Beyond Imperial Domination and Resistance: Extrapolating the Late Colonial Amazonian

Cultural Landscape from the Visual Record

Author(s): Roberta Marx Delson
Source: Yearbook. Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers, Vol. 26 (2000), pp. 117-130
Published by: University of Texas Press
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Beyond Imperial Domination and Resistance: Extrapolating
the Late Colonial Amazonian Cultural Landscape
from the Visual Record

Roberta Marx Delson

Department of Anthropology
American Museum of Natural History
New York, NY 10024
U.S.A.

the more "progressive" the colony had become.2

ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of colonialism must be
understood from visual sources as well as written
discourse. Examination of iconographic and
cartographic evidence of late-eighteenth-century
Amazonia reveals that the Portuguese often
adopted/adapted indigenous knowledge into the
construction of material culture, even while
overtly speaking to a "project" of Europeanizing
the local population. This example strongly
suggests that reductionist global paradigms of
imperial control may be strongly contradicted
when the colonial process is analyzed in context.
Keywords: visual record, "local knowledge," cul
tural landscape, contextual analysis, pragmatism.
INTRODUCTION
The Portuguese not only colonized Brazil
in the broadest political and economic sense but,
in the eighteenth century, they attempted to shape
and mold a new Brazilian cultural landscape1 in might be some "give and take" between official
the Portuguese image. This necessarily involved Portuguese insistence on Europeanization, and the
changing the material culture of the region as well
as the physical environment. Late-colonial
administrators in Brazil understood that material
culture served as a tangible metaphor for the
colony's advancement; in the 1700s, the equation
was widely presupposed that the more "modern"
(read "European") the artifacts, lifestyles, and
physical surroundings of Brazil's inhabitants were,
This mindset determined the shape of eighteenth
century colonialism in the Amazon region.
Yet, at the same time, as this discussion
will show, colonially-generated solutions to
material culture construction were not disparaged,
even if this meant adopting or adapting local (i.e.,
indigenous) techniques. Using "local knowledge"
did not immediately imply deviation from the
official "project" of the metropolitan country;
while solutions which incorporated local expertise
might be considered compromises, they often
represented the most expedient (and creative) use
of local talent, as well as materials. Local
knowledge, after all, implies that it has been
"acquired in concrete practice,"3 and the history of
the Amazon region in this time frame provides
ample evidence of Portuguese willingness to
incorporate styles, techniques and materials native
to the region.
Up to now, however, the notion that there
(presumed) inclination of the local population to
retain its own way of doing things (as well as the
contextually inherent advantage of local
knowledge), have not shaped the debate on
Brazilian history. Instead, the tendency has been
to view cultural policy in the Brazilian colonial
setting as a one-way flow of ideas and orders, a
monolithic, "top-down," praxial phenomenon in

Yearbook, Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers, 2000, Vol. 26, pp. 117-130.
? Copyright 2000, Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers._

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 118 CONFERENCE OF LATIN AMERICANIST GEOGRAPHERS
which "discourse," representing the unilateral,
official position of the imperial power, assumes an
almost reified presence. In this respect, Brazilian
historiography is not unique but is firmly rooted
in currently popular historical paradigms of how
colonial "agency" operated globally.4 In the
corollary paradigm5, researchers have assumed
that resistance, either armed or passive, was the
only method via which local peoples could
counter monolithic colonialism; this assumption,
however, does little more than confirm the very
existence of hegemonic domination by ontological
(if not explicit) implication and, again, is a
position well represented in Brazilian colonial
historiography6.
By contrast, this paper addresses the
discrepancy between a postulated direction of
culture flow on the one hand, and the reality in
which it was created and evolved on the other, by
focusing on the specific context, or cultural
landscape, of the late-colonial Amazon. I have
focused on this region specifically because it was
there, in the late-eighteenth century, that the
Portuguese expended enormous energies in
attempting to reconfigure the landscape according
to metropolitan-generated precepts. Using "non
traditional" sources (i.e., iconographic and carto
graphic), instead of relying on written discourse to
elucidate the cultural landscape, has resulted in an
intermediate interpretation of the history of
Amazonian colonialism, one which emphasizes
the processes of cultural borrowing and selective
assimilation, rather than reducing options to the
twin heuristic categories of metropolitan/colonial
dominance and subaltern resistance. Although
this third interpretive paradigm has not charac
terized historiography of colonialism in general
(including that of Brazil), it is well represented in
the anthropological literature on syncretism and in
cultural geography studies which consider the pro
cess of "transculturation" in the "contact zone."7
In this regard, historians can profit from
the valuable insights of their sister disciplines; an
examination of late-eighteenth century visual
sources has made it clear that only the concept of
"transculturation" can adequately explain how the
cultural landscape of the late-colonial Amazon
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evolved. Such visual sources demonstrate
processes of selective assimilation on the part of
the colonized, as well as cultural borrowing on the
part of the colonizers, ultimately resulting in the
creation of unique, syncretized material cultures
distinct from imperial as well as indigenous
forebears. While perhaps born out of expediency,
these hybridized syntheses contained their own
inherent cultural logic: i.e., to the extent that both
colonizer and colonized contributed to the crea
tion of such "compromises" in the cultural land
scape, they were rendered more acceptable,
offering the prospect of wider application.
CONTEXT
To develop this theme of cultural
borrowing in the historical context of the late
colonial Amazon, I use the broad definition of
"material culture," suggested some years ago by
James Deetz, as encompassing not only "artifacts"
in the traditional sense but "that sector of our
physical environment that we modify through
culturally determined behavior."8 Such "material
culture" should not be viewed as a static inventory
of artifacts but rather descriptive of an ongoing
process. Thus, "the study of material culture is
the study of creativity in context... [an analysis] of
the dialectic of wills and conditions,...the
reciprocal connections among individual desires,
social orders, and environmental possibilities."9
It is this acculturative process, with its
recombinant cultural mixtures of local and
imported traditions and techniques and, perhaps,
differential rates of acceptance, which should be
viewed in the context of the contact zone. The
remainder of this paper will, therefore, consider
several instances of cultural fusion in the Amazon
region which illustrate that "European" models of
cultural construction were shaped by indigenous
knowledge, resulting in highly original, adaptable
solutions. The use of these maps and drawings as
"data" allows for a measure of independence in
interpreting historical evidence distinct from
discourse; nonetheless, such objects "speak" to us
as surely as a written record. And while it is true,
as visual anthropologists remind us, that

renderings of these objects were "to some extent
socially and/or culturally constructed,"10 and must
therefore be understood as representing the
viewpoint of the Europeans or Brazilians of Euro
pean background who drew them, they remain the
few images that we have of material production
within colonial contact zones. Most of the
drawings presented here are reproduced from the
well-known account of the Brazilian-born
naturalist, Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira, whose
Viagem Filosofica is the outstanding iconographic
source on the Amazon for this period.11 The town
and house plans represent the work of military
engineers. There is, unfortunately, little known
evidence of indigenous renderings of these
contexts.
My concern here, therefore, is to move
beyond the largely politically-driven discourse in
determining whether the parameters of an
emerging colonial material culture are necessarily
predetermined by a normative ideology (in this
case Portuguese), or are responsive to the inherent
logic of cultural borrowing, grounded in the
prospect of acceptance. It is in this regard that the
modified "artifacts" and "spaces" of this late
colonial period may be read as something other
than just "things"; they may be seen instead as the
phenomenological evidence of Portuguese
influence and control or, alternatively, of
willingness to incorporate local knowledge into
newly created landscapes. We can be certain,
given the paucity of written data on the subject,
that attempts to measure the indigenous reaction
to such cultural reconfigurations would not be
very productive and would implausibly suggest
that it is not only possible to reconstruct subaltern
history in the Amazon, but that there was broad
understanding of the colonial "project" by the
colonized in the first place. If, however, instead
of relying exclusively on written discourse (or
drawing conclusions based on the lack of such
writings), we substitute visual evidence of the
adoption or adaptation of local knowledge into the
Amazonian cultural landscape, it becomes
obvious that a process of cultural borrowing was,
in fact, the modus operandi in the region.
Ultimately, such sources force us to rethink the
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DELSON 119
phenomenon of colonialism and to tell a "different
story."
CULTURAL LANDSCAPES
The origin of the thrust to modify the
Amazonian cultural landscape can be traced to the
1690s' discovery of gold in the region of Minas
Gerais, a windfall which necessitated a new, and
explicit, Crown policy for controlling the
development of the backlands. In response, the
Portuguese projected sweeping plans for the
eighteenth century which aimed to replace the
uncontrolled or spontaneous landscapes of the
previous two centuries with one that was visibly
regulated and European in appearance.12
Beginning first in the backlands and extending
later to the older, coastal cities, the Portuguese
consciously attempted to change theproxemics or
spatial arrangements of the way people lived
within the colony, by mandating the construction
of new communities.13 At first concerned just
with the maintenance of a uniform physical
presence in these newly constructed hamlets, the
government would eventually mandate rules for
"appropriate" lifestyles which, it was thought, the
inhabitants of these new communities must
eventually embrace. Indeed, while inhabitants of
such backlands communities (including those of
the Amazon) were derided as vagabonds, the
Portuguese assumed that by decreeing that such
folk live within structured, aligned com-munities,
their collective behavior would ultimately
manifest a more civil character.
While some urban planning had been
evident in Brazil from the founding of Salvador da
Bahia, in 1549, the first real evidence of a
planning mindset appeared in 1716, when
legislation was drafted for the creation of
townships in the northern region of Piaui.14 This
new construction "code" mandated the creation of
designated sites for a church, jail, and other public
buildings; lots were to be distributed to future
inhabitants on streets which had been delineated
by surveying {a linha recta). Lastly, every effort
was to be made to assure uniform fa?ades for the
houses, so that the entire project would be, in the
 120 CONFERENCE OF LATIN AMERICANIST GEOGRAPHERS
famous Italian phrase of the day, un bel composto
(a beautiful composition). As the century
unfolded, such regulations became even more
explicit in regard to house style, color, and
content, and they were often accompanied by
precisely rendered towns plans. Significantly, the
plans drafted for such new communities were to
be implemented in context regardless of the ethnic
background of the future inhabitants. Thus,
residents of European and mixed background,
newly arrived cagais (families from the Atlantic
Islands and other overcrowded parts of the realm),
African-born and local slaves, as well as
indigenous peoples were now required to live in
regulated settlements in the Amazon, often side by
side. Elsewhere, I have referred to this scheme as
the first step toward creating a Brazilian
peasantry.15 Creating such planned minifundia,
instead of permitting the mostly uncontrolled
pattern of large landed estates which had
characterized earlier settlement on the coast, was
seen as a method of assuring greater Crown
authority.16
This town-building program reached a
feverish pitch after 1750 when the Marques de
Pombal, as the Prime Minister, persuaded King
Jose I of the need for broad-reaching reform in all
areas of the colony. While Pombal's projections
for Brazil are well-researched and need not be
redeveloped here, it is critical to this discussion
that one of his primary concerns was the
expulsion of the Jesuits, a feat accomplished in
the late 1750s. For the Indians now "liberated"
from missionary control, Pombal formulated
policy which sought to integrate them into the
mainstream Brazilian/Portuguese milieu. The
success of this experimental vision (known as the
Directorate) hinged on modifying the material
culture; i.e., "allowing" the Indians to live in a
recognizably "Portuguese manner" and to marry
Europeans, which Pombal reckoned would result
in "Lusified" behavior.17 Indeed, one enthusiastic
administrator predicted that Indians would rapidly
flock to these newly created Portuguese settle
ments, where they would be treated as "men like
anyone else" and where they would be allowed the
liberty of owning goods, unlike the Jesuits who
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would not let them "possess a single thing."18
To implement this clearly defined cultural
agenda, the Portuguese created a cadre of
specially trained individuals. I am referring here
to the military engineers who not only came from
the realm but who were also educated locally in
Brazil.19 The graduates of these academies
formed a corps of loyal technocrats who had the
training and the intelligence to implement a
mandated cultural policy, supported by modern
technology. Yet, as will be seen below, such
individuals were not averse to modifying
metropolitan prerequisites and incorporating local
knowledge when warranted by a specific context.
Many of these engineers saw duty in the
Amazon region. Unlike the previous century,
when the Portuguese had confined their Ama
zonian activity to Belem do Para and sent sporadic
expeditions up the river system, in the eighteenth
century metropolitan officials attempted to
populate and control the entire region, efforts that
were often under the direct control of military
engineers. Through the course of the century, the
contact zone between the indigenous population
and Europeans widened, as the Portuguese pushed
further inland to Mato Grosso and developed a
trade route which linked the Guapore, Madeira
and Amazon Rivers to the port city of Belem.20
In this newly opened region, the
Portuguese preferred to locate and construct new
towns on the vdrzea, or floodplain of the rivers;
often these settlements were associated with a
nearby fortification. Nor was this necessarily a
deviation from the setting of Pre-Portuguese
indigenous settlements; recent archaeological
evidence suggests that early occupation occurred
on the vdrzea as well as on terra firme (high
ground or forest), with occasional settlements
spreading over both geomorphic land forms.21 By
contrast, it was during the missionary era that this
pattern was substantially modified, as the
religious orders preferred to located their missions
on the bluffs overlooking rivers,22 rather than on
the floodplain.
Portuguese town-building activity in the
region (which intensified after the 1759 expulsion
of the Jesuits allowed the Portuguese greater
 DELSON 121

direct contact with indigenous peoples) visibly

reversed the tendency of the missionary period
and physically relocated the local and recently
arrived settlers into newly constructed
communities at water's edge. These new com
munities were provided with casas de canoas to
stow craft, rudimentary docking areas, and
occasionally shipyards. Even former missions,
which were now taken over by civil authorities,
experienced substantial modification.
Nonetheless, it is difficult to speak of the
emergence of just one new cultural landscape;
such riverine communities differed widely from
one another, a fact which reflected accommod
ation to local knowledge and conditions. Swampy
areas necessitated the building of houses on stilts,
while lack of what was considered "appropriate"
construction materials resulted in houses built of
thatched palm leaves (Figure 1) instead of the Figure 1. A small house constructed of palm leaves
but with clearly European lines. This was probably
preferred taipa (mud bricks) or stone. Thus,
located in a Miranha Indian village.
notwithstanding the prevalence of uniformity
Source: From VF, plate 115 11.
internally in these towns, no one pattern of town
layout nor house prototype can be said to
represent a global model; each was devised in delineate a settlement in the shadow of the
context. Even within single sites experimentation fortress.23

took place, so that the development of the cultural
landscape must be viewed as an ongoing process,
while lip-service was being paid to prefabricated
"Lusification" directives from the mother country.
Analysis of the construction of the town of Sao
Jose de Macapa de Amapa (on the northern banks
of the mouth of the Amazon River) provides an
excellent example of how the process worked at
one site.
Sao Jose de Macapa
Construction of a fortress and settlement
at Sao Jose de Macapa was ordered in response to
threats of foreign invasion; the Portuguese Crown
hoped to protect the entrance to the Amazon river
and its tributaries by creating human "bulwarks"
(i.e., townships) composed of a mixed peasantry
of Atlantic Islands cagais, their slaves, and
"congregated" indigenous peoples. Toward this
end, Thomaz Rodrigues da Costa, a Portuguese
engineering graduate of the Royal Academy at
Lisbon, was dispatched in the late 1750s to
He laid out the new town of Sao Jose de
Macapa24 adjacent to the fortress and parallel with
the water's edge (Figure 2). Each nuclear family
was assigned a house, the floor plans of which are
depicted on a contemporaneous plan of the
settlement. Significantly, two house styles are
represented, allowing us to interpret how the
process of cultural modification evolved on site.
The second house type (referred to as the "new
house" in the plan's legend) seems to have
prevailed, becoming the predominant house form
(Figure 3). This was probably due to the fact that
the plan of this bungalow provided for greater
cross-ventilation, in this extremely hot climate,
than is evident in the floor plan of the first house
type (Figure 4). The interior space of the
predominant house type was divided into three
small rooms, with a narrow entrance
corridor/foyer; each unit had three simple
windows and a pair of doors aligned opposite each
other to maximize ventilation. Significantly, the
purpose of these rooms is not delineated on the

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122 CONFERENCE OF LATIN AMERICANIST GEOGRAPHERS

Figure 2. Plan of the new town of Sao Jose de Macapa.

Source: "Planta Ichnographica das cazas...de S. Jose de Macapa para os novos Povoadores, 1759"
Mapoteca do Instituto de Geografia do Exercito, Rio de Janeiro, no. 1015.

Figure 3. Floor plans of two of the second house type of Sao Jose de Macapa in detail. In one of the units,
the structural elements have been emphasized to contrast with the intervening ventilation apertures.
Source: Enlarged from the plan of Figure 2.

Figure 4. Floor plan of the first house type of Sao Jose de Macapa in detail.
Source: Enlarged from the plan of Figure 2.

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 DELSON 123

plan (i.e., nowhere does the term bedroom or

living room appear), and one supposes the
inhabitants were free to utilize the interior space
as they chose. The device of adjoining walls with
the next residential unit, as seen in a rendering at
the bottom of the town plan, was common and
employed elsewhere in Brazil; it not only lowered
construction costs by eliminating one structural
wall, but simultaneously provided the desired
uniform (and Europeanized) fa9ade.
We can observe, additionally, that the high
pitch of the illustrated roof line, as well as the lack
of indication of an attic floor, suggests that
partitions (probably woven), rather than solid
walls, divided the interior space. This was a
building style common to indigenous dwellings.
Iconographic evidence from Rodrigues Ferreira's
A Viagem Filosofica confirms the use of partitions
in dwellings inhabited by Indians in the "Euro
peanized" town of Monte Alegre, as well as in
contemporaneous indigenous malocas (round
houses; see Figures 5 and 6). It is probable that
the Portuguese selectively incorporated this
climate-adaptive vernacular device after trial and
error.

This begs the question of the cultural Figure 5. Interior of house in the Amazonian
origin of these new town housing prototypes. Can new town of Monte Alegre. Note the non
we consider this second house type to be purely structural partitions and the open space
European in derivation? If written discourse is under the high-pitched roof.
Source: From VF, plate 28.11
accepted at face value, we would expect to find
evidence of direct continuity of building styles
Figure 6. Partitions seen in floor plan of maloca,
from Portugal to the colony. Indeed, vernacular
Amazonian indigenous round house.
houses from rural Portugal today show similarity Source: From VF, plate 127.11
in plan and scale to the colonial Amapa
exemplars. If we speculate that there is also a
continuity of form of eighteenth-century rural
Portuguese vernacular houses with those of the
present then, by extending that continuity to
Brazil, we can suggest that what appears to be
replication of European forms in colonial Amapa
was probably not coincidental. Superficially, we
might be tempted to conclude that in Amapa
cultural borrowing in toto from Portugal was the
order of the day.
But closer examination of the visual
evidence suggests otherwise. For example, the
divisions between rooms depicted in modern-day

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 124 CONFERENCE OF LATIN AMERICANIST GEOGRAPHERS

house plans of Alentejo and Ribatejo do not show

woven partitions, but thick, structural walls.25
Moreover, the rural Portuguese analogs lack the
apertures necessary for cross-ventilation and, in
this regard, resemble the unsuccessful first house
type of Sao Jose, rather than the more pre
dominant (and airier) second house type of da
Costa's town. Moreover, the roof area of the rural
Portuguese houses is invariably floored,
functioning as a usable storage area, or attic,
rather than remaining open for ventilation as in
the Amazonian colonial examples.
Colonial Amapa houses, therefore, repre
sent only a partial adaptation or acceptance of the
Portuguese house form. In other words, this was
a selective application of European norms.
Figure 7. Loom showing beginnings of hammock
Analytically then, this example from Sao Jose with geometric design. Source: From VF, plate 53.11
may be read as follows: the Portuguese engineer
(da Costa) developed a prototype Amazonian
bungalow that, initially based on a normative Textiles
metropolitan vernacular cultural form, proved to Paralleling the case of the houses
be unsuccessful (uninhabitable?). He then modi discussed above, analysis of the Amazonian
fied the basic form, incorporating local climatic textile industry28 shows that the introduction of
knowledge in a process of cultural borrowing, European technology (e.g., in the loom pictured in
(likely following the suggestions of the indigen Figure 7) did not automatically signal the creation
ous workers who formed the construction crews26) of a totally Europeanized product. Perhaps the
to produce a house type more suitable for this Portuguese recognized that adaptation of
zone. From the outside these houses would meet European dress (or any clothing for that matter)
would be easier if the fabric itself reflected local
administrative demands requiring locals to live in
tradition; this makes sense a priori especially if
orderly (read "European-like") residences. But
inside the houses there was room for local the goal was basically to avoid nudity. The
clothing worn by indigenous peoples, as depicted
adaptations, such as partitions, cross-ventilation
in the Viagem Filosofica, shows design patterns
and open space under the roof.
which were very much part of the local cultural
Was this a "superficial" take of the tradition (Figures 8 and 9). While the cut is
European culture, or a highly pragmatic synthesis
basically European, it is unlike clothing worn
born of experimentation and adaptability? I contemporaneously in Portugal or the Atlantic
believe that the visual evidence suggests the latter islands.29 But by allowing for such departures
interpretation, which is why the second house from European models, the Portuguese were
form prevailed. Parenthetically, one wonders rewarded with a clothed population as well as in
what indigenous inhabitants made of the spatial an increase in consumerism30 (presumably the
arrangement of these new houses to which they rationale for adopting more modern weaving
were now assigned. We have no evidence of their technology). The same kinds of cultural fusions
reaction and there is nothing to contradict the may be discerned in the ceramics produced in the
notion that they may have assigned their own Amazon, where local designs appear to have been
culturally-derived interpretations to the new grafted onto European (Arabic?) vessel forms.
communities and dwellings.27 Only one illustration from the Viagem Filosofica

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 DELSON 125

Mmmm
Figure 8. Cambeba (Omagua) Indian wearing Figure 9. Guaicuru Indian woman modestly
clothing of apparently European cut, with dressed in semi-European fashion while her
geometric patterns typical of local design. face still shows indigenous decorations.
Source: From VF, plate 118.11 Source: From FF, plate 100.11

Tgm/^^P^m^ ^BS? ^SE^

Figure 10. Ceramics of the Lower Amazon (produced by indigenous workers) which show fusion of local
designs and shapes with those of European (and possibly Arabic) derivation. Source: From VF, plate 137.11

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 126 CONFERENCE OF LATIN AMERICANIST GEOGRAPHERS

Figure 11. Canoa N. S. do Pilar, an igarite or canoe body modified by Portuguese ship building techniques.
Source: From VF, plate 34.11

survives to illustrate this syncretism, but it does so
quite nicely (Figure 10). What is important is
that, in the absence of written documentation, we
can decipher these examples of cultural
syncretism via the visual record.
Transport
In yet another facet of material culture in
the Amazon, marine transportation, similar
melding of local knowledge with European form
occurred and suggests symmetries of purpose.
Although master Portuguese shipbuilders were
sent to the Amazon (and elsewhere in Brazil) in
the mid-1700s expressly for the purpose of
bringing their skills to the shipbuilding industry,31
and engineers often saw duty as naval designers,
the bulk of the labor force in the Amazonian
shipyards continued to be indigenous. These
workers were undoubtedly more familiar with the
construction of canoes, upon which riverine
communities did (and still do) depend for their
supplies. Thus, while Amazonian shipyards
successfully produced brigs, brigantines, smacks,
and other vessels of clearly European derivation,
it was the everyday transport vessel, based on the
simple, yet efficacious dugout form, that
dominated construction. These canoes were
transformed into sleek transportation vessels with
the addition of rigging (both lateen and square
sails), partial keels, stern rudders and "tumble
homes," resulting in highly sophisticated fusion
craft like the igarite (Figure 11), which was used
for inland commerce; notwithstanding its exterior
sophistication it remained a one-piece-hull canoe,
albeit a "Europeanized" one, and it traversed the
entire Amazonian riverine landscape.
We can understand why the Portuguese
would modify an indigenous cultural form of
transport rather than insisting upon more
European models if we reflect on the prevalence
of cultural borrowing we have already seen in the
Amazonian contact zone. Here again, it was the
advantage of local knowledge that determined the
shape of the cultural form; for the task of
navigating the often treacherous waters of the
Amazon river and its tributaries, the canoe was the
ideal vessel in terms of stability and draft, as well
as cargo transport.32 Moreover, the fact that for

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 DELSON 127

riverine traffic the Portuguese were largelyseveral recent studies have confirmed34 However,
dependent on native mariners, to whom the canoe it is equally clear that the Portuguese were eager
was comfortably familiar, undoubtedly played ato avoid such confrontations. Wise counsel on
determining role in the decision to adapt thisthis matter was voiced by the late-eighteenth
quintessential local vessel, rather than insistingcentury Viceroy of Brazil, the Marques de
upon a more European form. Lavradio. Writing about indigenous communities
in the south of the colony, he suggested that
CONCLUSION "rather than by brandishing the sword...the Portu
guese should win over the Indians by examples of
These modified canoes, as well as the piety and kindness."35 In the Amazon, as well,
house forms, textiles, and ceramics, demonstrate the same conciliatory mindset is evident: to entice
that the fusion of European material culture with inhabitants back to villages in the Rio Branco
local knowledge was not an aberrancy. While region following a devastating revolt in 1781-2,
written discourse confirms that the Portuguese the Crown offered amnesty to the rebels, a policy
believed that cultural/structural reforms could that apparently was successful, according to on
reconfigure the cultural landscape, and perhaps site observers.36
really believed that their colonial subjects who The Amazonian visual data examined here
adopted European culture would be better off, the strongly suggest that the process of reconfiguring
visual data presented here suggest that this is too the cultural landscape included the input of the
simplistic an interpretation for what is a complex indigenous population (subalterns). Not only was
process. Implementation of imperial policy "give and take" feasible, it may well have been
obviously did not automatically mean eschewing perceived as desirable by avoiding confrontation.
local ways of creating material culture, as we have In demonstrating that compromise was possible,
seen. The apparent enthusiasm which the Portu notwithstanding the hegemonic parameters of
guese demonstrated toward experimentation, official policy, these examples of cultural borrow
acculturation and even outright adaptation of local ing speak eloquently to a virtually unexamined
forms in Brazil might, in fact, be said to imply arena of the Brazilian colonial historical
just the opposite; i.e., notwithstanding the pre experience. Clearly, we can no longer claim that
requisites and die-cut solutions associated with the cultural production in the late-colonial Amazon
official "colonial project," it was possible for a was uni-directional. While we may never be able
colonial power to improvise and tailor material to say with certainty that the Portuguese recog
culture to meet the imperatives (physical and, nized that they were giving tacit approval to a
perhaps, metaphysical) of the contact zone. hybridized material culture, or even that they
Nor, apparently, was this process unique to acknowledged the possibility of a dialogue
the Amazon, nor to Portuguese possessions in between colonized and colonizer, the visual record
America. Writing about material culture in Portu of the late-colonial Amazon would seemingly
guese Goa, Urs Bitterli describes such objects as support both possibilities by confirming the
blankets, carpets, weavings and embroideries existence of frequent (and obviously acceptable)
which "combine motif and ornament, form and material culture syncretisms. In the final analysis,
technique, with no stylistic incongruity, in a we are obliged to look beyond imperial domina
successful syncretism of Eastern and Western tion and resistance to syncretism, if we are truly to
traditions."33 understand the evolution of colonial cultural
If we accept the willingness of the landscapes.
Portuguese to adapt or outright adopt local
cultural traditions, does this automatically imply
that there was no local resistance to cultural
change in Brazil? The answer is negative, as

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 128 CONFERENCE OF LATIN AMERICANIST GEOGRAPHERS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
An earlier version of this paper was presented
at the conference on "Material Culture, Life Styles and
Consumption in the Iberian World, 16th-19th
centuries," University of Delaware, April 1996. The
author thanks David Keeling and two anonymous
reviewers for their useful suggestions in revising this
paper and her husband, Eric Delson, of the American
Museum of Natural History, for editorial assistance.
ENDNOTES
1. The importance of cultural landscape studies as a
central concern of geographers has been discussed
recently in Richard Muir, "Geography and the History
of Landscapes: Half a Century of Development as
Recorded in the The Geographical Journal" The
Geographical Journal (1998) Vol. 164 (2):148-154.
2. I first developed this interpretation in Roberta
Marx Delson (1979), New Towns for Colonial Brazil:
Spatial and Social Planning of the Eighteenth
Century. Syracuse: Dellplain Monographs in Latin
American Studies 2, Syracuse University.
3. Susan Kus and Victor Raharijoana, "House to
Palace, Village to State: Scaling up Architecture and
Ideology," American Anthropologist (2000) Vol. 102
(1):101.
4. A good starting point for current views on colonial
discourse and agency is Homi Bhabha (1986) "The
other question: difference, discrimination, and the
discourse of colonialism," in Francis Barker et al.
(eds.) Literature, Politics and Theory. London:
Methuen. The integral and "primary role" of
discourse in the colonization process is the theme of
John Noyes (1992) Colonial Space: Spatiality in the
Discourse of German South West Africa, 1884-1915.
Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, p.
18 et. passim. A typical statement of this point of
view for Brazil can be found in Richard Graham
(1968) Britain and the Onset of Modernization in
Brazil, 1850-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. He writes (p.9): "As a colony in a mercantilist
era, Brazil was...a recipient of manufactured goods
from the metropolis, a subject of its political control,
and a recipient of its intellectual direction."
5. This position is elaborated in James C. Scott (1992)
"Domination, Acting, and Fantasy," pp. 55-84 in
Carolyn Nordstrom and JoAnn Martin (eds.) The
Paths to Domination, Resistance and Terror.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
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6. See the recent discussion of resistance in BJ.
Barickman, Tame Indians,1 'Wild Heathens,' and
Settlers in Southern Bahia in the Late Eighteenth and
Early Nineteenth Centuries," The Americas (1995)
Vol.51 (3):325-368.
7. See, for example, Nicholas Thomas (1994)
Colonialism's Culture: Anthropology, Travel and
Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press;
and Mary Louise Pratt (1992) Imperial Eyes: Travel
Writing and Transculturation, London: Routledge.
8. James Deetz (1977) In Small Things Forgotten:
The Archaeology of Early American Life. Garden
City, New York: Anchor/Doubleday, p.24.
9. Henry Glassie (1999) Material Culture. Blooming
ton: Indiana University Press, pp. 67-68.
10. Marcus Banks and Howard Morphy (eds.) (1997)
Rethinking Visual Anthropology. New Haven: Yale
University Press, p. 22.
11. The drawings analyzed here date from an expedi
tion of 1783-1792 of Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira.
Rodrigues Ferreira's illustrations were apparently
never published during his lifetime, but his manuscript
notes, encompassing the expedition of 1783-1792,
were collated and published one hundred years later as
11 Diario da Viagem Philosophica pela Capitania de Sao
Jose do Rio Negro..." in Vols. 48, 49, 50 and 51
(1885-1888) of the Revista Trimestral do Instituto
Historico e Geografico Brasileiro. A facsimile
edition, entitled Viagem Filosofica pelas Capitanias
do Grdo Para, Rio Negro, Mato Grosso e Cuiabd was
published in 2 volumes by the Conselho Federal de
Cultura, Sao Paulo, 1971; all further citations refer to
this facsimile edition and are hereafter cited as VF.
12. See Roberta M. Delson and John Dickenson,
"Interpreting the Brazilian Landscape: Conflicts,
Contradictions and Counterbalances," Journal of
Latin American Studies (1984) Vol. 16, pp. 101-125.
13. This is essentially the argument presented in
Chapter II of R.M. Delson (1979) New Towns...
14. Ibid.
15. cf. R. M. Delson, "Military Engineering and the
Colonial 'Project' for Brazil: Agency and Dominance,"
forthcoming, Revista Leituras, National Library,
Lisbon, Portugal.
16. Nor should this ambitious scheme surprise us,
since controlled colonization has always had a "vital
role to play in the evolution of landscapes." R. Muir
(1998), Geography..., p. 152.
17. For a discussion of the Directorate as it
functioned within the Amazon region, see Colin M.
Maclachlan (1973) "The Indian Labor Structure in the

Portuguese Amazon, 1700-1800," pp. 199-230 in
Dauril Alden (ed.) Colonial Roots of Modern Brazil.
Berkeley: University of California Press. The major
document source for this time frame is Marcos
Carneiro de Mendon?a (1963) A Amazonia na Era
Pombalina: Correspondenica Inedita do Governador
e Capitdo-General do Estado do Grao Para e
Maranhao Francisco Xavier de Mendonga Furtado,
1751-1759, 3 vols. Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Historico
e Geografico Brasileiro.
18. Luis Antonio de Souza wrote this prophecy to the
Conde De Oeiras, Sao Paulo, 17 Sept., 1765 (Archivo
Historico Itamaraty, Lata 267, Ma9o 6, Pasta 12.
19. R.M. Delson, "The Beginnings of Profes
sionalization in the Brazilian Military: The Eighteenth
Century Corps of Engineers," The Americas (1995)
Vol.51 (4):555-574.
20. A complete overview of this route is contained in
the dissertation of David Davidson (1970), Rivers and
Empire: The Madeira Route and the Incorporation of
the Brazilian Far West, 1737-1808. Ann Arbor,
Michigan: UMI.
21. See Anna C. Roosevelt (1999) "The Develop
ment of Prehistoric Complex Societies: Amazonia, A
Tropical Forest," pp. 13-33 in Elisabeth A. Bacus and
Lisa J. Lucero (eds.) Complex Polities in the Ancient
Tropical World, No. 9, Archeological Papers of the
American Anthropological Association.
22. William M. Denevan, "A Bluff Model of Riverine
Settlement in Prehistoric Amazonia," Annals of the
Association of American Geographers (1996) Vol. 86
(4):672.
23. Construction of the fortification began in 1751; da
Costa was sent out to oversee the completion of the
town project in the late 1750s. Handpicked by the
Amazonian governor Mendon9a Furtado, he was
chosen for being of "sufficient intelligence, honorable
and Christian." Manuel Bernardo de Melo de Castro
to Thome Joaquim da Costa, Para, 30 Jan. 1760,
Annaes da Biblioteca e Archivo Publico do Para, Vol.
VIII (1913), p. 126.
24. Cf.Ddson(\979),New Towns...,pp. 102-107,for
a description of the building process.
25. See, for example, Mario Moutinho (1979) A
arquitectura popular portuguesa, Lisbon: Editorial
Estampa; and Paul Oliver (1997) Vernacular
Architecture of the World. 3 vols. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
26. The use of indigenous workers is confirmed in the
MA thesis of Nirvia Ravena (1988) As Grandes Obras
na Amazonia Colonial: A Fortificaqao de Sao Jose de
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DELSON 129
Macapa, Universidade Federal do Para.
27. The ethnographic literature of this region is filled
with descriptions of anthropomorphic, or gender
specific, designations of interior spaces of indigenous
dwellings; one example is Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff
(1971) Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and Religious
Symbolism of the Tukano Indians. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
28. The textile industry in the Amazon was highly
developed. Cf. Colin Maclachlan (1973) "The Indian
labour structure...", pp. 219-220, discusses a Rio
Negro mill in the 1790s that had eighteen looms and
sixteen men and women Indian workers.
29. For example, see Abel Soares Fernandes, Angela
Freitas Alves and Julieta do Vale Fernandes (1994) O
Traje na madeira: Subsidio para o Seu Estudo,
Funchal: Secretaria Regional do Turismo e Cultura.
30. Since the Indians were now required to buy the
cloth to meet clothing regulations. B.J. Barickman
(1995) "Tame Indians..." makes this point on p. 343.
31. Cf. Harry Bernstein, "The City Artisans on the
High Seas: The Nau and Nautica" in V Reuniao
International de Historia da Nautica e da Hidrograjia
(1984), Rio de Janeiro.
32. For a discussion of these canoes and their
advantages for riverine transportation see R. M.
Delson, "Inland Navigation in Colonial Brazil: Using
Canoes on the Amazon," International Journal of
Maritime History (hereafter IJMH) (1995) Vol. VII
(1) :l-28; R. M. Delson and Steven W. Meng, "Cargo
Canoes of the Eighteenth-Century Amazon: A
preliminary stability analysis", IJMH (1995) Vol. VII
(2) :173-185.
33. Urs Bitterli (1989) Cultures in Conflict:
Encounters Between European and Non-European
Cultures, 1492-1800. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press,
p.67.
34. Cf. B.J. Barickman (1995) "Tame Indians..." For
a perspective on resistance in the nineteenth century
see the very interesting article by Joao Jose Reis
(1966) "'Death to the Cemetery': Funerary Reform and
Rebellion in Salvador, Brazil, 1836," pp. 97-113 in
Silvia M. Arrom and Servando Ortoll (eds.) Riots in
the Cities: Popular Politics and the Urban Poor in
Latin America, 1765-1910. Wilmington, Delaware:
Scholarly Resources, Inc.
35. Dauril Alden (1968) Royal Government in
Colonial Brazil. Berkeley: University of California
Press, p. 466.
36. Cf. Nadia Farage (1991) As Muralhas dos
Sertoes: Os Povos Indigenas no Rio Branco e a
Colonizaqao. Sao Paulo: Editora Paz e Terra, p. 135.
130 CONFERENCE OF LATIN AMERICANIST GEOGRAPHERS

RESUMEN

El fenomeno del colonialismo tiene que

ser entendido tanto desde el punto de vista visual
como tambien en el discurso escrito. Un examen
de la evidencia iconografica y cartografica de la
region de Amazonas en la ultima parte del siglo
decimoctavo muestra que los Portugueses
frequentemente adopto o adapto el conocimiento
indigena entre la construcion de la cultura
material, mientras hablando sobre el "proyecto"
de europeizacion de la population local. Este
ejemplo sugiere, fuertemente, que las ezfuerzas
analiticas que reduce la evidencia del poder
imperial entre paradigmas globales podrian ser
opuestas cuando el proceso colonial es visto en
un contexto local.
Palabras significantes: evidencia visual,
"conocimiento local," paisaje cultural, analisis
contextual, pragmatismo.

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