Austrian expedition to Brazil
The Austrian Brazil Expedition was a research trip to explore Brazil that was carried out from 1817 to 1835 and was initially financed by Prince von Metternich . The roots of the expedition lie in an “overseas euphoria” in Europe and the resulting frequency of travel and research in the colonies. The direct trigger for the trip was the wedding of the Portuguese heir to the throne Dom Pedro with the daughter of the Austrian emperor Archduchess Maria Leopoldine of Austria . Most of the researchers involved left Brazil in 1821. Johann Natterer continued his research until 1835. When the Museum für Völkerkunde opened in 1928, his collection represented an important foundation.
Historical environment
After Napoleonic supremacy in Europe was smashed, Brazil was elevated to a kingdom in 1815 and linked to Portugal in a personal union. By ratifying the final act of the Congress of Vienna, Portugal had been included in Prince Metternich's system of alliances and sought a connection with the House of Habsburg in order to gain support against the constitutional movement in their own country and the English dominance in foreign policy. Metternich, in turn, strove for more influence in Latin America and in the British sphere of influence.
On May 13, 1817, the marriage of the Portuguese heir to the throne Dom Pedro and the daughter of the Austrian Emperor Franz I , Archduchess Maria Leopoldine of Austria , was celebrated in the Augustinian Church in Vienna . Dom Pedro himself was not present, but was represented by a deputy, Archduke Karl . This marriage was ultimately the direct reason for equipping the expedition to Brazil.
However, the roots of the Austrian expedition to Brazil must be seen in the light of the time. At the beginning of the 19th century, the overseas euphoria of that time affected natural scientists and resulted in increasing travel and research activities in the colonies. Personalities such as the scholar Alexander von Humboldt , who traveled to South and North America , or the geologist Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege , who researched mineral resources in Brazil , became important role models for other researchers. The princes who financed these companies again hoped for a gain in prestige that the exotic and spectacular trips would bring them. In addition, in addition to procuring interesting exhibits, the financiers often pursued economic gain or the realization of colonial goals.
The expedition itself took place at a very turbulent phase in Brazilian history. Due to the flare-up republican movement in Portugal, which had initiated an uprising in Lisbon in 1820 , the Portuguese King João VI saw himself . forced to return to Portugal, which he had left due to Napoleonic rule. He left his son Pedro behind as regent, who subsequently emancipated himself from Portugal when the Portuguese Cortes wanted to relegate Brazil to a colony. On September 7, 1822, Pedro declared Brazil's independence, and on December 1, he was crowned emperor as Pedro I. However, his reign was unsuccessful. An arbitrary constitution, a separatist uprising in 1824 and the lost dispute over Uruguay , which he had to recognize as independent in 1828, made him unpopular. In the face of an uprising, he finally abdicated on April 7, 1831 in favor of his underage son Pedro II . But the 1830s remained a time of unrest, because the Regency Council, appointed for the minor Pedro, was unable to cope with the numerous minor uprisings.
Organization of the trip
Prince von Metternich, who was very interested in scientific matters, reserved the overall direction of the expedition to Brazil . He again entrusted the director of the kk Hof-Naturalienkabinett Karl Franz Anton von Schreibers with the management of the expedition from a scientific point of view . He selected the zoologist Johann Natterer , the botanist Heinrich Wilhelm Schott and the taxidermist and hunting assistant Ferdinand Dominik Sochor from his house for the expedition . There were also the Prague mineralogist and botanist Johann Baptist Emanuel Pohl and the painters Thomas Ender and Johann Buchberger. Originally Natterer was to be entrusted with leading the expedition, but the emperor preferred the botanist and professor of natural history in Prague, Johann Christian Mikan , to him. Natterer found this an affront, and Mikan's authoritarian stance subsequently created great tension within the expedition crew. The orientation of the Brazil expedition shone beyond the borders of Austria. The Bavarian King Maximilian I had already planned a South America expedition in 1815, but the start of the expedition had been postponed. After learning about Austria's marriage and expedition plans at the Congress of Vienna in 1816, he took the opportunity and commissioned the conservator Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix and the botanist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius to take part in the expedition. In addition, the Grand Duke of Tuscany sent the botanist Giuseppe Raddi with the expedition team to Brazil. Together with the teacher Leopoldines Rochus Schüch as well as two painters and an assistant who partly accompanied the expedition, the staff of the expedition reached a strength of 14 people.
The scientific director of the von Schreibers expedition worked out extensive instructions for the researchers. The Austrian ambassador in Rio de Janeiro , from where all journeys began, should serve as the contact person for all matters . Furthermore, all travel plans had to be communicated to the ambassador, whereby the duration and return date should be determined as precisely as possible. The trips themselves as well as the collected finds had to be documented in diaries . The main task of the researchers on their travels was in the search for merchandise for Europe, and in researching animals and plants that could become native to Europe. A directory for travel routes and desired objects presented the researchers with the primary study areas.
course
getting there
On April 9, 1817, the main group of researchers with the frigates Austria and Augusta cast off in Trieste . Both ships got into a severe storm two days later and were repaired in different ports. The Austria with Mikan, Ender and the Bavarian researchers arrived in Rio de Janeiro on June 14th. The Augusta , on which Natterer, Schott and Sochor were, was waiting for the Portuguese ships João VI. and São Sebastião , which had cast off on August 5th and where the Crown Princess Leopoldine was staying alongside Pohl, Buchberger and Raddi. These ships did not reach Rio de Janeiro until November 4th. This delayed the start of the actual expedition.
Expedition until 1821
After the reunification of the researchers, it was decided to split up into three groups and to examine the surroundings of Rio de Janeiro in shorter trips in order to use the departure of the Austrian frigates for the first removal of the collections. The Bavarian researchers subsequently pursued their own research at all and subsequently decided not to cooperate with their Austrian colleagues, as they could not agree on a uniform travel route. The other two teams were led by Natterer and Mikan, respectively. The researchers returned to Rio de Janeiro from their first trips between March and May 1818. On June 1, 1818, the frigates with the first collections left for Europe, which the first researchers joined. The landscape painter Thomas Ender did not like the climate, and the plant painter Buchberger was so badly injured in an accident that resulted in his death in 1821 that he had to travel home as well. The leader of the expedition, Professor Mikan, also left Brazil on the first ship. He had been ordered back to Vienna because of the bad working atmosphere that had arisen due to his authoritarian attitude and was accompanied by Professor Raddi. The researchers Natterer, Schott and Pohl subsequently went their separate ways. Schott was primarily responsible for the collection of living plants, Pohl for the interests of mineralogy, whereby his travel book Journey in the Interior of Brazil became an important source for the economic and social history of Brazil. However, Pohl and Schott was soon recalled because of the political unrest. They left Brazil in 1821.
Travel Natterers
In 1821 the envoy Stürmer decided to break up the expedition because of the political unrest. However, Natterer and Sochor refused to return to Europe and continued the expedition at their own risk with their own means. They were no longer accountable to anyone. In his ten trips in total, Natterer mainly toured the areas around São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro as well as the province of Minas Gerais . His expeditions took him to the Amazon and the Bolivian border. The journeys were repeatedly marked by serious illnesses by Natterer and Sochor. Sochor himself died as a result of a serious illness on December 13, 1826. On his travels until 1825, Natterer devoted himself primarily to his original task, namely the collection of natural history material, especially animals. Natterer collected over a thousand mammals , more than 12,000 birds and almost 33,000 insects in Brazil alone . In addition, there were fish , amphibians , crustaceans , molluscs , helminths , eggs, seeds, minerals, etc. Much more important, however, were the more than 2000 ethnographic objects such as devices, weapons or jewelry from the indigenous population, which he obtained mainly in the second half dedicated to his stay in Brazil. He had many objects obtained from friends who were touring the various areas. After 18 years of research, Natterer left Belém in Brazil on September 15, 1835 .
Scientific exploitation of the Brazil expedition
The placement of the consignments from Brazil posed serious problems for von Schreibers. As early as January 1821, the accommodation options in the natural history cabinet were exhausted, so that Schreibers had to make parts of his private apartment available for safekeeping. The request for the imperial private building on Ungargasse to house the collections was rejected by the emperor. Finally, the decision was made in favor of the Harrach city building in Johannesgasse, of which Emanuel Pohl became the director. The building had seven rooms for zoology, three for botany, two for mineralogy and one large room for ethnographic objects. The collection was enriched by the drawings and watercolors by Thomas Ender. The Brasilianum set up in this way became a main attraction in Vienna, and the couple from the Botocudos tribe brought by Pohl certainly caused a stir. The woman soon died, however, and the man was brought back to Brazil in 1824. After the lease expired, the Brasiliensammlung was closed in 1836, and the holdings were transferred to the natural history cabinet and housed together with other expedition collections on Ungargasse from 1838 to 1840. The objects continued to exist for years in transport boxes, with parts of the holdings, especially zootomic objects in the natural history cabinet, being destroyed in the revolutionary year of 1848. However, Natterer's ethnographic collection was not damaged. It formed an important part of the Museum of Ethnology , which opened in 1928 in the Vienna Hofburg .
literature
- Bettina Kann: The Austrian expedition to Brazil 1817–1836 with special consideration of the ethnographic results. Diploma thesis University of Vienna 1992.
- Christa Riedl-Dorn : Johann Natterer and the Austrian expedition to Brazil. Edition Index, Petrópolis 2000, ISBN 85-7083-070-X .
- Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. Johann Natterer's travels in Brazil 1817–1835. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-7001-6991-8 (also dissertation University of Vienna 2007 - full text ).
- Robert Steinle: Historical background of the Austrian expedition to Brazil (1817–1835). With a documentation of the Bororo holdings from the Natterer collection of the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna. Dissertation University of Vienna 2000.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 29
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 43
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 31
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 57
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 47
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 79
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 81
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 103
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 101
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 245
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 116
- ↑ Kurt Schmutzer: For the love of natural history. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed March 31, 2019 . Page 117
