A Life in Shadow by Bell Stephen;

Author:Bell, Stephen;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2011-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

Despite the new connections opened by Demersay, Gay, and others, there is evidence that Bonpland was not fully content with life in São Borja. Just as so many of his compatriot settlers were under siege in Montevideo after 1843, life in the Brazilian Missões, where he was cut off from his state pension and from most of his international correspondence, brought its own sense of confinement. On the other hand, the peace in Rio Grande do Sul that followed the ending of the Farroupilha Revolt would have provided some scope for mental regrouping. The Battle of Vences (27 November 1847) no doubt obliged him to stay out of Corrientes for longer than he desired. In this major conflict, Urquiza, the great caudillo of Entre Ríos, destroyed the “forces of Joaquín Madariaga, the anti-Rosas governor of Corrientes, and installed a client regime,” one headed by Benjamín Virasoro.130 The Battle of Vences was followed by a degree of violence noteworthy for the period and the region. Paraguay viewed very negatively the fact that Misiones now lay in enemy hands for the first time in a long period. The disturbed politics of the 1840s appear to have affected Bonpland’s psyche, leaving him unsure about where in South America to focus his energies. Months before Vences, he had written to Apollon de Mirbel, a French friend then based in the small Campanha town of Uruguaiana, seeking advice about which location in the interior he should pursue. We know the places Bonpland mentioned only from the reply. Beyond the obvious candidates of Santa Ana and São Borja, the prospects included Paraguay; this idea followed the recent contacts with the Brazilian minister there. Mirbel’s response, written from a small town with what he described as a veneer of “civilization,” was interesting for its sense of hierarchy in what should be attractive to a northwest European immigrant. He saw Santa Ana, Corrientes, and Paraguay as the worst prospects; in Mirbel’s words, the people in these places were semisauvages et rien de plus (nothing more than half savage). He took the emphatic view Bonpland should settle in Montevideo and forget about agricultural speculations in the interior.131 As usual, Bonpland chose to heed his own advice, in order to go a different way. In the final portion of his life, he would pursue rural resource development with still renewed vigor, but he would never find true stability.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.