Abstract
What difference does a spatial history focussed on rivers make? What kind of space is a river? Drawing on anthropological and historical material, this chapter considers a series of ‘moments’ in the spatial history of rivers in the Amazon: firstly, the spatial practices of Amerindian peoples and how they changed with the arrival of Europeans; secondly, the European desire for geographical knowledge of rivers as a means to find riches, such as Walter Raleigh’s attempt to locate El Dorado; and thirdly, the role of rivers played in the creation of empires, in particular the Portuguese which came to colonize most of the Amazon riverine region. These themes of territory, knowledge, and everyday spatial practices come together in a 1740s report and an accompanying map by a Jesuit missionary of an exploration of the Tapajos, a tributary to the main Amazon river.
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