Alexander von Humboldt – Page 2 – The Pull Of The Land

Humboldt on Cannibalism

August 15, 2020August 15, 2020 Richard Barnes

To read Alexander von Humboldt’s journals of his and Aimé Bonpland’s journey to the Americas, much of which took place in Venezuela (1799-1804), is not only a pleasure, but also a rewarding experience. In many instances, I find his narratives and observations to be as helpful and profitable today as readers found them to be two centuries ago.

His praiseworthy writing and infinite curiosity does not, however, obscure Mr. Humboldt’s manifest prejudice against Christianity or his exasperating blind spot towards the enormous contributions by missionaries who loved the Americas and who travelled and lived there centuries before Humboldt’s birth. Were it not for those who went before, Humboldt’s travels would not have been possible, certainly not anywhere close to the extent he was able to achieve.

For more on Humboldt, see here, here and here. As noted in that last link (“So Far From God and So Close to the United States”), Humboldt got his passport, enabling him to travel, not from “Enlightenment France” but from “priest-ridden Spain.”

The following comments are extracted from the sections of his journals concerning his explorations in the lower Orinoco regions.

“Some of the islands are inhabited by a cruel and savage race, called cannibals, who eat the flesh of men and boys, and captives and slaves of the male sex, abstaining from that of females.” Hist. Venet. 1551. The custom of sparing the lives of female prisoners confirms what I have previously said of the language of the women. Does the word cannibal, applied to the Caribs of the West India Islands, belong to the language of this archipelago (that of Haiti)? or must we seek for it in an idiom of Florida, which some traditions indicate as the first country of the Caribs?) It is they who have rendered the names of cannibals, Caribbees, and anthropophagi, synonymous; it was their cruelties that prompted the law promulgated in 1504, by which the Spaniards were permitted to make a slave of every individual of an American nation which could be proved to be of Caribbee origin.

Note Humboldt’s allusion to a possible Floridian origin to the Caribs. Although some anthropologists make strong arguments for a Brazilian origin, meaning the Caribs came up from what is now Brazil, the Floridian, or North American origin of the Caribs is not an unprecedented hypotheses. Their features would seem to corroborate that theory. This is not due only to their physical features but also their few surviving sculptures and even their language. These things intimate an ancestry very dissimilar from that of most of the other Indians of South and Central America and the Caribbean. The Caribs seem to be evidence of ancient communications between North and South America.

Interested readers might take a few minutes to open a map of the Caribbean Sea, put a finger on the southern tip of Florida, and then trace it down to Cuba, and then move it in a pronounced southeastern arc across Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and on and on, all the way down to Grenada and finally to Tobago and Trinidad, just off the coast of Venezuela. It doesn’t take too much imagination to see an ancient land bridge which once connected Florida and Venezuela. At the least, it isn’t difficult to hypothesize that the Caribs migrated through those islands down to South America.

Humboldt seeks to cast doubt on the extent of the cruelties of the Caribs, writing “I believe [such cannibalism] was much exaggerated….” Much exaggerated? So they ate human flesh, just not as much as reported? Instead of a pound of flesh a week, they limited themselves to, say, a pound fortnightly? That might be an academic question to a detached observer, but certainly not to the ill-fated victims of that cruel and ferocious people.

We’ll conclude this post with his citing an old missionary and then going on to relate his own experience with “the perversity” of certain Indian tribes, which experience corroborates the missionaries comments.

“You cannot imagine,” said the old missionary of Mandavaca, “the perversity of this Indian race (familia de Indios). You receive men of a new tribe into the village; they appear to be mild, good, and laborious; but suffer them to take part in an incursion (entrada) to bring in the natives, and you can scarcely prevent them from murdering all they meet, and hiding some portions of the dead bodies.” In reflecting on the manners of these Indians, we are almost horrified at that combination of sentiments which seem to exclude each other; that faculty of nations to become but partially humanized; that preponderance of customs, prejudices, and traditions, over the natural affections of the heart.

Note how Humboldt, in appealing to “natural affections”, knowingly or not, cites the first chapter of Romans, which warns that any people who reject God will degenerate and that among the characteristics of a people evidencing that degeneration are men “without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful….[Emphasis mine]”

We took one who had become sufficiently civilized in a few weeks to be useful to us in placing the instruments necessary for our observations at night. He was no less mild than intelligent, and we had some desire of taking him into our service. What was our horror when, talking to him by means of an interpreter, we learned, that the flesh of the marimonde monkeys, though blacker, appeared to him to have the taste of human flesh. He told us that his relations (that is, the people of his tribe) preferred the inside of the hands in man, as in bears. This assertion was accompanied with gestures of savage gratification.

We inquired of this young man, so calm and so affectionate in the little services which he rendered us, whether he still felt sometimes a desire to eat of a Cheruvichahena. He answered, without discomposure, that, living in the mission, he would only eat what he saw was eaten by the Padres. Reproaches addressed to the natives on the abominable practice which we here discuss, produce no effect; it is as if a Brahmin, travelling in Europe, were to reproach us with the habit of feeding on the flesh of animals.

In the eyes of the Indian of the Guaisia, the Cheruvichahena was a being entirely different from himself; and one whom he thought it was no more unjust to kill than the jaguars of the forest. It was merely from a sense of propriety that, whilst he remained in the mission, he would only eat the same food as the Fathers. The natives, if they return to their tribe (al monte), or find themselves pressed by hunger, soon resume their old habits of anthropophagy.

Humboldt goes on to seek to mitigate excessive revulsion to the described practice by noting that cannibalism was widespread in thirteenth century Egypt. Howbeit, his brief dissertation on the Egyptian practice does not eclipse the yuck factor elicited by his matter-of-fact discussion about his “sufficiently civilized” travel companion.

As readers of this blog know, I very much admire Alexander von Humboldt. My father introduced me to him and I’ve introduced him to my children. He makes for exhilarating reading. But, as you read him, be sure to “prove all things, hold fast that which is good.”

We’ll visit with him again.

Alexander von Humboldt (left) and Aimé Bonpland in the lower Orinoco.

Carib Indian natives in Dominica (circa early 20th century)

Satellite photo taken “looking east”. The Meta River flows east into the Orinoco, which at this point flows south to north, but in photo it’s “right-to-left”. This and further south (right) is the vast Upper Orinoco region.

Map helps “visualize” the satellite photo (previous). Note the Meta River to the left (in Colombia). For about 150 miles before it flows into the Orinoco, it forms the boundary between Venezuela to the north and Colombia to the south. Note the Casiquiare Canal further south. Humboldt and Bonpland made it that far but were eventually turned back by Portuguese civil authorities.

Atures and Maypures on The Orinoco, and Humboldt’s Parrot

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 Richard Barnes

A good number of posts on this blog either direct themselves to or reference the grand Orinoco River, which exercises a majestic “pull” on all in Venezuela, whether locals or foreign residents or long term visitors. It is more of a presence in Venezuela than the Mississippi is to the United States. I suspect the Nile exerts a similar pull in North Africa, especially Egypt, but, having never lived there, I don’t know for sure. But the literature does affirm its centrality to life in that world for many centuries. I’d say the same applies to the Orinoco and Venezuela.

Those readers who have a sense of adventure, or have children who do, cannot do much better than to explore that river, especially the Upper Orinoco. Alexander Humboldt is still a pretty reliable as well as fascinating source of information and background for this.

Shortly after arriving in Cumaná, Venezuela, the “oldest continuously inhabited European established settlement in South America,” Alexander von Humboldt wrote to his brother back in Germany, “What color of birds, fish, even crabs (sky blue and yellow!). So far we have wandered like fools; in the first three days we couldn’t identify anything, because one object is tossed aside to pursue another. Bonpland [renowned French naturalist, Aimé Bonpland, friend and collaborator with Humboldt] assures me he will go mad if the marvels do not stop. Still, more beautiful even than these individual miracles is the overall impression made by this powerful, lush, and yet so gentle, exhilarating, mild vegetation.”

As he made his way to the Casiquiare, that natural channel which connects the Orinoco with the Amazon, via the Rio Negro (see “Orinoco, Casiquiare, Humboldt, and Monster Aguirre” for more Here), Humboldt and his party, including untiring and powerful Indians who at times jumped into the water to pull the canoe from the unforgiving currents, eventually came to the rapids between Atures and Maypures.

Here is a description of this section of the Orinoco, in Humboldt’s own words: “Nothing can be grander than the aspect of this spot. Neither the fall of the Tequendama, near Santa Fe de Bogota, nor the magnificent scenes of the Cordilleras, could weaken the impression produced upon my mind by the first view of the rapids of Atures and of Maypures. When the spectator is so stationed that the eye can at once take in the long succession of cataracts, the immense sheet of foam and vapors illumined by the rays of the setting sun, the whole river seems as it were suspended over its bed.”

That’s quite a compliment, considering it was written by one of history’s most accomplished travelers and explorers.

Atures and Maypures are names missionaries took from nearby tribes. Some years before Humboldt’s voyage, the Maypures had been exterminated by the violent Caribs (see more on the Caribs here and Here) and, according to legend, had taken their domesticated parrots as spoils. Humboldt had come across some Caribs one of whom gave him his parrot as a gift.

The explorer noticed that the words spoken by the parrot did not correspond with the Carib dialect and he asked his host why. The Indian told him that the words he heard were not Carib, but Maypure, the now extinct tribe. So Humboldt was hearing language from a tribe that no longer could speak.

That’s a fascinating tale, although I’ve not been able to confirm it in Humboldt’s massive, multi-volume Narrative.

A few more observations by the great explorer about this area of the Orinoco:

“We passed two hours on a large rock, standing in the middle of the Orinoco, and called the Piedra de la Paciencia, or the Stone of Patience, because the canoes, in going up, are sometimes detained there two days, to extricate themselves from the whirlpool caused by this rock.”

And, finally,

“The Indians would not hazard passing the cataract; and we slept on a very incommodious spot, on the shelf of a rock, with a slope of more than eighteen degrees, and of which the crevices sheltered a swarm of bats. We heard the cries of the jaguar very near us during the whole night. They were answered by our great dog in lengthened howlings. I waited the appearance of the stars in vain: the sky was exceedingly black; and the hoarse sounds of the cascades of the Orinoco mingled with the rolling of the distant thunder.”

We will continue to visit with Mr. Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt’s map of a section of the Upper Orinoco River.

Alexander von Humboldt camped on the shores of the Orinoco River.

Between Atures and Maypures rapids. Note one of the granite stones which so impressed Humboldt.

Orinoco rapids between Atures and Maypures. These delayed, fascinated, and at times frightened Humboldt’s party as they made their way on the Orinoco towards the Casiquiare.

So far from God and so close to the United States!

September 7, 2019September 9, 2019 Richard Barnes

“Only those born in Spain were allowed to own shops or mines in the colonies.” The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, page 47.

“…[Simón] Bolivar was the son of one of Caracas’s wealthiest creole families [which] owned several plantations, mines and elegant town homes.” The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, page 117.

Yes, it’s the same book, published in 2016 (I am about halfway through). And the above tendentiousness — the colonists could own nothing on page 47 — and contradiction — the colonists were tycoons 70 pages later — are not isolated.

It is hailed as a masterpiece by the usual literati. It is considered at times interesting, at times insufferable, and at times infuriating by your humble blogger. You’re better off reading Humboldt’s writings directly.

We’ve much work yet ahead of us in clearing the misconceptions and prejudices which color our understanding of South America generally and Venezuela specifically, not to mention world history and science.

The fact remains that Spain’s conquest of much of the Americas, their export of European culture to these shores, their eradication of human sacrifices, their education and teaching of the Spanish language to the indigenous peoples, and much more, remains an unequalled, spectacular achievement in history. Humboldt, himself a creature of the Enlightenment, who like his fellows, borrowed profusely from Christianity without so much as a tip of the hat, would have achieved nothing had it not been for Spain who gave him a passport when Enlightenment France did not, and had it not been for the missions in the Americas who helped him and had even seen many of his discoveries centuries before he was conceived in his mother’s womb. He just took it all for granted, like a good modern.

Now, saying the above does not mean I am blind to Spanish failures (nor am I blind to English failures) or Jesuit perfidy. But it does mean that I refuse to take at face value the usual textbook approach to Spain and South America that we’ve been spoon fed for centuries now. The history of our neighbors to the south and across the pond is much more complex and vastly richer than: Spain bad–Spain rape–Spain kill–Las Casas saint.

I would challenge us to consider the possibility that we in the United States have much more in common with South America than we do with modern Europe. But to consider that challenge, we must first make an effort to clear the underbrush accumulated over hundreds of years. What did Spain do right? What did she do wrong? Was Spain responsible for the fearsome bloodletting in 19th century South America? Hint: she was not. Then who and what was?

In 1829, after “independence”, Simón Bolivar wrote to his fellow South Americans in A Look At Spanish America:

“From one end to the other, the New World is an abyss of abomination; there is no good faith in [Spanish] America; treaties are mere paper; constitutions, books; elections, combat; liberty, anarchy; life, a torment. We’ve never been so disgraced as we are now. Before, we enjoyed good things; illusion is fed by chimera…. we are tormented by bitter realities.”

This, from a man who was largely responsible for the chaos he now bitterly laments. A man who proclaimed the glorious unity of the continent, saw it irredeemably fractured and destroyed. He died, embittered (“I have plowed the sea!”), a mere year later.

Historian Luis Level de Goda wrote in 1893, “The revolutions have produced in Venezuela nothing but the most vulgar leaders, tribal chieftains, the greatest disorders and lack of concern for one another, corruption, and a long, never-ending tyranny, the moral ruin of the country, and the degradation of a great number of Venezuelans.”

Half a century before Level de Goda, the writer, Cecilio Acosta made a like point, “The internal convulsions have produced sacrifices but not improvements; tears but not harvests.” Others have made similar, terrible, and depressing observations.

One of the purposes of this blog is to look at these and related matters as dispassionately as possible and hopefully to encourage us to reconsider what we’ve been taught for generations.

And maybe, with God’s help and with sincere goodwill, we might see a true and wonderful rapprochement between “The Colossus of the North” (how they referred to the USA for generations) and the land which was first called “America” (it was South America who first had that epithet, not the United States).

Long time Mexican president, Porfirio Díaz, spoke for many in Central and South American when he exclaimed in exasperation: “Poor Mexico! So far from God, so close to the United States [Pobre Méjico! Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos]!”

I’d say that, today, both the United States and South America are far from God as far as their legislators go. Let’s pray and work towards a rapprochement with the Triune God. Then the way to a bright future between these great neighbors will be not only more possible but excitingly successful and fruitful!

Porfirio Díaz, president of Mexico; photo taken early 20th century.

Don Porfirio Díaz and his wife, Doña Carmen, in exile in Paris circa 1912, shortly before his death.

Sketch from life in 1830 by José María Espinosa. Bolivar was 47 and died shortly thereafter.

Following are representative examples of Spanish architecture in colonial Americas

Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine, Florida, United States, built 17th century.

Cuzco Cathedral, Cuzco, Perú. Built 17th century.

Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City. Built in sections with the first section built in the 16th century (the century before the arrival of the Pilgrims)

Metropolitan Cathedral of Quito, Quito, Ecuador. Construction began in 1562.

Cathedral of San Juan, Puerto Rico, first constructed of wood in 1521; current building first constructed in 1540, almost 100 years before the Pilgrims.

Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, construction began in 1512 and was completed in 1540. Pilgrims arrived in Massachussets in 1620. First permanent English settlement in America was in 1607. My point is not that “Spain is better or that England is better”; it is simply that there is more to our stories than that in the standard narratives.

Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was one of the very few Spanish colonies that was not devastated by the bloodletting elsewhere in the Americas. The district, now a national historic site, is characterized by cobblestone streets and stone buildings dating to the 16th and 17th centuries.

Orinoco, Casiquiare, Humboldt, and Monster Aguirre

August 9, 2019August 9, 2019 Richard Barnes

During the rainy season, about April to August, the Orinoco River rises 40 to 60 feet at Ciudad Bolivar, the capital of the state of Bolivar, also known as Guayana. I recall, in my boyhood, dangerously flooded city streets in San Félix, about 70 miles east of Ciudad Bolivar. In the plains, the waters expand great distances, up to 120 miles or more in some places. During the dry season, the river continuously drops, exposing vast tracts along its banks and many islands.

Alexander von Humboldt explored the Casiquiare River, which starts as an arm of the Orinoco and finds its way to the Rio Negro (Black River), a tributary of the Amazon, thus forming a “natural canal” between the Orinoco and the Amazon. The great explorer’s efforts in that area were cut short by Portuguese and Spanish authorities. Nevertheless, as much credit as Humboldt deserves, the channel between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers was known for centuries before his celebrated voyage: Spanish missionaries, which he was so fond of mocking, were well acquainted with it and often traversed it northwards from what is now Brazilian territory. Maps subsequent to the early missionary eras also note it, under various names.

As for Humboldt’s tendency to somewhat minimize Christianity, we must say that it was Christians who opened the doors to him. It was the monks, even the bad ones, who guided him. It was the mission Indians who led him and showed him the way — and did so without devouring him for supper, thanks to Christianity. In fact, besides some attempts at robbery, by unevangelized natives, we might add, the only obstacle to his endeavors was courtesy of, not the church, but politicians. He was expelled from Brazil because the Portuguese and Spanish civil authorities were not on good terms. But, ever the Enlightenment Man, he reserved his bile for Christ, not Caesar.

Be that as it may, others were at Casiquiare before him. In fact, two and half centuries before Humboldt’s great voyage, the infamous Lope de Aguirre formed part of an expedition headed east to the Atlantic Ocean from Lima, Perú. Aguirre was right out of central casting: hideously ugly and lame in one foot. The explorers were commissioned by the Marquis of Cañete with the purpose of verifying the truth or falsehood of fantastic reports by Indians, of various tribes, coming from the East, telling of the fabulous El Dorado. These stories were at times seconded by European explorers, such as the German, Felipe de Utre, who told the Spaniards in Perú of vast cities and great wealth further east.

So, the Marquis of Cañete appointed Don Pedro de Ursua as the Leader, but Aguirre murdered Don Pedro in his sleep and had himself named leader. Anyone who questioned or was not sufficiently enthusiastic about his leadership was promptly murdered, including Don Pedro’s concubine, Inés de Atienza, who was cruelly put to death.

The voyage continued, and a very bloody voyage it was. Indians along the way were massacred, and murders within the company continued as they made their way to the Atlantic Ocean, first ascending the Rio Negro, then following the streams of the Casiquiare and eventually the Orinoco. They killed, massacred, and slaughtered all along the long, bloody trek.

They eventually sailed across the sea to the island of Margarita where they committed the most horrible atrocities on the inhabitants without regard to age or sex, and murdered all of the officers of the Spanish government. Aguirre met his end in Barquisimeto, about 200 miles east of Caracas, where he was finally successfully ambushed, captured, and executed. His body was quartered and sent to various cities across Venezuela.

It must be noted that Simon Bolivar approvingly considered Aguirre’s acts as the first declaration of independence in the Americas. He wrote this about a man who, as his well-deserved capture and death approached, stabbed his own daughter, Elvira, to death, saying, “Someone I love so much must never be bedded by ruined people.” Compare his “declaration of independence” to that of the thirteen colonies, and you have a microcosm of the chasm between the two. And of the at times frustrating character of Bolivar.

As to the Orinoco, at places the shore is very broad and the jungle remains at a distance from the river. At other stretches, the jungle comes right to the river’s edge and even seems to invade or overhang it, as if to stake its claim over everything, even the wide Orinoco, whose name is believed to come from Orinucu, a Tamanak word meaning, so some think, “Great Water”. In fact, some tribes in the past called this river, Paragua, which also means “Great Water.”

Then there’s the Boto, or Amazon River Dolphin, known in Venezuela as the Tonina, the largest sweet water cetacean in the world. These were plentiful in my childhood, and their mighty antics in the middle of the river formed a delightful distraction. I recall during a trip down the Orinoco how they undulated, seemingly in majestic slow motion, upstream as the ship continued its journey. These fresh water dolphins seemed to fit perfectly in the Orinoco whose attributes at times resemble the ocean.

Much more about the Orinoco and Humboldt in future posts.

Pedro de Ursua. Aguirre murdered him and his widow in 1561.

Salto de Aguirre in Perú. Here, Aguirre faced grave danger and chiseled some mysterious symbols on a rock. He escaped to bring mayhem to Venezuela. To this day the symbols are venerated by many.

The Orinoco River Basin. Note the Casiquiare “Canal” to the south.

The great confluence of the Caroní and Orinoco Rivers at Ciudad Guayana

The Casiquiare River (also called Canal or Waterway)

Reproduction of map made in 1800 based on the observations of Alexander von Humboldt. Map traces the Casiquiare River’s route from the Orinoco to the Rio Negro (Black River) which in turn will connect with the Amazon. The inset to the bottom right traces the Maypures Rapids of which Humboldt wrote in thrilling prose.

Orinoco Tonina. Largest sweet water cetacean in the world.

Aerial view of Palúa, the Bethlehem Steel port on the Oricoco.

Tarpon fished from the Orinoco near Palúa, circa 1950.

En route to the Atlantic Ocean, circa 1960.

Cumaná, Humboldt, Lisbon, and The Inquisition

August 2, 2019August 3, 2019 Richard Barnes

Cumaná, Venezuela, is a beautifully placed city founded in the early 16th century (1515). It is the oldest continuously inhabited city established by Europeans in South America. Refer to the post, Playa Hicacos, 1966, for descriptions and photos of the beaches and mountains in the area, the northeastern coast of Venezuela.

This was the city where the great explorer and naturalist, Alexander Von Humboldt, alighted in the late 18th century.

He arrived just days before a spectacular solar eclipse, which he recorded in precise detail in his 23-volume record of his “equinoctial” journey, a great part of which was through large swathes of Venezuela. This journey consumed about 5 years, the end of which he travelled to the United States before returning to Europe. In the USA, he met several times with Thomas Jefferson and they became warm friends with a good deal of correspondence over the succeeding years. They shared mutual interests, including natural history, geography, and a passion for exploring the Americas. The Lewis and Clark expedition commenced in 1804, just as Humboldt’s Equinoctial journey was ending.

Like Francisco de Miranda (see post, Simón Bolivar III — Influences), Humboldt not only knew Jefferson, but he also met and, for better or for worse, influenced a young Simón Bolivar, who was in Europe when Humboldt returned.

Following other, shorter trips, he set about to record and request scientific challenges to his multifarious observations and conclusions, many of which, including complicated laws governing atmospheric disturbances at higher altitudes, as well as the regularity of ocean currents, stand to this day.

The renowned, 5-year South American expedition laid the foundation for the disciplines of physical geography and meteorology; his effort of recording and documenting, which he believed would take him 2 or 3 years, actually consumed twenty-one years of his life, and remained incomplete at his death in 1859. But the 23-volume record of observations in the Americas was completed.

Humboldt recorded a great solar eclipse which occured on October 28, 1799, just days after his arrival. But, even more momentous than the eclipse, was the “atmospheric phenomena”, as he put it in his journals, that took place before and after. He wrote, “…from the 10th of October to the 3rd of November, at nightfall, a reddish vapor arose in the horizon, and covered, in a few minutes, with a veil more or less thick, the azure vault of the sky…clouds of brilliant whiteness collected at the zenith, and extended towards the horizon…clouds so transparent that they did not hide the stars…I could distinguish so perfectly the spots of the moon….”

But that was not all. These extraordinary phenomena were eventually surpassed by a remarkable meteoric shower he observed and recorded on November 11-12, 1799. This observation became the starting point of modern scientific knowledge about the regularity of this meteoric shower that we now know as the Leonids. Thanks, at least in part, to Humboldt in Cumaná, Venezuela, we now know these showers occur approximately every 33 years, when thousands can be seen per hour.

But Cumaná was not done showing off to Humboldt, she presented him with a terrible earthquake. However, he learned that, as bad as this earthquake was, it was only a shadow of the one that devastated the city thirty-two years before his arrival. Humboldt transcribed the records of the city describing that earthquake of October 21,1766.

“The city of Cumaná was entirely destroyed, the houses were overturned in the space of a few minutes, and the shocks were hourly repeated during fourteen months. In several parts of the province the earth opened, and threw out sulphuric waters. These irruptions were very frequent in a plain extending towards Casanay two leagues east of the town of Cariaco, and known by the name of the hollow ground, (tierra hueca), because it appears entirely undermined by thermal springs. While the ground was in a state of continual oscillation, the atmosphere seemed to dissolve itself into water.”

He went on to write that the period prior to the earthquake and the months of after-shocks was accompanied “by varied phenomena such as flames and vapors mixed with sulphureous acid shooting from arid sands; geysers of water mixed with petroleum; hot, muddy masses issuing from huge crevices which would close and grow into elevated hills. These phenomena were accompanied by loud, monster-like noises: subterranean, rolling thunder; continuous, thud-like sounds, as of large quantities of sand mixed with water, thrown against a giant wall; extremely loud hissing, as if the earth had become a mighty, pressurized kettle which had finally been compelled to allow accumulated steam to violently escape…. The people of Cumaná, upon sensing what was afoot, ran into the streets, many crying, ‘Misericordia! Misericordia!’ (Mercy! Mercy!). Sometimes the sounds came after or during the earthquake. At other times they preceded the earthquake, thereby alerting the people to run into the streets seeking to avoid entombment in their houses or places of business.”

There is a great paradox to the 1766 earthquake: reports describe the complete destruction of the city; however, there is no mention of deaths. A possible explanation: the earthquake hit at 4:45 AM. Almost all the people of Cumaná were in the habit of leaving their homes at 4 AM to attend the first morning mass. This hypothesis, if true, would mean that the church structures withstood the initial waves, allowing people to run out in safety. But this is conjecture.

Residents encamped in the streets and, when the after-tremors decreased to about once per month, began to rebuild and recover surviving livestock, much of which had managed to escape southwards, away from the ocean.

There is evidence that the 1766 earthquake was felt as far as Quito in northwestern South America. Hard to believe, but evidently true. One result of the terrible earthquake was that none of the 16th century architecture survived. Over thirty years later, when Humboldt visited, the people of Cumaná and as far away as Caracas commemorated the day annually with a solemn procession on its anniversary.

As for Mr. Humboldt, I knew, or thought I knew, much about him as I was growing up. My father had some of his writings and drawings, particularly as they related to Venezuela. The almost-to-be magnificent Humboldt Hotel atop Mt. Ávila was built during my childhood, I learned about the Humboldt Current, and heard of the Parque Nacional Alejandro de Humboldt in Cuba, and the Humboldt Redwoods State Park in California. His name was ubiquitous. Few know about him today.

As for the earthquake, it took place eleven years after the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, which some call “The First Modern Disaster.” Why call it that? It seems it was the first disaster where man sought to explain an event by divorcing it from the hand of God. Hence, this earthquake had a significant impact on the development of philosophy and theology in succeeding generations. The earth began to be seen not as a “house with an owner”, but rather as one ruled by chaos.

One final tidbit: there was a Jesuit priest in Lisbon who was alarmed by the godlessness of the reasoning being used to “explain” the earthquake. He was not against science; he was against atheism. He was burned at the stake by the Inquisition under the direction of the powerful first minister, known to history as the Marquês de Pombal, who then ordered all Jesuits expelled from Portugal and its empire, including Brazil.

The irony is that Voltaire, who utterly despised Christianity, mocked the burning at the stake as yet another instance of religious superstition provoked by the Lisbon Earthquake. As a thoroughly modern man, he neatly inverted the truth: the priest was cruelly executed, not in the Name of the Triune God, but in the name of reason. In other words, the Inquisition was an instrument of the State which insisted on its own definition of the truth and denial of faith. Dissension to political correctness carried the priest to the auto da fé. Best to consider anything Voltaire (or his ilk) says with a couple boulders of salt.

We’ll have more to say about Cumaná, Mr. Humboldt, and The Great Lisbon Earthquake in future posts.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0011 Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813