Journal of Brazil
Modernized, illustrated English edition of Journal von Brasilien by Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege (1811-1817).
Along the gold and diamond roads, a German mineralogist probes the depths of Minas Gerais.
Read more ↓- about 400 pages
- Paperback
- English
- 18th century
About this book
In January 1810, on the orders of the Prince Regent, a Hessian mining engineer left Rio de Janeiro to look for iron on the coast of Angra dos Reis. Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege would never stop walking, measuring, taking notes.
A canoe in the storm at Mangaratiba, the climb up the Serra dos Órgãos, gold checkpoints on the Paraíba, the crosses of the murdered in the forest of Montigueira: the road to Villa Rica is a school of patience. In the heart of Minas Gerais, Eschwege sees the gold running out and smuggling thriving. At the end of December 1812, he sets out with the naturalist Freireis to the Coroatos, drawn by the rumor of a rich gold mine. There he finds aldeas, festivals, bloodletting performed with a bow, and the traces of the laws and wars the Crown wages against the Botocudos and the Puris.
Around his notebooks, he gathers the voices of his companions: Captain Marlier's letter, the forest of Rio as seen by Langsdorff, Prado's account of the Guaycuru horsemen of Paraguay, the Nova Coimbra massacre of 1777 and the peace of 1791.
Published in Weimar in 1818, this learned and lively collection shows a Brazil that has become the seat of the court, just as the gold of Minas stops flowing. Of the rocks or the men, which will tell the truth of this country better?
Product details
- Publisher
- Itinerarium Éditions
- Series
- Wild Americas
- The author
- Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege
- Date of the journey
- 1777-1855
- Modern edition by
- Erik de Boisgrollier
- Language
- English
- Format
- Paperback, 6 × 9 in (15.2 × 22.9 cm)
- Pages
- about 400
The author
Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege
Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege was born in 1777 in Aue, in Hesse, into a local noble family, and studied mining at Göttingen. Hired in Portugal as an ironmaster around 1803, he followed the Portuguese court to Brazil in 1810 and set up the first iron foundries of Minas Gerais there. He traveled the captaincy for more than ten years, and his Journal von Brasilien appeared in Weimar in 1818. He became known for his geological maps and for the Pluto brasiliensis (1833). He died in 1855 at Wolfsanger, near Kassel.
All books by Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege →The journey mapped
In the Same Place, Through the Centuries
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Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, Voyage au Brésil dans les années 1815 à 1817 (1820-1821)
In 1815, Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied landed at Rio and went up the coast toward Bahia, accompanied for a time by Freireis, Eschwege's companion among the Coroatos, and by the botanist Friedrich Sellow.
Read a free edition → -
Johann Baptist von Spix et Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, Voyage au Brésil (1823-1831)
Arriving in 1817 with the retinue of Archduchess Leopoldina, the zoologist Spix and the botanist Martius, the very man whose notice on Langsdorffia Eschwege publishes, crossed Brazil over three years: São Paulo, Minas Gerais and…
Read a free edition → -
Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, Voyage dans les provinces de Rio de Janeiro et de Minas Geraes (1830)
The botanist Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, from Orléans, spent the years 1816 to 1822 in Brazil and brought back thousands of plants and a long series of narratives.
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Hercule Florence, Voyage fluvial du Tietê à l'Amazone (1825-1829)
Hired as a draftsman on the expedition that consul Langsdorff, the letter writer of the *Journal of Brazil*, led from 1825 to 1829, Hercule Florence, a native of Nice, went down the Tietê from the province of São Paulo, reached…
The modern editor
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