L'Amérique Méridionale: The Map That Shaped Brazil in the 18th Century

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This book explores how the origins of Brazil’s modern borders can be traced to the cartography of the Americas produced by the eighteenth-century French cartographer J.B.B. d’Anville. It argues that this map reflects the geopolitical policies of the Portuguese diplomat D. Luis da Cunha, who was involved in Portugal’s negotiations with the Spanish to formally establish Brazil’s frontiers, and highlights how and why these policies were adopted in the Treaty of Madrid in 1750.
Copyright Year:
2025
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ISBN:
978-90-04-71076-4
Publication:
23 Sep 2024
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ISBN:
978-90-04-70831-0
Publication:
04 Oct 2024
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Junia Ferreira Furtado, Ph.D. (1996), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, is Professor at that university. She has written many articles, and chapters in the History of Cartography, including Quebra Cabeça africano (Odisseia, 2021).
"The author’s conclusions are based on exhaustive research, as evidenced by the volume’s impressive bibliography, featuring primary and secondary sources written in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Latin, and French. (...) The text is enriched by numerous illustrations (...). This comprehensive approach enables Furtado to demonstrate convincingly how the evolution of geopolitical thought and changing cartographic conventions developed symbiotically over the course of the eighteenth century. L’Amérique Méridionale is a worthy addition to Brill’s Mapping the Past series." – Judy Bieber, in: Imago Mundi 77:2 (2025), p. 230.
Acknowledgments
List of Figures and Tables
Abbreviations

Introduction

Part 1: Oracles


1 D. Luis da Cunha: Oracle of Geopolitics
 1 Mirror for a Prince
 2 The Fifth Evangelist
 3 Academies
 4 The Ambassador and the Art of Diplomacy
 5 The Salons and the Dinner Table

2 Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville: Oracle of Geography
 1 An Armchair Geographer and His Fortune
 2 Origins and Education
 3 Between an Oblong and an Oblate Earth
 4 Paper Earth
 5 Royal Geographer

Part 2: Encounters


3 Minerva’s Forest: the Ambassador, the Cartographer, and D. João V’s Royal Library
 1 An Enlightened King and His Library
 2 Delisle and the New Measuring of the Tordesillas Meridian
 3 Mathematical Instruments and Their Experts
 4 Maps and Prints
 5 The Tordesillas Meridian

4 The Portuguese Imperium in D. Luis da Cunha’s Geopolitical View and the Formulation of Uti possidetis
 1 Minas Gerais Captaincy or the Old Lady’s Goods
 2 The State of Maranhão and the Mill Mule
 3 The Colônia do Sacramento or the Touchstone
 4 The Fernando de Noronha Island, the War of Jenkins’s Ear, and the English Threat
 5 The Uti possidetis or the Colonization as an Act of Possession

Part 3: Maps


5 Amérique méridionale, a Modern Knowledge
 1 An Enlightened Map
 2 Placing Names
 3 Map Sources
 4 Oracles of a Living Geography
 5 The Nunes Brothers

6 Amérique méridionale, a Distorting Mirror
 1 The Blank and the Void
 2 Simulacra
 3 The Amazonas Warriors
 4 El Dorado
 5 The Return of Parima

Epilogue: A Lost Treasure
 1 Diplomacy and Cartography
 2 The Rio de la Plata Basin
 3 The Midwest and Amazonia
 4 Cabo do Norte and the Guianas
 5 The Treaty of Madrid and Uti possidetis
 6 The Amérique méridionale versus the Mapa das cortes

Bibliography
Index
This book will be especially relevant for students and researchers interested in the history of cartography, the Enlightenment, Brazil, or the Americas.
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