In the early modern period, members of the Society of Jesus working as missionaries in the so-called mission of Maynas explored vast areas of the upper Amazon. These missionaries belonged to the very small group of Europeans who lived in the forests of the Amazon Basin for longer periods, in close contact with local people. Their daily experiences in the mission, their high level of education, and their connection with the institutional structures of the Jesuit order made them key figures in the production of knowledge about the Amazon. Irina Saladin investigates the complex relationships between mission and knowledge in the context of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jesuit maps. She analyzes how Jesuit missionary practices shaped the cartographic representation of the Amazon in the early modern era.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Geography and the Society of Jesus: An Overview
- Mission and the Production of Cartographic Knowledge
- The Functions of Maps in Mission Contexts
- Observing Nature for the Greater Glory of God
- Mathematics, Astronomy, and Maps in Jesuit Education
- Geographical Knowledge in the Jesuit Information System
- 3. Maps and Mission in the Amazon
- The Kingdom of the Amazons: Depictions of the Amazon in European Maps of the Sixteenth to Early Eighteenth Centuries
- Political Competition over the Amazon: Reports on Teixeira’s Expedition and its Cartographic Reception
- The Amazon Region between Measurable Unit and terra incognita
- The Amazon as a Missionary Space
- The Maynas Mission of the Society of Jesus, 1638–1768
- Communication in the Contact Zone
- 4. Appropriation and Politics
- Mapping the Province of Omagua (1689)
- The Island Kingdom of the Omagua as a Topos in European Depictions of the Amazon
- Collecting Information
- Organizing Information
- Practices of Appropriation: The Omagua Province Becomes a Mission Space
- Maps as Political Argument: The Mapa Geographica del rio Marañon ò Amazonas (1691)
- Samuel Fritz’s Journeys to Belém and Lima and the Genesis of his Map of the Amazon
- From Island Kingdom to Frontier Zone: Political Conflicts Around the Omagua Province and its Neighboring Territories
- Power and Powerlessness: Cartographic Knowledge as Political Argument
- From Manuscript to Publication: Samuel Fritz’s El gran Rio Marañon, o Amazonas (1707)
- Cartographic Decoration and Political Rhetoric
- Christian Iconography and Political Borders
- Mapping God’s Action in the World: Jesuit Martyrs and their Cartographic Representation
- The British Reception of Samuel Fritz’s Map of the Amazon
- 5. Experience and Geometry
- Maps and Routes
- The Mission as Infrastructure Space: Magnin’s Map of the Province of Quito (1740)
- The Perspective of the Itinerant Missionary
- The Knowledge of Indigenous Actors
- The Cartographic View “from Above”
- 6. Territoriality and the Space of Jesuit Identity
- The New World as a Jesuit Administrative Space: Brentano’s Provincia Quitensis Societatis IESU (1751)
- The Genesis and Printing of Carlos Brentano’s Map
- The Province of Quito Visits Rome: Brentano and his Map as Representatives of the Provincia Quitensis
- Visualizing Centralized Rule and the Jesuit Global Presence
- From Europe to the Marañón: Travel Routes as Symbols of Jesuit Identity
- The Formation of a Territorial and Regional Self-Image of the Provincia Quitensis
- 7. Ethnography and Apologetics
- The Representation of the Indigenous Population in Franz Xaver Veigl’s Map and Gründliche Nachrichten (1785)
- Many Places, Many Actors: The Production of Veigl’s Map between Maynas and Nuremberg
- The Marañón and its Population in Maps, Texts, and Images: The Interaction of Various Media in Veigl’s Gründliche Nachrichten
- The Geographical Interest of the Linguists: The Reception of Veigl’s Gründliche Nachrichten in Comparative Philology
- Apologetics Between the Lines: The Maps of Franz Xaver Veigl and Juan de Velasco as Reflected in the Suppression of the Jesuit Order
- 8. Summary and Conclusions
- Bibliography and Sources
- Index
- List of Illustrations
- Fig. 1: World map in Heinrich Scherer’s atlas (1703).
- Fig. 2: Depiction of Orellana’s battle with the Amazons in Sebastian Cabot’s world map (1544).
- Fig. 3: Map to accompany the Relación del descubrimiento del río de las Amazonas.
- Fig. 4: Map of the Amazon by Nicolas Sanson d’Abbeville (1680).
- Fig. 5: Negative of Samuel Fritz’s Tabula Geographica Missionis Omaguae Societatis Iesu (1689).
- Fig. 6: Samuel Fritz’s Mapa Geographica del rio Marañon ò Amazonas (1691).
- Fig. 7: Samuel Fritz’s Tabula Geographica del Rio Marañon o Amazonas (1690).
- Fig. 8: Detail from Charles Marie de la Condamine’s Carte du cours du Maragnon.
- Fig. 9: Depiction of the river of gold Río Iquiari west of the Río Negro in Samuel Fritz’s Mapa Geographica of 1691.
- Fig. 10: Detail of the Mapa Geographica of 1691 with numerous villages in the mission territory between the Río Napo and the Río Japurá (Yupura).
- Fig. 11: Samuel Fritz’s El gran Rio Marañon, o Amazonas (1707).
- Fig. 12: Royal coats of arms and group of figures on Samuel Fritz’s Amazon map (1707).
- Fig. 13: Group of figures on Nicolaes Visscher’s map Novissima et Accuratissima totius Americae Descriptio (ca. 1660).
- Fig. 14: Detail from Samuel Fritz’s Amazon map (1707).
- Fig. 15: Detail from Nicolaes Visscher’s map (ca. 1660).
- Fig. 16: Detail from the Amazon map by Samuel Fritz (1707) with Christogram and rays of light.
- Fig. 17: Detail from Samuel Fritz’s map of the Amazon (1707). The author has marked the overland routes from Quito to the rivers of the Amazon Basin.
- Fig. 18: Christogram with rays of light on Samuel Fritz’s Amazon map (1707). The rays only extend to the west [borderline added by the author for better clarity].
- Fig. 19: Martyrs’ crosses on Samuel Fritz’s Amazon map (1707) [highlighting added by the author].
- Fig. 20: English version and first European publication of Samuel Fritz’s Amazon map in Edward Cooke’s travel account of 1712.
- Fig. 21: English version of Samuel Fritz’s Amazon map in the Atlas Geographus of 1717.
- Fig. 22: Map of the Provincia de Quito by Jean Magnin (1740).
- Fig. 23: Carlos Brentano’s map of the Provincia Quitensis Societatis IESU in America (1751).
- Fig. 24:Revised second edition of Carlos Brentano’s map (1751).
- Fig. 25: Arbre géographique (1760s).
- Fig. 26: Detail from Carlos Brentano’s map (1751) showing the travel routes from Cartagena de Indias to Quito and from Quito to the mission on the Marañón [highlighted by the author].
- Fig. 27: Map of the Jesuit province of Peru (between 1609 and 1619).
- Fig. 28: Border of the Provincia Quitensis on Carlos Brentano’s map (1751) [highlighted by the author].
- Fig. 29: Thesis sheet by Juan de Narváez (1718).
- Fig. 30: Detail from the thesis sheet by Juan de Narváez (1718) showing the borders of the Jesuit province of Quito (depicted as a dotted line).
- Fig. 31: Maragnonii sive Amazonum Fluminis Terrarum in Orbe Maximi, quoad Hispanicae Potestati subest, cursus […] by Franz Xaver Veigl (1785).
- Fig. 32: Illustration from the first book of Veigl’s Gründliche Nachrichten (1785).
- Fig. 33: Illustration to the second book of Veigl’s Gründliche Nachrichten (1785).
- Fig. 34: Detail from Franz Xaver Veigl’s map (1785) showing the Río Ucayali.
- Fig. 35: Map by Franx Xaver Veigl (1785) with highlighted borderlines [highlighting added by the author].
- Fig. 36: Juan de Velasco’s Carta General del Quito proprio (1789).
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