Paper short abstract:

João Carlos de Brito Capelo published, in the middle of 19th century, a set of climatological charts from the Gulf of Guinea. These charts were an important contribution of a Portuguese scientist to the knowledge of worldwide climatological data.

Paper long abstract:

By the middle of the 19th century, Mattew Fountain Maury, the Father of Modern Oceanography and Naval Meteorology, proposed the creation of an international network to collect meteorological data.

Portugal participated in the first International Meteorological Conference which took place in Brussels, in 1853. Portuguese ships started to collect data, in accordance with the standards defined in Brussels Conference. They collected meteorological information in the Atlantic and Indian oceans normally sailed by these ships, in their voyages to overseas territories.

In Portugal, the research in meteorology and climatology was centered in the "Observatório Meteorológico D. Luís" at "Escola Politécnica". João Carlos de Brito Capelo integrated the "Observatório" team since 1855. He played an important role in the developement geophysical sciences in Portugal.

In the charts of winds and currents from the Gulf of Guinea we can see the climatological data for different months of the year.

Paper short abstract:

The 19th century brought the raise of technology and science in Europe which resulted in getting nearer to places, especially by the sea (introduction of the steam and other innovations). While closer, the difference of scientific knowledge and technology made the others look far-away from us.

Paper long abstract:

A very recent work described the efficiency of technology and science in reducing the distance between countries and peoples with the example of the British Empire and Bombay. This applies to all the European Empires of the 19th century, as well as for the Portuguese. The steam on the seas, the typography and, later, the telegraph made possible to rule over distance and to have the perception of the gap between technologies and scientific knowledge dominated by colonizers and colonized. The colonized only accessed to these innovations by integrating the colonial system and the colonizer semiosphere. This resulted in epistemological operations for both sides.

Our questions are: how did the Portuguese, who based their arguments in keeping the colonies in the 19th century on a historical argument, worked on this? Portuguese were known as being adaptable and the first to exchange knowledge with the overseas communities; how were they bringing science and technology to their territories? Could Atlantic and Indian Oceans that always united people (even more now, with the decrease of distance) become the oceans which transported a science which divided people? Could science separate people and turn on arguments like otherness and sameness so absolute? Were the Portuguese forgetting a part of their historical legacy of tropical knowledge to implement a new colonial science? These are the challenges to rethink the role of the oceans not only in the political occupation or economic exploitation but also in terms of creation and reception of knowledge in the Portuguese empire.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the first works of the Portuguese Commission of Cartography (1883-1936) enhancing its contribution to the scientific knowledge on Africa as well as its important role on the systematization of the previous historical and geographical information on this continent

Paper long abstract:

Since the 16th century Portuguese recognition of the African coast reflects the commitment in gathering detailed information on the unknown regions and people. This information supported later surveys and provided the basis for the first maps though these documents were not a result of any official model to be adopted in all the territories under Portuguese sovereignty.

Created in 1883 under the instruction of the Geographical Society of Lisbon, the Commission of Cartography was the first Portuguese institution assigned to produce a collection of credible and accurate maps of all Portugal's overseas territories. However it extended far beyond this initial purpose as the Commission was behind most of the different missions that were then carried out. Today its legacy became an important corpus of information on Portuguese colonial policy and on Portugal's former colonies.

From a scientific perspective, the works of the Commission were framed by the most update European knowledge on Africa based on several scientific expeditions and supported by the public discussion and publishing of the results of these expeditions undertaken by well known European scientific institutions, such as the Geographic Society of London and the Société de Geography de Paris. This interplay is witnessed on what was produced by the Commission and on the scientific library organized to enable a prior knowledge of the areas to survey.

Paper short abstract:

In 1894, Portugal concedes diplomatic asylum to more than 500 Brazilians insurgents on two Portuguese vessels. It issue became an intense diplomatic conflict between Portugal, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay about the hygienic conditions and the fear of a yellow fever epidemic.

Paper long abstract:

In 1894, when the Navy's Revolt had finished, more than 500 Brazilians asked diplomatic asylum to Portugal. In that time, Portugal was represented on Atlantic Ocean by two corvettes, Mindello and Affonso d'Albuquerque. The Portuguese Commander decided to concede asylum and protection to that people that would be murdered if he had refused. The Brazilian government started to claim those insurgents back, and Portugal's government denied it. While the diplomatic question raises, the hygienic conditions inside the boats has became drastic. They started to feel the overcrowding effects. Because of that situation, the doctors, inside the boats, had written to Argentina and Uruguay warning the authorities about the possibility of a yellow fever epidemic. As much as the doctors, the authorities are used to share the comprehension that yellow fever could be caused by infection or contagion. In that way, doctors and authorities were demanding the debarkation; while Portugal's government was refusing in accept that. That fear, further the possibility to immigrate for both countries, made more than 300 people escapes from the vessels. Those escapes were the main reason to the diplomatic break between Brazil and Portugal. This paper is intent to analyze the diplomatic issue, as well the health notion which influence the international relationship between Portugal, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay in the end of nineteen century.

Paper short abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to study the arduous journey made in 1779 by botanical productions transported by the vessel "Buen Suceso" from the vicereign of Peru to Lisbon and Madrid.

Paper long abstract:

In the Spring of 1778, the Spanish naturalists Ruiz and Pavón arrived to Peru where they commanded a botanical expedition until 1788.The first remittance sent by the botanical mission departed from Lima in 1779. But war with Britain prevented the vessel Buen Suceso from arriving at the península. The British sold part of its cargo in the port of Lisbon. Even the Spanish government arrived to recover part of the scientific remittances, that later became part of the "Flora Peruana", an additional part was carried to the Ajuda Botanical Garden. There, the botanical works were incorporated in the "Specimen Flora America Meridionalis", a four volume work with more than 300 designs and any other similar number of clasifications. The arduous journey gave us the opportunity to question narratives that just concern the use or not of the linnean system of classification in Southern Europe and their overseas territories. Instead, we can ask about the cultural meaning atribuited in diferent historical contexts and scientific spaces to the American plants and seeds that the Atlantic redistributed in both Iberian cities, after having passed through british hands. The comparison between the works produced in Lisbon and Madrid will allow us to constate what Neil Safier has stated for other contexts: colonial science was not merely produced in a narrow "contact zone" where "agents of empire" and their "imperial subjects" faced off in a rote and predetermined fashion. Instead knowledge emerged from a broad narrative involving multiples sites of collection and codification.

Paper short abstract:

Gândavo’s story and illustration on the account of the Brazilian sea monster, published in Lisbon 1576, was translated and copied in several European languages and print formats. It is an example of knowledge transfer about marine natural wonders from the overseas to Europe in the late 16th century.

Paper long abstract:

Early Atlantic descriptions were sagas of seafaring and explorations in new territories punctuated by incidental comments on indigenous customs and natural singularities. Later on, writers about the New World Natural History made comparisons motivated by curiosity, economics or by sheer aesthetics. Nevertheless, most authors in the 16th and 17th centuries demonstrated an ability to observe and describe the natural world. These writers left important traces about zoology, botany and tropical medicine, creating a significant corpus for the establishment of a natural history of the exotic in Europe. Descriptions were based on empirical knowledge and hold amongst much information about natural environments and marine fauna. Here we present a casa worth of a detailed study, also bearing in mind the existence of written sources and associated imagery for analysis. Pêro de Magalhães Gândavo's "História da província Santa Cruz", Lisbon 1576, was written in Portuguese. His story and illustration on the occurrence of a sea monster was translated and copied into several European languages and print formats. Two illustrated leaflets have been produced: one Italian and other German. This story was later on, in 1585, retold and illustrated in Coenen's Whale Book. This is an example of knowledge transfer about marine natural wonders from Brazil to Lisbon and then to other European countries. The monstrous sea lion described by Gândavo gained significant and rapid attention across European circles of science and natural history, mostly due to its fantastic characteristics but also its representation of power display of Men over Nature.

Paper short abstract:

This work aims to point out the role and meaning of non-human primates in the Age of Discovery. We show how these embarrassing animals in the debate about human nature, were perceived and described by first navigators and, how their knowledge was integrated in Early Modern Natural History.

Paper long abstract:

Although much has been written on the cultural, economic and political consequences of the European expansion in the 15th and 16th centuries, the role of animals has been often underestimated or sometimes misunderstood. Actually recent evidence proves that in all the phases of this process animals were an unavoidable and fundamental presence. If all animals have been a prominent element in civilization, non-human primates have always had a special status due to their similarity with human beings. They entered as an embarrassing presence in the central debate about human nature and human origins. During the Middle Ages monkeys were considered evil creatures, symbol of sin and lust expanding even more the boundary which separated the human from the beast. The European explorations brought new, awkward first-hand information shattering conceptual patterns and ideas that had taken centuries to develop. By reviewing most of the Portuguese and other European travelling chronicles, scientific and philosophically works of the beginning of the Modern Age, our work presents evidence of non-human primates. Such evidences portraits these animals has been introduced into Europe in greater quantities than previously assumed, and in fact, Europeans were already familiar with some of these primates as early as the 16th century. We discuss how these animals were perceived by, interpreted by and integrated in Early Modern European culture and natural history. Moreover we point out how European perceptions of other primates (and perhaps of ourselves?) started to change gradually mainly due to the contact with African apes and Neotropical primates.