Life in the Amazon Basin, 1850s
Excerpts from “Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon Make Under Direction of the [US] Navy Department” by Lt. William L. Herndon [Washington DC: Robert Armstrong, Public Printer, 1853]
Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on October 25, 1813, William Lewis Herndon entered the Navy in 1828 and was commissioned lieutenant in 1841. From 1842 to 1847 he served at the United States Naval Observatory and Hydrographic Office in Washington, D.C. There he worked closely with his cousin, brother-in-law, and good friend, Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury, who later became known as "the father of modern oceanography" for his revolutionary studies of winds and water currents.
In 1851, Herndon was assigned to lead the first scientific expedition to explore the Amazon River Valley and three years later published the results in a popular illustrated book, Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon. In November 1855, Captain Herndon was given command of the Central America (then named the George Law) in accordance with an act of Congress requiring that all mail steamships be captained by an officer in the US Navy. He completed 18 voyages before the ill-fated trip that began in Aspinwall on September 3, 1857. Herndon was survived by his wife Frances Hansbrough Herndon, and one daughter, Ellen Lewis Herndon, who later married Chester A. Arthur. (She died, however, before Arthur became the 21st president of the United States.
The town of Herndon, Virginia, is named in his memory, and in 1858 his native state presented a medal to his widow. In 1860, the United States Naval Academy erected a monument to the captain's memory, making Herndon the first peacetime hero to be honored at Annapolis.
Men shrink at the eighty days in a canoe, when they will jump at the twelve in a steamer. The steamer will also increase commerce and trade by creating artificial wants; men will travel who did not travel before; articles of luxury-such as Yankee clocks, cheap musical instruments; &c.---will be introduced, and the Indians will work to obtain them; and, in short, when the wonders that the steamboat and railroad have accomplished are taken into consideration, I shall not be thought rash in predicting that in one year from the time of the appearance of the steamer Arebalo's twenty thousands dollars will be made forty thousand.
Thus we shall have twenty thousand dollars' worth of goods going up from an Loreto to Chasuta, paying at least one hundred per cent; and twenty thousand dollars going down, paying another hundred per cent; giving to the steamboat company (who would monopolize the tragic) forty thousand dollars a year, against twenty thousand dollars of expenses.
There would be no difficulty in getting a supply of fuel. My Peruvian steamer would have to make her way slowly up, for the first tune, by collecting and cutting up the abundant drift-wood on the islands; but she could readily contract with the governors of the thirty-six villages between Para and for a regular supply. The Brazilian government has an organized and enlisted corps of laborers, under the orders of the military commandants, and I should suppose would be willing to employ them in furnishing wood, on account of the great advantages to be derived from the increase of trade. The Indians of the Peruvian villages are entirely obedient to their governors ; and a sufficient number of them may be always had, at wages of twelve and a half cents per day, with about three cents more for their maintenance. This amount of wages may be reduced one-half by paying them in articles for their consumption, bought at Para or brought from the United States.
The only difficulty that I have in my calculations is that I know there are not forty thousand dollars in the whole province; its productions must find their way to the Pacific, on the one, hand, and to the Atlantic, on the other, before they can be converted into money. My steamer, therefore, to be enabled to buy and sell, must communicate at Loreto with a larger steamer, plying between that place and Barra, at the mouth of the Rio Negro, a distance of eight hundred and forty miles; and this with another still larger, between Barra and Para, a distance of a thousand miles.
These three steamers (however much I may be out in my calculations regarding the one confined to Peruvian territory) could not fail to enrich their owners; for they would entirely monopolize the trade of the river, which is fairly measured by the imports and exports of Para, which amounted in 1851 to two millions of dollars. These two millions are now brought down to Para, and carried away ay from Para, (with the exception of what is consumed in the city,) by clumsy, inefficient river-craft, which would vanish from the main stream at the first triumphant whistle of the engine. These would, however, until the profits justified the putting on of more steamers, find ample employment in bringing down and depositing upon the banks of the !mill stream the productions of the great tributaries.
I can imagine the waking-up of the people on the event of the establishment of steamboat navigation on the Amazon. I fancy I can hear the crash of the forest falling to make room for the cultivation of cotton, cocoa, rigs and sugar, and the sharp shriek of the saw,l cutting into boards the beautiful and valuable woods of tile country; that I can see enabled to purchase the new and convenient things that shall be presented at the doors of their huts in the wilderness; and even the wild Indian l finding the way from his pathless forests to the steamboat depot to exchange his collections of vanilla, spices, dyes, drugs, and gums, for the things that would take his fancy-ribbons, beads, bells, mirrors, and trinkets.
Brazil and Peru have entered into arrangements, and bound themselves by treaty, to appropriate money towards the establishment of steamboat navigation on the Amazon.This is well. It is doing something towards progress; but it is the progress of a denizen of their own forests-the sloth. Were they to follow the example lately set by the republics of the La Plata, and throw open their rivers to the commerce of the world, then the march of improvement would be commensurate with the importance of the ad; and these countries would grow in riches and power with the rapidity of the vegetation of their own most fertile lands.
We, more than any other people, am interested in the opening of this navigation. As has been before stated, the trade of this region put pass by our doors, and mingle and exchange with the products of our Mississippi valley. I am permitted to take extracts bearing upon this subject from a letter of an eminent American citizen resident in Lima to the Superintendent of the National Observatory, whose papers upon the Amazon, its resources and future importance, have attracted the attention, not only of our own people, but that of those who dwell or
I think that the energies and influence of all the friends of South American internal navigation and colonization should be directed towards forming a company with a large capital, and to obtain the aid and support of the Congress of the United States. I know how difficult an undertaking it is to wring an appropriation out of our national legislature, for any purpose; but if the subject could be fairly brought before it, and some of the leading senators and representatives could be excited to take a patriotic interest in it, perhaps something might be done.
The greatest boon in the wide world of commerce is in the free navigation of the Amazon, its confluents and neighboring streams. The back-bone of South America is in sight of the Pacific. The slopes of the continent look east; they are drained into the Atlantic, and their rich productions, in vast variety and profusion, may be emptied into the commercial lap of that ocean by the most majestic of water-courses. The time will come when the free navigation of the Amazon and other South American rivers will be regarded by the people of this country as second only in importance to the acquisition of Louisiana. Having traversed that water-shed from its highest ridge to its very caves and gutters, I find my thoughts and reflections overwhelmed with the immensity of this field for enterprise, commercial prosperity, and human happiness.
I can bear witness to the truth of the sentiment expressed by my friend, Mr. Maury, that the Valley of the Amazon and the Valley of the Mississippi are commercial compliments of each other-one supplying what the other lacks in the great commercial round. They are sisters which should not be separated. Had I the honor to be mustered among the statesmen of my country, I would risk political fame and life in the attempt to have the commerce of this noble river thrown open to the world.
Padre Lorente, when he joined the Mission, came down the Pachitea in nine days from Mayro to Sarayacu in the month of August; if so, there must have been an enormous current in the Pachitea and Ucayali above, for it takes thirty days to reach the mouth of the Pachitea from Sarayacu, which distance Padre Lorente descended in six; and Padre Plaza (who is said, however, to be a slow traveler) took eighteen to ascend time Pachitea from its mouth to Mayro, which Padre Lorente accomplished downwards in three. I judged from the short course of this river, and the great descent, that it had a powerful current. The padre said that, a day's journey above the mouth of the Pachitea, his same hanging from it, and partly concealed be the long gown, or cushma. His wrists were also adorned with wide bracelets of white beads, and above these a bracelet of lizard shins, set round with monkeys' teeth. He wore a little silver shield hanging from his nose, and a narrow, thin plate of silver, shaped like a paddle, two and a half inches long, thrust through a hole in the lower lip, and hanging on the chin. He had been to Cuzco, where he got his silver ornaments, and said it was a journey of four moons. We anchored in thirty-six-feet water, and found a current of three miles the hour. Calm, clear night; much dew.
October 11.-Stopped to breakfast on a beach on the left bank, back of which, on the firm land, were two houses of Remos Indians. There were twenty-two of them-men, women, and children--with three men of the Shipebos tribe. There seemed to be no uniformity in their paint, each one consulting his own taste; though there was one man and a woman, whom I understood to be man and wife, painted exactly alike. The Remos were low and small ; the Shipebos taller. They were dressed in the common costume of the Ucayali, (the cushma,) and had their hair cut straight across the forehead, just above the eyes, so as to show the face, set, as it were, in a frame of hair. They are all filthy, and some have sarna. As far as I have observed, more women have this disease than men. Passed more huts afterwards, and some Indians seeking the young of the turtle on a beach.These people eat anything. I have known them to eat the eggs of the turtle with the young in them, and also turtle that had died a natural death and had become offensive.
October 12.-Passed a settlement of Conibos on the right bank, numbering twenty-five or thirty. They said that the inhabitants of a village called Huamuco, which Smyth places near this place, had gone to the Pachitea.
October 13.-At breakfast we found a smaller kind of turtle called charapilla, better and more tender than the large turtle which is called charapa. Stopped at a little settlement of Shipebos on the right bank-twenty-five all told. Met three negroes, with a crew of Conibos, who had been up the river for sarsaparilla. They gathered the principal part of what they had (about sixty arrobas) in the Aguaytia, but had been five days up the Pachitea, and six up the Ucayali, above the Pachitea. They say that the Cashibos of that river would come to the beach in hostile attitude; but when they found that the strangers were not Indians of the Ucayali, but wore trousers and had guns, they fled.
The soil is very prolific, but thin and light; at half a foot below the surface there is pure sand ; and no Indian thinks of cultivating the same farm longer than three years; he then clears the forest and plants another. There is nothing but a little coffee produced for sale in the neighborhood of the town. The fathers extract about three hundred arrobas of sarsaparilla from the small streams above, and sell it to Senor Cauper in Nauta. This gives them a profit of about five hundred dollars. The College at Ocopa allows them a dollar for every mass said or sung. The four padres are able to perform about seven hundred annually, (those for Sundays and feast-days are not paid for;) and this income of twelve hundred dollars is appropriated to the repairs of the churches and conventos, church furniture, the vestments of the priests, their table and chamber furniture, and some little luxuries-such as sugar, flour, vinegar, &c., bought of the Portuguese below.
October 15.----Arrived at the village of Tierra Blanca, belonging to the Mission, having passed yesterday several settlements of the Indians, and seen for the first time the bills in the neighborhood of Sarayacu. It is a clean little town, of two hundred inhabitants, situated on an eminence' on the left bank about twenty-five feet above the present level of the river. In the full the water approaches within a few feet of the lower houses.
A priest from Sarayacu, “Father Juan de Dios Lorente," has charge of the spiritual and pretty much of the temporal concerns of the village. He is here at this time, celebrating some feast, and is the only white man present.The Indians, as usual at a feast time, were nearly all drunk, and made my men drunk also. When I wished to start, I sent Ijurra to a large house where they were drinking, to bring our people to the boat; he soon came back foaming with rage, and demanded a gun, that he might bring them to obedience; I soothed him, however, and went up to the house, where, by taking a drink with them, and practicing the arts that I have often practiced before in getting off to the ship refractory sailors who were drinking on shore, I succeeded in getting off a sufficient number of them to work the boat, and shoved off with as drunken a boat's crew as one could desire, leaving the small boat for the others to follow; this they are sure to do when they find that their clothes and bedding; have been taken away. The padre said that if ljurra had shot one, they would have murdered us all; but I doubt that, for we were well armed, and the Indians are afraid of guns.
The padres have recently obtained an order from the prefect of the department of Amazonas, giving them the exclusive right of collecting sarsaparilla on the Ucayali and its tributaries; but I doubt if this will benefit them much, for, there being no power to enforce the decree, the Portuguese will send their agents there as before.
Each padre has two Mitayos, appointed monthly---one a hunter, the other a fisherman-to supply his table with the products of the forest and the river. The Fiscales cultivate him a small farm for his yuccas and plantains, and he himself raises poultry and eggs; they also make him rum from the sugar-cane, of which he needs a large supply to give to the constables, (Varayos, from “vara," a wand, each one carrying a cane,) the Fiscales, and the Mitayos.
The government is paternal. The Indians recognize in the padre the power to appoint and remove curacas, captains, and other officers; to inflict stripes; and to confine in the stocks. They obey the priest's orders readily, and seem tractable and docile. They take advantage, however, of Father Calvo's good nature, and are sometimes a little insolent. On an occasion of this kind, my friend Ijurra, who is always an advocate of strong measures, and says that in the government of the Indians there is nothing like the santo palo, (sacred cudgel,) asked Father Calvo why he did not put the impudent rascal in the stocks. But the good Father replied that he did not like to do it-that it was cruel, and hurt the poor fellow's legs.
The Indians here, as elsewhere, are drunken and lazy. The women do most of the work: carry most of the burdens to and from the chacras and canoes ; make the masato, and the earthen vessels out of which it is drunk; spin the cotton and weave the cloth; cook and take care of the children. And their reward is to be maltreated by their husbands, and, in their drunken frolics, to be cruelly beaten, and sometimes badly wounded.
The town is very healthy, there being no endemics, but only acute attacks from great exposure or imprudence in eating and drinking. From the parish register it appears that in the year 1850 there were ten marriages, sixty-two births, and twenty-four deaths. This appears, from an examination of the other years, to be a pretty fair average ; yet the population is constantly decreasing. Father Calvo attributes this to desertion. He says that many go down the Amazon with passengers and cargoes, and, finding the return difficult, they either settle in the villages upon the river or join the Ticunas, or other Infidel tribes, and never come back.
The Spaniards; from the Huallaga, also frequently buy the young Indians from their parents, and carry them off for domestic services at home. Father Calvo spoke with great indignation of this custom; and said if he could catch any person stealing his people he would hang him in the plaza. Our servant Lopez desired me to advance him nine hatchets for the purpose of buying a young Indian which his father wished to sell.But I told Lopez of Father Calvo's sentiments on the subject, and refused him. Two boys, however, put off in a canoe the day before we did on our return, and joined us below Tierra Blanca. I did not clearly understand who they were, or I should have sent them back.
We afterwards met with a boat's crew of twelve, who had come off with a young Spaniard of Rioja, (a village between the Huallaga and Maranon,) who did not intend returning; and I fear that many of those that came down with me did not get back for years, if at all; though I did all I could to send them back.
Thus Sarayacu is becoming depopulated in spite of the paternal and mild government of Father Calvo. My own impression as to the reason of their desertion is, not that it is on account of the difficulties of the return, or indifference, or a proclivity to fall back into but that the missionaries-have civilized the Indians in some degree-have taught them the value of property, and awakened in their minds ambition and a desire to improve their condition. For this reason the Indian leaves Sarayacu and goes to Brazil. In Sarayacu are comparatively none to employ him and pay for his services. In Brazil, the Portuguese "commerciante," [merchant] though he maltreats him, and does not give him enough to eat, pays him for his labor. Thus he accumulates, and becomes a man of property; and in the course of time possibly returns to his family in possession of a wooden trunk painted blue, with a lock and key to it, and filled with hatchets, knives, beads, fishhooks, mirrors, etc. He has seen the world, and is an object of envy to his kinsmen and neighbors.
The police of the province is under the direction of a chefe de policia, with delegados for each comarca, and sub-delegados for the termos and municipios. These officers issue and visee passports, and the traveler should always call upon them first. The judiciary consists of Juizes de direito; three for the comarca of the capital, and one for each of the other comarcas of the province, besides Juizes municipaes, and de orfaos. The Juiz de direito holds a singular office, and exercises extraordinary powers, besides being the judge, he presides over the jury, and has a vote in it. An appeal lies from his court, both by himself and the defendant, to a higher court, called the Court of Relacao, which sits in Maranharn and has jurisdiction over the two provinces of Maranham and Para.
There are three or four such courts in the empire, and all appeal lies from them to the Supreme Court at Rio Janeiro. Persons complain bitterly of the delay and vexatious in the administration of justice. I have heard of cases of criminals confined in jail for years, both in Peru and Brazil waiting for trial. It is said also, though I know nothing of this, that the judges are very open to bribery. I think, however, that this is likely to be the case, from the entire inadequacy o£ the salaries generally paid by the government.
I believe that the Brazilian code is mild and humane, and I am sure that t is humanely administered. The Brazilians have what I conceive to be a very proper horror of taking life judicially. They do not shrink in battle ; and sudden anger and jealousy will readily induce them to kill; but I imagine the instances of capital punishment are very rare in Brazil.
The police of the city is excellent, but, except to take up a drunken foreign sailor occasionally, it has nothing to do. Crime-such as violence, wrong, stealing, drunkenness, &c.-is very rare in Para. Probably the people are too lazy to be bad. The province covers an area of about 360,000 square miles, and has a population of 120,828 free persons, with 33,552 slaves. Much as it needs population, it has suffered, from time to time, considerable drainage. It is calculated that from ten to twelve thousand persons were killed by the insurrection of the Cabanos, in 1835. Since that time ten thousand have been drawn from it as soldiers for the southern wars; and the yellow-fever and small-pox, in one year, carried off between four and five thousand more.
The war of the Cabanos was a servile insurrection, instigated and headed by a few turbulent and ambitious men. The ostensible cause was dissatisfaction with the provincial government. The real cause seems to have been hatred of the Portuguese.
Charles Jenks Smith, then consul at Para, writes to the Hon. John Forsyth, under date of January 20, I835:
"After the happy conclusion of the war on the Acara, this city has remained in a state of perfect tranquillity, until the morning of the 7th instant, when a popular revolution broke out among the troops, which has resulted in an entire change of the government of this province. The President and the General-das-Armas were both assassinated at the palace, by the soldiers there stationed, between the hours of 4 and 5 a.m. Inglis, Commandant of the Defensora corvette, and Captain of the port, was also killed in passing from his dwelling to his ship. The subaltern commissioned officers on duty were shot down by the soldiery, who, placing themselves under the command of a sergeant named Gomez, took possession of all the military posts in the city.
“About fifty prisoners were then set at liberty, who, in a body, proceeded to a part of the city called Porto do Sol, and commenced an indiscriminate massacre of all the Portuguese they could find in that neighborhood. In this manner about twenty respectable shop-keepers and others lost their lives.
" Guards were stationed along the whole line of the shore, to prevent any person from embarking; and several Portuguese were shot in nicking the attempt to escape." A new President and General-das-Armas were proclaimed; but they quarrelled very soon. The President, named Melchor, was taken prisoner and murdered by his guards; and Vinagre, the General-das-Armas, took upon himself the government. In the conflicts incident to this change about two hundred persons were killed. The persons and property of all foreigners, except Portuguese, were respected. Many of those were insulted, and some killed.