Officers, gentlemen and competitors: «Brazil» on circumnavigation voyages of the Age of Enlightenment

Abstract

It is intended to analyze the images of Brazil through travel literature produced with the circumnavigation voyages of the second half of the eighteenth century. The manner in which Brazil was represented in the accounts of Cook, Byron or Bougainville and collections of travel writing that spread these journeys has not been duly considered and appreciated. This evaluation is essential to realize the importance of the Brazilian colony on a global scale and especially in South Atlantic, as well as the games of power that then unfolded. Similarly, in the attempt to «dominate the world» occurred in eighteenth-century Europe, the competition was mainly between France and England. In this process, the attention that both countries put in Brazil expressed in annexation projects, as well as in informal domination, reflected in the weight that illegal trade and British smuggling or scientific interest and curiosity had. Therefore, to understand the competition between these countries also at the level of travel literature, production and dissemination of information —and therefore propaganda— can contribute to a better understanding of what Brazil and Portugal meant to eighteenth century Europe.