Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira’s understanding of indigenous peoples in Portuguese America during the Philosophical Journey (1783-1792): the appropriation of a French translation of William Robertson’s The History of America (1777)

Abstract

This article aims to address how naturalist Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira used a French edition of The History of America (1777) by historian William Robertson, to understand the indigenous peoples of Portuguese America during the Philosophical Journey (1783-1792). To this end, we compare the French edition with two of his writings, the General Participation of Rio Negro (1787) and the General and Particular Observations on the Class of the Mammals (1790), evidencing the naturalist’s uses and textual appropriations. We argue that the understanding of the indigenous peoples of the regions Alexandre visited was based on the identification of their “mode of subsistence” and the existence of an Amerindian “general character”, conceptions incorporated from his reading of Robertson.