{"id":657,"date":"2012-10-18T15:35:55","date_gmt":"2012-10-18T20:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/modernlatinamerica\/?page_id=657"},"modified":"2012-10-18T15:35:55","modified_gmt":"2012-10-18T20:35:55","slug":"views-from-the-periphery","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/chapters\/chapter-11-brazil\/travels-in-brazil\/views-from-the-periphery\/","title":{"rendered":"“Exploraci\u00f3n oficial por la primera vez desde el norte de la America del Sur\u2026Viaje a Rio de Janeiro,” Francisco Michelena y Rojas (1867)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Views from the Periphery:\u00a0Brazilian\u2019s Nineteenth-century Expansionism from a Venezuelan Perspective
\n<\/strong>By Thayse Leal Lima<\/p>\n

The accounts of Venezuelan Francisco Michelena y Rojas is a unique document that expresses a Hispanic perspective on another Latin American country. The self-proclaimed viajero del mundo<\/em>, traveled to Brazil in 1855 under the title of \u201cAgente Convidencial de Venezuela\u201d with the primary objective to collect information on the borders and on navigation issues in the rivers shared by both countries. In the document resulting from this trip[1]<\/a>, Rojas gathered official documents, letters issued by the ministries of international relations, as well as his own impressions and notes, producing a hybrid of a travelogue and an official report.\u00a0 The richness of both official documents and personal descriptions (with a great degree of subjectivity, as his irritated tone suggests) conforms an important source of information about the foreign relations among South American countries at a moment in history crucial to the development of the region nascent states, as well as offering a Hispanic American views of its giant Brazilian neighbor[JG1]<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n

Upon his arrival in the Amazon region, Rojas discovered that the Brazilian government had installed military posts advancing into the Venezuelan region.\u00a0 This situation would dominate his preoccupations throughout the trip, even provoking a slight change in his primary function from that of explorer to unofficial diplomat.\u00a0 Michelena describes the Brazilian advancement as a \u201cpremeditated plan of provocation and hostility against Venezeula\u201d (plan premeditado de provocaci\u00f3n y hostilidad contra Venezuela<\/em> (664).<\/p>\n

The animosity expressed in Roja\u2019s opinion was reinforced by the fact that the two nations diverged about the validity of old treaties establishing borders and free navigation rights.\u00a0 The Venezuelan government \u00a0requested from the Spanish Crown the recognition of Venezeula\u2019s rights over the Yapur\u00e1 River as accorded in the Treaty of 1777 between the Portuguese and Spanish Crown.\u00a0 For its turn, the Brazilian government argued that the Treaty had been annuled once the war between the two European countries in 1801 had concluded.<\/p>\n

The conflict in the region of La Plata is a recurrent theme in Michelena\u2019s account, and certainly influenced his perceptions on Brazilian international relations with South American countries.\u00a0 The Brazilian ambitions of annexating the Southern Region that culminated in the Argentin-Brazil War (1825-1828), sent a clear message about its expansionist intents.\u00a0 By the time of Michelena\u2019s trip, Brazil had just been concluded another conflict with Argentina (Guerra do Prata) to maintain influence over the region and secure its navigation rights in the Basis of Rio La Plata.\u00a0 Citing the later conflict, Rojas draws attention to the incongruence of Brazilian foreign policy, which uses international law to support its cause in the Rio La Plata but refuses to accept its validity in the case of the dispute with Venezuela.\u00a0 In the same token, Rojas compare the behavior of Brazil towards South American countries with those of the European Colonial Empires for its \u201cabuses of force\u201d \u00a0(abuso de la fuersa<\/em>) and for promoting \u00a0\u201ca violation of its independence\u201d (la violacion de la independencia<\/em>)<\/span>\u201d (664).<\/p>\n

The imperialist behavior towards the southern region was sufficient reason to justify Michelena\u2019s opinion about Brazil representing a threat to the Hispanic nations.\u00a0 However, the problem becomes even more acute, given that Venezuela at the time, was still struggling to delimit its territory. As historian Manuel Lucena Giraldo had noted, the post-independence, territorial possession played a key role in the construction and consolidation of the Nation State:<\/p>\n

The nation-territory relationship out to be realized in complete openess\u2014with international recogition of the borders, with the integration of the space, and with the agreement of the regional powers<\/p>\n

\u201cla relaci\u00f3n naci\u00f3n-territ\u00f3rio se deb\u00eda concretar tanto en un plano externo\u2014con el reconocimiento internacional de las propias fronteras\u2014 con la integraci\u00f3n el espacio y el pacto con los poderes regionales o su aniquilaci\u00f3n\u201d (79).<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Brazilian International politics represented not only an obstacle to the new nations stability, but according to Michelena, it was also prejudicial to the good relations amongst the Hispanic American countries:<\/p>\n

The most sensible of all is that such a monstrous policy not be revealed to the eyes of Spanish Americans of that region, making them see that this dirty and bastard policy is against their own interests; that she has done it in in order to maintain the divisions of the republics (\u2026). This makes its political existance impossible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lo mas sensible de todo es que tan monstruosa pol\u00edtica partiendo del Br\u00e1sil, no haiga abrir los ojos a los Americanos Espa\u00f1oles de aquella parte, haciendoles ver que esta pol\u00edtica sucia, bastard, en que el Br\u00e1sil los a envuelto es contra sus pr\u00f3pios intereses, que ella tiene por base mantener divididas las rep\u00fablicas (…)\u00a0 el de hacer imposible su existencia pol\u00edtica (642)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another outcome of the Brazilian conflictive interventions and negative image in the region was that Hispanic countries, seeking international support and recognition of its nationhood, reinforced old ties with European powers (especially England), and formed new alliances with the emerging North American power.\u00a0 In order to reinforce his case for international rights over the navigation on the Yapur\u00e1 Basins, Michelena cites and annexes several official letters that attests the United States\u2019s interest and effective diplomatic intervention in the issue.\u00a0 While Venezuela found in the United States[JG2]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 an ally, Brazil was working towards an agreement with France, according to which, parts of the Amazon region would be exchanged for support in the case of La Plata.\u00a0 For Michelena this agreement posed a possible threat to the already problematic territorial issues his country was finding in the attempt to determine its borders.<\/p>\n

Michelena also associated the alignmentment of Brazil with the old imperial powers as connected to Brazilian inclination towards monarchism, a despotic institution that remained tied with the colonial condition.\u00a0 Maria L. Coelho Prado, examining the Argentine Press during the Argentina-Brazil War, reports that the conflict was commonly portrayed as a struggle between old monarchic system and the republican one.\u00a0 Given that the later converged the ideals of freedom and sovereignty embraced by the Hispanic American nations, Brazilian adoption of the European model was considered anti-American (Prado, 5).<\/p>\n

In Michelena\u2019 travelogue, monarchism was also associated with the lack of freedom in Brazil, a situation epitomized in the preservation of the inhumane slavery institution.\u00a0 In several passages Michelena makes reference to the practice of slavery as a demonstration of the barbarian condition of Brazilian society.\u00a0 Despite his disapproval of slavery as an attempt against civilization, Michelena still maintained a Eurocentric and hierarchical perspective that differentiated superior and inferior races.\u00a0 He explains Brazilian interest in annexing the Southern area, for example, in terms of a natural desire to better its status, being the Hispanic South clearly superior in terms of \u201cclima, raza de habitantes y produciones\u201d (Michelena, 640).\u00a0 Therefore, from Michelena\u2019s point of view Brazil occupied an inferior position not only in relation to the \u201cnaciones ricas y cultas\u201d (i.e. Europe and the United States), but also in comparison to the Hispanic nations.\u00a0 Revising the colonial history of the country, he describes Brazilian independence with much disregard for not being a consequence of the nation\u2019s own efforts, \u201cbut rather for [that] of its neighbors (sino por lo de sus vecinos<\/em>) \u201d (Michelena, 553).\u00a0 He reaches the conclusion that a nation born out of the exploitation of slave work and the usurpation of territory, cannot become the leader of Southern American nations.<\/p>\n

On Brazilian Cities:<\/strong><\/p>\n

On his trip throughout Brazil, Michelena met some unexpected surprises.\u00a0 Traveling from the Amazon region all the way to the capital, Rio de Janeiro, Michelena passed through less advantaged provinces (in terms of economy and urban development) such as Cear\u00e1 and Para\u00edba, but he also went through more developed ones, such as Pernambuco and Bahia, which impressed the traveler.<\/p>\n

In Pernambuco, Michelena found for the first time cities that offered some degree of conformability and \u2018civilization\u2019. It was in Bahia, though, with its numerous scientific, public, and cultural institutions that Michelena found for the first time the traces of what he called, an \u201cadvanced civilization\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, to contradict the apparent signs of \u2018cultural development\u2019, he also draws attention to the importance that slavery assumes in the capital. He describes with horror the suffering of slave workers as they were transferred to other cities, a situation witnessed during his journey to Rio de Janeiro.\u00a0 Finally reaching the capital of the Empire, Michelena arranged to meet the Emperor D. Pedro II, described as an agreeable figure, considered by his subjects an illustrated and capable leader and in who Michelena sees \u201cun verdadero padre del pueblo\u201d (667\u00a0).<\/p>\n

Francisco Michelena y Rojas, as a member of the \u201celite letrada\u201d, a distant son of the Enlightenment, uses a discourse much influenced by European ideologies of modernity and civilization.\u00a0 His perceptions of Brazil reveals, however, a contradictory depiction of an emerging Southern American power. On the one hand he recognizes Brazilian\u2019 supremacy, posing it as a threat to the unity and consolidation of other Hispanic Nations, while on the other, he dismisses Brazilian\u2019s ability to lead the region.\u00a0 To construct his arguments Michelena resorts not only to political and historical facts against Brazilian expansionism, but also to the colonialist legacy that created a divide between center and periphery, superior and inferior nations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/span><\/p>\n

Michelena y Rojas, Francisco. Exploraci\u00f3n oficial por la primera vez desde el\u00a0<\/i>norte de la America del Sur siempre por rios, entrando por las bocas de\u00a0<\/i>Orin\u00f3co, de los valles de este mismo y del Meta, Casiquiare, Rio-Negro \u00f3<\/i>\u00a0Guaynia y Amaz\u00f3nas, hasta Nauta en el alto Mara\u00f1on \u00f3 Amaz\u00f3nas, arriba<\/i>\u00a0de las bocas del Ucayali bajada del Amazonas hasta el Atl\u00e1ntico.\u00a0<\/i>1867.\u00a0The Internet Archives. Web. 17 Feb 2010.<\/p>\n

Giraldo, Manuel Lucena.\u00a0 \u201cEl Espejo Roto: Una Pol\u00e9mica sobre la Obra de\u00a0Alejandro Humboldt en La Venezuela del Siglo XIX\u201d.\u00a0 Dynamis<\/i> (2008): 73-78. Web. 17 Feb 2010.<\/p>\n

Prado, Maria Ligia Coelho. “O Brasil e a distante Am\u00e9rica do Sul“. Revista\u00a0<\/i>de Hist\u00f3ria <\/i>(2001). n. pag. Web. 17 Feb 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Views from the Periphery:\u00a0Brazilian\u2019s Nineteenth-century Expansionism from a Venezuelan Perspective By Thayse Leal Lima The accounts of Venezuelan Francisco Michelena y Rojas is a unique document that expresses a Hispanic perspective on another Latin American country. The self-proclaimed viajero del … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"parent":660,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"sidebar-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-657","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/657\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}