Insights into Brazil’s historic biodiversity
The ‘Historia Naturalis Brasiliae’ (HNB) is an encyclopaedic natural history of Brazil published in the Netherlands in 1648, as a result of the Dutch colonisation of north-eastern Brazil, from 1630 to 1654. The book was compiled by Dutch naturalist Johannes de Laet based on research by German naturalist George Marcgraf and Dutch physician Willem Piso. There are over 800 entries about Brazilian plants and animals; many accompanied by woodcut illustrations, introducing some plants to Europeans for the first time. “As the HNB is influenced by the shared experiences of indigenous populations and enslaved Africans, it offers glimpses into the mechanics of knowledge-making in colonial Dutch Brazil and so the intercultural context in which early modern science was practised,” explains Mariana Françozo from Leiden University and coordinator of the BRASILIAE project, which was funded by the European Research Council. By investigating how the book was produced and how its botanical knowledge relates to present-day Brazilian practices, the project shed light on the biodiversity and society of the day, as well as now. To continue exploring how the HNB was received in the early modern period, the team are now drawing on the census of surviving library copies, published as part of an open access book.
Examining a snapshot of history
The HNB both collates information about the different Brazilian coastal peoples during the colonial period, alongside documenting plant species (including names and uses) brought by enslaved Africans. The project adopted a multidisciplinary methodology including: literature reviews, plant identification and taxonomy, visual analysis, some radiocarbon dating and isotope analysis, alongside ethnographic and historical research based on primary sources. “We used documents from the Dutch National Archives, alongside the Transcribus software to help with the palaeography of the documents,” adds Françozo.
Multiple benefits from exploitation
The team discovered that some of the flora depicted is typical not only of north-eastern Brazil, but also other regions (especially Amazonian), revealing details about migrations prior to European conquest. HNB’s inclusion of a sunflower drawing, annotated with its indigenous (Tupi) name, suggests that the sunflower had possibly already been brought to Brazil in the 17th century, not the 20th as believed. The team also identified and reconstructed the structure of the slave-trade and enslavement systems of Africans and their descendants in Dutch Brazil. One researcher continues to explore how the Dutch West India Company organised the slave trade: their sale and management of work, as well as how the enslaved confronted their oppression. It was also found that the HNB carries details about plants and animals that remain recognisable to today’s Tupi-speaking indigenous peoples. “This references the resilience and continuity of indigenous traditions, highlighting the value of working on historical documents alongside indigenous peoples,” notes Françozo.
Opening access to heritage resources
The project ran a workshop with the Ka’apor people at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden (project partner). This included access to the in-house collection, enabling the Ka’apor to find materials from their culture and discuss preservation of the Amazon rainforest. “I recall that referring to his homeland, the elder said: ‘we also have birds in our museum, but there they can still fly’,” says Françozo. The team is currently collaborating with the Ka’apor on an Atlas detailing where Ka’apor objects can be found across European museum collections, with a co-creation project pending on the rediscovery of pottery techniques no longer practised. Findings will also be contributed to the Brazilian government’s REFLORA project, helping preserve knowledge of past floral biodiversity.
Keywords
BRASILIAE, Historia Naturalis Brasiliae, encyclopaedia, colonial, Brazil, plants, indigenous, Dutch, biodiversity, naturalist, Ka’apor