On the origins of the word ‘Brazil’: global circulation of erudite questions and styles of reasoning in the nineteenth century

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the nineteenth-century erudite style of reasoning within the scope of a historical debate over the origins of the name Brazil. In order to do so, we present and discuss how this style of reasoning was applied in an erudite text – Questões Americanas (American Issues) -, read in a Brazilian historical society in 1863, and published in the review of the society in 1866. The essay was written by a nineteenth-century Brazilian scholar, Joaquim Caetano da Silva (1810-1873). His main hypothesis for the origin of the word ‘Brazil’ was that its meaning derived from words in Asian languages that designated the brazilwood, similar to the one abundant in the region conquered by the Portuguese in early sixteenth century. We examine how discovering the Asian origins of ‘Brazil’ and positioning the history of his country’s name in a context of medieval and early modern global commercial exchange were instrumental for an attempt to question and discredit an alleged French origin for the name, in a period in which Brazil was countering French imperialism at the same time as it was deeply influenced by French culture and institutions.