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1 Journal of Earth Science and Engineering 3 (2013) D DAVID PUBLISHING Mapping Mythical and Imaginary Places in d Anvill...

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Journal of Earth Science and Engineering 3 (2013) 714-721

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Mapping Mythical and Imaginary Places in d’Anville’s Carte de l’Amérique Méridionale Júnia Ferreira Furtado History Department, UFMG (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais), Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil

Received: August 15, 2013 / Accepted: September 15, 2013 / Published: October 25, 2013. Abstract: This article aims to discuss the blank spaces in the cartography of the Enlightenment, examining one map by French mapmaker Jean Baptist Bourguignon d’Anville, the Carte de l’Amérique méridionale, first printed in 1748. Here, emptiness reflects the limits of the geographical knowledge of that continent. Moreover, it also indicates that a mythological geography still present on the maps of the time. This was also evident in the case of Lake Parima, which is represented within the Amazon region. In the first manuscript or print version of the Carte de l’Amérique méridionale in 1748, on sheet 1—depicting the Amazonian region—one can see that Lake Parima is not presente. Following the information of the French La Condamine had gathered on his expedition traveling down the Amazon and scorning tradition, d’Anville did not include Lake Parima but Lake Amucu, placing it not in Guiana, in the Portuguese portion of the territory, below the Orinoco River and to the north of the Amazon. This was due to a manuscript map drawn up by a Prussian whom La Condamine had met during his trip down the Amazon, Nicholas Horstman. In the 1760 version—we see to our surprise that the geographer has included Lake Parima. This article aims to discuss the disappearance of the lake in the first version of the map and why does he then add it in 1760. Key words: History of cartography, South America, d’Anville, Amazon.

1. Introduction European maps produced during the 16th and 17th centuries abhor empty spaces. The interiors of the African, Asian, and American continents, of which relatively little was known in Europe, were filled with cannibals and fantastic pictures. From the early eighteenth century onward, the mapping process began to change, leaving behind the fantastic images that had populated inland landscapes. Maps no longer feared blank spaces, nor the geographic gaps occupying vast stretches of land, revealing Europeans’ ignorance of the content of these continental spaces. It was French cartographer Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, more than any other geographer of his time, who was to ban decorative marvels from all his maps. He did not hesitate in Corresponding author: Júnia Ferreira Furtado, Ph.D., professor, main research fields: history of cartography, history of science, history of medicine. E-mail: [email protected].

leaving this space “white” [1]. But in spite of so many blank spaces on his maps, he asserted that “this does not prevent [maps] from including many previously unknown circumstances” [2]. His goal was to have maps reflect “the limits of knowledge in positive geography” and let empty spaces reflect where those limits fell [3]. While d’Anville let these geographical lapses appear in his maps, he also took “extreme care to fill in the blanks of the interior of the land” [4]. But he did not cover them with mythological images. The new geographical features displayed in the map would, little by little, reveal the configurations of these previously unknown spaces. Like no other contemporary, in a manner consistent with the Enlightenment, he released several subsequent editions of his maps in which he carefully corrected details he considered incorrect or filled in blank spaces with new information that revealed Europeans’ new knowledge about the terrestrial sphere.

Mapping Mythical and Imaginary Places in d’Anville’s Carte de l’Amérique Méridionale

“If one wishes to see the important additions made to Geographical knowledge”, d’Anville wrote, at the ripe old age of 82, “it is in South America that they can be found.” He continued: “In the vast expanse of the Brazilian interior… [one finds] what no other Map has heretofore provided about the most interesting of subjects… one of the vastest of continents, comprising in Longitude an eighth of the circumference of the earth beneath the Equator, and 63 degrees of Latitude” [5]. Thirty years earlier, in 1748, at a critical moment in the political life of the South American continent, he had published his Carte de l’Amérique méridionale, and it was to this map that d’Anville referred. (Fig. 1)

2. Materials As for the disappearance of mythical Lake Parima, in the Amazon region, this would come about after La Condamine, having traveled to South America, returned to Europe with a manuscript map given to him by a Prussian he met on his journey (Fig. 2) [6]. This was Nicolas Horstmann, who had been instructed by the Dutch government to explore the southern part of Guyana. Instead of returning to his Dutch patrons

Fig. 1

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to report what he had discovered, however, he continued south towards Portuguese territory [7]. La Condamine met him in Belém, at the mouth of Amazon River, and brought back a map of Lake Amucu and the network of rivers surrounding it, confirming that Lake Parima did not exist. Hortsmann had traveled along these channels, going down the Essequebé (whose mouth was in Guyana), passing through Lake Amucu and continuing down the Negro River and the Amazon, eventually arriving in Belém. La Condamine later passed this map on to d’Anville. In fact, there is a copy in d’Anville’s map collection in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France [8]. The geographical connections between Horstmann’s map and that part of d’Anville’s map are astonishing; both represent Lake Amucu and the network of rivers around it in an extraordinarily similar way. After d’Anville’s map, Lake Amucu became identified as the real incarnation of the mythical Lake Parima, inspiring future expeditions, including that by Alexander von Humboldt, who used d’Anville’s map to explore the region [9]. In his first Geographical Memoire about the map printed in 1750, d’Anville claims that, in positioning the lake, he used

Manuscript of the Carte de l’Amérique méridionale, 1748, d’Anville BNF. DCP. Ge D 10.657.

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Mapping Mythical and Imaginary Places in d’Anville’s Carte de l’Amérique Méridionale

Fig. 2 Carte huilée de la route de Nicolas Horstman natif de Hidelsheim en Westphalie depuis Rio Esquibé jusqu'à Rio Negro. BCP.DCP.Ge DD 2987 (9612).

both Horstman’s map and account [10]. d’Anville’s geographical configuration of the area, based on the Dutchman’s map, shows an almost perfect communication between the Negro and Amazon Rivers, on one side, and the Rupunuwini and the Essequebé on the other, separated respectively by two isthmuses and Lake Amucu [11]. The geography of this area shows the application of the geographical method of critical mapping developed by d’Anville [12]. In order to establish the new configuration of the region’s geography, he compared the manuscript map—the fruit of a recent empirical observation—with Horstman’s report of his trip and the geographical notes taken on La Condamine’s expedition. Finally, he compared this recent information with his collection of old maps.

Old knowledge was thus renewed and revised by current empirical knowledge. To testify that Amucu was the true Parima, moreover, he also made use of the authority accorded to ancient maps. He affirmed that he was certain of Horstman’s information when he realized that in an old map the Indians had referred to Lake Parima by the name Rupunuwini. d’Anville possessed two maps containing this reference. One of them was La Guaiane or the El Dorado, and Amazons’ countries, printed in 1654, by Pierre Duval, geographer of the king of France [13]. The second was the map of Guiana by Nicolas Sanson, printed in 1656 [14]. Other than that, d’Anville possessed several maps that display Lake Parima, such as those by I. Janssonius (17th cent.), G. Blaeu (1630), and Vicenzo Maria

Mapping Mythical and Imaginary Places in d’Anville’s Carte de l’Amérique Méridionale

Coronelli (1690-1691) [15]. In d’Anville’s Carte de l’ Amérique méridionale, in keeping with the geography suggested by Horstman, Parima is converted into a river and the lake is dubbed the Amucu (Fig. 3). One sees that the map seems to break with the mythological tradition of El Dorado. The golden Parima and the town of Manoa, located on its banks, have entirely vanished from the map. Unlike its cartographical predecessors, it contains no references to El Dorado or to the mineral wealth of the area. A rational geography, in keeping with Enlightenment tastes, was thus surpassing a mythical and fantastic one. All geographical features whose knowledge was not derived from the direct observation of the territory (and reaffirmed by the members of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris) were to be left out of the map. Indeed, it appears that d’Anville was yet again using his geographical method to create a rational geography, and with apparent success. d’Anville, in his study in the galleries of the Louvre, far from the South American rainforest, made his cartographic and textual sources into the eyes through which he observed the vast interior of New World geography. The position of Lake Amucu, in Brazil, did not

Fig. 3

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reflect the interests of France, Spain, or the Netherlands, all of which had territorial possessions in the region and whose borders were still in dispute with the Portuguese. One must recall that Horstman’s map was drawn up at the behest of the Dutch, and La Condamine’s expedition, which brought the map to Europe, had been organized by France and Spain. The frontier northwest of the lake runs almost parallel to a chain of mountains, consistent with the tradition of using geographical features as references to establish territorial boundaries. However, the line to the northeast does not correspond to any natural barrier on the ground; it is simply placed there by the cartographer. This would allow the Portuguese to claim possession of the territory, with all its mythological tradition of mineral wealth, for themselves based exclusively on the map. And this, in fact, is precisely what Portugal, and then Brazil, would later do.

3. Discussion In 1760, however, d’Anville changed some geographical aspects on the first sheet of the Carte de l’Amérique méridionale [16]. These changes are intriguing. The geographer included Lake Parima, and

Detail of the Carte de l’Amérique méridionale, 1748, d’Anville BNF. DCP. Ge D 10.657.

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Mapping Mythical and Imaginary Places in d’Anville’s Carte de l’Amérique Méridionale

altered the chain of rivers that surrounded it. From then on, until the last revision of the map in 1779, the Amucu would show the same configuration proposed by Horstman in the Portuguese side of the border, with Lake Parima appearing to the northwest in territory that belonged to Spain. One also sees that the network of rivers makes for a link between Lake Amucu and Lake Pirama by way of tributaries from the Negro and Essequebé Rivers, so a traveler leaving the Amazon could thus reach Lake Parima, and from there arrive at the Orinoco River. (Fig. 4) D’Anville reports that from 1745 onward, he had devoted himself to making a map of the region between the mouths of the Amazon and Orinoco rivers, “whose merit is due to material that [he acquired] about the region” [17]. Indeed, starting in 1742, he had been intensely involved in the production of maps of the area, and after La Condamine returned to Europe in 1744, the two began working together [18].

Fig. 4 Detail of the Carte de l'Amérique Meridional’s first sheet, 1779, d’Anville. Collection of the author.

The maps of the Amazon region that the two produced between 1744 and 1754 did not include Parima, not even in the first revision of the Carte de l’Amérique méridionale, made in 1754, where d’Anville only adds a few mountains above the Peruvian capital of Lima. As it will be shown, the chronology of the production of these maps, in which Lake Parima was not represented, reveals that the documents that d’Anville used to include Parima on the map were already in his possession when he draw his 1740’s maps but the decision to not draw Parima lake was mostly political than geographical. In fact, d’Anville used Spanish maps to introduce the Parima lake, but he had two versions of the date when he received those maps. In a Memoire published in the Journal des Sçavans in April 1750, he writes that he had on hand a map, among others, bound “in a compilation of many folio volumes of divers memoirs, written by a Spanish official for his king shortly after the ascension of Philip V to the throne”—that is 1746. In another Memoire wrote in 1779, he affirmed that “in 1749, La Condamine saw before his eyes a map of Lake Parima. This document came from the office of the Marquis de La Ensenada” [19]. Ensenada was the powerful minister of the Spanish king, Fernando VI, who was determined to build a cartographic knowledge of America that might allow Spain to negotiate its borders in South America with Portugal. At that time La Condamine and d’Anville were working for the marquis on the Carta de la Provincia de Quito. Despite d’Anville’s affirmations that he had received the Spanish map in 1749, the fact is that he did not incorporate Lake Parima into the first revision of the map in 1754. Why did he only do so in 1760, if he was indeed set on achieving what he called “cartographic perfection”? To tackle this final question, one may examine the geopolitical nature of this inclusion. An instructive first stop may be the manuscript version of the map that is preserved in d’Anville’s Collection in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France [20]. Here one finds some changes made in

Mapping Mythical and Imaginary Places in d’Anville’s Carte de l’Amérique Méridionale

pencil by d’Anville, seeking to correct or add a cartographic element that was not there before. One cannot know exactly when these annotations were made, or if they all were done at the same time. However, there are indications that the geographer altered these sheets after the first printing in 1748. Such changes are difficult to trace because the cartouche was not altered on reprints of the map. But the fact that it was printed using three separate plates facilitated the correction process. One of these pencil marks in the first plate relates to the inclusion of Lake Parima. In the manuscript map, the position of the lake lies over the boundary line that d’Anville proposed to separate Brazil and Spanish American territories. However, when one turns to the printed map from 1760, it becomes evident that the lake was moved slightly further to the north, no longer on the border but rather inside Spanish territory. Due to the influence of Portuguese ambassador Dom Luis da Cunha, this configuration did not come to print until 1760. In fact, in the 1754 version, d’Anville continued to represent only Amucu Lake, located in Portuguese territory, even though, as he said, he had first seen the Spanish map around a decade earlier.

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line, one can see how this map reproduces the same geographic configuration as the 1748 edition of d’Anville’s map. Lake Amucu appears, even though its name is not inscribed on the map, as well as the chain of rivers displayed by d’Anville. (Fig. 5) One issue driving recent historiography has been the sources used for the Mapa das Cortes. The configuration of Lake Amucu and the river networks in the area point incontestably to d’Anville’s map as one of its principal sources. And the position of the lake favored Portuguese interests, due to the influence of Portuguese ambassador dom Luís da Cunha, who gave d’Anville several of the maps and geographical documents he used to draw up the Carte de la Amérique méridionale. We know that d’Anville received the Spanish map around 1746. Since Lake Parima was omitted from the 1748 and 1754 versions, why was it finally inserted in the 1760 reprint? In 1760, one may recall, a new period of border negotiations began between Portugal and Spain. Dom Luís da Cunha was no longer involved, having died in 1749; and the Duke of Orléans had passed away in 1752. The duke was d’Anville’s patron—in life, he had worked in favor of

4. Conclusions In 1750 Portugal and Spain finally signed an agreement regarding the frontiers of their American territories. The Treaty of Madrid reflected dom Luis da Cunha’s geopolitical proposal relative to the Amazon region, given cartographic form in d’Anville’s map. It was thus established that the border in this region would “follow the high mountains between the Orinoco and the Amazon River, and continue to the summit of these hills to the east” [21]. The Mapa das Cortes was used by Portugal and Spain to establish the boundaries negotiated in the Treaty of Madrid. The map clearly shows the frontier line agreed upon by both Crowns. To the south of this

Fig. 5 Detail of the Mapa das Cortes. Facsimile, Private Colection of the author.

Mapping Mythical and Imaginary Places in d’Anville’s Carte de l’Amérique Méridionale

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a Franco-Portuguese alliance. By this point, French foreign policy now favored Spanish interests in South America, and the Carte de la Amérique méridionale was soon to reflect this turning point. The bilateral expeditions following the Treaty of Madrid, tasked with demarcating borders and taking topographic measurements, began to question the terms of the earlier agreement. A decade after the original agreement, negotiations between the two crowns were struck up again and would culminate the following year in an official Treaty scrapping the provisions that had been settled in Madrid in 1750. That gave d’Anville the opportunity to print a new edition of the map. In his new version of the map, mythological Lake Parima is represented. Paradise returns to the map! But this is not all: one also sees that the fabulous lake is positioned clearly within Spanish territory, ensuring them the rights to its potential wealth. Without Dom Luís da Cunha there to guarantee Portuguese control over the geographic knowledge d’Anville’s map displayed, Portugal’s influence was eclipsed on this version of the map. Despite what we might expect, it was not geographical precision that drove d’Anville to correct his map; rather, state interests and geopolitical disputes made mythical lake Parima appear in the Carte de la Amérique méridionale. Paradise was placed in the map!

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References [1]

[2]

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[5]

Numa Broc, La Geographie des Philosophes: géographes et voyages français au XVIIIe. siècle, Lille, University Paul Valéry de Montpellier, 1972, p.35. Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, Considération générales sur l’étude et les connoissances que demande la composition des ouvrages de Géographie, Paris, Imprierie de Lambert, 1777, p.63. Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, Considération générales sur l’étude et les connoissances que demande la composition des ouvrages de Géographie, p.32. Jean-Baptiste d’Anville, Considération générales sur l’étude et les connoissances que demande la composition des ouvrages de Géographie, p. 63. Robert Bosch Private Collection/RBC (Stuttgart, Germany), n.539 (1), Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, Mémoire sur un accroissement considérable de

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connoissances locales en ce qui intéresse l’Amérique méridionale, f.1. Graham D. Burnet, Following Humboldt, asserts that Horstman was Dutch Graham D. Burnet, Masters of all they surveyed, pp.30-31. Graham D. Burnet, Masters of all they surveyed, pp. 30-31. Bibliothèque Nationale de France/BNF (Paris), Department des Cartes et Plans/DCP, Ge DD 2987 (9612). Carte huilée de la route de Nicolas Horstman natif de Hidelsheim en Westphalie depuis Rio Esquibé jusqu'à Rio Negro, 17… [communiqué par M. de La Condamine]1 manuscript map; 49.5 × 32.5 cm. Humboldt, Along with La Condamine and d’Anville (whom the German admired deeply), concluded that the Lake Amucu was the real location of mythical El Dorado. Graham D. Burnet, Masters of all they surveyed, p.31. Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, “Premiere Lettre de Monsieur d’Anville, à Messieurs du Journal des Sçavans, sur une Carte de l’Amérique Méridionale qu’il vient de publier”, Journal des Sçavans, (March 1750) 552-553. Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, Premiere Lettre de Monsieur d’Anville, à Messieurs du Journal des Sçavans, sur une Carte de l’Amérique Méridionale qu’il vient de publier, 552. About 18th-century methods of making maps, see: Mary Sponberg Pedley, The commerce of cartography: Making and marketing maps in eighteenth-century France and England. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005; Numa Broc, La Geographie des Philosophes: Géographes et voyages français au XVIIIe. siècle. Lille: University Paul Valéry de Montpellier, 1972; Júnia Ferreira Furtado, “Espelho do mundo”. in: Oráculos da geografia iluminista: Dom Luís da Cunha e Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville na construção da cartografia do Brasil. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG, 2010, Chapter 4. BNP, DCP, Ge DD 2987 (9561). Guaiane or the El Dorado, and Amazons’ countries, Pierre Duval, 1654. BNP, DCP, Ge DD 2987 (9562) Guiana, Nicolas Sanson, 1656. BNP, DCP, Ge DD 2987 (9559), Guiana sive amazonum régio. Amstelodami: I. Janssonius, 17 eme; BNP, DCP, Ge DD 2987 (9560), Guiana sive amazonum régio. Amstelodami: Guiljelmus Blaeuw, 1630; BNP, DCP, Ge DD 2987 (9162), America Meridionale, Venetia. BNP, DCP, Ge DD 2987 (9169B) (1), Carte de l’Amérique méridionale, d’Anville, 1760. RBC, n.539 (2), Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, “Second Mémoire concernans l’Amérique méridionale”, 11. Neil Safier, Measuring the New World: Enlightenment

Mapping Mythical and Imaginary Places in d’Anville’s Carte de l’Amérique Méridionale science and South America, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2008, p. 149. [19] ANVILLE, Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’, Second Lettre de Monsieur d’Anville, à Messieurs du Journal des Sçavans, sur une Carte de l’Amérique Méridionale qu’il vient de publier, Journal des Sçavans, Paris, p.664, Avril, 1750. RBC. n.539 (2), Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon

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d’Anville, Second Mémoire concernans l’Amérique méridionale, p.11. [20] BNF, DCP, Ge D 10.657, Carte de l’Amérique méridionale, d’Anville, 1749. [21] The Treaty of Madrid can be seen at http://www.info.lncc.br/madri.html (accessed 07/07/2009).

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