Natureza, colonização e utopia na obra de João Daniel

Abstract

The article analyzes certain aspects of "Tesouro descoberto no rio Amazonas" (Treasure discovered on the Amazon River), written by João Daniel (1722-76) during his time in the State of Maranhão e Grão-Pará as a Jesuit missionary between 1741 and 1757; the priest was banished to Lisbon two years before the Company of Jesus was expelled from Portuguese America. This unique record of the mid-eighteenth-century Amazon is a compendium on the region's wealth and potential. Most importantly, it put forward a colonization project that was critical of the model then in place; the new proposal was an integrated whole which took environmental conditions, technology, and social relations into account in the organization of local society. In centering his project on the issue of labor, João Daniel revives, as a metaphor, the idea of the Amazon as an earthly paradise-a notion that had characterized seventeenth-century missionary literature but was practically abandoned in the eighteenth century.

Mururé (Brosimum acutifolium Huber) in the treatment of syphilis in colonial Amazonia: historical data to the actual contribution to treatment

“…In this context, Daniel was a visionary because he promoted the value and use of vegetal riches in the region. Mururé and other plants were not simply studied as a result of the search for knowledge about specific plant species, but instead their study was driven by the fact that they were useful plants to the colony and cities abroad (Costa 2007;Santos 2013;São Bento & Santos 2015).…”

“…Medicines of natural origin, which are often used by native groups, began to spread throughout Brazil during the colonial period (1500-1822). Knowledge and practices involving these medicines were disseminated by missionaries, naturalists, and travelers who experimented with new plants as methods to cure diseases based on plant chemistry (Costa 2007;Veríssimo & Pereira 2014). This period was marked by the use of natural resources to synthesize toxic and medicinal substances and to identify biologically active molecules (Viegas Júnior et al 2006).…”