Brazil

The coming of Brazilian independence
John Armitage, 1807-1865.
The history of Brazil, from the period of the arrival of the Braganza family in 1808, to the abdication of Don Pedro the First in 1831. Comp. from state documents and other original sources. Forming a continuation to Southey's history of that country.
2 vols. London: Smith, Elder and co., 1836.

During the Napoleonic wars, Brazil had been the seat of the Portuguese monarchy-in-exile, and following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, the two countries were proclaimed coequal as a United Kingdom. This transitional phase ended, after the king returned to Portugal itself, and Brazil assumed its independence in 1822, under the former regent, Dom Pedro. The accompanying picture is talen from a centenary commemoration issued by the Brazilian newspaper Journal de Commercio, loaned for this exhibit by Prof. Maria Angelica Lopez. 

A map of Brazil in the 19th century
from Daniel P. Kidder, 1815-1891.
Brazil and the Brazilians portrayed in historical and descriptive sketches.
Philadelphia, Childs & Peterson; New York, Sheldon, Blakeman & Co., 1857.

This fold-out map, detached from its original volume in rebinding, shows the huge expanse and vast natural resources that drew nineteenth-century explorers and settlers to Brazil and made possible both its independence and its economic development. 

Mawe, John, 1764-1829.
Travels in the interior of Brazil, particularly in the gold and diamond districts of that country, by authority of the prince regent of Portugal; including a voyage to the Rio de la Plata, and an historical sketch of the revolution of Buenos Ayres. Illustrated with five engravings.
Philadelphia: M. Carey, and Wells and Lilly, Boston. 1816.

The rich mineral resources of Brazil had attracted interest from the seventeenth-century, but Mawe's book indicates the increased importance they held for Europe with the industrial and technological development of the early nineteenth-century. 

Koster, Henry, 1793-ca. 1820. 
Travels in Brazil: . . . In the years from 1809, to 1815.
2 vols. Philadelphia: M. Carey & son, 1817. Contemporary tree calf.

Thomas Cooper Library has a second copy of this important source, in original boards, from the collection of the Georgetown Library Society, indicating the links between Brazil and the Southern United States in the early 19th century. 

The 19th century lure of the Amazon and uncolonized Brazil
Herndon, William Lewis, 1813-1857.
Exploration of the valley of the Amazon, made under direction of the Navy Department.
2 vols. Washington: R. Armstrong [etc.] Public Printer, 1853-54. Given by Buddy Atkins in memory of Walter Furman Mobley.

As this frontispiece illustrates, the vast hinterland of Brazil's Amazon basin attracted the interest of other major powers, under the guise of scientific, geographical and anthropological exploration. 

The scientific traveler in early 19th century Brazil
Humboldt, Alexander von, 1769-1859.
Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of the New continent, during the years 1799-1804.
Written in French . . ., and translated into English by Helen Maria Williams.
Philadelphia: M. Carey, 1815.

The Personal Narrative of the German explorer and scientist Alexander von Humboldt provided one of the most important models for Darwin in keeping his own scientific journal from the voyage of the Beagle to Brazil and South America in the 1830s. 

Rio de Janeiro in the mid-nineteenth century
Daniel P. Kidder, 1815-1891.
Brazil and the Brazilians portrayed in historical and descriptive sketches.
Illustrated by one hundred and fifty engravings.
Philadelphia, Childs & Peterson; New York, Sheldon, Blakeman & Co., 1857.

Rio, properly Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro, was one of the first Portuguese settlements in the early sixteenth century, and capital of one of the original ten "captaincies" into which Brazil was divided in the Portuguese administrative reorganization of 1642. During the Napoleonic wars, it served as the seat of the Portuguese government-in-exile, and it was capital of the Republic of Brazil until 1960. 

Charles Darwin visits Rio de Janeiro, May 1832
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882
The journal of a voyage in H.M.S. Beagle.
Facsimile of the original manuscript held at Down House, Kent.
Guildford: Genesis, 1979. One of 500 copies. C. Warren Irvin Collection.
Shown with
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882
Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by H. M. S. Beagle, under the command of Captain FitzRoy, R. N., from 1832 to 1836.
First edition. London: H. Colburn, 1839. Original brown cloth. C. Warren Irvin Collection.

After study at Edinburgh and Cambridge, Darwin was appointed naturalist' on the small naval survey ship H.M.S. Beagle. Darwin was already interested in many aspects of natural history (notably botany, entomology, and geology), and he was overwhelmed by the abundance of new species and varieties he found in South America. It was from this voyage that he began to work out his theory of the differentiation of natural species, that he would develop in his Origin of Species (1859).

One of the new species that Darwin sent home to Britain
"Musa Brasiliensis,"
from Charles Darwin, ed.,
he Zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N., during the years 1832 to 1836. Published with the approval of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury. Pt. II. Mammalia, described by George R. Waterhouse, Esq. . . . ; with a notice of their habits and ranges, by Charles Darwin, Esq.
London: Smith, Elder, 1839. Contemporary calf. Stamp of South Carolina College on upper cover.

Darwin sent or brought back to Britain thousands of new species from the Beagle voyage, and arranged for the leading naturalists in each field to describe them for this lavishly illustrated official report, published in parts over a four-year period. Waterhouse's report on the new mammal specimens was the first section to appear. 

Nineteenth century European exploration
Adalbert, Prinz von Preussen, 1811-1873.
Travels of His Royal Highness Prince Adalbert of Prussia, in the south of Europe and in Brazil, with a voyage up the Amazon and the Xingú.
Translated by Sir Robert H. Schomburgk and John Edward Taylor.
2 vols. London: D. Bogue, 1849. 

A 19th-century Brazilian country estate
from Johann Baptist von Spix, 1781-1826.
Travels in Brazil, in the years 1817-1820: undertaken by command of His Majesty the King of Bavaria.
Translated by H.E. Lloyd.
2 vols. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1824. 

Updated 19 September 2002 by the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
Copyright © 2000, the University of South Carolina.
URL: http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/sccoll/brazil/brazil4.html