The travels of Joseph Beal Steere in Brazil, Peru and Ecuador (1870-1873)

Abstract

From Macao he jouneyed successively to Hong Kong and Canton; from Canton to the Island of Formosa, where he spent six or eight months making journeys among the savages of the interior. While there, he found manuscripts preserved among the aborigines, which he concluded to be relics of the Dutch mission established there two hundred and fifty years before. From Formosa he went, via Hong Kong and Canton, to the Philippine Islands, and spent ten months there; he visited several places never before visited by naturalists, and found forty new specimens of birds, which are now in the Collection of the University. He contracted in those islands the malignant fever so prevalent there; but found time to make large collections of insects and shells, corals, etc. From the Philippines he went to Singapore, thence to Malacca, and made a trip through the Dutch Moluccas, touching at several places in the islands of Java, Macassar, Amboina and Ternate; at the latter place he ascended the volcano of that name. In the Moluccas he made a large collection of the birds-of-paradise. From these islands he returned to Singapore, and from there, via Suez Canal and the Mediterranean, to Marseilles, stopping at Naples. He went through France by rail and via London and Liverpool went home, after an absence of little more than three years. This was in 1875.An account of this great expedition and other further expeditions made by Steere was published by Frederick M. Gaige in 1932 (Michigan Alumnus 38(18):344-346, 352-353, and in The Ark (University of Michigan Museum of Zoology) 10(5):2-7), based on a collection of 96 letters written by Steere during his voyages and travels and published in the Peninsular Courier and Family Visitant, a weekly magazine edited at Ann Arbor, during the years 1870 to 1875.

Everything Has Become Southern: The Confederado Colony in Santarém, Brazil

“…While in Belém, he marveled that he had yet to see a plow in Brazil. He believed that "proper cultivation," meaning US practices could change the poor results he observed there 374. In this way, he became one of the first people to contribute to the narrative of agricultural progress brought about by confederado settlement.…”