From a foreign perspective: nuances of the historical trajectory of Amazonian women from the perspective of Elizabeth Agassiz

Abstract

In the nineteenth century small villages and, later, the city of Manaus received the visit of numerous travelers, who mostly consisted of scientists eager for the local fauna and flora. One of these trips brought the couple Louis and Elizabeth Agassiz, who during the Tayer expedition traveled from Rio de Janeiro to the Amazon. With the support of Emperor Dom Pedro II and help from several locals, the couple spent about a year in Brazil. The region that received the most attention was the Amazon, in which Elizabeth Agassiz describes places, people and animals in her own way. To develop this work, we had as main source the book of the author's travel report, the methodology used was the bibliographical research elaborated from materials available for the research, in addition to the indiciary method used by the Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, in it is possible to interpret the reality using evidence that allows to decipher it and understand it. We conclude that, in the representations elaborated by Elizabeth Agassiz lies an expressive ideological load, marked by ethnocentrism, evolutionism and racism, theories in vogue in the nineteenth century, in addition to observing that women were present in Amazonian society the problem would be the lack of representation related to them.